GREGORY OF NAZIANZUM

329-390

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

BY

DR. CARL ULLMANN,

 

1.-  THE HISTORY OF HIS YOUTH.

2.-.HIS MODE OF LIFE IN CAPPADOCIA, FROM HIS THIRTIETH TO HIS FORTY-NINTH YEAR.

3.-GREGORY AT CONSTANTINOPLE

4.- FROM HIS FIFTY-FIRST TO HIS SIXTIETH YEAR, A.D. 390, DATE OF HIS DEATH.

 

 

THE HISTORY OF HIS YOUTH:

FROM HIS BERTH TO THE THIRTIETH YEAR OF HIS AGE,—THAT IS, FROM ABOUT THE YEAR 330 TO 360.

 

Chronological survey:—We begin with the year 325. Just at the time when the Cappadocian bishops set out to join the Council of Nicaea, and during the stay of some of them at Nazianzum, Gregory’s father (who was already a married man) was baptized. It was probably a few years after the Council that, in the person of our Gregory, was born one of the acutest and most zealous future defenders of its decisions. The childhood of Gregory (whose birth, on probable grounds, we assume to have taken place a.d. 330) falls under the last period of the reign of Constantine the Great, who died in 337; his youth passed entirely under that of Constantius, who, after his father’s death, was emperor of the East, and after the death of his brother (i.e., from 350) ruled over the whole empire. The church history of the whole period is filled with violent contests between the Arian and the Nicene parties; the first of these were favoured by Constantius in the East, the latter by Constans in the West. Quite, or nearly of the same age with Gregory is the Imperial Prince Julian (born a.d. 331), so that they also pursue their studies at Athens at the same time, a.d. 355.

 

HIS FATHER-LAND—HIS FAMILY—HIS BIRTH AND EARLY YOUTH.

 

Respected as Gregory was during his lifetime, and honoured as he was after his death (which, among other proofs, is attested by the fact, that to him alone, since the apostle St. John, the distinctive title of The Divine, was conceded), yet no positive account as to the place and time of his birth is extant. The little town of Nazianzum in the south-west part of Cappadocia. though neither of considerable size, nor remarkable for its pleasant situation, has become famous from the circumstance, that Gregory usually bears the title of Nazianzen, or the Nazianzian, derived from thence. But whether that were because Gregory was born, or because he spent a great part of his life there, is a point not decided. An ancient account, not altogether to be rejected, affirms that Gregory came into the world at a certain estate or village called Arianzum, in the neigh­bourhood of Nazianzum. It is without doubt, however, that Cappadocia was his father-land. The accounts of the moral condition of the land of his birth at that period arc anything but favourable. The Cappadocians of that time are represented to us as a cowardly, slavish, quarrelsome, suspicious people, prone to avarice and sensuality, liars, and faithless.

Gregory himself frequently laments the laxity of morals among his countrymen—that is, of Nazianzum; and the Cappadocians were even generally infamous in popular proverbs, in company with the Carians and Cretans. Accustomed of old to priestly domination and a state of vassalage, the Cappadocians, at a later period, did not choose to accept the freedom of the Roman city, which was offered to them; and in the succeeding centuries the relations of the military government, into which Cappadocia was incorporated as a province, were by no means adapted to operate favourably upon morals. Harsh and exacting greediness on the part of the imperial officers, refractoriness and revolt on the side of the degraded people, meet us too often in the history of that period, and even in the history of Gregory.

But in the midst of a degenerate race a higher spirit is ever wont to awaken its ministers and instillments; and men of nobler natures set themselves the more boldly and steadily in opposition to their corrupt contemporaries. Thus we find that even Cappadocia produced, in the course of the fourth century, a succession of very distinguished Fathers of the Church. These men, although often driven to a solitary life from natural inclination, and from the moral circumstances which surrounded them, yet, when they resumed their place in society, influenced the more powerfully the sentiments of their cotemporaries, as well by the earnestness of their bearing, as by the secret power of mind upon mind. And thus we are again justified in declaring that Gregory speaks with a kind of self-consciousness of his Cappadocia, and that it was a heartfelt object with him to deliver the sacred soil of his fatherland from the heavy charge of an universal corruption.

In particular families, also, there is often maintained a better and a purer spirit. The domestic associations of the boy Gregory were entirely calculated to implant in his early awakened mind the fruitful germs of piety. He himself gives us a sketch of his parents’ character with filial affection, but (it is to be lamented) in that oratorical, laudatory tone, which presents rather general features, than an accurate picture taken from the life. If he indulges in fancy here and there, after his manner, (though he expressly labours to guard against it,) still the sketch is so far valuable to us, as it presents us, in a striking manner, with the moral view of that gene­ration.

A circumstance, which we have to remark in con­nexion with so many great men (and especially among the Fathers), viz., that the direction of their mind and disposition was given to them by their mothers, presents itself also in the case of Gregory, on whose youthful soul the strict, ardent piety of his mother, endowed as she also was with manly virtues, exercised more influence than the more quiet and gentler nature of his father. Nonna (for that was his mother’s name) was born of a respectable Christian family, and had been educated with care in the Christian faith. ‘She was’ (according to the picture sketched of her by her son) ‘a housewife after Solomon’s mind; submissive to her husband in all things according to the law of marriage, yet not ashamed to be his teacher and guide in the practice of true piety. She solved the difficult problem, how to unite a high state of cultivation, especially in the knowledge of heavenly things, and a strict exercise of devotion, with punctual attention to domestic duties. Was she busily engaged in household cares?—she seemed to know nothing of the exercises of devotion; was she occupied with God and his worship?—all earthly business seemed strange to her, so entirely was she devoted to each. Experience had taught her an unlimited confidence in the effects of the prayer of faith; she was, therefore, most diligent in prayer, and overcame even the deepest sense of pain, for her own and for others’ sorrows, by the energy of prayer. She had attained thereby such self-control, that in all the afflictions that befel her she never uttered a lamentation, till she had thanked God for the same. She thought it unbecoming to shed tears, or put on mourning garments on Christian festival-days, so entirely was she penetrated with the thought—a soul filled with love of God should esteem, everything human subordinate to that which is divine} Still more important than the exercises of devotion (which yet, after the notion of those days, she carried out to the weakening of her body) did she consider the more active service of God, the relieving of widows and orphans, the visiting of. the poor and the sick. Her liberality was inexhaustible, degenerating almost into sensibility; so that (as her son relates) she often said, if it were practicable, she could sell herself and her children, that she might give to the poor the money thence arising. In company with these beautiful traits in Gregory’s portrait of his mother, we also find traces of an anxious, legal, and narrow-minded piety, rather than a free, spiritual tone of religion. It was not enough that she showed her reverence for God’s service by a quiet and becoming behaviour, but ‘she did not even dare to turn her back to the holy table, or to spit on the pavement of the church. She was intolerant towards heathen women, so that she never offered her hand or mouth for any of them to salute. She ate no salt with those who came from the unholy altars of their false gods. She never suffered her eyes to rest upon, heathen temples, much less would she have crossed  their threshold. She was as little inclined to visit the 'theatre.’

Nonna was united to a worthy man, who was also called Gregorius. Nothing would have been wanting to the happiness of this union hail her otherwise excellent husband been a Christian. But he belonged to a community, the members of which, as it seems, mixed up together some Jewish and Persian notions, and without being devoted to a positive creed, paid honours after a very simple fashion to the Supreme God, and were thence called Hypsistarians, or worshippers of the Most High. This lay like a stone on the heart of Nonna, who had been brought up as a strict Christian; supported by constant prayer, she made every effort for the conversion of her husband to Christianity. She urged him with entreaties, exhorta­tions, and threats; but, above all, she laboured to recommend her faith to him by active piety and affectionate treatment. Gregorius was overcome; a dream fortifies his resolution, or rather guides him to a fuller and clearer light. He seems in his sleep to be singing the commencement of the 122nd Psalm: ‘I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the House of the Lord.’ Nonna seizes the wished-for moment, and persuades her spouse to accompany her to the Christian church. Just at that time there chanced to be at Nazianzum several bishops, who were on their way to Nicaea, to attend the great council appointed to be held there by Constantine; among them was Leontius, bishop of the chief city of Cappadocia. After a short period of instruction, Gregorius was baptized in their presence. The circumstance of his receiving this instruction, not like the other catechumens, in a stand­ing, but in a kneeling posture, was taken as an omen of his future dignity, since bishops were wont to kneel at their consecration. Not content with this, some of the bystanders avouched that they saw the head of Gregorius, as he emerged from the baptismal water, surrounded with a brilliant light; and even the bishop who baptized him is said to have uttered a prophetic word respecting the future destination of the newly-baptized to the office of bishop. .

After allowing some time to elapse, for order’s sake, Gregorius became priest, and superintendent of the church at Nazianzum, an appointment to which, ac­cording to all appearance, he had been already destined by the bishops who were present at his baptism. The Christian community of that city had for a long time had no bishop worthy of the name, and was become rather irregular. Gregorius certainly, from his previous mode of life, could have had no especial theological training (although, according to his son’s account, he laboured here also to make up for his deficiency), but he possessed a pious, earnest, and, at the same time, a gentle mind, with an active zeal for promoting the good of his community. He displayed much vigour in the contest for the Nicene creed, to which he attached him­self, against the Arian party for some time triumphant, much gentleness and forbearance to the erring members of his flock. ‘He was a man’ (it is thus his son re­presents him) ‘of an ardent spirit, but of a tranquil countenance; his life was full of elevation, his mind of humility; his disposition was plain and just, pious and devout, without affectation and hypocrisy; his dress was neat, but/ ordinary and simple; his conversation gentle and engaging; he gave cheerfully, but in general left the pleasure of giving to his wife.’ In a course of active exertion, beneficial alike to his city and his congregation, this man, honoured and revered by his fellow-citizens, attained to almost a hundred years, during forty-five of which he had been an ecclesiastic. The younger Gregorius often takes a pleasure in comparing his pious, aged parents with Abraham and Sarah.

These parents had three children; a daughter, named Gorgonia, and two sons, Gregorius and Caesarius. Our Gregorius, or Gregory, was (as was often wont to happen in those days), even before his birth, dedicated to the clerical profession, or, in the more pious language of antiquity, given to God. Nonna had wished for a male child, and promised to give him back entirely to the service of God, from whom her prayers had obtained him. When she had actually given birth to a son, she hastened with the child to the church, and laid his little hands on the Holy Scriptures, in token of his dedication. Gregory afterwards often compared himself with Samuel, dedicated by his mother Hannah to God's service, even before his birth.

We may suppose that Nonna brought up the son bestowed upon her in a full knowledge of her vow, and, therefore, thoughts and feelings may have early developed themselves in his soul, which otherwise are wont to be very rare at such an age. Under the influence of his mother’s teaching, he conceived an inclination for the unmarried state, and was confirmed therein by a dream. This bias Gregory retained throughout his life. He showed himself in his discourses and poems, as well as in his actual life, an admirer of the unwedded, virgin state, without, however, denying the blessing attached to marriage as a divine ordinance. Strange as this mode of thought may appear in a mere boy, yet it contributed, in Gregory’s case, to elevate the earnest tempera­ment of his soul, and directed all his efforts so much the more to an inner, spiritual world. His parents gave him the Holy Scriptures to read, and made every effort to procure him a comprehensive, scientific education, to which a bias was already existing in his mind. A fondness for the study of eloquence soon showed itself in him most especially, and he looked upon it as a means of defending the truth with so much the greater power.

The young man was not able to satisfy this powerful impulse towards higher cultivation in the insignificant little city of Nazianzum. His wealthy father sent him, first of all, to Caesarea, the capital of the province, where the sciences were then cultivated, and not without success, particularly as several learned bishops had successively filled the episcopal chair there. It is highly probable that Gregory’s first acquaintance commenced here with Basilius (or Basil), a young man of a like mind, who being nearly of the same age, and having been brought up in a similar spirit, shared with him his studious efforts, an acquaintance which subsequently ripened into the most intimate friendship, dedicated by a kindred zed to the holiest objects. An ardent love of science had brought both youths hither; the same ardour again separated them. Basil went to Constanti­nople, and Gregory to Caesarea, in Palestine, where the schools at that time were famous for the successful cultiva­tion of oratory. Gregory’s preceptor in Palestine (according to the testimony of Jerome), was the rhetorician, Thespesius; one of his fellow-students was Euzoius. afterwards celebrated as bishop of the Palestine Caesarea.

A lively taste for learning prevailed of old in several of the Christian communities of Palestine and Syria. Edessa in Osroene, Antioch, and Caesarea, had been, or were become, flourishing seats of Christian science, which found copious nourishment in excellent libraries (e.g., the celebrated collection of Pamphilus, in Caesarea). A succession of distinguished men might be named, who were educated, laboured, or lived a long time in those parts. It may suffice here to mention Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, since the famous masters of the school of Antioch will readily occur to every reader.

But even here Gregory’s thirst for knowledge could not be appeased; he left Caesarea for the ancient seat of Christian erudition, where Clemens and Origen, and so many celebrated men, had once learnt and taught, and where now the episcopal chair was filled by one who was reverenced as the pillar of orthodoxy. Undoubtedly, the brighter day of those sciences which Gregory chiefly wished to cultivate was gone by at Alexandria; still he could obtain there very easily a complete philosophical education. We possess no par­ticular accounts respecting his residence and studies in this once splendid, but then decaying cosmopolis; but wo venture to surmise, that his inclination to the Platonic philosophy, his partiality for Origen, and his almost unbounded reverence for Athanasius, dated their commencement from this period.

Gregory was canned on from one fountain of science to another; nor did he find any repose till he came to Athens, that place which has been consecrated by so many glorious recollections, the oldest source of all the higher branches of mental cultivation. Even there, also, the brightest period of art and science had long since passed away. Yet Athens still, at least in proportion, maintained its ancient reputation, for scarcely could any one of the great cities (even the newly-founded, opulent Constantinople forming no exception) compete with her in regard to the ardent cultivation of science. Amidst profound degeneracy, and in most unfavourable circumstances (freedom, and even the sense of nation­ality, having been long lost), she still retained somewhat of the old, deep-rooted life and spirit of knowledge.

The active mind of Gregory, animated by an ardent zeal in pursuit of knowledge, had well nigh led to his early death on his voyage to Athens. He could not wait for the time of year favourable for the passage, but embarked in a vessel of Aegina during the stormy weather of autumn. When they were now in sight of Cyprus, they encountered a fearful tempest; at the same time their supply of water failed, and thus several days were passed in the alternative of perishing by thirst, or by drowning. Amidst the common distress, Gregory suffered from a deep anxiety, not for his out­ ward life, but for the safety of his soul. Although brought up on Christian principles, he had not been baptized, but, after the custom of those days, had put off his baptism to a riper age. He was now afraid that he should die ere he had received the external rite of admission to Christianity, which he considered the necessary condition of eternal happiness. Overpowered with anguish, he threw himself down, with rent garments, weeping and praying, and gave such lively vent to his lamentations, that the ship’s crew, threatened as they themselves were with immediate destruction, sympathised with him. With burning tears, he promised afresh to devote his whole life to God. They were saved: some Phoenicians, on passing by, furnished the ship with water and provisions. The storm subsided, and they landed safely in the harbour of Aegina, from whence Gregory hastened to the long wished-for Athens.

This occurrence was now looked upon by Gregory as his second dedication to God’s service. Many persons may take offence at the indispensable necessity of baptism foe future happiness, here assigned as the cause of Gregory’s deep distress; this is not the place to discuss the question: such, however, was the full conviction of that age, in which Gregory participated. We shall not, however, withhold our sympathy from the young man, who, at the prospect of immediate death, feared not so much the loss of life, as the harm which his soul might suffer. It is very remarkable to see, as we do here, the conviction of the indispensable necessity of baptism for future happiness existing together with the deliberate postponement of that rite. This phenomenon seems only to be accounted for by concluding, that the danger of dying unbaptized was considered as less than that of falling away from grace already attained, by reason of an unworthy life, or especial sins, after baptism, when a restoration to a state of acceptance was hardly to be expected.

 

 

HIS RESIDENCE AS A STUDENT AT ATHENS.

 

Athens, as we have already remarked, was still, at that time, the most celebrated emporium of learning in Greece; in the animated cultivation of which, with a strange and eager impulse, not only the neighbouring regions of Greece, but even the more remote Asia, participated. Young men from all quarters, even from the distant Armenia, and other Asiatic provinces, flocked hither, and emulously crowded round the famous teachers of rhetoric and philosophy, who bore the name of Sophists—a name which, at that period, had again attained some degree of honour. These philosophers and orators of the Athens of that day certainly had not the genius of a Socrates, a Plato, or a Demosthenes. They laboured, by artificial means, to preserve the forms of antiquity, whilst its noble simplicity, depth, and freedom, had long since departed from them. They strove, by means of a mystic idealism, to maintain a religion whose life and spirit had disappeared. They exerted themselves generally for external effect, and condescended to the use of magic and theurgic rites, (the favourite studies of that age,) and even to worse means, for the purpose of gaining influence over the youthful mind. Every sophist had his own school and party, who were devoted to him with incredible zeal; nor had they any higher aim than to spread their own fame with that of their master, and to increase the number of their partisans. There prevailed in most of the young students at Athens (as Gregory strikingly expresses it) a complete Sophistic furor. They all canvassed for their master, since it was not the custom to attend different lecturers at the same time, but each one, as a rule, attached himself to one. The poorer students especially lent themselves to this business of recruiting, since they got exemption from class payment, or even some degree of remuneration, if they succeeded in bringing to their respective sophists a good supply of new-comers. An unprejudiced youth could scarcely set his foot upon Attic ground without being already claimed by the adherents of a party: they wrangled, they struggled, they threw themselves around him; and it might easily happen that a young man was torn quite away from the very teacher whom he had come expressly to attend. The whole of Greece was drawn into this partisanship of the students for their favourite sophists; so that this recruiting (or touting) was carried on in the streets and harbours of other cities also. Nor were the literary disputes and altercations of the different schools, among themselves, less animated; indeed, they seldom concluded without coming to blows. This perverted and wild excitement, in which Gregory found himself, could by no means suit his noble mind. It was a comfort and refreshment to him that, not long after his arrival, his countryman, Basil, also arrived at Athens from Constantinople, to whom he now attached himself most affectionately. The connexion between Basil and Gregory, which heretofore had been merely acquaintance, now first became a hearty friendship, through a trifling incident, which, however, gives us a lively insight into the state of excitement then prevalent among the young men at Athens. The students seem to have been divided, not only according to their respective teachers in the schools, but also into certain fraternities, formed of those who were natives of the same country. The respective parties had their leaders, who also acted as their champions in scientific contests. The fraternity of the Armenians is expressly named by Gregory as being particularly hostile to Basil, because he, though a new-comer, excelled many of them who had long been at Athens in eloquence. They entered into a contest with him, and were on the point of being beaten by him, when Gregory, unsuspicious of their bad intentions, supported them, ns the weaker side, and rendered the victory of Basil doubtful. In the course of the dispute, however, Gregory remarked the spiteful sentiments of the Armenians, and passed over immediately to the side of Basil, who now enjoyed a complete triumph. This slight circumstance made the two friends objects of most violent hatred to the Armenian fraternity, but bound them to each other so much the more closely.

They studied together, especially in the schools of rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, and philosophy, as well theoretically as practically, music, also, as a means of attuning the soul to softer and purer sensations, was not neglected. Even of the science of medicine they endeavoured to acquire at least the philosophical part. Their instructors were probably the celebrated sophists, Himerius and Proaeresius. By them principally they were led into those rich and flowery fields of ancient Greek literature, a more intimate acquaintance with which displays itself in all the writings of Gregory.

How seducingly must heathenism have often presented itself to them, clothed as it was in the attractive garb of poetry and philosophy. Before them stood respected masters, who recommended the old religion with all the insinuating art of rhetoric, and their myths by the philosophical mysticism with which they expounded them, and sought to soften what was offensive in them by means of allegories. Around them, on the heights and in the valleys, stood the serene and noble temples of the gods of antiquity; and whichever way they looked, the gods themselves presented themselves in agreeable and attractive, or in grave and venerable forms. In truth, Athens was still, at that time, the most attractive seat of heathenism in Greece; nowhere else had it so many friends, so many weighty and influential pane­gyrists. It was no easy matter, under these circumstances, to continue a true Christian; indeed, many Christian youths were here won over to the old faith. Gregory and Basil stood firm; the Christian faith had been too deeply impressed upon them at home; nor was the glitter of poetry or philosophy able to efface the strong impressions of a strict Christian education. It was their pride, in the midst of heathen-minded Athens, to be and to be called Christians. They continued even here in constant external communion with the Church, lu their simple mode of life they had only two sources of refreshment—viz., in attending their teachers, and (what was still dearer to them) the services of the Church. They strictly avoided the feasts and banquets of the other young men, and the theatre, where heathen­ism might be presented to them in a more seductive form. Thus their faith not only maintained itself un­tarnished, but was strengthened still more by the temptations which it resisted.

Basil had, at first, been dissatisfied with Athens. Gregory calmed his mind by showing him the right view to take of the things which pressed upon him; this, and the other circumstance already mentioned, helped to form a closer union between them, which soon became so intimate, that they planned their entire mode of life in unison: they lodged, they took their meals, they studied philosophy together. But it was not so much the intercourse of the outward as of the inner life, which bound them permanently to each other; their connexion was founded upon their common love of God and of the Redeemer, upon their common efforts after a godly life; reposing on this everlasting foundation, it defied the storms of the time, and the chilling, deadening incongruities of society. Had it been only a human friendship, it might well have been disturbed, but as being at the same time a heavenly one, it could not be destroyed. Even as an old man, and after all that passed between him and his friend Basil, Gregory speaks of this friendship of his youth with youthful ardour: ‘How,’ (says he, in his eulogy upon Basil,) ‘how can I think of this friendship without tears? A like hope stimulated both of us in the pursuit of an object, which is generally wont to excite the most violent jealousy—literary distinction. But envy was far from our hearts, while they were filled with a generous emulation. There was a friendly contest between us, not who should carry off the first prize, but which should be allowed to adjudge it to the other, since each cherished the repu­tation of his friend as if it were his own. We seemed, in fact, to be only owe soul that animated two bodies. It is in such striking terms as the following that Gregory shows how their friendship, originating as it did from love for the Eternal, must necessarily be indestructible: ‘Mere human love, as it relates only to transitory things, must, in like manner, be transient, like the flowers of spring. As the flame glows no longer when the fuel is consumed, but is extinguished with it, so a merely physical fondness cannot maintain itself when its appropriate nourishment is burnt up. But a divine and pure affection, because it relates to untransitory things, is, for that reason, durable; and the farther it proceeds in the contemplation of true happiness, the stronger it binds, and the closer it connects with each other the lovers of the eternal; that is the law of heavenly love. I am well aware how my feelings have carried me away beyond all limits, and without regard to time; nor do I myself know bow I came to use these words, but I cannot refrain from giving them expression.’ Would we fully understand the affectionate terms on which these two great men lived, we must especially consult their correspondence. But, as many separate points will have to be discussed hereafter, I shall now quote only two passages, which beautifully exhibit the overflowing affection of Gregory for Basil:—‘I have taken you,’ he writes to his friend, ‘as the guide of my life and the teacher of my faith, and whatever else can be called beautiful and great. As such I always consider you; and whenever any one celebrates your praises, he does it either in company with me or in unison with my sentiments, so entirely am I enchained by your mild wisdom, so entirely, in the purity of a devoted heart, am I yours. And no Monder, since the longer the acquaintance, the greater the experience; and the more complete the experience, the more valuable the testimony that one friend can give of another. If there be anything which gives a value to my life, it is your society, your friendship.’ Another letter of Gregory’s, of a more playful character (in which also the happy reminiscences of Athens are particularly renewed), concludes with these words:—‘Who has ever admired anything upon earth as I have admired you! There is but one spring in the year’s cycle, one sun among the stars, one heaven, which embraces all; so, also, if I have any judgment in such things, and if (which I do not believe) that judgment is not blinded by love, there is only one voice, among all, worth listening to, that voice is yours.’ The friendship between Gregory and Basil was the more intense, because, amidst their perfect agreement on the highest principles of religion and morals, it was animated by the difference of their intel­lectual individuality. Basil was more ardent and more inclined to a life of action, Gregory more calm and contemplative. Thus the one was able to guard the other from going too far in his particular direction, and both could thus, in some measure, complete what was wanting in themselves.

At Athens, Gregory formed an acquaintance (of a very remarkable character, and one which subsequently gave him no pleasure) with the nephew of the Emperor Constantius, the prince Julian, who afterwards succeeded to the throne, and played a short but extraordinary part in the drama of the world’s history. This prince was then (a.d. 355) resident there, by the permission of his jealous uncle, for the purpose of pursuing his studies. A singular predilection for paganism and pagan mysteries, which flourished particularly in that city, already displayed itself in Julian. He was as strongly attached to the rhetorical and philosophical advocates of heathenism, as they in their turn (as well as all the admirers of the old religion) directed their attention, with hopeful expectation, to the young and distinguished member of the imperial family; Gregory, therefore, who acknow­ledges that he by no means possessed a quick-sightedness in discerning character, had yet no difficulty in an­ticipating the very worst in Julian. He calls upon those who were with him at that time at Athens to testify, that soon after he had become acquainted with Julian, he had uttered those words—‘How great an evil is the Roman empire here training up!’ What it was which caused Gregory to judge so severely of the young man, he has himself informed us, in a perhaps somewhat exaggerated picture of Julian’s demeanour and external appearance: ‘I was led to become a prophet,’ he says, ‘by the restlessness of his behaviour, and the extravagant tone of his animation. It also appeared to me no good sign, that his neck was not firmly set on his shoulders; that those shoulders often moved convulsively; that his eye frequently glanced round timidly, and rolled as if in frenzy; and that his feet were never in a state of repose. As little was I pleased with his nose, which breathed pride and contempt; with the ridiculous distortions of his face, which yet indicated the same pride; his loud, immoderate laughter; the nodding and shaking of his head without any reason; his hesitating speech, interrupted by the act of breathing; his abrupt, unmeaning questions, and his answers not at all better, but often self-contradictory, and given without any scientific arrangement.’ If we deduct the effect of a strong personal dislike upon the pen of this delineator, we have still remaining the picture of a restless, fiery-tempered man, of a mind incessantly active and excited; of one who was haughty in the conscious feeling of power, but yet externally practising dissimulation, while there was wanting to his great natural abilities that judicious education which would have regulated and directed them to the right object.

The residence of Basil and Gregory at Athens appears to have been of great length; indeed, the period of academical study was at that time generally much longer than it is now-a-days. Gregory arrived at Athens just in the bloom of youth, and left it when he was about thirty years old.’ A residence of such a length rendered Athens very dear to most students, and the departure from it uncommonly difficult. The separation was made especially difficult to the two friends from the earnestness with which both teachers and fellow-students wished positively to retain them at Athens. Gregory, indeed, in spite of all his efforts, was forced to remain, whilst Ba.il, who had more urgent motives for a speedy departure, returned to his own country. It seems to have been the wish of those who detained Gregory, to induce him to come forward in the character of a teacher of rhetoric in Athens. This occupation, however, could not have suited the mind of Gregory, since scarcely had Basil taken his departure, when we see Gregor)” also following his friend’s example. He set out upon his homeward journey by way of Constanti­nople, where, without any previous concert, he fell in with his brother Caesarius, who had just arrived from Alexandria (where he had for some years been studying), on his return to his paternal home. Caesarius had devoted himself to the study of natural philosophy and medicine, and appears at that rime to have obtained a distinguished reputation, since the most advantageous offers were made to him if he would remain at Con­stantinople. But brotherly and filial affection prevailed in the heart of Caesarius over all these attractive pros­pects; he could not resolve to let his brother return alone to his parents’ home. Their aged mother, Nonna, had often wished and earnestly asked of God in prayer, that her sons might again set foot together on the paternal threshold. This her wish was now fulfilled. They both returned to the arms of their parents in good condition, and well furnished for the business of life.

In the course of Gregory’s education, thus far related, we find the germs already set of all that was afterwards developed in him. In company with superior abilities, he had by nature a serious disposition; a strict and religious education drew him off still more from the external to the internal world; he learnt from childhood to consider himself as consecrated to the service of God, and to regard knowledge as a. mean for that object. All the places of instruction which he visited stimulated him to the study of eloquence. His residence at Alexandria infused into him an inclination to the Platonic philosophy, a partiality for Origen, and the theology and exegesis of that school; a reverence for Athanasius and his dogmatic principles. At Athens he became still more familiar with Greek literature, and more skilful in the logic and rhetoric of the day. His aversion, however, to heathenism and its glitter grew stronger—his love for simple, genuine Christianity more firmly fixed. Here, also, was already formed his devoted friendship with Basil, and the foundation laid for his dislike of Julian; two things which had an extraordinary influence on his whole life.

 

THE SECOND.

HIS MODE OF LIFE IN CAPPADOCIA, PARTLY IN SOLITUDE, PARTLY IN PUBLIC ECCLESIASTICAI EMPLOYMENT, ABOUT A.D. 360—379, AND, THEREFORE, FROM HIS THIRTIETH YEAR TO HIS FORTY­NINTH.

 

Chronological survey:—The beginning of this section falls still in the reign of Constantius, who soon, however, departed from the stage of life. Exactly at the time when Gregory returned home from Athens (a.d. 360), Julian was proclaimed Augustus, or partner in the throne, by the Gallic legions at Paris. In November of the year 361, Constantius died, and Julian ascended the imperial throne. At the same time, probably at Christmas, 361, Gregory was ordained priest by his father. After Julian, in 363, had found an early death in the Persian war, the succession of Christian emperors was not again interrupted. Jovian, who leaned to the Athanasian side, but at the same time tolerated all parties, reigned only seven months. He was succeeded in 364 by Valentinian, who associated with him his brother Valens in the government. In the West, Valentinian, tolerant or indifferent, yet gave the victory to the orthodox or Homoousian party; Valens, in the East, favoured the Arians, and persecuted their opponents. The Nicene creed had however, meanwhile, powerful champions. In the West, Damasus (bishop of Rome since 366), Ambrose (bishop of Milan since 374); in the East, for a long time, Athanasius (from A.d. 373), and after him Peter, his successor in the see of Alexandria; we may add, especially, Basil (bishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, since 370), his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and our Gregory of Nazianzum. Valentinian was made emperor in the year 375; Valens in 378. The former was succeeded by his sons, Gratian and Valentinian II, who, after the death of Valens, asso­ciated Theodosius with themselves (a.d. 379) in the government.

 

DIFFERENCE IN THE TURN OF MIND IN GREGORY AND HIS BROTHER, CAESARIUS.

 

The two brothers were gifted by Nature with very different intellectual talents; but now, from deliberate and spontaneous judgment, their courses of life diverged still more widely from each other. Both of them were alike endowed with superior abilities, and with a lively, quick apprehension; both of them had been accustomed, by the education they had received in their early years, to an unwearied activity in the pursuit of knowledge. Gregory, however, was, from a child, more inclined to seriousness, to self-denial, to retirement from worldly things; Caesarius developed more into the man of the world, yet without; renouncing the pious principles which he had received in the paternal mansion; The former devoted himself, with all his thoughts and aspirations, to the unseen world, and became a theologian; the other to the world of sense, and became a natural philosopher and a physician. Piety had been implanted by educa­tion in the souls of the two brothers as the basis of their entire existence; but this fundamental principle operated and expressed itself in the two very differently. To Caesarius it served as a light, now clearer and now more dimly burning, through the very intricate paths of a life, sometimes favoured by fortune, and sometimes, also, shaken by unhappy accidents. In Gregory, it became a consuming fire, which shone Through his whole life, and already, in his early days, destroyed within him, if not everything, yet almost everything, that leads us to take pleasure in the joys and gratifications of the world. Caesarius was inclined to an active life, and undertook a variety of offices. Gregory had an invincible and only too-predominant inclination to a solitary, contemplative life; it was with an effort that he could bring himself to engage even in ecclesiastical employments; his eye seemed ever glancing onwards to the quiet contemplation of heavenly things.

Caesarius bad devoted but, a short time to his parents and his father-land, when those dazzling promises and prospects again allured him to Constantinople. Conceivable as this is in a young man, who, being furnished with the stores of a scientific and refined education, wished not to be buried in an obscure little provincial town, but to enter at once upon a more distinguished career, yet this step was not entirely approved of by his family, especially by his brother. He was appre­hensive that the virtue and piety of Caesarius might totter on the slippery footing of a court-life. The promised splendour did not dazzle the youthful Gregory, for he considered it a greater honour ‘to be the last and least with God, than to be the first and greatest with an earthly king.’ He perceived, also, that this proceeding on the part of his brother (although he himself declared his chief motive for his future residence at court was the fair prospect of being able from thence to work the more advantageously for his native country) was not free from the charge of ambition. Gregory, however, is so considerate as not to blame his brother strongly on account of this step. Caesarius had scarcely arrived at Constantinople, and had given some small proof of his medical knowledge, when the Emperor Constantius (whose distrustful, suspicious character was not often wont to promote suddenly to great honour one who was yet unknown) took him into the number of his court physicians, and treated him with especial regard. His pleasing manners made him a favourite with the Emperor and the great men of the palace; but all this good fortune could not destroy the deep impressions of a pious education upon his mind. Even here, at court, it was the pride of Caesarius, not only to bear the name of a Christian, but also to deserve that title in deed. And, what is particularly pleasing, Gregory extols most of all that quality in. his brother, which formed the great feature in the character of their father, and one which, under such circumstances, is so seldom wont to be kept inviolate—viz., high and unaffected simplicity.

Whilst his brother was thus making his first entrance into society, Gregory was already feeling an inclination to withdraw from it. His thirst for knowledge had been only partially satisfied, and served only to awaken within him a longing of a higher kind. His predilection for quiet contemplation developed itself with stronger force; and if it cannot be denied that Gregory yielded too much to his bias for a contemplative, solitary life, we must not, on the other hand, overlook the fact, that there are men of contemplative natures, who (whether they wish it or not) are continually drawn away to the abstracted contemplation of supersensual things by a sort of intellectual instinct; just as others, by an equally powerful impulse, are carried into active life, and involved in its busy transactions. This contemplative inclination (which, however, is the special gift of only a few individuals) must be allowed to have its peculiar value, provided it does not claim for itself a higher degree of piety, nor exalt its own manner and practice as the common law for many. In this sense we consider the bias for a life of solitude, which often took an irresistible possession of Gregory’s mind, by no means so objectionable as it may appear to many.

 

GREGORY SKETCHES FOR HIMSELF HIS PLAN OF LIFE.

 

On returning home to his parents, Gregory was expected to engage himself in the duties of civil life. The highly-educated young man was required to exhibit proofs of Ins proficiency in eloquence, to come forward as a teacher of that art, or even to enter upon the profession of a public advocate. Gregory certainly complied so far as to speak several times before an audience; but he could not bring his mind to follow the regular calling of a sophist, or a legal advocate. His thoughts were turned to another object, to the pursuit of which he now solemnly bound himself afresh by means of the baptismal vow.

The ancient writer of Gregory’s life places his baptism at this period; and though other accounts, generally more definite, here fail us, we have yet no sufficient grounds for doubting this assertion. It is rather probable that Gregory was particularly induced by this holy transaction (which, to him, was so weighty) to give from thenceforth a still more earnest and strict direction to his life. Indeed, we find in the case of several other Fathers, that they commenced a new section of their life with their baptism; and from that point they placed more definitely before their eyes, and followed more steadily, the end and object of their exertions. Besides making a solemn vow at his baptism never to swear, he formed anew the pious resolve to consecrate all of art and science which he possessed, all the energic s of his life and soul, only and solely to God, and the spreading of Christ’s kingdom. His gift of eloquence should, serve no interests but those of God and the truth. ‘These,’ (says he, very beautifully, of his orations and his oratory,) ‘these I consecrate to Him, even all that is left to me, and in which alone I am rich. Everything else I have relinquished, at the command of the Spirit, in order to get possession of the pearl of price, and to be the merchant who barters the small and the perishable for the great and everlasting. But the Word, and the art of preaching it, I still hold fast, as a minister of the Word; and this possession I will never deliberately neglect. And as I set little value on all earthly delights, so, after God, all my love is confined to this, or rather, to Him alone; for the spoken word exalts the soul to God by a sort of insight; through it alone is God rightly apprehended, the knowledge of him preserved, and made to grow in us.’

When Gregory, having in this manner renounced what had hitherto maintained so strong a hold upon him, had resolutely devoted himself entirely to God’s service, his only doubt was, how he should immediately order his mode of life, so as to attain this object most surely. To give up the enjoyment of the world was his decided purpose; but two ways of doing this pre­sented themselves to him. Should he entirely withdraw himself from the world,—at least for a time,—as many holy men of old had done, as Elijah, John, and others? Or should he, whilst still living in the society of the world, contend in his own person, and by lug influence upon others, against all that is properly called worldly? By adopting the former plan, that of entire withdrawal from society, a man might (he thought) live for himself, and his own sanctity, amid the calm contemplation of heavenly things; but, in doing this, he is not beneficial to the common weal; he is as good as dead for others. On the other hand, if he remain in the intercourse of society, he may certainly devote himself to the interests of others; but he himself cannot be said to live while his mind is in perpetual unrest. In this way the advantages and the disadvantages of both modes of life presented themselves before him. He wished to unite the good, to avoid the evil of both; though, were he wholly to follow his inclination, a secret bias of his nature would have invited him to the stillness of a solitary life. He continued, therefore, for the present, in his previous relations of life; and so much the more, because here the application and study of the Holy Scriptures was more at his command, and also (what with him was a consideration of especial weight) because by remaining at home he could promote the comfort and happiness of his aged parents, and serve as a support to his no longer active father in the discharge of his ecclesiastical duties. Gregory, however, lived at the same time by the strict rule of a solitary ascetic: every­thing that could only be called indulgent, harmless gratification, if it flattered the senses ever so remotely, seemed to him objectionable. He went so far as even to shun music, as something that gratifies the senses. His food consisted of bread and salt; his drink, water; his bed, the bare ground; his clothing, of coarse and rough materials. Incessant labour filled up the day; prayers, hymns and holy meditations, a great portion of the night. His early life, which had been anything but thoughtless, though not so very strict, now seemed to him objectionable; his former laughter now cost; him many tears. Silence and calm reflection were become his law and delight. In a word. Gregory now, with all the ardour of youth, plunged into an asceticism which assuredly Christianity (whose object is not bodily mortification, but the spiritual sacrifice of the temper and affections) does not require; it was, however, a practice which in those times, even to the best-disposed, could appear all but essential, and, in Gregory’s case at least, did not degenerate into a self-satisfied affectation of sanctity. When Gregory, also, in this relation, speaks of renouncing worldly property, it is perhaps to be understood to mean only, that he gave largely to the poor, and generally, that he abstracted his soul more and more from the enjoyment of earthly goods. An actual renunciation, or giving away of property, (as we find in the case of Antonius and others,) we cannot think of here, because Gregory was not yet in possession of his property; and also because, even after the death of his parents, we recognise him, from several circumstances, (and even from his apparently genuine will and testament,) as a man of wealth.

One principal motive which withheld Gregory from a life of total solitude arose, as it has been remarked, from his child-like, pious affection for his parents. He was desirous of assisting his father, and was now obliged to do so in relation to his domestic affairs. He found it, however, the source of endless annoyances. No man was ever less adapted than be to manage a household, to keep rude servants in order, to administer a not insignificant property, and, in case of necessity, to conduct a lawsuit with requisite consideration and dexterity. Willingly would he have given all his property to the poor rather than stand for a whole days before the tribunals, or listen to the clamour of the broker, the official collector, and the like sort of persons. He complains bitterly of these things; and his soul, which would gladly have taken its flight to a higher atmosphere, was often thereby so disagreeably brought down to earth, that it was difficult for him to keep himself in that calm, gentle, and especially that humble, resigned spirit, which alone he acknowledged to be becoming in a Christian.

 

GREGORY IN SOLITARY LIFE.

 

In this manner, a more earnest longing for complete retirement from the world must have been produced in the soul of Gregory. Even while he was at Athens, a life of solitary asceticism had been his highest wish, and he had promised his friend Basil to retire with him into some quiet resting-place. That friend having conceived from his travels in the East (especially in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt) a still higher reverence for the monastic life, had prepared a solitary asylum in Pontus, and there collected around him several persons of a like mind. But he especially now desired to see near him his old acquaintance. Gregory, and with pressing earnestness sent him an invitation to join him. Gregory, however, could not follow immediately, greatly as he wished to do so, and thus wrote his excuses to his friend: ‘To make at once a candid confession, I have not kept the promise which I made to you, while we sojourned together as friends at Athens,—viz., to live with you after a philosophic (i.e., ascetic) fashion. But, in truth, I have unwillingly broken my word, and only because a higher duty, which prescribed to me the care of my parents, outweighed the subordinate claims of brotherly friendship.’ Gregory, however, promises to spend at least a portion of his time alternately with Basil.

Several epistles of a more playful character were ex­changed between the two friends on this subject, in which they both delineate the annoyances of their residence in a cheerful tone and in lively colours. It may not be superfluous to extract from other, more serious letters of these friends some passages which ex­hibit to us the life of these seclusionists from its brighter and purer side, and admit us to a more lively view of its circumstances and relations. They already knew how to select spots remarkable for their agreeable character or wild beauty for their place of residence; this is manifest from Basil’s description of his abode. ‘There is (he writes) a lofty chain of mountains, covered with a thick forest, well watered on the north side by cool, clear brooks; at its foot is an expanse of gently-sloping fields, which are always enriched and fertilized by the mountain-streams. This meadow-land is naturally and so thickly fenced round with trees of the greatest variety, that they form almost a regular enclosure, and shut it in like a solitary island. On two sides descends a deep ravine; on the third side the stream throws itself from a declivity into the depth below, and forms an impassable barrier. And how shall I still further describe the sweet smell of the meadows, the refreshing breezes from the river, or the variety of flowers, and the vast number of singing-birds? But what makes the spot most pleasing to me, is that in addition to its fruitfulness in all other respects, it affords to me the sweetest fruit of quiet and repose; and this not merely because of its remoteness from the bustle of the city, but because no wanderer ever treads this lonely wilderness, unless it be occasionally some hunter, who is in pursuit, not of bears or wolves (of which there are none), but of the deer, the roe, the hare, which this track produces in great numbers.’

In such agreeable terms does Basil describe the spot where he resided. But the most charming scenery, the stillest solitude, can give no repose to the mind which does not already possess it. The tide of the passions is not appeased by the beauties of Nature; another kind of influence is required for that,—an influence, however, which may certainly be aided and supported by the milder, and even the grander impressions of Nature. On this point we have a very remarkable confession in another of Basil’s epistles: ‘What I now do in this solitude, by day and by night, I am almost ashamed to say. I may, indeed, have relinquished my residence in the city as a source of a thousand evils; but myself I cannot leave behind. I am like those persons who, being unaccustomed to the sea, and attacked with sickness, descend from the large ship, because it rolls so violently, into a little boat, but find that there also they retain their sensations of nausea and giddiness. So it is also with me, for while I bear about with me my inherent passions, I am everywhere alike in distress. Therefore it is that, on the whole, I have not made much spiritual progress by virtue of this solitary life.’

Basil nevertheless endeavours, in the subsequent part of the epistle, to prove that retirement from the world’s business, celibacy and solitude, are still necessary for true peace of mind. ‘Retirement, however (says he), consists not in the act of removal from the world, but in this,—that we thus draw off the soul from the bodily impressions which stir up the passions; that we give up our native city and our father’s house, our goods and chattels, friendship and marriage, business and occupa­tion, art and science, and are wholly prepared to receive no impressions in our hearts but those only of divine teaching.’

It is possible (Basil thinks) in solitary retirement gradually to tame the passions, like wild beasts, by gentle treatment; to lay them asleep, to disarm them by turning away the mind from the allurements of sense, and employing it abstractedly in the contemplation of God and of eternal beauty; it is possible thus to elevate humanity to a forgetfulness of natural wants, and a blissful freedom from care and anxiety. The means recommended by him are chiefly the reading of Holy Scripture, the rule of life, and also the study of the lives, of holy men; prayer, which, when devoutly practised, brings down the Godhead to us, and purifies the soul to he its dwelling-place; and lastly, an earnest, habitual silence, that is more inclined to learn than to teach, but by no means of a morose or unfriendly character. At the same time, Basil desires that the outward appearance of one thus cultivating solitude should correspond with his internal condition. With a meek and downcast eye, with untrimmed hair, clad in sordid, neglected apparel, his gait should neither be an indolent saunter nor yet impetuous haste, but gentle and quiet. His garment, fastened round his loins with a belt, should be of coarse texture, not of a brilliant colour, suited alike for summer and winter, so substantial as to keep the body warm without any additional clothing; as to his shoes or sandals, let them also be suitable and without ornament. For food, let him use only what is most necessary, principally vegetables; let water serve for drink, at least for the healthy. For the principal meal, which is to begin anti end with prayer, one hour should be fixed. His sleep should be short, light, and never so sound that the soul should be left exposed to the impressions of seducing dreams.

In such terms Basil describes the monastic life. How much lie contributed by his zealous practice to its spread in those parts, and to draw the monks to the neighbourhood of cities, in order to assist the higher clergy, and thereby into a more ecclesiastical life, is well known. Equally notorious also is it, how much farther the monks of the East, from respect to Basil, carried his rules and regulations in the following centuries. That vivid description failed not of its object in regard to Gregory of Nazianzum. We soon see him, in fulfilment of his promise, setting out for Pontus. Here he lived, with Basil a life of prayer, spiritual meditation, and manual labour. One portion of the day wa8 set apart for the labour of the garden and the management of household matters, the rest to the study of Holy Scrip­ture and to religious exercises. One fruit of these studies, which were not simply practical, but also of a learned character, is said to be the extracts from the exegetic writings of the great Origen, which we possess as the work of the two friends, under the title of Philokalia. This residence in Pontus was a source of great enjoyment to Gregory. At a subsequent period, when, with earnest longing, he thought of the higher life they had lived together, he called to mind with the same child-like pleasure a beautiful plane-tree, which he had planted in the vicinity of their abode, and Basil was wont to water, ‘Who (he writes to his friend) will give me back those earlier clays, in which I revelled in privations with you? For voluntary abstinence is indeed far nobler than its enforced practice. Who will restore to me those songs of praise and night-watchings, those upliftings of the soul to God in prayer, that un­earthly, incorporeal life, that communion and soul­harmony of the brethren who had been elevated by your precept and example to a godly life? Who will re-kindle in me that eager penetration into the Holy Scriptures, and the light which we found therein under the guidance of the Spirit?

 

THE PUBLIC LABOURS OF GREGORY FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PEACE.

 

Gregory appears, however, not to have stayed very long with his friend. Perhaps he intended from the first only a short visit, and probably (as most of his biographers’ suppose) he was induced to return to Nazianzum by the following occurrence. During the endless and unhappy disputes concerning the relation of the Godhead of the Son to the Godhead of the Father, after several synods, none of which had produced a permanent or harmonious result, Constantius (who notoriously favoured Arianism) convoked (a.d. 359) a new general council, but so con­trived that the Eastern bishops were to assemble at Seleucia, in Isauria; those of the West, at Ariminium (now Rimini) in Italy. By means of this division (on the principle of divide et impera), he reckoned the more securely on carrying out his own particular views. We are here more particularly concerned with the latter meeting. The Fathers of the Church assembled at Rimini, at first, and as long as they acted independently, and unalarmed by the threats of the court, confirmed the Nicene council in its entire compass, approved the use of the particularly disputed word ‘substance,’ and condemned as well, in general, the Arian opinions, as the principal advocates of the same in particular, as Ursacius, Valens, Germinius, Aurentius, Gaius, and De­mophilus, after Ursacius and Valens, at the commence­ment of the proceedings, had in vain endeavoured to bring the assembly to a ratification of the Sirmian for­mula of belief, which favoured Arianism. They informed the Emperor of this decision by a delegacy from their body, consisting of twenty, and requested of him permission to return to their dioceses, and protection during their journey. These delegates, however, were antici­pated by the artful leaders of the opposite party, who knew how to prejudice the Emperor (who was, besides, an Arian) in favour of themselves and against the synod. When the delegates of the orthodox party arrived, Constantius did not give them an audience, excused himself on the plea of an urgent military enterprise against the Persians, and showed a desire of detaining the bishops at Ariminium, whilst he meanwhile prepared a smaller synod at Nicaea in Thrace, and one which proceeded more agreeably to his wishes. Here the formula of the Sirmian council (which had already been proposed by the Arians at Ariminium) was adopted with slight alterations. In that formula the true Godhead of Christ, and that he was begotten before all beginnings (before all Eons), w as certainly asserted; but at the same time, the main disputed points were so artfully treated, that in reference to them they could also be turned to the ad­vantage of the Arian theory. Of the Son, it was said that he was ‘like (omoios) to the Father’, according to the Scripture, but the important words, ‘in all things’, were left out, and the use of the term ‘substance’ rejected, because it does not occur in Holy Scripture. The decisions of this so-called conciliabulum at Nicaea were then forced also upon the larger assembly at Ariminium, which actually received them, and was mean enough to thank the emperor for his despotic mode of instruction. Encouraged by the result, he forthwith required all the bishops of his empire, even in the East, to subscribe this formula, and applied force to those who resisted.

This subscription was of course required also of the Bishop of Nazianzum, the father of our Gregory. He did indeed so subscribe; whether he were intimidated by the imperial threats, or from a desire of peace, or from ignorance of the snare that was laid for him; though he had hitherto been a supporter of the Nicene Confession of Faith. This step, however, which he probably took without a wrong intention, was attended with serious results lor him. The monks of his diocese (as almost all monks of the time) were already, from their founder Saint Antonius, decided followers of Athanasius, and now, in no very mild fashion, made their bishop sensible of his dogmatic error. They were, (as the younger Gregory informs us,) though generally quiet and peace-loving, yet, when the defence of the orthodox faith was concerned, zealous, violent, and contentious to the extreme; and a regular schism would have taken place in the otherwise united community of Nazianzum, hod not the Bishop’s son himself interposed in the business. It is not quite clear whether or not the younger Gregory had himself taken part in the false step taken by his father,—the subscription of the Ariminian formula. According to some passages in his writings, it might almost seem to have been the case; but he would easily be forgiven by the monks, with whom he was held in singular estimation on account of his inclina­tion to a solitary and ascetic life. Being therefore be­loved and revered on both sides, lie was the most suit­able mediator; and he actually brought about an entire reconciliation, while he prevailed upon his father to make a public confession of a perfectly orthodox faith. In an oration delivered on this occasion, he could praise both parties—the monks for their ardent zeal, though just then mistaken and exaggerated m defence of the right faith; his father, for his public confession, whereby he had shown, that though he had externally wavered, yet he had always been orthodox in heart and mind.

Gregory looks upon the temporary separation only as an event through which the necessity of peace and har­mony may have been made more manifest; and this peace, the ancient boast of the church of Nazianzum, is moat urgently recommended by him,—God himself, in the eternal harmony of his being, the angels in their happy union, and the universe in its beautiful order, being made use of by him as striking emblems of peace. The true ground of union, however, should always rest upon agreement in the faith in God and in the doctrines taught by Him.

 

GREGORY IS MADE A PRESBYTER, AND SOOS AFTER WITHDRAWS HIMSELF FROM NAZIANZUM.

 

Whether or not Gregory came forth from his retire­ment for the purpose of adjusting this disagreement, or was already residing again in his native city—at all events he was there now, and had conferred a benefit upon it by his public services. This must have procured for him still higher respect and general affection. The whole community and his father (the latter especially) wished him to take a part in the spiritual care of the Church at Nazianzum. He himself declined it, partly out of fondness for contemplative retirement, partly from a holy awe for the high and serious obligations which the sacred office imposes. On this occasion the following incident occurred, one that seems more remarkable to our gene­ration than it did at that time, when it not unfrequently happened. On a high festival (probably at Christmas, a.d. 361), the aged bishop, Gregory, came forward before the assembled congregation (who seem to have been cognizant of his intention, or at all events were ready to support their bishop), and ordained his son to the priesthood, who did not anticipate such a proceeding, but could not resist the joint weight of paternal authority and episcopal power. That the younger Gregory did .not shrink from the office in mere outward pretence, and from spiritual pride would only suffer himself to be forced into ecclesiastical duties, is proved sufficiently by his subsequent conduct. He declared, not only now at the time, but also on many following occasions, that the transaction was an act of spiritual tyranny, and in his indignation thought he might allow himself to act on the occasion in a way which, in some measure, opposed violence to violence. He withdrew himself, and fled to his friend Basil in Pontus (probably about the feast of Epiphany, a.d. 362). Here he had time to reflect, and probably soon perceived the precipitancy of his proceedings. In the quiet of retirement, the wishes of his parents and his countrymen might appeal the more urgently to his heart, and the outward call forced upon him by his father might also become a living, inward voice. Towards Easter of the same year he returned to Nazianzum, and on that festival delivered his first Oration in his new ecclesiastical character.

He commenced with these words: ‘The day of the Resurrection, a happy commencement! let us mutually enlighten, let us embrace one another on this great festival. Let us address as ‘brethren’ even, those who hate us, how much more those who, out of love, have done or suffered anything (of violence); let us forget it all, on this our Lord’s resurrection-day. Pledge we mutual forgiveness; I, who in an honourable manner was tyrannically treated (for even now I so consider it), and you, who in so honourable a manner exercised that tyranny over me. If you had reason to blame me for hanging back, still it might have been better and more praiseworthy in the sight of God than the over-haste of others. It has its merit, to hold oneself back awhile at the call of God, as in old time we see in Moses, and subsequently in Jeremiah; and it also has its merit, to come forward readily and willingly, when God calleth, as did Aaron and Isaiah. Only, both must be done in a dutiful spirit; the former in a sense of indwelling weakness, the latter, in a confident reliance on the strength of Him who calleth.”

The conduct of Gregory in the instance, above related has been highly approved by many, and by many also, with more or less severity, blamed. It has received unqualified commendation from those who looked upon Gregory only through the halo-medium of the Saint, and therefore acknowledged all his proceedings as canonical; it has been followed with unqualified censure from those who, out of mere opposition, have exaggerated even the weaknesses of this and of other holy men into crying sins. They have found therein mere folly, contempt of the priestly office, haughtiness, and a pride which, by stepping over the presbyterate, would fain mount up to the episcopate. Such and similar judgments were passed even in Gregory’s time, lie found himself, therefore, obliged to throw a clearer light (in the form of a fuller apologetic statement) upon his conduct, and the motives which led to it. It is not a superfluous labour to bring forward from thence the points of greatest weight, and thus to listen, as it were, to the man himself instead of his zealous eulogists on the one side, or his severe censurers on the other.

Gregory, then, certainly confesses that it was a mixture of refractoriness and pusillanimity which caused his flight. He remarks, however, at the same time, that he did not take that step without thought or meaning, like an inexperienced boy, but from a conviction that he did not thereby transgress any divine law or ordinance. The grounds on which he hail been induced to disobey his father were the following. In the first place, the whole proceeding had so taken him by surprise, that, like thunder-stricken men, he lost almost all recollection. In the next place, an indefinite longing just then seized him for the beautiful life of still retirement, which in his early days he had so passionately loved, and which, in one of the most critical moments of his life (i.e., during the storm on his voyage to Athens), he had solemnly promised to God. To these reasons was added one, respecting whose validity and purity Gregory himself seems to doubt—the bad condition of the clergy was so painful t o him, that he could with difficulty make up his mind to enrol himself with such unworthy associates. ‘I was ashamed,’ he says, ‘of many, who not at all better than the rest of the people (nay, good were it if they were not worse), ob­truded themselves into the most holy duties and places, with unwashen hands and unconsecrated hearts, and ere they were worthy only to assist in holy celebrations, them­selves conducted the business of the altar. Alas! there are already so many of these uncalled rulers in the Church,  that they almost exceed the number of the flock to be ruled over.’ To the last and (as Gregory solemnly asserts) the most weighty reason for his flight, no one. assuredly, will refuse his full approbation. It is excellently expressed in his own simple words: ‘I considered not myself worthy (nor do I now so consider myself) to preside as shepherd over a flock, and to undertake the responsibility of guiding the souls of men.’ In order to show this, he lays open at great length the qualifications which may justly be required in the truly clerical character.

These, then, are his reasons. If we allow no definite weight to the first, as being only a transient feeling, nor grant anything to the second, as a false impression; nay, should we even discover in the third reason some degree of spiritual pride (since no man is permitted to withdraw himself from a post of honour, because he reckons on finding there a great number, or even a majority of unworthy associates, but rather is so much the more bound to restore the sullied honour of the station), yet certainly in the last we cannot fail to recognise a state of mind truly worthy of respect. And since Gregory is so honest as to confess his weakness, so should we be so just as to believe his solemn as­surance, that the consciousness of his insufficiency and unworthiness was his most weighty inducement. We shall thus, if not approve the step he took, at least excuse it, and pay deserved honour to what was generous in it.

In the same apologetical treatise, Gregory also specifies the considerations which had induced him to return home, and undertake the duties of the presbyterate which had been forced upon him They are as follows: a yearning affection for the Church of Nazianzum, with the feeling that he was beloved by its members, and earnestly wished for to be its spiritual guide; anxiety for his aged parents, who would be bowed down more by his absence than by their advanced age; but especially the example of holy men of ancient times, whose lives he looked upon as an influential source of counsel¹ and earnest warning for his own conduct.

Scarcely had Gregory entered upon his office, when he had to experience the fickleness of human applause. The ardent desire of the Nazianzen community for his ministration was no sooner gratified, than their love already began to cool. (His sermons were but thinly attended, and he thought he observed, in general, a certain indifference to his person.^ He took occasion, in a particular discourse, to express his wonder and dissatisfaction thereat, though he did this with mildness and skilfully-mingled praise. In this discourse he enlarges, in especial reference to himself, upon the maxim that, with men in general, an object is only valued highly while it is still to be striven for, while its extorted possession is but slightly esteemed.

 

CONCERNING JULIAN GENERALLY, AND IN RELATION TO GREGORY IN PARTICULAR.

 

Relation of Christianity to Heathenism, in Julian's Reign ; his Aversion to Christianity.

We are induced to turn our view from this more limited scene of Gregory’s ministrations to a wider theatre—the Roman empire and its imperial throne, to which (in November, 361) there succeeded a man who played too striking a part in the history of religion, and stood in too marked a relation to Gregory of Nazianzum, for us not to devote to him a somewhat fuller consideration. It was Julian, who now, with a bold and vigorous hand, seized the reins of government over the Roman world in a spirit which threatened the greatest danger to Christianity, while he sought to give a new direction to the religious development of mankind.

Through the well-timed conversion of Constantine to Christianity, the victory of the Christian cause in the Roman empire seemed fully decided, as it were, from the throne. But after a contest (and often a bloody one) of three hundred years, and fifty years of triumph, the Christian Church was threatened with still greater danger. Under the outward show of toleration, weapons more dangerous than the fire and the sword were employed against her by a prince of great abilities.

The state of things was not, indeed, favourable to Julian’s undertaking. The number of Christians had considerably increased in an interval of about fifty years, during which Christianity was decidedly favoured by the throne and court. In the more civilized provinces of the empire, and in the large cities of Rome, Constan­tinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, there was a majority of Christians; and the example of the Emperor and of the chief Generals must have had a decided influence upon the legions. At the commencement of Julian’s reign, the Christians were far superior to the non-Christians, if not in actual number, yet in a widely-spread, well-grounded power. There existed among them generally both a higher degree of religious know­ledge, and a more active zeal for their faith, than among the heathen. That knowledge was, indeed, clouded by a mass of superstition, and by a dogmatizing spirit of contention—and that zeal was considerably cooled by the acquisition of victory and undisturbed posses­sion. But it was involved in the nature of the case, that even under these circumstances the Christian religion should be able to convey (as it did actually convey) to its professors a purer, firmer, and more satisfactory conviction than that of the heathen could possibly do. Christianity contained in it the germs of a new religious and intellectual education of the world; heathenism was dead at the roots, and could only be sustained by artificial exertions; this is shown with convincing clear­ness by detached incidents in Julian’s life. With all the power of an emperor, and all the zeal of a devoted priest, he was not once able to awaken among his subjects even the appearance of an interest in the old religion. At Antioch, on occasion of the annual feast of the once-celebrated Daphnian Apollo, which he thought to celebrate with great splendour, not an individual of the neighbourhood presented himself with a victim, except a single priest with the offering of a goose. Julian might, on such an occasion, have seen what was really the temper of the times.

Christianity, which at first presented itself as the simple religion of the people, had, in the course of the last centuries, developed the elements which it contained for the cultivation of theological science. After the Apologists had given the first impulse, the teachers of the Alexandrian, and then of the Antiochian school, laid the foundation of a Christian scientific system; and even in this respect, many professors of Christianity could now compete with learned heathens. It is, more­over, not to be forgotten, that Christianity had already penetrated into all the relations of life, and was firmly rooted in society. The Church, with its clergy and (ever since Constantine) its growing and important possessions, already took its place as an influential politico-spiritual power, and everything in public, as well as in private life, from the imperial banner to the signet-ring of a citizen, had taken a Christian impression. We may therefore, taking all the circumstances to­gether, assert that Christianity, by its internal and out­ward power, by the number of its professors, by the adoption of a higher tone of cultivation, and its admission into all the business of life, had established itself in the most influential portions of the Roman empire.

The enterprise of Julian to place heathenism again in the ascendant, was therefore a political as well as a religious revolution, which was to take effect by altering all the relations of external and of intellectual and spiritual life; a revolution which must needs be of the greatest difficulty, and of the most doubtful con­sequences, in the pursuit of which Julian, sooner or later, would probably have come to ruin, even if he had not found an early death in the Persian war. In this sense the attempt of Julian was already, in his own time, looked upon as a revolutionary enterprise. The people of Antioch reproached him with intending to bring about a total change in the relations of society; and Gregory of Nazianzum speaks still more plainly. ‘That clever man (Julian) did not remark that, in the earlier persecutions, the confusion and agitation were not so great, because at that time our religion had not spread so widely; but now, when the word of salvation had spread so far, and even become predominant amongst us, the attempt to interfere with the Christian religion, and to shake its hold upon men’s minds, was nothing less than a shaking of the foundations of the Roman empire, and an attack upon the welfare of the State; something, in short, so bad, that our bitterest enemy could wish us nothing worse.’

It was not state policy which moved Julian to attempt this revolution, for that would have urged him to carry on and improve the work which Constantine began not to destroy it; the real motive lay in that aversion to the Christian faith and its professors (both being misapprehended by him), and that ardent zeal for the old religion, which both sprung up very naturally from his early education. The religion which Constantius, the murderer of his family, professed, and which he endeavoured to impress upon him by means of ecclesiastics, in whom he could place no confidence, could not but be an object of suspicion and dislike to him. He saw in Christianity only an unhappy perversion of Judaism. and could not explain the contra­dictions which the Christian records seemed to contain in relation to the Jewish, to say nothing of many sup­posed absurdities he attributed to the latter. He could not comprehend the feeling of reverence with which Christians regarded that Jesus, who (as it seemed to him) had done nothing worth mentioning during his lifetime, except healing a few lame and blind persons, and bringing some of the common people to believe in him. It appeared to him au incomprehensible delusion, that the Christians turned away from the immortal gods to the worship of a deceased Jew; that they would not adore the sun and moon, which so manifestly wrought for them the highest benefits from year to year, while they considered as a God that Jesus whom neither they nor their fathers had seen. It is quite intelligible how Julian could thus misapprehend the divinity of Jesus in his humble appearance; and we hope that we do him no injustice when we think that the cause thereof is to be found in the fundamental defect of his nature—viz., his pride and philosophic arrogance. Julian had accustomed himself too much to the bright and powerful forms of the ancient heroes to attach any value to the divine claims of Christ, concealed as they were under the simple ‘form of a servant,’ and of suffering humility. He was too much enamoured by wisdom in the form of speculation, and too much dazzled by the mystic glitter of his favourite rhetorical philosophers, for his understanding to receive the popular teaching of the Gospel, which seemed to him to present itself in the unpretending garb of a child-like and unadorned phraseology. Julian knew nothing of that state of mind, that lowly and affectionate devotedness, which Christ everywhere requires, if we would receive him as the Divine Author of our salvation. Full of energy and activity, he wished to emulate his celebrated heroes; full of wisdom, he imitated his contemplative philosophers, and turned his back contemptuously upon the Divine Sufferer, and the cross on which he suffered. His lively imagination, and his admiration of antiquity, attracted him powerfully to those gods, by whose protection those heroes, whom he in vain looked for among the Christian emperors, had fought and conquered. He believed that he also had been delivered by the favour of the gods from all the dangers with which the jealousy of Constantius had threatened him; that by their means he had been raised from the quiet scenes of private life, and from banishment, to the imperial throne. ‘Should he not then adore these mighty, these beneficent gods? Should he not show himself thankful to them, by extending the sphere of their worship?’

Julian's Conduct towards Christianity and its Professors.

It is well known what Julian did, in order to make, the old religion again predominant, and to overturn the new; it may be permitted me, nevertheless, to give here a short, connected review thereof, in order that we may afterwards estimate more justly the judgment passed by Gregory on this conduct.

Julian, although in many of his proceedings we cannot fail to perceive a kind of political fanaticism, engaged with consummate skill in the unequal contest with Christianity, favoured as it was by the age in which he lived. History had taught him that open warfare strengthens the persecuted party, and that the blood of martyrs was but the seed of new confessors. He hated martyrdom, and would not allow the Christian Church the honour and the advantage of it. His plan, therefore, proceeded upon a gradual undermining; he applied persecution, but it was under the show of mildness and moderation; ho. subjugated gently? His writings, epistles, and decrees, contain the most open declarations of an universal toleration for the Christians; he only commiserates them, and wishes not to punish them for their ignorance, but instructs and teaches them. No young person was to be restrained from attending the schools and churches of the ‘Galileans;’ no one should he constrained to adopt the old religion through fear or force. In similar terms of toleration he expressed himself towards the different parties in Christianity. The clergy who had been banished on account of religious opinions now dared, without distinction, to return; always excepting one, who was hated by him to the death—Athanasius!

This show of toleration, however, was not so honestly intended. Julian had no reason for giving a preference to one party among the Christians rather than another, he allowed them to exist in mutual opposition, in order that they might injure one another, and stain still deeper the Christian name on the angry theatre of religious controversy. He even occasionally, out of mere contempt, procured for himself the amusement of causing the leaders of the Christian parties to hold disputes in his presence. In general, he by no means placed the Christians on a par with the heathens, in spite of the principles which he professed. He not only preferred the latter in his public appointments, but favoured them almost exclusively. He punished most severely any acts of turbulence on the part of the Christians; but heathens, as well magistrates as the common people, who indulged themselves in any act of injustice or violence towards the Christians, were treated by him far more mildly—nay, even with favour. This severity of behaviour on the part of Julian towards the Christians was often also accompanied with bitter mockery. When the Arians in the neighbourhood of Edessa, who were very rich, fell into contentions with the Valentinians of those parts, he caused the general treasure of the Church of Edessa to be taken away and distributed among his soldiers, and their estates to be incorporated with his own property. It was his wish (he said), since they were often using that admirable saying, ‘it is a hard thing for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ to facilitate to them thereby their entrance into heaven.

Julian frequently indulged himself in similar sarcasms concerning ‘the credulous disciples of ignorant fishermen, who sat and prayed all night in company with old women, and were always faint and half-dead with fasting.’ Of course, this public derision of a part of his subjects on the part of a supreme ruler must have carried with it a fearful force. The least insidious and (legally speaking) the least objectionable, though most dangerous means whereby Julian sought to injure Christianity, was the transfer of those regulations, which had particularly dis­tinguished the Christian Church, into heathenism. He wished to make the old religion popular by reforming its institutions. He began, therefore, at the roots—i.e., by improving the priestly profession, to which he wished to give more real efficiency and greater respectability. He himself set the example, as the chief pontiff. He ordered that the professors of heathenism should show the same regard to the burial of the dead, the same hos­pitality towards strangers, the same active benevolence to the poor, as that by which the Christians had made themselves so beloved. With this object, Julian gave directions for the erection of poor-houses and lodging­houses for strangers, and assigned considerable sums for that purpose. He also adopted for the heathen religion that plan of popular instruction which had wrought such great things for Christianity, and endeavoured, above all, to impart more life, dignity, and splendour to divine worship. For this last purpose, he made especial use of the effects of sacred music, which he particularly attended to and valued.

Julian well knew how important it is that religion should exercise an influence upon social life, and also be placed in connexion with the institutions of the state. The heathen religion had, under the last emperors, been made to give way in this respect to the Christian; he now sought to restore that relation. Every Christian emblem was obliterated on the public insignia; the Imperial banner was again altered, and resumed its old Roman form and shape. Julian surrounded his own statue, set up for public homage, with figures of the gods; and whosoever then testified his mark of respect for the same (and this was not unfrequently performed on festive occasions) was at the same time forced to bow his head before the images of the gods that surrounded the statue? Nor is Julian to be pronounced free from a treacherous zeal for proselytizing. It must, of course, have been most important to him to gain over the army to his faith, and he made use of the following method for effecting it. On the general pay­day, the emperor presented himself, surrounded with the insignia of government and the figures of the gods. The soldiers passed by him in succession; before them lay gold and incense. If now, being Christians, they could yet make up their mind to cast incense on the altar-fire, and thus pay worship to the gods, they were recompensed with a look of favour from the monarch, and consoled with more liberal pay. In this manner many bartered away their religion.

What has hitherto been remarked was rather a favouring of heathenism than a persecuting of Christianity. But we also find an ordinance of Julian, which may be considered as a more direct attack on Christianity; it has, however, been differently judged of, so that we must be permitted to speak of it somewhat more fully. It was the arrangement by which he is said to have forbidden Christians to engage in the study of any science not properly Christian—a prohibition whereby all the advantages of a classical education would have been withdrawn from the Christians. The philosophic emperor despised the plain and (in the best sense of the word) simple writings of the Old and New Testament, in comparison with the profound and beautiful productions of Grecian genius.

He thought, ‘that the works of antiquity, animated as they were with a high patriotic spirit, and clothed in the most perfect forms of language, could alone commu­nicate pure and true wisdom; whilst the writings of the Christians could have no power to produce any such effects. And as the Christians thought those works to have proceeded from Satan himself, or from Satan’s agents, lie did not choose that they should feast upon the writings and sciences of the Greeks, but remain satisfied with only the miserable books to which they attributed such high value.’ He therefore believed that he was fully justified in withholding altogether from the Christians those writings which they did not take in hand with due reverence and affection. It is not, indeed, to be denied (though it may be well accounted for from the violent opposition at that time existing be­tween heathenism and Christianity) that the most distinguished Fathers, and still more the great body of common Christians, did treat the great works of anti­quity with unbecoming disrespect.

It was especially offensive to Julian, that men who denied the existence of the gods, should undertake to expound writings of which he considered the gods as the originators, and the pervading idea of which was reverence for those same gods. As Julian required strict morality in the instructors of youth, it seemed to him the most despicable hypocrisy for a teacher to undertake, for profit’s sake, the explanation of writings penetrated by the spirit of the old religion, while he himself denied the truth of that spirit. In this, he did not require that the teachers should alter their views for the sake of the young men, but only that they should not teach what was not to them earnest truth. He recommends him ‘who believes that those writers sinned, through error, against the Holy One, to attend the expositions of Matthew and Luke in the churches of the Galileans.’ From these statements, it appears that Julian did not exactly forbid the Christians to engage in the study of heathen literature; on the contrary, he certainly wished that a large body of Christian youths might attend the schools of the heathen rhetoricians and sophists, under the conviction that every one who had by nature anything noble in his character, must soon desert the ranks of Atheism (for such was Christianity in his view), and be won over to the service of the gods. But he determined that he who undertook to explain those writings which were inspired by the gods, and exhibited their living power, should also reverence those gods in word and deed; or, to speak more plainly, that heathens only should be the instructors of youth. By this decree, therefore, Christians were excluded from the teacher’s chair. It was a regulation slow, indeed, in its operation, but calculated to produce great effects. It must necessarily influence the rising generation, if the sciences were taught only by heathen masters. If the Christians would not see their sons excluded from the higher branches of education, they must send them to the heathen schools, with the certain danger that, by the influence of those eloquent and zealous teachers, the seeds of heathenism would be sown in their young minds? The Christian teachers, indeed, endeavoured to remedy this sad state of things by means of poetic productions, written in the spirit of Christianity. But these specimens of forced workmanship were only neces­sary substitutes for the free, inspired creations of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato, those immortal instructors and models of human genius. When familiar acquaintance with Greek science was thus withdrawn from the Christians (especially the Greek Christians of that time), much that was valuable was certainly withdrawn from them; and it is erroneously asserted that Christianity, in its then condition, could have derived no advantage, or at least very little, from the adoption of a classical education. How could it bid defiance to the attacks of learned and philosophical heathens (and particularly Julian himself) without the development of the scientific elements which it contained? And how was this development to be effected, but by an union with the in­vestigations and productions of earlier generations! How could it, without them, become the religion of the most cultivated portion of mankind,—nay, the universal religion?

Julian had a show of reason for his conduct. It seemed to him, according to his religious views, not to be endured that the Christians should expect to extract scientific nourishment from the outward shell of those works, of which they rejected the internal, religious kernel. To his really pious mind, this religious element was the main point; and therefore he thought that he who disdained that, should have nothing at all. Still there was also some degree of injustice in Julian’s arrangement: and this is particularly pointed out by Gregory of Nazianzum, when he remarks, that the Hellenistic literature and language are by no means so necessarily connected with the heathen religion, that the one could not be made use of or enjoyed without the other. He very justly, at the same time, looks upon the works of Grecian genius as the common property of the human race, wholly unconnected with religious belief, and over which no individual, be he ever so powerful, could have exclusive authority. He asks Julian whether Hellenic civilization, the language of Athens, the noble poems of Greece, belonged only to him; whether he intended to withhold from the Christians only the ele­gant and refined language of the Greeks, or, in the end, the Greek language generally, even the common vulgar form of it; and the like.

Undoubtedly Julian, although provoked by the Chris­tians, should have understood better the limits of his power, since it does not lie within the privilege of a rider to withhold from his subjects an important means of their accustomed education. We cannot look into Julian's soul, and see whether, under the show of zeal for the interests of the gods, he really concealed the artful design of thus giving to Christianity the most deadly blow. Manifestly, however, the worst consequences—even the gradual undermining of Christ’s religion—were necessarily connected with his proceedings in this respect.

The same principle of action, under whose guidance Julian laboured with all his power for the renovation and improvement of the heathen priesthood, prompted him to have recourse to everything, in order to deprive the Christian ministry of their influence, their riches, and their respectability. He could injure the Church in general most effectually through the degradation of its ministers. While he conducted himself more mildly towards the great body of the Christians, as a herd of misguided, erring creatures, he exercised severity towards their spiritual leaders, whom he looked upon as seducers and promoters of rebellion, and especially towards the undaunted champions of Christianity, such as Athanasius. He withdrew from the clergy the right of jurisdiction, which, to a certain extent, had been granted to them, immunity from state-burdens, the privilege of making wills and receiving legacies—a power which they certainly might have often abused. In return for this, Julian secured to the heathen priests their former privileges, and endeavoured to enrich the temples by means of public contributions.

So much concerning Julian’s conduct towards Christianity in general. The particular instances of persecution which took place under his government (and of which Gregory of Nazianzum especially, and also Sozomenus, relate many examples with a minuteness that produces a feeling of horror and indignation) we have no necessity here to discuss, since it would be difficult to prove that Julian ordered the perpetration of such cruelties, or that they were practised with his knowledge. He may certainly have been too conniving towards the heathens, who had been embittered by the oppression exercised for some years against them by the Christians, and were now excited by the reaction to a spirit of persecution.

We might be inclined, in a great measure, to excuse Julian’s conduct towards Christianity as the result of his religious and political convictions. Certainly, his transfer of the education of youth to heathen teachers sprung from his conscientious regard for the religious character of the works of antiquity, as did his exclusive patronage of heathen candidates for public offices from his belief, that the institutions of the state and of religion should combine together so as to form a whole. But when Julian made such an application of these principles as must necessarily and thoroughly prove destructive to Christianity, he clearly displayed not merely a religious zeal for heathenism (which we acknowledge as the noblest, though deformed feature in Julian’s mind), but also a strong and intolerant hatred towards Christianity, a hatred which we can the less overlook through a mis­taken leniency, because it did not present itself in its avowedly hostile and odious form, but under the false show of a just and impartial toleration.

In saying this, we should not deny or throw into the shade Julian’s virtues in other respects as a man and as a ruler. When we have taken due notice of the youthful insolence wherewith Julian treats Christianity, the proud self-consciousness which gleams out in his actions and his writings (especially in his satirical treatment even of the greatest men in his Caesars, a work full of talent and animation), the vanity with which he complacently described himself as ‘a cynic-stoic on the Imperial throne,’ and affected to revive in his own person the phenomenon of an ancient hero and a simple republican; still we find in him, on the other side, much that is truly great and noble; an incessant activity for the good of his subjects (especially for the citizen); a love for im­partial justice (which he forgot only in respect to the Christians); an effort to acquire the most perfect simplicity of manners; a self-denying abstinence from all the enjoyments of life; a valour worthy of the ancients; manly earnestness and severity, combined with a tender affection towards individuals, in whom he honoured mind only, not power nor rank. It is to be regretted that this affectionate sympathy found no better subjects than those conceited rhetoricians and sophists; that the religious zeal of Julian was stained by so much bigotry; above all, that his highly-gifted mind could have so mistaken the spirit of Christianity and the mental tone of the times, and that therefore he became  only a short-lived, tumultuous, alarming phenomenon, when he might have been the greatest benefactor, as well as the genius of his age.

Gregory’s Writings against Julian.

I have deemed it the more a matter of duty to ex­hibit thus fully the less pleasing side in Julian’s character, because it can thence only be explained why it was that many ancient Christian writers (whose statements, however, we must not hastily reject) express themselves concerning this man with such unheard-of asperity. Their delineations are exaggerated, their narratives are not unfrequently disfigured by party-hatred—but still we must not regard them as merely the outpourings of a (generally well-meant) zealotism. For instance, it would be almost incomprehensible how the ever right-minded Gregory of Nazianzum could have written, and seasoned with such biting acrimony, his Invectives against Julian, then actually dead, unless Julian had really allowed himself to do much that was shocking and revolting against the Christians. We have, however, to speak somewhat more exactly of these two Philippics. It might not be uninteresting, though it would be superfluous, to analyze fully the contents of these writings, which seem animated rather by the fire of passion, than a genuine Christian spirit. Some portions, however, must be brought forward to show their character. Gregory, as he himself signifies, intended by means of these orations (which most probably were not designed to be publicly delivered, but only to be read) to raise a monument, whereby the name of Julian, in that and in every succeeding age, should be held up to universal contempt and reproach. He does not conceal his intention to represent a great prince, with whom death might be supposed to have reconciled him, as a dark monster, nor disdain, for this object, to employ the harshest terms. ‘The apostate, the Assyrian, the dragon, the common enemy, the wholesale murderer,’ and similar expressions, salute our ears in every part of both these orations. The professed object of the first is to place Julian’s faults, and the tyranny he exercised against the Christians, in the strongest light; in the other (which Gregory thinks must be particularly pleasing and profitable to his readers), he undertakes to show the infallible judgment of God upon the unrighteous, and brings forward, in this relation, the ex­ample of Julian as his main proof.

It is remarkable how the orator, while he dooms Julian to hell, invokes the great soul of Constantius from heaven, and heaps upon him unheard-of encomiums; Gregory only blames Constantius (in his eyes so great and noble) for having preserved and raised to power, in the person of Julian, a man so pernicious to the empire. To this act of Constantius he applies the epithet of ‘inhuman humanity,’ or barbarous kindness; and yet Constantius must have been considered as having heaped crime upon crime, if he had not thus preserved the life of his near kinsman, Julian. It was, to speak the truth, a high degree of party zeal, that could deceive to such an extent the otherwise kind and gentle disposition of Gregory. It is painful to notice such features; but they belong to the accuracy of the picture.

Gregory, however, apologizes on the following grounds (as if a duty of humanity ever required an apology!) for the conduct of Constantius in preserving the life of Julian; he may have wished thereby to clear himself from the suspicion of having perpetrated certain crimes (the murder of Julian’s family); he might desire to set Julian an example of magnanimity, as well as to give more strength to his own government; on the whole, however, he certainly displayed in this proceeding more kind-heartedness than wisdom.’ Julian, on the con­trary, is the more severely censured, for having repaid God and Constantius for his preservation with such black ingratitude—the former by apostasy, the latter by revolt. Gregory charges Julian especially with hypo­crisy, because, though already for a long time devoted in heart to heathenism, he still externally appeared to be a good Christian; a reproach which, assuredly, is also confirmed by the testimony of heathen writers.

A singular exhibition (which, indeed, is often repeated in the pages of history) here demands our attention—viz. how superstition prevailed on both sides—the heathen as well as the Christian; each party most violently charging this upon the other, and insisting on its own freedom from it, whilst both were alike influenced by it, though under different forms. These orations of Gregory furnish examples of this. Magic arts, theurgic and prophetic pretensions, belonged to the tendencies of the age, and showed themselves, under altered appearances, among heathens and Christians; even an education such as Julian had received could not free him from the influence. Whilst Julian censures the ‘silly, wonder­seeking credulity of the Christians,’ he fancies himself to be in constant and immediate intercourse with gods and goddesses, until he actually feels the soft contact of their presence, and does not hesitate to receive the most incredible heathen legends with the most devout renunciation of his reasoning powers; and while Gregory reviles the heathen superstition of his opponents, he exhibits his Christian superstition by relating things which hardly any one will think of believing. Thus, on one occasion a cross, adorned with a crown, and therefore emblematic of victory, is said to have appeared in the entrails of a victim to Julian, who, it is well known, attached very extraordinary value to prodigies, and himself, as a master, practised the art of soothsaying. And again; Julian, under the guidance of his favourite theurgic philosophers, once found himself in a subterranean cave, for the purpose of exorcising ghosts; these ghosts, however (so Gregory tells the story), rushed upon him with alarming violence, and Julian took refuge in the sign of the cross, which he had already renounced; the sign even now proved efficacious, and the demons wore scared away! In the Persian war, Gregory makes Julian, besides his troops of soldiers, to be accompanied by another troop, of demons; while his admirer, Libanius, on the contrary, gives him a troop of Deities. Thus an invisible world would seem to have been at the command of both sides!

We pass over the harsh and unjust reproaches which Gregory brings against Julian, as if he had been given to drunkenness and sensuality, and had even involved himself in the black crime of causing the death of Constantius; and we only remark, in conclusion (that we may not be unfair in these imputations against Gregory), that he strongly exhorts his readers to use, not force, but gentle patience, as the truly Christian weapon against tyrants; to learn meekness from the example of Christ; not to revenge themselves, but to leave the adjustment of recompence to God, while they thanked God for His wonderful protection from imminent danger, by the more zealous devotion of a Christian life. Would that he had practised in his own language the patient forbearance which he so earnestly recommends to others! Certainly, none but partisans can acquit Gregory’s orations against Julian of violent prejudice; while the unprejudiced reader must wish that the good cause of Christianity had been better defended—that is, with more judgment and charity, and with less of passion—by the orator who was so earnest in its defence. His eloquence would then have been infinitely more effective.

Some exculpation, however, is due to Gregory. Julian’s plan of government challenged every one who was in earnest for Christianity to take the field against him; and he who ventured on this contest must necessarily come forward boldly and energetically, in order, for the future also, to deter the bold hands of those who might again wish to assail the Church of Christ Gregory looked upon Christianity as man’s highest happiness,—the most precious palladium of the human race; how readily, then, would his wrath be kindled against one who aimed at the destruction of that dearest treasure. Still farther; when Gregory wrote, the whole Christian world was still filled with the terror of Julian’s government; that phenomenon had but just passed, like a portentous meteor, big with mischief, over the Christian sky. Thence it was that the excited tone of that living hatred, which animated the great body of Christians, expressed itself in these orations. At that period of the great struggle for life or death between heathenism and Christianity, a just estimate of the man who, at the head of the heathen party, threatened ruin to the Christian religion, was not possible, or, at least, it would have required superhuman circumspection and moderation. With less of passion, Gregory would certainly have confided more in the inward power of the Divine cause; he would not have stirred up still more the already excited minds of men; he would not have been so credulous against Julien and for the Christians; he would not have adopted the violent, dogmatizing tone, wherewith the remarkable character of Julian, as a moral phenomenon, was so frequently tossed aside, as something utterly contemptible. But who can always observe moderation, when under the influence even of a righteous anger?

The Position in which Gregory and his Family stood towards Julian.

It is well known that Julian removed from court almost all persons who surrounded his hated prede­cessor, either as members of his council or as favourite servants, and that some of them were treated with in­justice and harshness. But the brother of Gregory had gained for himself, as the special physician to Con­stantius, such high respect by his skill and good conduct, that Julian so far constrained himself as to retain him in the palace. Nay, the philosophic emperor even determined, after having been successful, here and there, in his zeal for making converts, to make an attempt upon Caesarius also, and engaged for that purpose in a religious conversation with him. Unfortunately, Gregory thought it unnecessary to communicate the nature and details of that interview; he only remarks, that his brother defended his convictions before the emperor with equal Christian truth and philosophic dexterity, and in the hearing of a large assembly declared, ‘that he was a Christian, and would always remain one.’ The emperor had sufficient toleration to retain him, nevertheless, in his society. The firmness of his court-physician, and the thought of the still greater Christian zeal of his brother Gregory (afterwards to become so famous), only extorted from him the ejaculation, ‘O happy father of two unhappy sons!’ He had good reason to call the father happy who had begotten two such sons, but no less so the sons, whose religious convictions no external power could shake.

Gregory, who was at that time living with his parents, was not a little anxious respecting the critical position of his brother in the imperial palace. He could not know, as yet, how firm his brother would be in the confession of his faith, but he could not but be well convinced that Julian would make every effort to overcome it. In this embarrassment, when he probably had no intelligence from his brother, and doubtful rumours concerning him might be in circulation, he wrote to him a letter of which this may be given as the chief purport:

‘We blush deeply, and are filled with grief on your account. All Christians, friends and enemies, are talking of you. At one moment they say, ‘Surely the son of a bishop will contend for the faith at another;’ ‘He contends, but it is for honour and power;’ and again, ‘He is overcome by gold.’ How, then, can the bishops exhort others to constancy in the Christian faith, when they cannot look with confidence to the members of their own families ? How can I comfort our father, already weary of life? Our mother would be perfectly inconsolable, were she to hear of you what we have hitherto carefully concealed from her. Out of regard, therefore, for yourself and for us, come to a better determination. We have already—at least, for any one of a frugal mind, means sufficient to live respectably. But if you do not relinquish your present post, there remains for you only the melancholy choice, either, as being a genuine Christian, to be cast down to the lowest station, or to pursue your ambitious plans, but then to suffer damage in more weighty things, and ex­pose yourself, if not to the fire, yet at least to the smoke.’

Soon after this, Caesarius formed the resolution to retire into the bosom of his family, and he carried it into execution when Julian set out upon his Persian campaign.

During Julian’s reign, Gregory also endeavoured to serve the Christian cause by urgent exhortations ad­dressed to distinguished individuals. Thus, among others, he wrote a very flattering letter to Candianus, a relation by consanguinity, and the holder of an honour­able appointment, but who professed the heathen religion, not by way of homage to the fashion of the day, but in honest sincerity. The letter ends thus:—'In return for all your friendship, I wish you not any increase of your power and your reputation, but only the one greatest thing of all,—that you would at length listen to us and God, that you might stand on the side of the persecuted, and not of the persecutors; for the benefit of the one passes away with the time, but the other imparts immortal happiness.’

The courageous bearing of Gregory’s aged father during the Julian persecution is also remarkable. The following particulars relating thereto have been preserved. Julian, to whom it must have been a great object to turn many a Christian church into a temple for the gods, made with this view an experiment at Nazianzum. The imperial prefect of the province marched with a company of archers into the city, and demanded that the church should be given up to him. His numerous retinue indicated an appeal to force. The bishop, however, who knew that lie could reckon on the zealous support of the Christian population, which was devoted to him, boldly resisted the demand; and the prefect found it advisable to withdraw, happy to escape thence without loss or damage.

The following incident is still more important. In the year of our Lord 362, Eusebius, who held an imperial appointment, was, by means of a tumultuous popular election, named bishop in the chief city of Cappadocia. The assembled bishops of the province were compelled, against their wishes, to ratify the choice and consecrate him, but afterwards declared the whole proceeding invalid. Julian also opposed the choice, because he was sorry to lose a valuable public officer. The aged Gregory, although presiding over a small and unimportant bishopric, undertook to defend the choice of the people against the objections of the bishops and the displeasure of the emperor. When the imperial deputy had summoned before him the bishops who had con­secrated Eusebius, in older to settle the business agreeably to the wish of the emperor, the Bishop Gregory replied to him as follows:—‘Most noble governor, in all that we have done we have but one Judge and King, and his authority is now assailed. He will also take cognizance of this episcopal consecration, which we have taken in hand in a legal manner, and well-pleasing to Him. If you are pleased to do us violence in any other matter, you will find no difficulty; but this privilege no man can forbid us, to defend the propriety and justice of our proceeding. You cannot prohibit it by any law; and it ill becomes you in any manner to trouble yourself with our concerns.’ The deputy was overcome by this manly address of the bishop; the emperor gave way; and the citizens of Caesarea saw themselves not only delivered from the danger which the imperial displeasure had threatened, but also gratified by the fulfilment of their wishes.

 

GREGORY AGAIN AS PEACE-MAKER.

 

We must pause awhile at Caesarea, where we find our Gregory again undertaking the business of a mediator. His bosom friend Basil had just then returned from the scene of his monastic life in Pontus, to Caesarea, his native city; and, as had before happened to Gregory, was ordained priest, against his will, by the recently-elected bishop, Eusebius (this was probably in a.d. 363 or 364). This prelate, who, from the nature of his previous course of life, could not be very conversant with theological studies, wished to have about him a thoroughly-educated presbyter, who was well furnished for controversy. Such a person Basil had already shown himself by several of his writings. Whether the newly-ordained presbyter caused the bishop occasionally to feel his superiority in thinking and in speaking, or whether some other unpleasantness arose between them, certainly their good understanding did not last long; and Eusebius, went so far, under the influence of passion, as again violently to take away from the same person the priestly office which he had violently forced upon him. A hazardous proceeding! since the powerful and (when it was worth their while) pugnacious party of the monks were devoted, with all their energies, to Basil, the great promoter of monachism. A serious division in the community was almost unavoidable, had not Basil generously preferred a voluntary exile in Pontus to a probably easy triumph over the bishop, who, from the nature of his election, did not stand on very firm footing. Gregory accompanied his friend into retirement, but appears to have returned soon to Nazianzum to the support of his aged father.

From Nazianzum, also, Gregory could exert himself more effectually for the reconciliation of his friend Basil with the exasperated Bishop of Caesarea; and amid the unfavourable circumstances of the time, a proper occasion happily soon presented itself for the attempt. Just at this time (that is to say, a.d. 364) danger seemed to threaten the orthodox party, when, after the short reign of Jovian, Valens, a favourer of Arianism, succeeded to the imperial throne. In the critical circumstances in which the orthodox bishops were placed by the bias of the new government, an able fellow-combatant must have been welcome to Eusebius. Such an one he had driven from him in the person of Basil. Tie now applied to Gregory, with the wish that he would come to Caesarea and assist in their councils. Gregory answered the bishop respectfully, but with a considerable degree of frankness, that he certainly felt greatly honoured by the invitation, but, notwithstanding this, he could not but consider the manner in which Eusebius had behaved, and still behaved, towards Basil, was unjust. ‘While you honour me,’ (he says among other things) ‘but treat him with contempt, you appear to me like a man who with one hand caresses the head, with the other inflicts a blow on the cheek of one and the same person; or who undermines the foundations of a house, and, at the same time, paints the walls and decorates the outside. If, therefore, I have any influence with you, you will prove it by being recon­ciled to Basil; and I consider it but reasonable that you should concede this to me. If you treat him with respect, you will experience the same from him.’ This address, in which certainly the submissive respect due to the metropolitan bishop is overpowered by affection for his friend, by no means produced any favourable impression upon Eusebius. He saw in it only the refractory arrogance of a young presbyter, and expressed himself to that effect in his reply to Gregory. He, in his turn, assured the bishop ‘that he had intended to address him, not in a reproachful, but in a spiritual and philosophic manner; that the higher position of the bishop does not take away the right of being open and candid with him; on the contrary, it would be worthy of a generous-minded person to listen with satisfaction rather to the free words of a friend, than to the flattery of an enemy. He hoped, therefore, he would again adopt a gentler bearing.’

This epistle, and especially the general distress of the orthodox Church under the Emperor Valens, appear to have succeeded better in softening, or at least in altering the bishop’s tone of mind. This is evident from a letter, written somewhat later by Gregory, and which ends with these words:—‘Well, then, if it is agreeable to yon, I will come and pray with you, contend with you, serve with you, and will stimulate you for the combat by my acclamation, as their youthful partizans do to encourage the combatants in the games.’ Gregory expresses himself still more plainly concerning the altered temper of Eusebius, in an epistle to Basil, wherein he informs his friend that he would soon receive a conciliatory letter from his now friendly-minded bishop; but exhorts him, at the same time, to be beforehand with the bishop, and to go beyond his concession by a true generosity. With this view, he proposes to Basil that they should go together to Caesarea, and, with united energies, contend against the false doctrines which were pressing in on all sides. In fact. Basil returned to Caesarea in the year 365.

From that period, Basil continued on the most friendly understanding with his bishop; he became his councillor, his stay, his right hand, in many respects even his teacher; he assisted him in all ways, and, whilst he thus made his services indispensable to him, he governed him also—and through the bishop, at the same time, governed the community. Gregory himself gives us very plainly to understand that, in those last years of his life (from 365 to 370), Eusebius was bishop only in name—Basil in fact. Thus their mutual relations worked well together, since Eusebius, still somewhat worldly-minded, and not properly educated for an ecclesiastical office, required an able clerical aid. But Basil was not only most worthy of high authority in the Church, but was also (as we shall see in the result) not averse from the exercise of that authority. He distinguished himself as a presbyter during a famine, when, both by word and deed, he showed himself a pattern for all the rich, and a blessing to the poor. But still more (at least it was considered by the majority as the most weighty) did his steady efforts in defence of the Nicene Creed, during the Arian government of Valens, command admiration; so that, on the occasion of a vacancy in the Bishopric of Caesarea, it was quite natural to regard him above all competitors in the choice of a successor.

 

BASIL ELECTED BISHOP OF CAESAREA; CONDUCT OF THE ELDER AND OF THE YOUNGER GREGORY ON THAT OCCASION.

 

This vacancy in the Bishopric of Caesarea, caused by the death of Eusebius, took place a.d. 370. Basilius might well aspire to the primacy, since, when he was not far advanced in years, (he was at that time 41,) it was principally he, in concert with Gregory, who, if he had not prevented, yet had greatly checked the introduction of Arianism into his fatherland. He had also dis­tinguished himself by his knowledge and pious zeal among the whole body of the clergy. It was, however, exactly these prominent qualities of Basil that rekindled envy against him. The power he had already exercised had been a thorn in the eyes of many; and when the election came on he met with violent opponents. Basil, nevertheless, obtained his object; both the Gregorys, father and son, having especially exerted themselves for him—in characteristically different ways indeed, as we shall presently see.

After the death of Eusebius, Basil wrote an epistle to Gregory, wherein he expresses the most ardent desire to see his friend, and thus proceeds:—‘On the death of Eusebius, no little fear has fallen upon me lest they, who for some time past have lain in wait against our Metropolitan Church, in order to fill it with the weeds of heresy, should take advantage of the present moment, and, by their vile doctrines, root up again the germs of piety that have been sown with much pains in the souls of the people, and sow the seeds of dissension, as they have already actually done in many Churches. But now, since letters have come to me from the clergy, request­ing that I would not be inactive at this juncture, I was reminded (as I glanced around in thought upon my means of help) of y our affection, of your genuine faith, and the zeal which you always showed for the Church of God. I have therefore sent my fellow-labourer, Eustathius, for the purpose of exhorting you, a man so esteemed, to take part personally in the contest for the Churches, to gladden my age by your presence, to preserve for this excellent Church its reputation for piety inviolate, and to help, with me, to give that flock a shepherd after the Lord’s own heart—one who would be able to guide his people aright. I have in my eye a man whom you also know well; if we could but succeed in getting him, we might dare to be of good courage before God, and should bestow a great blessing upon the people’.

It is not improbable that Basil had Gregory himself in his thoughts when he wrote these last words, and only chose to indicate it ambiguously, that he might the more certainly come to Caesarea. However that might be, Gregory went not. We are rather obliged to conclude, from one of Gregory’s letters, that Basil, on seeing the hesitation of his friend, wrote to him repeatedly; and, in order to stimulate him to the journey without gainsay, represented to him, that he would find him dangerously sick, and cherishing a longing desire to see him once more. Deeply affected, Gregory pre­pared himself for the journey. His lively imagination already pictured to' him the form of his dying friend, and consoled him by suggesting monumental inscrip­tions in honour of the deceased. How astonished must he have been on hearing, soon after, that Basil was by no means seriously unwell! Notwithstanding all his friendly regard, as it were, a flash of suspicion shot through the mind of Gregory, that Basil wished to decoy him to Caesarea by a false pretence, in order that his election to the bishopric might be assisted by the zealous assistance of his friend. He therefore gave up all thought of the journey, and wrote his friend a letter full of strong reproofs, in which he charged him plainly with dishonesty and folly; and he reminds him that he, Gregory, could not lawfully have taken part in the choice of a bishop. This epistle seems to have been too passionately written, since it is hardly credible that Basil should have entirely feigned an illness. It is probable, however, that he gave an exaggerated description of his almost always sickly condition. But was it really from ambitious views?—certainly the suspicion, which even his friend entertained, attaches to him.

Gregory, in thus withholding himself from all inter­ference in the election of the bishop, followed the law of church order, of decorum, and of prudence. He even advised Basil to retire from the tumultuary excitement of the metropolis at the decisive moment. Meanwhile, however, he exerted himself indirectly for Basil, by the eloquent letters which he wrote in the name of Ids father to the clergy and laity of Caesarea. The elder Gregory, as a bishop of the province, was justly entitled to take a part in the choice of the metropolitan, but he felt him­self too weak, from sickness and the infirmities of old age, to attend in person at the place of election. As, however, he felt interested for Basil in a high degree, he caused his voice and wishes to be heard, through his son, in two public missives. In the one he says to the inhabitants of Caesarea—‘If I am not able, overcome as I am by sickness, to attend at the election, yet will I contribute thereto as much as at this distance is practicable. I am well satisfied that there are others, also, who are worthy to preside over a Church so distinguished, and so admirably managed from the first; but there is one whom I must prefer to all others, one who is already so highly esteemed by yourselves, so beloved of God—our son, the presbyter Basilius, a man (I call God to witness) of unspotted life and sound doctrine; who, either alone of all the candidates, or at least very pre­eminently, is in both respects qualified to stand firm against the tendencies of the present time, and to con­tend against the prevailing false doctrines. I write this to the clergy, to the monks, and to those who are invested with high dignities, and members of the council, as well as to all the people.’ In the other epistle, addressed to the electing bishops, and of similar contents, he, however, remarks that, at their urgent request, he would even come to Caesarea, especially if he might presume to hope that their choice also would fall upon Basil. Having learnt soon after that, for the regular election of a bishop, the personal attendance of one more bishop was required, the old man actually tore himself from his sick-bed, and caused himself, in spite of his half-dead body, to be conveyed to Caesarea. He thereby very considerably promoted the elevation of Basil to the episcopate, and then returned to Nazianzum, strengthened by the effects of the journey, and the gratification of having succeeded in his object. When he set out from home, it was necessary to raise him, like a corpse, into the carriage; but when lie came back, he sat upright, with cheerful eye, full of renovated, youthful strength. It is not, however, to be denied that, in the whole proceeding, the son conducted himself more cor­rectly and prudently than the somewhat too-vehement, over-zealous father.

A certain degree of mistrust had already, during Basil’s election, insinuated itself between the hitherto-devoted friends. Basil might imagine that his friend had not done everything for the promoting of his elevation, which the duty of friendship seemed to require; and Gregory suspected that he had been dishonestly treated by Basil. After Basil’s election, Gregory wrote him a congratulatory letter—a friendly letter certainly, but somewhat cool, compared with former letters. He therein informs the newly-elected bishop, that he would not visit him as yet, that he might not seem to obtrude himself upon him, and so provoke envy, (both of them having already to put up with envy and enemies enough,) and also least it should be thought that Basil intended to assemble all his friends and adherents about him. When, however, Gregory soon after heard that Basil was already involved in difficulties and disputes, (probably with the temporal authorities, who acted agreeably to the wishes of the Arian emperor,) he again wrote to him with the heartiness of old times, and promised him an early visit, in order either to give Lim counsel and consolation, or at least to be a sympathizing witness of his patience and courageous efforts.

Nevertheless, the good understanding between them was not thereby fully re-established; rather, an occasion now first arose for a still more painful interruption of it. The province of Cappadocia had hitherto formed a whole, as well in civil as in ecclesiastical relations; the chief civil officer was, ordinarily, the imperial deputy, residing in Caesarea; the first ecclesiastic, the bishop of Caesarea. About this time the Emperor Valens divided Cappadocia into two provinces, one of which had Caesarea, and the other Tyana, for its chief city. Anthimus, the bishop of Tyana, a worldly-minded, ambitious man, laid claim to the same ecclesiastical dignity as was granted to Caesarea, and declared himself to he the legitimate Metropolitan of the Second Cappadocia. Basil, the bishop of Caesarea, on the other hand, would not give up aught of his ancient rights, and insisted that the civil division of the province could not properly be applied to ecclesiastical relations. During the melancholy contentions about this point, (which occasionally degenerated, on the part of Anthimus, into acts of violence and robbery,) Basil, in order to assert by the act his metropolitan claim, and to strengthen his party, instituted several new bishoprics in the smaller cities of Cappadocia; among others, in the little town of Sasima, situated between Nazianzum and Tyana, thirty-two miles from the former place, not quite so far from the latter, and properly belonging to the pro­vince of Tyana. This new bishopric now actually became a stone of offence in its influence on the friendship of Basil and Gregory.

 

GREGORY BECOMES BISHOP OF SASIMA; AND AFTERWARDS COADJUTOR TO HIS FATHER AT NAZIANZUM.

 

Basil had fifty bishops under him; to one of these of the lowest pretensions, or to some more unimportant presbyter, he might have transferred the new bishopric;  for the appointment was of a kind which seemed suited to an individual who could not possibly have any claims or expectations elsewhere. Independent of the fact, that the little town was a bone of contention between the two chief bishops of Cappadocia, it was most disagreeably situated, in a melancholy, arid, waterless tract of country. In this unproductive neighbourhood, men breathed everywhere only dust. Three high roads here crossed each other, a circumstance which brought thither troops of waggoners and soldiers, and, consequently, incessant noise and quarrelling. Of the inhabitants of this little town very few were, properly speaking, domiciled there; the greatest number, as waggoners and the like, led a wandering sort of life. They would therefore probably be persons on whom spiritual labourers could not hope to make much impression. And, lastly (as Gregory does not omit to mention), the revenues of this wretched place were so limited, that a bishop might not always have been in a condition to exercise the virtues of benevolence and hospitality, so essential to his character.

Now in this melancholy place Basil wished to place his friend Gregory, though he had always declined to accept any ecclesiastical office, and at all events might have been thought worthy (according to ordinary judgment) of a more respectable bishopric. Could Basil, after having reached the summit of spiritual power in his native city, have intended, in this offer, to mortify a little the friend of his youth, for not having supported him, according to his wishes, at the critical moment of the episcopal election? Gregory certainly so took it. He saw in this conduct of Basil unfriendly pride and spiritual arrogance, and could not for a long time entirely forgive him, for obtruding upon him this insignificant bishopric. The new Metropolitan of Caesarea had, however, other, though not very reasonable motives for forcing his friend, above all others, into this appointment. It was one of the places, about the spiritual supervision of which the Bishops of Caesarea and Tyana were contending; and Basil, doubtless, thought he could not maintain his rights more certainly than by placing in this post a highly respected individual, and entirely devoted to his interests. For this purpose, Gregory seemed to him the best qualified. So far was he from wishing to mortify his friend in this matter, or looking upon it in that light, that he rather considered Gregory’s conduct in resisting his requisition as an instance of wilful coldness and indolence. Thus the two friends were for a long time estranged, whilst neither of them was sufficiently self-denying to enter candidly into the views and motives of the other.

Basil actually came to Nazianzum for the purpose of consecrating Gregory as Bishop of Sasima. The united entreaties of bis father and his friend at length overcame Gregory, and he accepted the appointment, disagreeable as it was to him. The discourse which he delivered on this occasion (probably in the church at Nazianzum), in the presence of his father and several other bishops, begins with these words:—‘Once more in the rite of consecration has the Holy Spirit been poured out upon me, and once more I enter upon my calling sad and downcast.’ He then confesses that the call of the Spirit had terrified rather than cheered him, and that he might have required some time to recover from the surprise. He was ready, however, to surrender himself to the demands of the Spirit, and would devote himself entirely to promote the benefit of the community.

The untoward circumstances under which Gregory was appointed bishop of Sasima soon showed their natural result. Anthimus of Tyana would not acknowledge the election, and expressed himself with much harshness against Gregory. He even came thereupon to Nazianzum, attended by some bishops, under the pretence of visiting Gregory the father, but, in fact, to bring over the son, by soft or harsh words, by flattery, or by threats, to acknowledge him as his metropolitan. But Anthimus was obliged to give up the matter as a failure, and was in such a state of irritation at his de­parture, that he reproached the younger Gregory as a traitor to the interests of the Church. Still, at last, Anthimus wished to make use of him as a mediator between him and Basil, by consenting to which, Gregory again got into difficulties with Basil; so that the un­fortunate bishop of Sasima could at last find no escape, till, full of disgust at these ecclesiastical irregularities and divisions, he made his escape into solitary retire­ment.

It is indeed a matter of doubt whether Gregory ever actually betook himself to Sasima, and entered upon the discharge of episcopal duties there. It is nowhere ex­pressly mentioned. And, in point of fact, a doubt may be entertained as to the validity of the election, inasmuch as it rested upon Basil alone, and had not received full power and sanction, either from a declaration of the provincial bishops, or from the Christian community at Sasima.

It is generally assumed that the only reason for which Gregory gave up this bishopric was mortified ambition; and he himself has given occasion for this view of his conduct, while he speaks so contemptuously of Sasima, as if it were quite beneath his dignity to go thither as bishop; certainly a very unevangelical senti­ment, if it were the sole motive of his evasion. Let us not, however, overlook his solemn asseverations, that, from his deeply-rooted inclination to a calm, contemplative life, he at that time experienced an inward opposition when he thought of undertaking an ecclesiastical office, with all its various duties; an opposition which, in this case, must have amounted almost to a feeling of horror, when he reflected that that office would at the same time involve him in the disputes of two jealous bishops. This disinclination towards ecclesiastical, active employment, ought not to be called mere indolence: a fondness for solitude and contemplation was innate in him, and had been confirmed by education. He might, perhaps, have overcome it, had not the prevailing idea of the age at the same time pointed out to him the life which so entirely harmonized with his natural bias, as also the most honourable and the holiest. And, lastly, we at least may ask: Was not Gregory, then, worthy of a more distinguished post than this poor, unquiet bishopric, doomed as it was to be an apple of discord? Could he not work more effectively al some other place than at a mere outpost against Anthimus, among the rough inhabitants of Sasima?

From this see of Sasima, Gregory had escaped to a solitary mountain range. His father persecuted him with most urgent entreaties to take possession of the post assigned to him. The son steadily resisted. But when now his aged father suppliantly besought him to come to Nazianzum, and share the episcopal duties there with him, Gregory could no longer resist the appeal of paternal love. His presence was the more necessary to his father, since, under the rule of Valens (who, shortly before, had made a violent attack on the orthodox Churches of those eastern parts), there was so much of struggle and contention. Gregory therefore (a.d. 372) returned to his old connexions, and at his entrance into the Church there, delivered a remarkable oration, which very clearly represents to us his then tone of thought:

‘Come to my assistance,’ he says to his audience, ‘for I am almost torn in pieces by an inward longing, struggling with the call of the Spirit. That longing urges me to flight, to the solitude of the mountains, to repose of soul and body, to the withdrawal of the mind from all objects of sense, and to a retirement into myself, in order to converse uninterruptedly with God, and to be thoroughly penetrated by the bright beams of his Spirit. But his Holy Spirit strives to bring me into active life, in order to promote the common good, and promote my own interest by promoting that of others, to spread the light of the Gospel, and to bring unto God ‘a peculiar people (Titus, ii. 14), a holy nation, a royal priesthood’ (1 Peter, ii. 9), and to restore in many his image in renovated purity. For as a whole garden is more than a single plant; as the whole heaven, with all its beauties, is more glorious than one only star, and the whole body is superior to one of its members—so also, before God, the whole well-regulated Church is better than a well-ordered individual; and we ought always ‘to mind not only our own things, but also the things of others.’ This is what Christ himself has done, who, though he might have continued in the enjoyment of his own dignity in his divine nature, not only lowered himself to the form of a servant, but also, despising the shame, submitted to death upon the cross, that by his passion Le might blot out our sins, and by his death destroy death’.

 In the sequel of the discourse, the orator explains how it seems to him the safest way to allow something to that longing after contemplative solitude, and yet to follow the suggestions of that Spirit which had stirred him up, and was drawing him to the duties of active life. With this view, he would neither shun altogether the holy service of the Church, nor yet take on himself a burthen which his shoulders might not he able to bear. He therefore professes himself ready to share the superintendence of the Church with his father; while he modestly adds, that he would endeavour to follow the path of that powerful, high-soaring eagle, as became a not dissimilar descendant.

 

MISFORTUNES IN THE FAMILY OF GREGORY.

 

The thread of the narrative has thus far been purposely continued, in order that the occurrences just related might stand in their true and unbroken connexion. But we must now again turn back our view, and, for the sake of completeness, fill up some omissions in his family history. We have to say something, first of all, respecting the brother of Gregory.

Caesarius had, as we have related, retired from court to the bosom of his family, on Julian’s commencement of the Persian campaign. After Julian’s death, however, he returned to the palace, and was loaded with honours by the two successive emperors, Jovian and Valens. The latter even gave him a state, appointment, probably the treasurership of Bithynia. The city of Nicaea, where he resided, was (a.d. 368) visited, and in a great measure destroyed, by a fearful earthquake, the most violent that had ever been remembered. Caesarius was one of the few inhabitants who saved their lives, yet not without personal injury and a considerable loss of property. Gregory and Basil took advantage of this occasion to persuade one so dear to them, and one who had just been delivered from impending death, to re­nounce a worldly life and the service of the State altogether, and to live in retirement for his soul’s health only. Caesarius also felt convinced that divine aid had rescued him from the danger, and resolved to devote the rest of his life to the God who had protected him. But soon after, as he was intending to return into private life, in order to carry out that resolution, a mortal sickness surprised him, in the year 368, or in the beginning of 369. He had, however, been baptized shortly before his death. Gregory lost in his brother an affectionate friend, and had been, in return, reverenced by Caesarius as a father. They had been reci­procally serviceable to each other: Caesarius had always removed as much as possible from Gregory the cares and troubles of external life; and, in his turn, received from him higher and spiritual benefits. The pain which the death of Caesarius occasioned Gregory was heightened still more by the circumstances which attended it. The unmarried Caesarius had bequeathed all his property, probably of considerable value, to the poor. Gregory, when he wished to execute his brother’s last wishes, found that certain artful persons had gotten possession of the property. He complains thereof very touchingly in an epistle (among others) addressed to the governor, Sophronius, of whom he demands help and justice. ‘The excellent and accomplished Caesarius,’ (he says,) ‘who once had so many friends, and was also a friend of yours, lies now in death, friendless, forsaken, an object of pity, hardly thought worthy of a little myrrh, or, if that be bestowed upon his corpse, scarcely covered with a miserable shroud. Truly it is a great thing, if even thus much of compassion is shown to him! His enemies, however, have (as I hear) fallen upon him, and have violently torn to pieces his property among themselves, or are on the point of doing so; and there is no one to restrain them. I beseech you, then, do not tolerate such doings, but rather share in our grief and anger, and approve yourself as indeed a friend of the deceased Caesarius!’ What effects this epistle produced, as, indeed, what was the general issue of the affair, is unknown to us.

When, at a subsequent time, the earthly remains of Caesarius were transferred to the tombs of the martyrs, even his mother, Nonna, joined the procession, not in robes of mourning, but in the white garments of festive joy. She thus acknowledged the Christian import of death as a birth into a higher state of existence, and drowned her grief in holy songs and psalms. For the alleviation of his own grief, and in order to honour the memory of the deceased, Gregory, on this occasion, dedicated to his brother a laudatory oration, from which we extract some of those passages which, perhaps, gave especial occasion for the honour paid to Caesarius as one of the saints. He vows to his brother’s memory an annual festival, so long as any one of the family should live; and then proceeds: ‘But thou, O holy and heavenly spirit, canst walk at large in heaven, and repose in that bosom of Abraham, in which that intermediate happiness consists. Thou art permitted to see the well-ordered ranks of angels, and the radiant splendour of departed saints; or rather, thou canst thyself join their joyous choirs, and rejoice with them, looking down with a smile upon all things here below; upon the so-called riches of the world, its cast-off honours, its delusive glory; upon the seductive pleasures of sense; upon the stormy scene of life, with its confusion and uncertainty, like a battle by night; upon all this thou canst smile, while thou standest by the side of the great King, and art illuminated by the light which beameth forth from Him. O that even here we might catch some slight ray from that divine light (as far as can be seen in this frail mirror and its faint representations) till we one day attain to the source of eternal good, and with purged sense recognising the pure truth, shall there receive that more perfect possession, and that purer view of Good, as a reward for our pains and efforts in pursuit of it here below. For this it is, which the Scriptures and those who are most conversant with divine things hold out to us as the end and object of our Christian initiation.’

About the same time, or somewhat later, Gregory lost also his sister Gorgonia, whom in like manner he honoured, after her death, with a laudatory oration. He delineates to us this diligent housewife and pious Christian in a manner entirely resembling the character of his mother. We content ourselves (while we refer our readers to the more complete description of her in the funeral discourse) with giving, in lieu of all else, a short narrative of her death, which at once proved how she had walked with God. She had long before felt a desire ‘to depart and be with Jesus.’ This longing for death produced in her a presentiment of its approach, and (as Gregory relates) even a distinct anticipation of the time when it would take place? Although her whole life had been a continued course of sanctification, yet, according to the custom of the age, she did not receive the outward sign thereof—baptism—till near the close of her life. When the day approached on which she had anticipated her death, she prepared herself as for a festival, assembled round her bed her husband, her children, and friends, and, after cheering conversation upon a better state of existence, took leave of them. All of them (even her aged mother) stood in silent sorrow round her dying bed.

It was as if some holy solemnity were being celebrated. A spirit of calmness and devotion brooded upon all of them. The dying saint seemed no longer to breathe, and every one supposed her to be dead. Once more, however, her lips moved, and breathed forth, with the energy of the spirit, the words of a pious song of praise. She died with the words of the fourth Psalm on her lips—‘I will lay me down in peace and take my rest.’

 

THE PUBLIC LIFE AND LABOURS OF GREGORY, AS COADJUTOR TO HIS FATHER AT NAZIANZUM.

 

Gregory had undertaken the responsibility of acting as his father’s coadjutor in the episcopal duties, on condition that after his father’s decease he should again be free from those duties. He was very diligent in this office, and came forward as an orator on occasions of im­portance and difficulty. Many of his addresses at this period are extant, and may here be noticed, in order to show the various directions in which his exertions were applied.

One of the first public matters which the new bishop, Gregory, transacted, was the introduction of Eulalius in the place of an expelled heretical bishop into the see of Doare, a little city in the Second Cappadocia. He made on this occasion a short but judicious oration, in which he especially exhorts to peace and harmony the community, which had been agitated by internal com­motions, and threatened with evils from without. He hopes the best from the exertions of the new bishop, whom he describes as an excellent and well-tried pastor, while lie also prepares him to expect great difficulties. Encouraging are the words which he addresses to him: ‘Approach now, thou best and most faithful of shepherds, and receive thy people with us and for us; thy people, whom the Holy Ghost giveth into thy hand, whom the holy angels here lead to thee, and who are entrusted to thee because of thy well-approved life. But if thou ascendest the episcopal chair through trials and obstacles, be not surprised thereat. Nothing great is given to us without trial and without suffering. For, in the nature of things, that which is low is easy, that which is high is difficult to acquire. Thou hast heard it said that ‘we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ And do thou also say, We went through fire and water, but Thou broughtest us out and refreshedst us.’ O the wondrous mercy! ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’ Let the contentious imagine vain things, and open their mouths, like dogs who bark at us without cause. We will not strive with them. But teach thou to worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, in three persons, of equal honour and majesty. ‘Seek for them that are lost,’ strengthen the weak, preserve those who are strong. Take thy chief weapons from the armoury of the great leaders of the Church, wherewith thou mayest ‘quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one,’ and present unto God ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,’ in Christ Jesus our Lord.’—1 Peter, II. 9

This appointment to the Bishopric of Doare was ac­companied with some peculiar circumstances. In those unquiet times, as we have already seen from many examples, the bishops were not always chosen in the regular way. Here, also, in a Church that was disturbed within and without, from which a (probably) Arian bishop had been just ejected, Gregory, and also his father (who maintained great authority among the Cappadocian bishops), appear to have sanctioned an extraordinary mode of proceeding. For, according to all appearance, Eulalius was instituted, not only without the presence of Basil, the Metropolitan of Cappadocia, but even before he had communicated his approbation of the choice. To this refers a passage of the oration where Gregory says,—‘I am not come hither to exhibit any disrespect towards the great shepherd who presides over that splendid city. I know his worth, I acknowledge him as my chief, I call him holy and reverend, even when I have been unfairly dealt with. Only let him love his children, and care for the whole Church. My wish was to increase the number of God’s priests, not to diminish it; to extirpate heretics, not to weaken the orthodox.’ Probably the Bishopric of Doare would not have been filled up by Basil with sufficient speed at a very critical point of time; and Gregory, relying upon their old friendship, thought that he would allow a (perhaps) necessary encroachment on his privilege for the good of the Church. That Eulalius was not forced upon the Church of Doare, but was wished for by the same—at least, by a great part of the community— appears plainly from the circumstances themselves, and from the oration of Gregory.

To this period probably belongs a discourse of greater length, in which he recommends beneficence towards the poor. This speech is supposed by the older, as well as the later commentators upon Gregory, to have been delivered in an infirmary of a highly beneficial character, established near Caesarea by Basil. He could not, however, have spoken it in the extended form in which we now have it, since it resembles rather an essay, on which great pains were bestowed by Gregory, in order to animate the public mind to active benevolence, than an oration intended to be delivered viva voce. The treatise, as might be expected from its subject, is of a practical character; it contains many warm and feeling passages, but it is also here and there, unhappily, overloaded with rhetorical display, false ornament, and exaggerated figures, so that those very places where the composer thought he had succeeded best, cannot but fail of effect upon the simple, unsophisticated reader. The best part was, that Gregory (as well as his parents, and especially bis mother) always recommended love for the poor and active benevolence even more by deed and the living influence of example, than by fair words and rhetorical arguments.

Unfortunate events of a public nature also gave oc­casion for some remarkable orations of Gregory, which are still extant. The district of Nazianzum was about this time visited with a fearful drought, attended in its results with a destructive murrain, and concluded, as it appears, with a ruinous hail-storm. The elder Gregory, weighed down with years, and deeply afflicted by the public calamity, was not in a condition to console and strengthen his downcast children. In compliance with the general wish, therefore, his sou came forward, in order to treat of this remarkable combination of misfortunes in a religious light, as divine visitations.’ Gregory begins this characteristic oration with the inquiry, ‘Whence, then, come these inflictions, these occasions of distress? and what is the cause of them? Is it a disorderly and irregular movement of the universe, a progress without a guide, a blind, unreasoning impulse, as if there were no one who presides over the whole, and chance (like an automaton) brought it all to pass, as the foolish wise ones suppose, and those who are themselves impelled, without thought or reflection, by a gloomy and disordered mind? Or, as the universe was originally formed, blended together, and compacted by reason and order, as its movements are well regulated in a manner known only to the impelling Mind, even so is the universe altered and otherwise ordered, under the guidance and control of a super­intending Providence?’ The orator of course declares himself in favour of the latter view, while he firmly maintains the fact of the ever-active influence and guidance of the divine love and wisdom in all' the concerns and relations of the universe.

Gregory sees in every misfortune an immediate appointment of God, and it is his main object to bring the mind of his hearers to look upon this as a means of edification and sanctification, and to think little of transient earthly evil, when set against the eternal blessings, which even thereby are brought the nearer, and made the surer to them. He represents the calamities which hang over men as certainly, in part, a punishment, but also, and most especially, a proof of God's love, and for the improvement of sinners, who are thereby called to repentance and conversion. How elevating, in this view, is his confession of unworthiness, and his prayer for mercy! ‘O Lord, we have sinned, we have been ungodly, and have dealt unrighteously in all thy commandments.’ We have behaved ourselves un­worthily of our calling, and of the gospel of Christ, un­worthily of his holy passion, and of the humiliation to which he submitted for our sakes. We have been a reproach to thy dear Son. We have fallen away from Thee, Priests and people alike. ‘We have all gone aside from the right way; we have altogether become abominable; there is none that doeth good; no, not one.’ We have cut ourselves off from thy loving mercy; we have excluded ourselves from the tender pity of our God, through the greatness of our sins and the baseness of our councils. Thou art kind, but we have done wickedly. Thou art long suffering, but we are worthy of stripes. We acknowledge thy goodness towards us, even when we are foolish and ungrateful. We have only been too little scourged for the greatness of our sins.’ And again: ‘Assuredly it were better if we required no such purgation, and had not, but now, undergone this cleansing process; it were better if our original dignity had been continued to us, for the recovery of which we labour by means of our earthly course of training; and if we had not forfeited the tree of life through the bitter pleasures of sin. But it is also better that sinners should thus be brought to turn back to the right path, than that the fallen should not be chastised, and thereby disciplined and trained for better things. For ‘whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,’ and such punishment is a proof of fatherly regard. The soul which is not admonished and corrected is also not healed of its sin. To be chastened, therefore, is not sad; but not to be made wise by chastisement, that is indeed the saddest of all!

At another time, a still greater evil seems to have threatened the inhabitants of Nazianzum. They had drawn upon themselves (from what cause we know not) the violent displeasure of the imperial lieutenant, or military commander of the province. The citizens were greatly alarmed, and betook themselves to their spiritual ruler for counsel. He delivered an oration, for the pur­pose of calming the minds of both parties, of strengthening his frightened congregation, and of appeasing the irritated imperial officer. The fearless honesty and dignity with which Gregory, in his character of bishop, addresses the great man of the world, is a remarkable feature of this discourse. Amongst other things, he thus addresses the authorities who were present (probably with a military escort) in the church: ‘But will ye receive my frankness of speech? The law of Christ, indeed, subjects you to my spiritual power—to my judgment-seat. For we also exercise authority; nay, I will go farther,—we have a higher and fuller authority. Or shall the spirit yield to the flesh, the heavenly to the earthly? Thou, therefore, 1 am sure, wilt also take my freedom in good part, because thou art a holy sheep of my holy flock, a follower of the great Shepherd, because thou hast been led by the holy spirit into the right way, and hast been enlightened, even as we are, by the light of the holy and blessed Trinity. With Christ as thy helper thou governest, with Christ thou dischargest the duties of thy office; from Him thou receivedst thy sword, not for actual use, but only in terrorem. O, then, keep it as a pure offering, dedicated to Him who gave it to thee! Thou art an image of God, but thou rulest also over those who bear impressed upon them God’s image. Respect, then, this relationship; reverence the great Original in that image; take part with God, not with the prince of this world; with the merciful ruler, not with the cruel tyrant. Imitate God’s love for man, for to do good is the highest exercise of all that is divine in maa. Thou canst now without labour attain to the divine; neglect not this apt occasion of god-like action.’

The address of Gregory appears not to have failed of its object.

 

THE DEATH OF THE ELDER GREGORY AND HIS WIFE, NONNA : THE YOUNGER GREGORY RETIRES TO SELEUCIA.

 

The instances above given show that Gregory was no unworthy or inefficient coadjutor to his father. Now, however, the time was come that the aged bishop (who was very nigh his hundredth year, who had been forty-five years in the priesthood, had discharged the duties of his office faithfully, and had maintained many struggles, especially under the government of Julian and of Valens) should go to his rest. His labours ended in a painful and tedious sickness, during which, religion and its means of grace formed his sole support. He died praying. He left to his son the best inheritance, a lengthened series of good deeds, and the unbounded love and esteem of his congregation. The most enduring and noblest monument which his son could devote to his memory was the funeral oration in which he com­memorated his virtues. Stone and brass would by this time have broken in pieces and crumbled away, or have been trampled under foot without respect by the bar­barians of those parts; but this oration will be read and admired as long as Greek literature remains.

It is certainly one of the best of the remaining orations of Gregory, full of child-like love for both his parents, full of friendship for Basil, who had come to Nazianzum for the purpose of consoling his friend, and was present at the delivery of the oration. The aged Gregory died, probably, in the spring of 374, and the oration was spoken several months afterwards. The mother, Nonna, was then still living, since she is addressed by her son in a very consolatory and elevating manner: ‘Life and death, my mother (as man calls them), though they seem to be widely different, yet pass the one into the other, and take each the place of the other. For life begins from corruption, our common mother; it passes on through a process of corruption, since the present is ever being torn away from us; and it also ends with corruption,—that is, with the dis­solution of this present life. But as to death, which gives a release from present evils, and conducts to a higher state of existence,—I know not whether we should properly call it death, since it is more formidable in name than in reality. Indeed, we seem to think and to feel quite unreasonably, when we fear that which is not to be dreaded, but strive (as for a more desirable object) after that which deserves rather to be feared. There is only one life, and that is, to live with a constant view to the divine life. There is only one death, and that is sin. For sin is the destruction of the soul. But everything else, on account of which so many pride themselves, is but a dreamy vision; it cheats us out of the truth, like a seductive phantom of the soul. When we have learnt to think thus, O my mother, then shall we not feel elated on account of life, nor alarm ourselves on account of death. For what that is really bad can we be said to suffer, if we can but force our way from hence to the true life; if at length, being set free from this world’s vicissitudes, from all its worry and weariness, from all attachment and subjection to wickedness and meanness, we shall there be admitted to things eternal and unchangeable, revolving like lesser lights round the great source of light!’

These words of the son, addressed to his mother, whose whole life had already been a preparation for death, look like a special memento of her own approach­ing end. According to all probability, the aged Nonna did not long survive her husband. Her death was, in its attendant circumstances, worthy of her life. Without being bowed down by sickness or age, she went one day to pray in the church; here, in the edifice which her husband had, in great measure, built, and before the altar at which he, as a faithful pastor, had so long served, her end surprised her. She had just taken firm hold of the altar with one hand, and suppliantly raised the other towards heaven, with the words, ‘Be merciful unto me, O Christ, my King!’ when her vital power failed, and her body sank down lifeless before the altar. She also was generally mourned for, especially by the widows, orphans, and the poor, whose comfort and support she had so long been. Her body was buried near the tombs of the martyrs, by the side of her busband. Gregory, who had loved his mother with singular affection, and never forgot how much he owed to her domestic, and especially her spiritual care, honoured his deceased parent by a series of little poems, wherein he extolled her piety and her beautiful end. In one of these he says: ‘Weep, mortals, for the race of mortals; but when any one dies like Nonna, in the act of prayer, then I weep not.’

By his father’s death, Gregory was released from the obligation of administering the episcopal duties of Nazianzum. He urged the bishops of the province to fill up the appointment; he called their attention to the fact, that he had never been instituted by regular election as Bishop of Nazianzum; that it had much rather been his object to exonerate himself from all such responsibilities and public engagements, and to withdraw again into a life of solitude. Nevertheless, the memory of his father, and affection for a Church deprived of so excellent a bishop, called upon him not to leave the same all at once in this bereaved state. Gregory, therefore, still retained for a time the supervision of the Nazianzen Church, without making himself liable to the formal acceptance of the bishopric. This superintendence, however, must have been the more oppressive to Gregory, since about this time his already shattered health was tried by an illness of a particularly dangerous character. He seems to have been laid, as it were, upon his death-bed; for he was so weak, that he was not even allowed to see by his bed­side a man who was particularly respected by him—Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata, who at that time was obliged, as a zealous defender of the Nicene Creed, to wander in banishment to Thrace. On his recovery, Gregory determined positively to leave Nazianzum; and in order that he might not be hindered in his purpose by urgent entreaties, he withdrew himself from his native city without communicating anything on the subject even to his friends, he betook himself (a.d. 375) to Seleucia, in Isauria, a town of which he particularly celebrates, as a remarkable feature, a famous church, dedicated to St. Theckla. He probably sojourned in the precincts of this Parthenon, as he calls the church.

In this step of Gregory’s, his dislike of the prevailing disputes in the Church, his disinclination to public employment, his love for contemplative solitude, com­bined with the then increasing sickliness of his body, contributed to produce a determination which cannot, indeed, be quite approved, though it may be excused; least of all is it to be deduced from an arrogant under­valuing of the humble see of Nazianzum.

For the purpose of enjoying contemplative repose and refreshment, Gregory had withdrawn to Seleucia. But ecclesiastical concerns followed him even thither, since he was obliged to give counsel, consolation, and support to many places, during the disputes and oppressions that took place under Valens. His residence in Seleucia continued probably till the year 379 ) and it is to be supposed that he there received the painful intelligence of the death of his fondly-beloved Basil, who, amidst the not-to-be-restrained crowding of the people of Caesarea, had departed with the words of our Lord,— ‘Into thy hands I commend my spirit.’ The friendship between him and Gregory had certainly been disturbed by the circumstances of life; they had at one time mistaken and misunderstood each other, and their displeasure was the more bitter, because they loved so truly in the bottom of their hearts. They soon, however, came to themselves, and friend again acknowledged in his friend the better and genuine part of his character. What affectionate sentiments Gregory cherished towards his beloved Basil, even after his death, is shown not only by several epistles, but most particularly by an oration delivered at the tomb of Basil, two years afterwards, at Caesarea, in which the most devoted fidelity and veneration for his departed friend are eloquently expressed. Gregory also expresses his grief very strongly in an epistle to Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of the deceased: ‘This trial also was reserved for me, in this unhappy life, to hear of the death of Basil and the departure of that blessed spirit, which has only gone from, us in order to go to the Lord, after a whole life spent in preparation for that event. And now, in addition to other sorrows, a severe and dangerous illness, from which I am at this time suffering, has still denied me the gratification of kissing his holy ashes, of staying with you, his counterpart, and of consoling our common friends.’

Gregory, who had been a sufferer in mind and body, appears especially at this time to have been often in a very melancholy mood. A short epistle to his friend Eudoxius, the rhetorician (which, without a doubt, belongs to this period), gives us a complete insight into his dejected state of mind. ‘You inquire how f am; I answer, Very ill. I no longer have Basil, no longer Caesarius—the one my spiritual, the other my natural brother. I may say, too, with David, ‘My father and my mother have forsaken me.’ My body is sickly; age shows itself on my head; my cares grow more complicated; business accumulates upon me; friends prove untrue; the Church is without shepherds; good is disappearing; evil presents itself barefaced. We are journeying in the night; there is nowhere a torch to give us light; Christ sleepeth. What, then, is to be done? Alas! there is only one escape for me from these evils, and that is death! But that which lies beyond would also affrighted me, were I obliged to judge of it from my feelings on this side the grave.’

 

THIRD.

GREGORY’S PUBLIC LABOURS AT CONSTANTINOPLE, TILL HIS RETURN TO HIS NATIVE COUNTRY—FROM A.D. 879 TO 38 ; THERE­FORE, FROM ABOUT HIS FORTY-NINTH TO HIS FIFTY-FIRST YEAR.

 

CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW

The date at which Gregory went to Constantinople cannot be quite exactly determined. It was. at all events, in the year 379, when the Arian party was still dominant there. He himself informs us that his residence in Constanti­nople was extended to the third year; and as he left that city in the summer of 381, he must have gone thither in 379. At the commencement of this year (Jan. 19, a.d. 379), Theodosius, then thirty-three years of age, and devoted to the Nicene confession of faith, was raised to the Imperial throne. The prospects, therefore, of the adherents of that creed in the East were become favourable. Their hopes already reached their fulfilment, when (on February 28, 380) Theodosius published the celebrated edict in favour of the Nicene rule of faith, and against all the anti-Nicene parties; probably the same day on which he was baptized at Thessalonica by the orthodox bishop, Acholius. On the 24th of November, Theodosius came to Constantinople. On the 26th, he ejected the Arians from all the churches of the capital, and gave them to the orthodox Catholics. On the 10th of January, 381, there followed a new edict against Arians, Eunomians, and Photianists.

Finally, to complete his regulations, Theodosius called together a general assembly of the Church at Constantinople, which commenced its sittings in May, 381. Not long after this commencement, Gregory resigned the bishopric of the capital, which he had just formally received. He appears to have been still at Constantinople on the 31st of May, but he may have left it soon after. The synod ended on the 9th of July, 381; and now, on the 19th, on the 30th of July (and on subsequent days), the emperor published a series of laws against those whom that meeting had condemned as heretics.

 

THE STATE OF RELIGION AND OF THE CHURCH AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

 

Just as Gregory had now withdrawn himself, as he thought, into calm retirement, the call of Providence conducted him to an ampler stage of action than any he had as yet entered upon. He was neither allowed to give himself to the enjoyment of solitary contemplation, nor to grieve for the dear ones he had lost, nor to longings after death, but was now, for the first time, to be drawn out into active life, and exert himself actively and influentially therein. The wish of a not very numerous Christian community, which, amidst all the previous acts of oppression, had remained firmly attached to the Nicene confession of faith, called our Gregory from his retirement at Seleucia to Constantinople, the then capital of the Roman empire. He complied with that call, although (as a glance at the then state of that city, especially in a religious point of view, may easily prove) the prospect was by no means inviting.

The splendid city, ‘around which’ (as Gregory says) ‘sea and land emulously contend, in order to load it with all their best gifts, and to crown her as the queen of cities,’ had been already, during the governments of several emperors, the storehouse of all the riches and all the magnificence of life from the three known quarters of the world. This new Rome strove to raise itself in external splendour above the old city, and already almost surpassed it in the love of pleasure, which had been fostered by a corrupt court; for Julian had in vain sought to bring back the simple habits of ancient Rome. To the inhabitants of Constantinople, as well as to the Romans of later days, the first want was, ‘Bread and public amusements’ (panis et Circenses). Races, the theatre, the chase, contests with wild beasts, public processions, exhibitions of oratory, had, in their turn, become a sort of necessaries of life for persons of all conditions; so that Gregory might well say there was much reason to fear that the first of cities would become a city of mere triflers.

Even religious matters, like everything else, had become, to this idle, hollow state of mind, objects of jesting and amusement. That which belonged to the theatre was introduced into the church, and things that belonged to the church were, in return, adapted to the theatre. The best feelings of Christianity were not unfrequently submitted in comedies to the scornful laugh of the multitude. ‘We are become (says Gregory) a new spectacle, not to men and angels (like St. Paul, the noblest of all combatants, while he wrestled with the powerful and the mighty), but to well-night all the ungodly—and this in the market-places, at drinking­parties, in scenes of enjoyment, and even of mourning. We are already brought upon the stage, and (I must say it, though almost with tears) are made subjects for vulgar laughter in company with the most profligate of men.’ Nay, there is hardly any gratification for the eye and ear so popular as a Christian exposed to mockery and insult in a comedy!’ And in another passage:  My tragedy has become a comedy to the enemy; for they have taken not a little from our churches, in order to transfer it to the theatre; especially in the city, which is quite as ready to jest at divine things as anything else, and had rather laugh at that which is to be revered, than leave unlaughed-at anything really ridiculous; so that I should wonder if they do not make me also a subject of laughter while I am thus addressing you this day.’ The Constantinopolitans so completely turned everything into a subject of light jesting, that earnest Truth was stripped of its value by its rival, Wit, and that which was holy became, in the refined conversation of men of the world, a subject for raillery and jesting.

But, what was still worse, the unbridled fondness of these people for dissipated enjoyment threatened to turn the church into a theatre, and the preacher into an actor. If he wished to please the many, he was obliged to accommodate himself to their taste, and to entertain and amuse them in the church. They required, also, in the sermon, something to gratify the ear, glittering declamation, with a theatrical delivery; and they then applauded with the same sort of pleasure the actor in the holy place, and the histrionic performer on the stage. And alas! there were found, at that time also, too many who sought rather the approbation of men than the good of their souls. ‘How many do I find this day (says Gregory) who have undertaken the priestly office, but have artificially adorned the simple, artless piety of our religion, and introduced a new sort of secular oratory into the sanctuary and its holy ministrations, borrowed from the forum and the theatre! So that we have now, if I may so express myself, two stages, differing from each other only in this, that the one stands open to all, the other only to a few; the one is laughed at, the other is respected; the one is theatrical, the other clerical.’

The opposite views of the faith excited at that period, especially in Constantinople, a very general and lively interest, which was supported, and even directed by the court, though not always in the most commendable manner. It was, for the most part, not the interest of the heart, but of a sophistical and disputatious understanding, (if not something far meaner,) to which the controversy about points of faith served only for a pretext, in order to succeed in the outward views of avarice and ambition. Whilst the sanctifying and beatifying doctrines of the Gospel, which point to the conversion of the inner man, were suffered to lie inactive, every one, from the emperor to the beggar, occupied himself, with incredible earnestness, in the discussion of some few theoretical propositions, concerning which the Gospel communicates just so much as is beneficial to men’s minds, and necessary for salvation, and whose farther development, at all events, belongs rather to the schools than to everyday life. But the more violently these disputations were kindled, disturbing and dividing states, cities, and families, so much the more were the practical essentials of Christianity lost sight of. It seemed more important to maintain the doctrine of the Trinity than to love God with all the soul; to acknowledge the equality of the Son’s nature, than to follow after Him in humility and self-denial; to defend the personality of the Holy Ghost, than to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit—love, peace, righteousness. The party of the Eunomians, who had gained from their founder a remarkable skill in logic, certainly nourished the taste for religious controversy very particularly. But the evil was by no means confined to them; under the appearance of an interest in religion, an impatient, disputatious garrulity about points of faith, a passion for disputing and displaying wit, at the most ill-suited time and most improper place, had taken possession of most persons of all parties—a state of things which had its comic, and also its sad and serious side. In this latter relation it especially affected Gregory, who must have suffered much in consequence. He says: ‘It is come to such a pitch, that the entire market-place resounds with the speeches of heretics,’ every meal is spoilt by this chattering, ad nauseam; every festivity is turned thereby into mourning: while every mournful solemnity is almost robbed of its painful character by a still greater evil—this fierce altercation; so that even the women’s apartments, and the nurseries of simple childhood, are disturbed thereby, and the fair blossoms of modesty are nipped and spoilt by this premature training for disputation.’This is a sketch of the disturbing influence of this contentious spirit; it had, however, besides that, a fearfully destructive influence on all domestic and political relations. This bad effect is pointed out by Gregory in most lively colours in another passage—‘It is this,’ he says, ‘which has torn asunder the members of that one body—the Church; has set brothers at enmity; thrown cities into commotion; enraged citizens against each other; driven the people to take up arms; stirred up princes; separated priests from their people, and from each other; the people from their priests, and from one another; parents from their children, children from their parents; husbands from their wives, wives from their husbands. Everything which bears a holy name has been profaned; slaves and masters, pupils and teachers, old and young, have brought dishonour upon themselves and all the laws of veneration (that peculiar safeguard of virtue!) In lieu thereof, an insolent presumption is introduced as the highest law; and we are divided, not merely tribe against tribe, (as Israel of old,) but houses and families against each other; nay, almost every one is distracted within himself. And this is true of the whole world, the whole human race, as far as the heavenly doctrines of the Gospel have penetrated.’

In addition to these religious disputes there arose also political struggles, in the form of the serious wars maintained by the Roman empire against the Goths, so that this empire, in a very great degree, presented the appearance of a sea agitated by violent storms.

But the unhappy divisions by which, at that time, the Christians in general were distracted, showed themselves under a form peculiarly alarming in the very capital of the empire. Under the late governments different parties had, by turns, been patronized, but subsequently those in particular who, though entertaining different views from each other, yet agreed in this, that they impugned the Nicene rule of faith. Constantius had protected the Arian party; Julian, during his short government, all parties alike, (at least in appearance,) but only to oppress all. After Jovian’s early death, Valens succeeded to the supreme power in the eastern portion of the empire; and, with him, Arianism had even more favour than it had had with Constantius; for he did not merely protect it, but also sought, by revolting cruelties inflicted upon the friends of the Nicene decrees, to make it predominant. The orthodox Christians were now excluded from all churches and ecclesiastical property, and the Arians took possession of the same. Constantinople, however, still continued the arena of ecclesiastical contention and religious partizanship. In that great city, to which, together with some isolated good things, so much that was bad flowed in from all parts of the world, almost all parties had their adherents; but the following were the most remarkable. The Eunomians, professing an intellectual theology (which pretended to have completely explored the being of God by means of logical definitions), and after a strictly Arian fashion asserting the inequality of the Son to the Father, were very numerous in Constantinople, and injured the earnest, practical sense of religion chiefly by this, that they made use of the doctrines of Christianity exclusively as subjects for a disputatious logic. The Macedonians, who were attached to a semi­Arian notion of the equality of the natures in the Father and the Son, and, so far, approached nearer to the orthodox, were, at the same time, distinguished by a dignified earnestness of behaviour, and a monastic strictness of manner. They were themselves excluded from the possession of church property by the pure Arians, hut still they spread widely, partly in Constantinople itself, partly in the neighbouring districts of the Hellespont, Thrace, Bithynia, and Phrygia. The Novatians, outstepping the Macedonians in the strictness of their practical principles, had, at a former time, been on the point of uniting with the orthodox party, (from whom they did not differ on the main dogma in dispute, and with whom they experienced like oppression from the Arians,) had not the malevolent disposition of some party-leaders interposed as an obstacle. Thus they still remained separate, and therefore also increased the number of the opponents of orthodoxy. Lastly, the Apollinarians had also begun to establish themselves there in numbers. Their doctrine contradicted the confession of Christ’s true and perfect human nature, for that nature consists particularly of the faculty of reason (which they denied to Christ). There was also a report at that tune, as Gregory informs us, that an assembly of Apollinarian bishops would be held at Constantinople, with the view of elevating their doctrine of Christ’s nature int o general notice, and even of forcing it upon the Churches.

Through these different and daily increasing forms of opposition, the orthodox Church had come into a lamentable condition; and we cannot but wonder that the small band of her faithful members had not already melted away altogether, under the furious persecutions of their opponents, particularly of the pure Arians. From their ecclesiastical independence, and from their corporate existence in relation to the State, they had already been virtually ejected. They were held together only by brotherly love (which, alas! was often disturbed), and a common devotion to the same confession of faith. We cannot belter learn the condition of the orthodox Church community immediately before the arrival of Gregory, than from the description which he has given us; a description which we can so much the less consider exaggerated, as it is taken from an oration which he delivered in the presence of a large portion of the inhabitants of Constantinople, and before one hundred and fifty bishops. ‘This flock (he is speaking of his congregation) was once small and destitute, at least to the outward eye. Nay, it was hardly to be called a flock, but only a small trace, a remnant of a flock, without order, without an overseer, without coherence. They had neither free pastures, nor any regular fold, but they wandered about upon the hills, ‘in dens and caves of the earth’ (Hebrews, xi. 38), scattered here and there, tom and bruised; and if they found a bare support and scanty pasturage, they thought themselves fortunate to steal away again in safety.’

Such was the wretched, distracted state of the orthodox party at Constantinople, when Valens, the patron of Arianism, lost his life in the bloody battle against the Goths, near Adrianople, a.d. 378. Gratian, in consideration of the highly critical state of the empire, wished to share the troubles and dangers of government with an efficient colleague. For this purpose he chose Theodosius (at that time thirty-three years of age), who was called to the throne from his paternal estate in Spain, whither he had been banished. He entered upon the government of the East in the year 379, and from his ascending the throne commences a new and happy epoch for the hitherto oppressed orthodox party. Even in the capital of the Eastern empire (nay, there most especially), they now dared to form the best hopes; they only wanted a man who could stand with power and spirit at the head of their little band, supply them with a rallying-point, and procure them respect among the hostile parties. Could such an one be found, they dared to hope for victory; but not without a struggle, since the entire ecclesiastical power was in the hands of the Arians and the parties connected with them.

 

GREGORY COMES TO CONSTANTINOPLE, AND COLLECTS A CONGREGATION.

 

In this state of things, many members of the neglected community, and even some bishops (probably of the neighbourhood), turned their thoughts towards Gregory, whose fame was already spread widely in the East, and urgently requested him to come at this decisive moment to Constantinople. He allowed himself to be persuaded, though he assures us that, he went thither sorely against his wishes; nay, he even hints that they were obliged to use force to tear him from the retirement of his then residence. It was subsequently a subject of especial satisfaction to him to be able to attest that he had not, in the least, troubled himself about the charge of the Bishopric of Constantinople, but that he had been called, nay, forced to go, and had only come thither from a sense of duty and the impulse of the Spirit.

Gregory appeared unexpectedly in Constantinople, and the impression which he at first made upon the people was not favourable to him. He came to defend a faith which was still rejected with passionate earnestness by most of them. He was a pious and an eloquent man, but he had never taken any pains to make himself agreeable and commanding by attention to externals; and he had to make his public appearance before a city which did not regard even the most precious stone, if it had not been previously polished. They wanted a showy orator, full of power and grace, and there came to them instead a man already grown old. bent with infirmity, his eye downcast, his head bald, his features full of indications of inward struggle and outward privations; clad, moreover, in miserable apparel. This man, they could see plainly, came not from the polished society of a distinguished city, but from the country, and some remote comer! He looked almost like an outcast or a beggar, without goods and chattels; and yet this man was now to commence the struggle with different parties, far superior in might and in numbers. Such an enterprise al least bespoke courage and trust in God.

On arriving at Constantinople, Gregory lodged with some relations, of whom we have no farther account. It was probably in that dwelling that the first meetings of the small body of the orthodox were held—still, however, in private, and not without danger from their persecuting opponents. The professors of the Nicene system of faith appear at first to have established here a private chapel, which by degrees was enlarged, and subsequently grew into a vast and celebrated church. It obtained the significant name of Anastasia, or the Church of the Resurrection, because the Nicene faith, which had lain for awhile in a death-like slumber, had here been raised up, and recovered fresh life and energy.

Gregory’s first business must have been, not so much to contend with opponents, as to unite firmly among themselves the members of his little congregation, and to lead them into the true path of the Christian life. He had, perhaps, been invited principally as an advocate for the Nicene creed, and, as we shall soon see, he responded to that call with brilliant success. But it was, notwithstanding, the weightiest object with him, so to lead those who were commended to his care into the true spirit of an active Christianity, that their faith might be proved and recommended by their lives. For they also who had now attached themselves to Gregory, were only too much accustomed to empty talking and disputing about points of faith. He for that reason repeatedly and powerfully reminded them, that this mischievous and God-forgetting talkativeness about divine things destroyed all genuine fear of God, and desecrated what was holy; and that there was only one way of the truly Christian life,—that of active piety in the fulfilment of God's commandments. And this consisted in tending upon the sick, assisting the poor, real hospitality, persevering prayer, devoted self-denial, temperance, subduing of the passions, and the like. Suck a devoted, self-denying life of active charity he recommended, as the simple way of faith, to all who wished to attain to true happiness. ‘If (he added) faith were only for the learned, then none amongst us would be poorer than God.’ Whenever he had opportunity, Gregory repeated the weighty truth (which, indeed, contained within it one of the fundamental thoughts of his whole theology), that the knowledge of God and of his revealed will was only attainable in proportion to the purifying of the soul from the soil of sin; that only the pure soul was capable of holding intercourse with the Eternally-Pure; and that it was only through a godly life that any one could raise himself to the knowledge and contemplation of the divine nature. The doing God’s will was, with him, the necessary prelude and the only way to a true and living knowledge; in all his dogmatic speculations, he never lost sight of that.

Gregory expresses himself very clearly on these subjects in the Introduction to his celebrated theological discourses, from whence we must extract a particularly appropriate passage: ‘It is not every one’s business to philosophise about God,—not every one’s, I repeat; for even that which is suited to the powers of those who still crawl upon the earth, is no easy subject. I add, moreover, that it is not proper everywhere, and before everybody, and without limitation; but only at certain times, before certain persons, and according to certain rules. It is not for all, but only for those who have been proved and exercised in knowledge, and, above all, for such as have already purified their souls and bodies, or, at least, are beginning to purify them. For the impure cannot without danger presume to touch the All-pure, any more than the weak eye can support the beams of the sun. But when may we entertain the subject? Even then, when we are free from the external, ordinary bustle and turmoil of life; when the higher, nobler part of our nature is not disturbed by the impression of pitiful, distracting things. And before whom? Only before such persons as consider the subject as a solemn matter; who treat divine things not like other topics, as subjects only for idle amusement, after discussing horse-races or the theatre, after songs, and the gratification of sense and appetite; who think it wicked to practise raillery upon these sacred topics, in mere display of antithetical skill, and as an ingredient of a life of pleasure. On what, then, should we philosophise, and within what limits ? On that which is within reach of the understanding, and as far as the comprehensive faculty and intellectual ability of the hearer can follow. Yet (he subsequently adds) let no one misconstrue all this which I have said, as if we should not always be thinking of God. We ought, indeed, rather to think of God than draw in our breath; nay, if it were possible, we should do nothing else.’

Gregory treats of these things still more copiously in a discourse, which he delivered probably at the commencement of his residence in Constantinople, and in which, among other things, he reminds his hearers, in a very striking manner, that the essence of Christian wisdom consists, not in a sturdy readiness for argument, and the ability to express oneself eloquently on divine things, but in true self-knowledge and humility; and that it is better to give way mildly and wisely, than to be arrogantly stubborn and ignorant at the same time. In the same oration, he also powerfully and beautifully argues against au eagerness in condemning others, and declaring them to be heretics. ‘Condemn not (he says) thy brother, call not his timidity ungodliness, and go not thoughtlessly too far, while thou doomest, or (when thou wouldst display a mild temper) absolvest him.

But on such occasions appear as the more humble; give thy brother the preference to thyself, assuredly not to thy own damage; for in such a case the act of condemning and despising is nothing else than shutting out a brother from Christ, the sole hope of sinners; it is to pull up with the weeds, the hidden fruit, which is possibly of more value than thou art. But rather, raise him up, gently and lovingly, not as an antagonist, not as a physician administering medicine by force, not as one who knoweth nothing but burning and cutting. Learn rather to know thyself in the spirit of humility, and search out thy own weaknesses. Truly, it is not one and the same thing to pull up and destroy a plant or a transient flower, and a man. Thou art an image of God, and hast to do with an image of God; and thou, who judgest, wilt thyself be judged. Try, then, and examine thy brother as one who is to be judged by the same standard as thyself.’ Gregory also particularly recommended patient mildness in judging others, inasmuch as no one has a right to require of another to be pious exactly after the same manner as he is himself. He urged this especially against the Eunomians, who exclusively considered the faculty of perception only (that is, the understanding, with its determinations and judgments), as the instrument through which we enter into connexion with God and a higher world. In opposition to such confined views, he makes repeated use of our Lord’s expression: ‘In my father’s house are many mansions, and concludes from them, that, as there are various mansions with God, so there must also be different ways (that is to say, different modes of life) which lead thereto. And thus, all these ways make up only one,—namely, that of virtue; though this one may branch off again into many. Wherever Gregory found an earnest Christian mind, and the living fruits of piety, he was willing to value them, even though there were connected with them a difference from his own dogmatic convictions. With this feeling, he expresses himself with affectionate toleration towards the Macedonians, whom (as brethren over whom he did not wish to triumph, but with whom he would gladly harmonize) he thus addresses: ‘Such is the love I cherish for you, such the respect I feel for your becoming apparel, for your complexion so expressive of abstemiousness, for your holy societies, for the honour paid by you to virgin purity for your nightly psalm-singing, your love of the poor, your brotherly kindness, your hospitality, that I could even wish to be accursed from Christ (Rom. ix. 3), and suffer anything as condemned for you, if ye were but united with us.’

 

GREGORY, BEING REVILED AND PERSECUTED BY THE OPPOSITE PARTIES, ENDURES IT WITH MILD FORBEARANCE : COX TENTION AMONGST THE ORTHODOX IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

 

While Gregory was obliged to exert all his energies in order to collect only a small congregation, bound to­gether in truly evangelical sentiments, he had to encounter severe struggles and persecutions from without. He was, from the first, an object of hatred and of ridicule for all other parties, and men stooped to the lowest calumnies against him. They reproached him with his little congregation, his poverty, his origin from an obscure, indigent, provincial town; they called him, jested upon his well-worn clothing, his rough, unpolished behaviour, and the like. He, in return, gloried, with a noble pride in those very things which were objected against him, rejoicing in his congregation, small indeed and poor, but true and faithful—not ashamed of the plain, unpolished manners of his fatherland, but simply remarking, that all men, who are truly great and noble, had in common one spiritual and heavenly country.

Such reproachful language might well be endured; but in those times of wild excitement, the religious hatred of zealots soon proceeded to deeds. Even in the midst of his little flock the life of Gregory was not secure. On one occasion, in the night-time, the meeting-place of the orthodox was assailed; a mob of Arians, and, in particular, women of the lowest stamp, led on by monks, armed themselves with sticks and stones, and forced an entrance into the peaceful place of holy worship. The champion of orthodoxy well nigh became a martyr to his convictions: the altar was profaned, the consecrated wine was mixed with blood, the house of prayer was made a scene of outrage and unbridled licentiousness. Gregory happily escaped; but on the next morning he was summoned before the magistrates on account of this nocturnal tumult. In the full consciousness of his innocence he defended himself so successfully, that this transaction served only to increase the triumph of his righteous cause. Most probably it was this event (though many others like it may have happened) which afterwards obtained for Gregory the honourable title of a Confessor.

During all these persecutions, the pattern of St. Stephen, and the many heroes of the Christian faith, floated before the mind of Gregory—but especially the example of Him, who said, ‘Bless them that curse you,’ and who even prayed for his enemies while hanging on the cross. He therefore treated even his enemies with gentleness and kindness, because it was a weightier object with him to improve them, than to cause their injustice to be punished. He counted it, like the first witnesses to the Gospel, a source of joy and satisfaction to suffer for the truth’s sake; and he would certainly not have exchanged this state of suffering for a life of undisturbed, unruffled quiet. Hear how he expresses himself on the subject on writing to a friend: ‘Although fearful, yea, exceedingly fearful things have befallen us, yet it will be better to exercise patience, and to set a pattern of patient suffering to the great body of Christians; for men in general are not so powerfully convinced by words as by deeds; and deeds under such circumstances are a silent exhortation. It is certainly something great to see justice done upon those who have done us injustice; something great, I say, because it is also beneficial, and for the good of others. But. it is far greater, and more godlike, to bear injustice with courage; for the former puts a check upon baseness, but the latter brings the wicked to a softer tone of mind; and that is surely much better and more excellent than that they should simply not be base.’ After quoting from the Scriptures examples of a patient endurance of suffering, Gregory thus proceeds:—‘You see, then, at once, the whole process of mild forbearance; first of all, it prescribes the course required by law; then it recommends, it promises, it threatens, it punishes, but again holds back the hand; again it threatens, if there be a necessity; it strikes a blow, but with a wish to spare, since it wishes only to prepare men for improvement. So, also, we would not strike immediately, (for that would not be prudent,) but would overcome by love. We would not cause the fig-tree to be dried up at once, which might still bear fruit.’

Unhappily Gregory had to contend, not merely against the different Arian parties, but also against dissension in his own community. The spirit of partisanship, especially in connexion with religion, had, at that time, spread itself over all nations and cities, and extended its baneful influence even to the smallest communities. Even the little band of orthodox at Constantinople, oppressed as it was on all sides, was not perfectly united together, but took part in a division which had diffused itself from Antioch over almost the whole of eastern and western Christendom. The dispute began about the election of bishops, but was originally also connected with the great Arian commotions. At the date, however, when this question concerns us, it referred properly to the persons of the rival bishops. When Arianism was dominant in Antioch, Meletius, formerly Bishop of Sebaste, but, at that time, of Beroea, was chosen bishop by the Acacian, or Arian party, because he had completely assented to the doctrines of Acacius in the council at Seleucia. Nevertheless, they had deceived themselves in their choice of him, or he had altered his opinions. As soon as he entered upon his bishopric, be at first avoided dogmatic expositions, and preached merely moral doctrines. Afterwards, however, he began to propound the Nicene confession of faith, and to maintain the equality of persons. This caused his banishment. Euzoius, an Arian of the old school, was his successor. The adherents, however, of Meletius separated themselves from the Arians, and formed a distinct community, yet without uniting with the old orthodox, or Nicene party; for these held back from the Meletian party, because Meletius had been made bishop by the Arians. These two parties, therefore—the old orthodox and the Meletian—although agreeing in their convictions, were yet ecclesiastically distinct. Subsequently, when, under the government of Julian, the Nicene-minded bishops, who had been banished by Constantius, returned from their exile in the Upper Thebais—viz. Eusebius, bishop of Vercellae, and Lucifer, bishop of Calaris—the latter betook himself to Antioch, and there consecrated the presbyter, Paulinus, as their bishop, in order to give a head to the party attached to the banished Meletius. He was not, however, acknowledged as such by a great portion of them, and so much the less, when now Meletius himself returned to Antioch from exile. The orthodox Christians, therefore, in Antioch remained thus divided into two parties, of which that of Meletius was the more important—that of Paulinus the less numerous; and this division still continued, when the party against which they both contended (i.e. the Arian) had already lost much of its strength. They even extended their influence to the other orthodox Churches, since the Western and Egyptian Churches were gained over by Lucifer to the interest of Paulinus, while the Eastern Churches sided with Meletius. It even happened that, in some particular communities, men’s minds were divided on this point, and a part of the members declared themselves for Paulinus, another part for Meletius. This appears certainly to have been the case in Constantinople at the very time when Gregory presided over the orthodox community there. At least, there are several passages, particularly in the 22nd Oration, which cannot be better explained than by referring them to this state of things. There is no end (says Gregory) to our combat, not only with those who differ from our opinions, and vary from us on points of faith, but also with those of like opinions, who contend against the same and for the same with us—a circumstance which is, in truth, most extraordinary, melancholy, and to be lamented.’ He then remarks, that the same teachers are today extolled to the sky, and tomorrow doomed to hell; today they are ranked with Elias aid John, tomorrow, with Judas and Caiaphas; while their discreet and abstemious bearing, their dignity, blended with affability, are today interpreted as genuine piety, tomorrow as hypocritical vanity. The following passage, however, is especially decisive:—‘To our previous unworthiness this also is added, that though favoured by God with a knowledge of his salvation, still we contend for the interests of other men; nay, that this contentious spirit goes so far, that we even make use of the ambition of others in order to gratify it, and commence hostilities among ourselves for the sake of foreign bishops. And thus two serious sins are at once committed, while we certainly inflame their ambition still more, and, at the same time, seize upon this as an excuse for gratifying our own passions.’

Several lovers of peace had exerted themselves to adjust this widespread Antiochian schism; among others, the great Basil, who had been a scholar of Meletius, addressed a series of letters to his former master. To these peace-makers belonged also Gregory Nazianzen, and the orations from which the above passages are quoted had the especial object of drawing off, at least, the orthodox of Constantinople from this lamentable meddling with foreign disputes. He had, partly for this reason, undertaken the laborious administration of the Bishopric of Constantinople, because he hoped, from this place, standing, as it did, in direct connexion with the Eastern and Western Churches, to be able to compose the difference which severed East and West. It was natural, however, that he should make the beginning with his own community. He presented himself, therefore, before them expressly for this purpose, and (after he had addressed his people with the usual greeting, ‘Peace be with you!’ and had received from them the salutation (according to the liturgy), ‘And peace be with thy spirit!’) he thus proceeded: Beloved peace! thou sweet word of greeting, which I have now invoked upon my people and received in return from them. I certainly know not, whether it were spoken by all in an honest manner, and worthy of the Spirit, and whether this outward bond has not been broken in the sight of God. Beloved peace! my daily thought and dearest jewel, who art most intimately combined with God’s essence; for thus we hear in the Holy Scriptures, ‘the peace of God,’ and ‘the God of peace’; and again, ‘He himself is our peace,’ and yet we honour thee not. Beloved peace! thou blessing, praised by all, but cherished by few, how long hast thou already left us! and when wilt thou again return to us?’ He goes on to show how ruinously these divisions must necessarily operate, and how utterly they were opposed to the mind of the Gospel, and particularly in this beautiful passage:  If any one inquire of us, what we especially regard and pray for, we would unhesitatingly reply, ‘Love’; for our God is love, and that word he listens to rather than any other. How then can we, who are disciples of love, hate each other so bitterly? How can we, the admirers of peace, contend with each other so implacably? Can we, who are built upon the same corner-stone, be disunited? we, who rest upon the rock, be shaken asunder?’ Certainly, Gregory did not reckon upon pleasing or persuading all whom he addressed, since he says (after reminding them how the world was now divided into two parties), ‘Whoever now stands peaceably in the middle way will be badly treated by both parties, and be either despised, or rudely attacked. To that class, however, I this day belong, (I, who thus censure the other,) and with that view I have undertaken the duties of this much-disputed and much-envied Bishopric; nor shall I, therefore, be surprised, if I be roughly handled by both parties, and, after much toil and labour, be driven away, in order that, when there is no longer a wall of partition, no hindrance to their inclinations, they may resume, with all the fire of hatred, their hostile proceedings.’

It is, however, probable that these addresses of Gregory produced more and better results than he himself expected. At least, we hear no more of any dissension in the orthodox community of Constantinople, which had brought itself into such a condition; and we have an oration of Gregory’s which celebrates an amicable reconciliation between the members of his community, and probably belongs to this period of his history.

 

GREGORY’S PREACHING; AND HIS PRIVATE LIFE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

 

It seems appropriate here to consider generally the nature and manner of Gregory’s ministration at Constantinople, briefly to estimate his claims to eloquence, and cast a look at his private life.

As an ecclesiastical orator, Gregory is of great weight. In the whole course of his education, the idea of becoming an orator had floated before him, and next to the effort to become a good Christian in knowledge and in practice, Gregory knew no higher object than to be a good orator and an effective advocate for the Christian faith. Already, in early youth, he went to Palestine, because the schools of rhetoric there were in especial celebrity. At Athens, rhetoric, in company with philosophy, was his principal study; he was said even to have been a teacher of rhetoric there; and, on his return to his native country, he was immediately obliged to exhibit his powers in that art. That whole generation regarded scarcely any art more highly than oratory; and Gregory, as a Christian teacher, attached especial value to the faculty of working upon men’s minds, particularly through the word of God and its lively oracles. Unfortunately, Gregory’s age was also the age of rhetorical display and fine speaking. Instead of the ancient simplicity, where the clear thought and the strong feeling were expressed in the most suitable and intelligible language, an artificial refinement had been introduced, which endeavoured by elaborate ornament, pompous accumulation, startling applications, ingenious antitheses, amusing playfulness, to compensate what was wanting in solidity and fulness of thought and sentiment. We find this in the most celebrated heathen rhetoricians of the fourth century; and Gregory, who was their scholar, was not able to raise himself above this show of rhetorical skill to the simplicity of true Christian eloquence, strongly as he at times laments over the ornamented and theatrical style of Christian elocution. Nothing, certainly, was wanting to Gregory in the way of oratorical talent. We find in him fire and strength, rapidity and compactness of thought, heartiness and truth of feeling, frequent instances of clear poetical representation, occasionally even an elevated flight, perfect purity in the use of the Greek language, and, for the most part, a noble, well-sustained phraseology. But with all this, the enjoyment of his orations is not unfrequently spoiled by long digressions, bitter sarcasms, laboured elegance, false splendour, and a straining after ingenious antitheses. His funeral orations, in particular, are too declamatory and exaggerated in commendation, and would be far weightier, and more attractive, if they sketched individuals characteristically from the life, instead of exhibiting them as patterns of all the virtues. These, however, are, in a great degree, faults of the generation, and Gregory shows in detached passages, and in whole orations (for instance, in that upon Maccabees), that under other circumstances he could have been a classic orator. Christian orators of that period always had this advantage over the heathen rhetoricians, that the topics of their addresses were more weighty, as well as more elevating. They discussed subjects by which the age was profoundly excited, and in which they themselves took a lively interest, while the heathen rhetoricians spoke in defence of an extinct worship, or upon other subjects, which could make no pretension to political or social interest.

We find in the old Fathers generally two different kinds of public addresses; that is, either free orations, after the manner of the heathen orators, but with very different topics; or homilies,—that is, popular, practical, expositions of Holy Scripture, which extended sometimes in a connected series over whole books of the Bible. This last kind was made use of by the most distinguished Fathers with particularly good results; and wherever a preacher produced any very beneficial and happy effect, it was by working as a practical, popular expositor of the Bible, as the announcer of the quickening truths of the Bible. That which made John Chrysostom great and worthy of imitation in this field of exertion, that which made Luther, the father of our German Church, still greater and more worthy to be imitated,—the simple and historical, but at the same time spirited and animated exposition of Holy Scripture; this, alas! we seldom find in Gregory, who, even where he has attempted it, has followed too much the style and language of the heathen teachers. We possess only one discourse by him, which contains a properly-called exposition of a passage in the Bible. His sermons generally are free treatises upon a dogmatic subject, or the topics belonging to a Christian festival, discourses on particular occasions, refutations of heretics, panegyrics and invectives. They have no particular text to serve for a foundation or for exposition, although Bible-passages are not unfrequently interwoven with them. Too few, certainly, of Gregory’s discourses are, in the proper sense of the word, biblical; practical they are, nevertheless,—at least, in numerous passages, and in a very commendable way; still they cannot be called popular, though they were so with Gregory’s hearers, who were familiar with dogmatic definitions concerning the doctrine of the Trinity as a subject of disputation, and very eager for investigations thereon; in a far higher degree they were popular with them than they would be in our days. The homiletic rules and forms of modern Germany, our strictly-worked-out themes, our logical divisions and subdivisions, our well-ordered uniformity of the separate parts, and the like, are, generally speaking, as little to be thought of in the Sermons of Gregory, Basil, Chrysostom, Augustine, as in those of Luther. Nothing, therefore, is more unfair than to detach such productions of the earlier centuries from their relative circumstances, and to judge them only by the rules which our own age has set up. It is with a view to this relation of time and place that we subjoin the following remarks upon the circumstance, that the doctrine of the Trinity forms the main topic of most of Gregory’s discourses.

In all his public addresses, particularly those which were held at Constantinople, it is a principal view of the orator to prove the existence of one only God. but that this Godhead, without being divided, exists in three self-depending Hypostases, or Persons, distinguished by peculiar qualities or attributes,—viz. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that it therefore may be designated as well by the term Unity as Trinity (or Trinity in Unity). He opposed, with this view, those who denied the equality of nature between the Son and the Father, or the perfect Godhead aud personality of the Holy Ghost; these were especially the Eunomians and Macedonians. He maintained the contest against them with such acuteness, dexterity, and success, that the name of Theologus, or the defender of the divinity of the  Logos, was given to him principally on that account. Now, it is not only to be remembered that Gregory supports the doctrine of the Trinity more upon traditional and philosophical grounds than upon Biblical proofs, but also very especially, that, through the subtile, oft-repeated expansion of this doctrine, too little room was left for the communication of all the blessed truths of the Gospel, and a taste for dogmatic disputation encouraged, rather than a charitable, Christian love of peace. We must not, however, forget, 1st, that in the doctrine of the Trinity was involved the great subject of dispute, which put in commotion all classes of the Christian community through the whole of the fourth century; 2ndly, that Constantinople was one of the principal arenas for this contest; 3rdly, that it was necessary that the question should then be decided, which of the antagonist doctrines should prevail; and, lastly, that Gregory, as a finished theologian and cele­brated orator, was expressly called to the duties of the leader and champion of the orthodox or Nicene party.

But for the firm stand made by Gregory and some other learned men, the anti-Nicene party would perhaps have triumphed. And could we wish it had been so? or is Arianism either more agreeable to the Bible, or better grounded on philosophy, than the doctrine of the Athanasian creed? Did the Arians, when they were predominant under Valens, show themselves to be better practical Christians than their opponents? And will not he, who cannot see any true conception of Bible­ truth in the Nicene system of faith, be obliged to allow that, even as a dogmatic theory, it is to be preferred to Arianism?

At the same time, it is not to be overlooked, that Gregory, almost in every discourse, preaches quite as much the duties of active Christianity, and that it was properly the deep-seated main object of his addresses, not so much to gain the understanding of his hearers for a particular representation of the divine nature, as their hearts for the love of God and for a godly life. ‘I will speak (he says) boldly and strongly, that you may become better men, that you may be converted from the flesh to the Spirit, that you may be elevated in your minds after a godly fashion.’

Gregory’s addresses were heard and applauded by great numbers. People of all classes and opinions, his Christian as well as heathen opponents, crowded to hear him speak. Many were attracted by the matter of his preaching, many by the beautiful form of his orations. Loud tokens of approbation (such as, to the disgust of every earnest preacher, were at that time customary in Constantinople and elsewhere) frequently accompanied the public addresses of Gregory. Nay, there were ordinarily in the assembly several persons who secretly, or even openly, took notes of them, a custom of which mention is made in the biographies of several great Fathers of the Church; e.g. Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, and others. Gregory himself, under the fiction of a dream, gives us the picture of an assembly in his Church of the Resurrection. ‘Sweet sleep embraced me, and in it a dream presented to my mind my church Anastasia, the object of my daily longing. I was seated (as it appeared to me) on a high-raised chair (the bishop’s throne), yet not elated in mind, for nothing like arrogance took possession of me during the dream. Somewhat lower, on either side of me, sat the presbyters, the leaders of the flock, the chosen band of men. Next stood, in robes of dazzling whiteness, the attendant helpers (deacons), a picture of angelic adornment. But the people arranged themselves in ranks, clustering like bees around the pulpit, and contending for nearer access. Some of them even pressed upon the sacred doors, in order to approach nearer with their ears as well as feet. Others flocked in from the market­ towns and highways to hear my discourse; while from the upper range of seats holy virgins and noble ladies bent forward with attentive ears.’ Gregory then describes how his hearers, differing ns they did in taste and education, had expected, some of them a plain discourse, and easily understood; others, a more laboured discussion, that should go into more profound investigations; but he, with powerful voice and ardent mind, still preached the Trinity in Unity, and combated all the opposers of the doctrine. In the conclusion, he describes the impression usually made upon his hearers by his address; how some of them had been carried away by powerful excitement to audible tokens of approbation; others, absorbed in silent meditation, would fain conceal the inward struggle of their souls; others, again, had been provoked to contradiction; so that the congregation, as a whole, might have suggested the impression of a stormy sea; yet all of them, even the most passionately excited, were again conciliated by the charm of eloquence.

It appears from some expressions of Gregory, and chiefly from the facts themselves, that through the influence of his addresses many were confirmed in their belief in the Nicene confession of faith, and many who had dissented from it were persuaded to adopt it. Granting that the circumstance, that Theodosius showed himself favourable to the orthodox, may have contributed much, nay, most of all, to the great revolution of opinion which took place about that time among the inhabitants of Constantinople, still a considerable portion of that alteration was brought about by the beautiful, ardent orations of Gregory, as much distinguished by their logical force as pervaded with a spirit of truth. But he produced this effect not only by his oratory but by his life, which gained over the hearts of men, while his refined addresses sought to convince their understandings. If, in disputing against his opponents, his language was occasionally severe, harsh, and bitter, yet the tone and temper of his actual life was so much the milder, more benevolent, and tolerant; and it was evidently the aim of his animated efforts to reconcile by love his partially embittered antagonists, not to himself, but to the faith, with which his whole sold was filled. From this source proceeded his truly Christian conduct during the persecutions which he had to endure, especially in the first part of his residence in Constantinople. The private life, also, which Gregory led there was calculated to infuse into men’s minds a feeling of good-will, and particularly of respect and reverence towards him. Without being repulsive and misanthropic, he was extremely strict and retiring, maintaining the dignity which a life of abstemious simplicity, a life dedicated to God, and entirely devoted to the unseen world, bestows. He lived alone, avoided publicity, and never obtruded himself upon the society of the great, or at court. He practised, therefore, in this, what Julian, who knew well what gave authority to the priest, required with strictness from his heathen priesthood. Gregory’s table was so simply furnished, his apparel so entirely limited to necessity, his conversion so unaffected, his whole appearance so unpretending, so contrasted with (alas! even in those early days) he ostentatious parade of that period, that they even reproached him with a coarse, unpolished, clownish demeanour in the refined and polished Constantinople;a reproach which fell back upon those who could not recognise the noble spirit under that homely covering.

Gregory himself exhibits to us these circumstances in a passage of his Farewell Oration, which is also remarkable for containing a pointedly severe side-glance at the luxury of distinguished ecclesiastics of that day: ‘Men have reproached me (he says, in cutting irony) for my richly-furnished table, my splendid clothing, my public train and equipage, my proud bearing towards opponents! Certainly, I was not aware that I ought to vie with the first officers of state and most distinguished generals, who know not how to squander their money fast enough; nor that I was obliged to torment my body by spending on it, in waste, the goods which belong to the poor, so that poverty should be made to supply our superfluity, and the altar itself be profaned by our j intemperance. I knew not that I was particularly' obliged to be drawn by sleek horses, to ride in a splendid I carriage, and be attended by a troop of flatterers, in order that every one might remark my approach even afar off, and be forced to move aside, or draw back out of the road, as at the approach of a wild beast! If this ignorance was wrong in me, so it has happened, and 1 hope you will pardon it. Choose another spiritual ruler, and one who may please the multitude, and leave me to my solitary life, my rustic demeanour, and my God, whom even with my poor simplicity I hope to please.’

From the previous account, it is clear that Gregory was quite the man whom the Church of Constantinople at that time required. He possessed eloquence which captivated all who heard him; he had received a scientific education, which he was able to make an ingenious use of in producing a thorough conviction; he practised a strictness of life which commanded respect, coupled with a gentleness which won men’s hearts, and an unwearied, ardent zeal, which overpowered all opposition. Thus he collected, united, confirmed bis little community—inspired them with a new spirit of peace among themselves, of undaunted courage in things external; drew (heir attention from a love of dogmatic disputing to self-knowledge, and an active, living Christianity, while at the same time he defended the doctrines of the common faith with all the acuteness of the most practised dialectician. Thus he endured patiently, and contended courageously; and when the day of victory drew near, he made use of it without becoming insolent and eager for persecution— without allowing his attention to be drawn off from the Invisible Helper to the visible protecting hand; from the heavenly source of life to the dispenser of earthly dignity, possessions, and enjoyment.

 

GREGORY’S FAME : HIERONYMUS (JEROME) BECOMES HIS SCHOLAR : THE RELATION IN WHICH HE STOOD TO THE PHILOSOPHER, MAXIMUS.

 

The public labours of Gregory at Constantinople, and his private life, were certainly such as fully to deserve an honourable acknowledgment; and his reputation, commencing as it did from that centre of the empire, and point of union between the east and west, could not but spread most rapidly in all directions. We must, therefore, think it very natural if nearly contemporary writers, such as Ruffinus, Ambrose, and others (not to mention those of the Eastern Church) speak of Gregory with great distinction, or, if younger theologians attached themselves to him, in order to form themselves on his discourses, and to benefit by his conversation. At that time, amid the sensible want of institutions for theological education, it became a matter of necessity for younger persons to choose especially some one of the distinguished Fathers of the Church as their guide and instructor. This practice we find existing also in the history of other sciences and arts, so long as they exist, to a certain extent, in the natural way, and no regular schools, academies, or whatever, else they may be called, have been formed around them. As pupils around some great painter of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so, at the time we are writing of, disciples, old and young, assembled round some celebrated theologian. It is true that we have properly authenticated accounts of only two scholars who enjoyed the society of Gregory at Constantinople; but of those two there was one who outweighs many others—Hieronymus, or S. Jerome, the most learned of the Western Fathers. When now approaching his fiftieth year, Jerome, attracted by the fame of Gregory, travelled from Syria to Constantinople, not only to hear his public addresses, but also, and particularly, to profit by his domestic instruction in the expounding of Scripture. The master was not much older than the scholar; and the scholar was himself already famous is a learned man. Jerome, nevertheless, never speaks of Gregory in any other terms but those of the greatest reverence. In several places of his writing he calls him, with grateful recollection, his master and catechist, and expressly remarks, that he had learnt much from him in the exposition of Scripture; nay, he particularly glories in his eloquent master. Yet he relates an anecdote, the point of which is that, in the exposition of Holy Scripture, Gregory did not everywhere express the grounds with perfect simplicity, but even employed his eloquence in a delusive way, more with a view to persuasion than conviction. When on one occasion Jerome asked his master, ‘how a difficult passage in St. Luke was to be understood?’ he referred him to the explanation he would give of it in the church, adding, ‘there you will be forced, by the approbation of all the people, to understand what you do not now understand; or else, if you alone do not assent, you alone will be charged by all with folly.’

Jerome, moreover, gives us a remark which his master was accustomed to make on a passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the apostle finds in the true relation of the husband to the wife a type of the relation between Christ and his Church. The remark refers particularly to those words of St. Paul—‘This is a great mystery,’ and is as follows:  Observe, how great is the mystery of this clause; for the apostle, while he refers it to Christ and the Church, yet asserts that he had not so expressed it as the dignity of the testimony required. But however he may have expressed it, this I know, that the passage is full of inexpressible mysteries, and requires a divine heart in the expositor. But I, after the limited powers of my mind, fully believe that it is to be understood of Christ and the Church, not as if it (the type) were something higher than Christ and the Church, but because it is difficult to explain of Christ and the Church all that is said of Adam and Eve.’ An expression which certainly leads us to conclude that Gregory did not exactly comprehend the meaning of the apostle m this passage, and that Le stretched his illustration too far. Though this, at the same time, affords us a proof with what reverence he handled the Holy Scriptures, and what weight he attaches to this qualification of an expositor, that Ai should be animated with a holy tone of mind, akin to the mind and spirit of their inspired authors.

We have no farther information respecting Jerome’s intercourse with his master. It is probable, however, that under Gregory’s guidance he conceived that especial reverence for Origen which he manifested in the early part of his career, but afterwards, frightened by the ghost of orthodoxy, so blameably denied. It is probable, also, that Gregory contributed particularly to that inclination to allegorical interpretation, which in so many instances obscured the great qualifications of Jerome for Biblical exposition. At the same time he probably conceived, in his intercourse with Gregory, a still greater partiality for the Greek Fathers, and acquired still greater readiness in the knowledge of the Greek language, and so became better qualified for making his honoured Greek masters more accessible to the Western Christians by means of translations.

Another scholar of Gregory was Evagrius, Prom Pontus, who likewise is said to have been instructed mainly by him in the knowledge of Holy Scripture and in philosophy. He was Gregory’s archdeacon in Constantinople, and subsequently, after sundry turns of fortune, betook himself to the solitude of the Nitriac Desert, where, besides his reputation for learning and eloquence, he especially distinguished himself as a follower of the opinions of Origen. The instruction of Gregory had, without doubt, made him an admirer of Origen; but Evagrius did not confine himself within the limits which his master observed, who was only a moderate admirer of that great philosophical theologian, without approving all his opinions.

Gregory made an experiment quite of a different sort from his acquaintance with his grateful scholar, Jerome, in the person of a pretended philosopher, named whom he somewhat thoughtlessly and too good-naturedly admitted to his intimate confidence. This person, who seems to have been of a striking external appearance, arrived in Constantinople not long after Gregory had established himself there. Belonging to the class of adventurers, of whom there was no small number at that time, this artful individual combined the rough vulgarity of a cynic, as well as the seeming elevation of a Christian ascetic, with much external ornament that strongly betrayed a fondness for the vanities of the world. Thus, to mention only one instance—he had his sleek black hair dyed auburn and let it hang in long artificial curls over his shoulders. He wore, however, with this the coarse philosopher’s mantle which the early Christian ascetics had adopted, and carried a stout cynic-staff. He was born in Alexandria, of a family which, according to his own testimony, reckoned martyrs among its members; nay, he extolled himself as having confessed the true faith under heavy trials. What brought him to Constantinople is not quite clear; if we could believe an irritated opponent, it was hunger, combined, probably, with quite as much of ambition.

When Maximus first came to Constantinople, he pre­possessed Gregory to the highest degree; he knew how to play the hypocrite, and to accommodate himself to the part. Being soon introduced to Gregory, he exhibited himself to him as the most courageous and zealous advocate of the Nicene creed, who had suffered much on account of his orthodoxy. He did not fail, moreover, to be a constant attendant on Gregory s preaching, and to extol his discourses in the highest terms. Gregory, full of good-natured confidence, and not endowed with a quick discrimination of human character (a talent which in his previous life of retirement he had not been able to acquire), gave his heart quite unreservedly to the stranger, whom he took for an honest and pious man, received him into his house and at his table, consulted him as a friend on the most important concerns, and even allowed himself, out of excessive regard for him, to commit the weakness of delivering a public eulogium upon him.

But the unsuspecting Gregory was soon awakened from his delusion by the most painful experience. The hypocrite threw off the mask; he that had been so simple and meek made his appearance as a man of unbounded ambition and deep stratagem. It was discovered that Maximus contemplated nothing less than to overturn his patron and benefactor, and to seat himself in his place in the episcopal chair. A presbyter of Gregory’s church was implicated with Maximus in this Undertaking. This person, whom Gregory calls a barbarian, not only by his origin, but also in his tone of mind, appears to have stood at the head of the presbyters, in immediate proximity to the bishop; and, without having ever been offended by him, was very ill-disposed towards him, probably from envy. Maximus had besides a still more powerful but distant confederate, in Peter, bishop of Alexandria, who, though he had greeted Gregory by letter, on his arrival at Constantinople, as the legitimate head of the Christian community there, had yet now changed his mind, to the disadvantage of Gregory. What had caused this change we are not informed; jealousy of the Constantinopolitan bishop on the part of the Alexandrian bishop was most probably at the bottom; and Peter wished to promote to the episcopal chair of the metropolis a man through whose agency he might rule over that see also. Perhaps the Meletian schism also operated on this occasion, since the Alexandrians took side with Paulinus; but Gregory befriended Meletius. In no case can we adopt the supposition of Gregory Presbyter, who, in order to account for the conduct of Peter, imagines that the bishop of Alexandria was gained by the gold of Maximus, for effecting winch, at least at the commence­ment of the transaction, no funds, or means of raising any, were at the command of Maximus.

Through his connexion with Peter of Alexandria, the following circumstance occurred, with the view of assisting Maximus. At first, seven persons, sea-faring men, whose services were to be commanded for a small compensation, came to Constantinople from Egypt, in order to explore the actual state of things. Gregory gives us their several names,—viz. Ammon, Apammon, Harpocras, Stippas, Rhodon, Anubis, Hermanubis. The parties who had sent these men out as spies soon followed (i. e. some of the Alexandrian clergy), for the purpose of supporting the views of Maximus. Au accidental circumstance favoured the enterprise. Just at that time a presbyter from Thasos came to Constantinople with a considerable sum of money, for the purpose of purchasing slabs of Proconesian marble for the adorning of a church. Maximus succeeded in wheedling him out of the money, probably by opening to him brilliant prospects. When by this means a venal multitude, who had often been loud in praise of Gregory, had been gained, Maximus one night, while Gregory was lying sick in bed, went with his troop of followers (consisting chiefly of sailors) into the church, for the purpose of being consecrated, without any notice thereof to the community, or to those who presided over them! The proceeding was already in full progress, when, towards dawn, the clergy who dwelt near the church discovered the disgraceful enterprise. The report rapidly spread through the city. A vast number of inhabitants and strangers, orthodox and Arians, and even persons in offices of state, flocked to the church; the Egyptians, gnashing their teeth at the frustration of their design, were forced (though without altogether relinquishing it), to leave the church. They betook themselves to the dwelling of a player on the flute, in order to continue there, in a manner worthy of them, the holy ceremony they had commenced, while they set about the important task of cutting off from the bishop they were going to consecrate, the beautiful head of hair which he had cultivated with so much pains. Such were the circumstances under which he received consecration! And thus the whole affair resolved itself into a farce, which certainly could have no influence in altering the external position of Gregory, but. yet left behind so much the deeper wounds on his mind. Maximus, covered with shame, betook himself, accompanied by his Egyptian confederates, to Thessalonica, where Theodosius was stationed with his army to oppose the Goths; he was determined to make the last efforts with the emperor himself. He was, however, repulsed by him, or (if Gregory has not exaggerated in his account) driven away in complete disgrace. Maximus on this returned to Alexandria, and, being reduced to extremes, presented himself before the aged bishop, Peter, his late protector, with a demand, ‘that he would either procure for him the bishopric which he had encouraged him to hope for, or relinquish to him his own.’ The imperial lieutenant, however, in order to put an end to the vexatious presumption of the ambitious swaggerer, banished Maximus from Alexandria.

Treacherously as Gregory had been treated by the Bishop of Alexandria and a portion of the Egyptian clergy, yet he appears to have been reconciled to them again; for there were in his nature, combined with a certain degree of irritability, great placability and gentleness. We have an oration by him, which is entitled, On the Arrival of the Egyptians. It was delivered on the occasion of the sailors of an Egyptian fleet (which had brought the annual tribute of corn to Constantinople) attending Gregory’s church, and receiving the holy sacrament from his hands. Gregory greets these Egyptians with great joy and feeling, and repeatedly calls them his people, because they had received the one Faith from the same teachers and Fathers, and, with him, worshipped a Trinity in Unity. He not only loads the Egyptians with praises, but also glorifies expressly their teachers, and, amongst these, Athanasius and their bishop, Peter. He calls this last ‘the successor of Athanasius (by him so highly venerated), not only in the episcopal chair, but also in purity of doctrine and real dignity, who still, most nobly, followed up the struggle of his triumphant predecessor for the good cause.’

 

GREGORY IS WITHHELD FROM LEAVING CONSTANTINOPLE ALTOGETHER, BUT WITHDRAWS HIMSELF FOR AWHILE INTO THE COUNTRY! HIS STRONG SENSE OF THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

 

It was either on the day after the nocturnal farce of Maximus and his party, or soon after, that Gregory, in the course of a sermon, suffered these words to escape from him, which seem to indicate his determination to leave Constantinople. ‘Preserve, then, (he says,) the entire doctrine of the Three in One, which, as an open­handed father, I have communicated to you, my dear children, and think affectionately of my labours amongst you.’ Scarcely had the people heard these words, when, there arose among all of them the most lively emotion, and they all united in most urgent entreaties to Gregory that he would still continue with them. Gregory was deeply affected by this proof of affection. It required, perhaps, only this expression of regard, in order again to smother in his mind that wish for a complete withdrawal which had arisen from a momentary displeasure, although he himself attests that it cost him a severe struggle. As Gregory—in the presence of the assembled congregation, thus suppliantly urging him in his beloved church, Anastasia—stood wavering in his determination, one of the people decided the matter by calling out in a loud voice—‘Thou banishest with thee at the same time the Trinity in Unity from Constantinople.’ These words filled Gregory with earnest anxiety; and he now pledged his word to the Church that he would not leave them, yet without confirming that promise (as they had desired) by an oath, for he had made a vow at his baptism never to take an oath again. He promised I them, however, at least, to remain so long a time, until an assemblage of bishops, soon expected to take place, should have determined about the bishopric of Constantinople.

Great as was the love and sympathy which Gregory experienced from his congregation through the whole of this proceeding, so much the stronger was the impression made upon his mind by the behaviour of Maximus; the more implicitly he had confided in the ungrateful hypocrite, the more fearfully he had been deceived by him. The already delicate health of the pious man was still more shaken by this storm; and his deep, though slumbering, love of contemplative solitude awoke afresh so strongly, that he could not resist the impulse to withdraw himself, at least for a considerable time, into the country. The delightful neighbourhood of Con­stantinople was most inviting for that purpose; and Gregory was by no means insensible to the beauties of Nature; although he somewhere confesses that, whilst his mind was painfully excited, he was fain, indeed, to wander in the solitary shade of the forest, but yet could not find there that healing of his grief, which only faith, md prayer, and a clearer perception of God’s dealings, imparted. As, however, these Fathers of the Church are thought of by some as merely earnest but gloomy ascetics, it is not superfluous to show that there were individuals amongst them who, even on this point, had notions worthy of genuine Christianity and civilized humanity (for the Son of Man himself has given us here also the purest pattern), so that they retained a lively sense of natural beauty, and of those lessons which the finger of God has written in that large and copious book. With what delight (fondly taking in even the smallest objects) does Gregory describe the arrival of Spring, to an oration on the martyr Mamas, whose festival fell upon the Sunday after Easter-day. ‘All things (he says) combine, and are accumulated for the purpose of doing honour to this festive season: see how beautiful is all that meets the eye! The queen of the seasons is holding a festive pomp for the queen of days, and brings as an offering all that is the most costly and beautiful of her stores. The sky is already brighter, the sun is already higher in the heavens, and more golden; the moon’s orbit is already more cheering, and the host of stars more bright; the waves are on more friendly terms with the shore, the clouds with the sun, the wind with the air, the earth with the plants, the plants with the eye. The fountains now flow more transparent; the rivers, loosed from the bands of winter, run in fuller stream; the meadow smells sweetly; the plants swell; the grass is being mowed; and young lambs are frisking on the fresh green plains. The ship now issues forth from the haven with loud, and often with holy songs; it is winged with sails; the dolphin swims gaily around her, snuffing up, and again blowing forth the water in delight, while it accompanies the course of the mariner. The husbandman now puts his plough in order, and looks up in prayer to the Giver of fruits; he leads the ploughing-ox under the yoke, and divides the field with regular furrows, full of joyful hope. The shepherds and herdsmen now play their pipes in harmony; they recommence their pastoral songs, and spend the spring amongst trees and rocks. The gardener tends his plants; the fowler prepares his rods and reeds, and looks up to the thoughts to spy out their feathered inhabitants. The fisherman glances through the deep water, prepares his net, and takes his seat upon the rocks. The busy bee now spreads her wings; she leaves her hive, displays her sagacious instinct, and robs the flowers of their sweetness—let her be to you a pattern of industry and wisdom! Now the bird builds its nest; one is sitting thereon, another glides softly into it, a third flits round about, making the wooding with its note, and flying round the dwellings of men with twittering tongue. All things praise and glorify God with inarticulate voices for all things thanks are now offered to God by me; and thus that universal hymn is also ours, even that whose tones of praise I here express. Yes, it is now (the orator proceeds, in allusion to the Easter festival) the spring of the world, the spring of the mind; the spring for the souls of men, the spring for their bodies; the visible ; spring, the invisible spring; even that which we shall there participate in, if we are here transformed aright, and, having been renewed, enter upon a new and spiritual life.’ Many other passages might be adduced, from which we might see how Gregory combines all the natural phenomena with something higher, finding alike in all of them revelations of the all-ruling God, and rules for leading a godly life. We confine ourselves Io one, where, from the unceasing harmonious order of the universe, he deduces powerful exhortations to peace and concord. ‘Now, this character of oneness should attune us to benevolence and peace, to the imitation of God and godly works; ... for even the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and this whole world, all this vast and glorious creation of God (through which God is silently revealed and proclaimed), is only so long a well-ordered system, only so long a work of unsurpassable skill and incomparable beauty, as it maintains peace and unity with itself—as it remains within the appointed bounds of nature, never elevating one thing in opposition to another, never loosening the band of love wherewith the creative power divine has bound all together; but so soon as peace ceases to exist, the order of the universe also ceases to work aright. Does it not then appear to you that the heaven, while, after an established order, it gives light to the air, and rain to the earth, obeys the laws of goodness; that the earth, while it affords nourishment, the air while it supplies breath to all that lives—and both thus everywhere support life—are types and figures of parental affection?’ In this manner the orator, passing through the different kingdoms of nature, employs their striking phenomena in order to show to his hearers, that the same divine laws which prescribe love, kindness, harmony to men, are active also in nature?, and speak from and through her to every susceptible mind.

Gregory was now probably well inclined to leave Constantinople altogether; but his work was still incomplete, and he would have left his recently-collected and scarcely-settled congregation in a very fluctuating condition; he determined, therefore, at the urgent entreaty of his friends, to return again to the capital, after a temporary refreshment of his soul and strengthening of his body. With what feelings he again appeared before his people, we have sufficient evidence in a special oration, beginning with these words: ‘I have longed for you, my children, and have been in like measure longed for by you; for of this I am convinced, and (if it were necessary) could even confirm it with an oath by that reputation which we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nor can any one wonder at such affection between you and me, for they who are influenced by one common spirit are also animated by one common love; but they who feel a like love have also a like faith. For what the one does not feel himself, he cannot well believe of the other’s feelings; but he who sympathizes in feeling is also more inclined to agree in opinion—he becomes, as it were, an unseen witness of an unseen sympathy, and a mirror to the (spiritual) form of another. Therefore, I could no longer bear to be at a distance from you, although the state of affairs here has deeply afflicted and mortified me,—not only moral and political affairs generally, but more especially those, more honoured and more dear, which relate to this holy building and this consecrated table.’

It is a fact easily to be explained, but still to be lamented, that this oration of Gregory’s, which overflows with such heart-felt love for his congregation, and imparts so much that is excellent, also contains many bitter passages against the unworthy Maximus; as, for example, the following: ‘I am afraid of dangerous wolves, which, taking advantage of the darkness of night, tear the flock in pieces by seducing and vehement harangues; they watch for the favourable moment, because they cannot succeed by open force. I fear the dogs, which would force themselves into the character of shepherds, and, strange to say, have prepared them­selves for its duties by nothing else than that they have shorn off their hair, which they had suffered to grow after a ridiculous fashion; who have neither continued dogs, nor yet become shepherds, except that, like dogs, they tear to pieces, destroy and make havoc of the labours of others.’ Towards the end of the discourse he strongly declares (without any angry reference to Maximus) that the possession of the envied bishopric of Constantinople was not an object of importance to him. ‘Do they wish to thrust me from the episcopal throne? When have I ever, in present or in past time, willingly ascended it ? or when have I extolled them as fortunate who have been seated on it? Would they rob me of the highest ecclesiastical dignity? What man of sense has ever considered that point as an object of great desire? But now, according to my view, it is the first proof of a sound understanding to escape from it altogether—this dignity, on account of which all our relative duties are disturbed and shaken—through which the whole world is involved in mutual suspicion and a foolish war, a war to which no proper name has yet been given! O that there were no Primate, no precedence of rank or station, no privileged predominance, so that we might be distinguished only by moral, superiority! But now, the privilege of standing on the right, or on the left, or in the middle—the higher or the lower place of honour—the walking before oi in a line with others, have already furnished us with endless, foolish causes of provocation, and brought into danger, not only the sheep of the flock, but also the shepherds, who, though masters in Israel, have not looked into this as they ought.’

How strongly the moral welfare of his community interested the heart of Gregory, is also shown by the manner in which (in this oration) he requires an account from his hearers whether, during his absence, they had held fast the pure faith, and proved their love by their deeds; and then himself gives them an account of his care and anxiety for them during his residence in the country. On this occasion, he sketches most gracefully the reflections which the view of the sea in a stormy state had called forth, and affords us a new proof how well he knew how to enjoy the appearances of Nature, so as to derive from them higher contemplative truths: ‘I wondered alone (he tells his hearers) by the seaside when the day was far advanced, for I have accustomed myself to disperse my cares by recreations of this sort; for the string will not bear to be always on the stretch, but requires occasionally to be loosened from the bow’s end, if the archer would again use it without finding it unserviceable just when he would use it. Thus I wandered, my feet moving mechanically, whilst my eye swept over the expanse of the sea. But this generally gratifying view was not so delightful as when the dark, purple-tinted waves rolled gently forward, and sported softly and pleasantly with the shore. But how was it now. ‘The sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew,’ for I willingly use here the words of Scripture (S. John, vi. 18). The waves, as they are wont, increased in size as they approached from a distance—then for a moment raised themselves to their highest elevation—again sunk, and discharged themselves on the beach; or else they rushed back roaring on the neighbouring rocks, dispersing into light and frothy spray. There were now no little stones and sea-weed, no muscles and light oysters washed up, and, as it were, spit forth, while many were again absorbed by the retiring wave; but the rocks stood unmoved and unshaken, as if not in the least disturbed, except that the waves broke against them. From this prospect I thought I could derive a profitable lesson, and how I might refer it all to my state of mind, especially when I felt at all staggered at some occurrence, as has recently been the case. So I studied this spectacle not superficially, and the sight afforded me instruction. Is not (said I to myself) the sea like our life, and like human concerns in general? for there is there also as much of angry struggle and fluctuating instability. And the storms,—are they not the persecutions which originate from those causes, and all the unlooked-for trouble that befalls us?’ On this, Gregory describes, in continuation of the figure, the Christian sage—how he should stand firm, like the rock in the tempestuous sea, and like the spiritual rock, Christ (1 Cor. x. 4), on which he is firmly based; how he is unshaken by the threatening embarrassments of fate. He then goes on to delineate a truly pious and wise man,—how cheerful he is in all sufferings; how from every misfortune he derives strength and nourishment for virtue; how, in time of joy, he is humble and thankful; in health, temperate, strict, active; in sickness, patient: in time of wealth, benevolent and ready to give; in poverty, rich in godliness; how he meets persecution with endurance, insult with prayer, cursing with blessing, ill-treatment with concession; and how, in everything, in word and quiet deed, he appears as a teacher of love and gentleness; in short, as a follower and imitator of his blessed Redeemer.

Gregory returned to Constantinople with renewed pleasure and improved strength. He saw his zealous services crowned with more favourable results than ever, while his small community were not only more settled and more peaceable among themselves, but also increased daily in numbers from without. It only required an external impulse, which was now fully prepared for, to complete externally also the victory of the orthodox party How that impulse was given, we shall next see.

 

ARRIVAL OF THEODOSIUS AT CONSTANTINOPLE TRIUMPH OF THE NICENE FAITH : GREGORY FIRMLY REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE BISHOPRIC.

 

Theodosius was brought up in the Christian religion, and, undoubtedly, according to the decisions of the Nicene code of doctrine; but, after the custom of the time, he had deferred his baptism. Having already, as Caesar, contended successfully against the Goths, he was attacked by an illness at Thessalonica, and caused himself to be baptized by Acholius, the orthodox bishop of that city. He learned on this occasion, from Acholius, with as much satisfaction that all the provinces, as far as Macedonia, were attached to the orthodox faith, as he heard with displeasure that, eastward thence, Arianism predominated, and that it had its established seat in Constantinople especially. Under the influence of that bishop, the newly-baptized emperor, while still in Thessalonica, published that celebrated edict, whereby the Nicene faith is declared to be catholic and established, but the adherents of Arianism are loaded with reproaches, and threatened with punishment, without considering what a different thing it was to give the word of com­mand at the head of an army, and to prescribe laws to the conscience. That Theodosius did not at the same time proceed to inflict punishment upon the Arians, is to be attributed to political prudence, rather than genuine toleration. For the number of Arians was still so great in the whole empire, especially in chief city, that if provoked by violence, they might easily become dangerous to him. Yet many overheated members of the orthodox body (who wished to see everything changed a stroke, to their advantage) do not appear to have been satisfied with this enforced moderation of Theodosius; in this view, however, Gregory did not participate.

On the 24th of December, 380, Theodosius came to Constantinople, and two days after he gave to the bishop, Demophilus, the head of the Arian party in Constantinople, the bitter choice, either to adopt the Nicene confession of faith, and unite himself to the holies, or to vacate the churches of the metropolis. ‘Demophilus was firm enough to choose the latter alternative. After considering how difficult it would be to withstand power,’ he assembled his followers in the church, and, presenting himself before them, said, ‘My brethren! it is written in the Gospel, ‘if they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another.’ Since now the emperor shuts us out from the churches, be it known to you, that tomorrow we shall meet outside the city.’ With these words he left the church. The Arians had been forty years in possession of the churches of Constantinople.

Gregory, on the contrary, the courageous defender of the now highly-favoured faith, must naturally have been most graciously received by Theodosius. The emperor greeted him, at their first meeting, with extreme respect, conversed for a long while with him, and closed the interview with these words: ‘This temple’ (the principle church of Constantinople) ‘God delivers up to thee by our hand, as a reward for thy devoted labours,’ words which Gregory (as he himself says) may have though incredible, had they not afterwards been verified by result. In fact, such a transfer of the principal church of Constantinople, from the hands of the Arians int those of the orthodox, might well appear, even with intervention of the imperial power, something still doubtful, on account of the numbers of the Arian party. A vast portion of the inhabitants of Constantinople were thrown into a state of stormy excitement by this order of the emperor; and when the day arrived on which the orthodox should actually take possession of the church all the streets and public places were filed with persons of all ranks and ages, with men and women, old men and children, who lamented, wept, shouted, and threatened. Constantinople resembled a city that had been taken by assault. The church of the Apostles was strongly occupied by well-armed soldiers. Gregory himself, who was just then particularly bowed down by sickness, walked, breathing feebly, but full of confidence, by the side of the stately, warlike emperor, towards the temple. The morning was gloomy. The heaven had concealed its light behind heavy clouds, and appeared unfavourable to the enterprise. The Arians already began to exult in this sign from heaven, and the orthodox to be dispirited; when it came to pass, that as the emperor and bishop, with their followers, entered with songs of praise the holy building, and raised their hands to in prayer, a bright sunbeam broke through the clouds, and filled the temple with the most cheerful light. The orthodox now thought they might be fully satisfied, that God also approved and favoured their proceedings, This last circumstance, in particular, is noticed by Gregory with great vivacity, in his poem about his own life (line 1336—1370). Amid the joy of this victory, the assembly had but one wish, which they also soon made known by loud cries,—viz. that Theodosius would give them Gregory as their actual bishop. A tumultuary call of the whole multitude, even of the women and persons in authority who were present, announced this desire. The emperor, perhaps, was not disinclined to comply with the wish, but Gregory could not make up his mind to accept the actual appointment to the bishopric, or, at least, to allow himself to be elected in this way. In the meanwhile, he was so seriously indisposed that he felt himself quite incapable of addressing the people. He therefore requested another clergyman to speak to the assembly in his name, in the following words: ‘Cease, I pray you, cease from this loud call! Now, before all things, is he time for thanksgiving—hereafter for other matters.’ This decided refusal was received very favourably, as well by the emperor, as by the people, who were now again appeased. All ended quietly and without violence; no sword was drawn, and that put again without bloodshed into its sheath. After the orthodox party had been put in possession of the principal temple and other churches and ecclesiastical buildings in Constantinople, the church property also, and revenues, which were before under the control of the Arians, passed over the dominant party; and Gregory undertook the management of the same. This church property was, is Gregory himself indicates, very considerable, the valuables, in vessels and the like, extremely rich and splendid.

That Gregory managed these riches conscientious we may be sure, from his truly exalted notions concerning  selfishness and avarice. Indeed, his numerous enemies  would have certainly brought bitter reproofs against him if he had not done so. His highest gratification, like that of his mother, consisted in acts of benevolence. He dared to boast, and with justice, that if all the clergy thought as he did in reference to the possessions of the Church, things would not be in so sad a condition as they were in many Churches.

The displeasure of the Arian party at this transaction was not strong enough to break out in actual resistance. The joy of the hitherto-oppressed orthodox party was the livelier on that account; and, as the conviction especially the religious convictions of—alas!—so large a portion of mankind take their tone from external circumstances, that is to say, from the influence of the ruling power, so now many persons were found, who had hitherto thought it advisable to be Arians, but who soon saw their error, and, being converted by such palpable arguments, joined in the triumph of the orthodox. Gregory soon found an opportunity of expressing his joyful feelings at this change of things. On a martyr’s festival, which the Arians were not in the habit of keeping, he came forward, for the first time, with an oration in the church which had been transferred to him, and at the same time introduced the banished martyrs afresh into the temple. On this occasion he delivered a short address, in which he thanks the martyrs for having so triumphantly assisted the professors of the pure faith in their recent contest. Much that is excellent is contained in particular parts of this oration; it is, nevertheless, unpleasant to find it over-seasoned, here and there, with too harsh reproaches and sallies against the now conquered Arians. One might suppose, from particular expressions which we here meet with, that on the side of the Arians there was nothing but what was base and diabolical, and, on the orthodox side, pure light and freedom from error; whilst it is manifest that there was a mixture of both on both sides. And we cannot suppress the wish that Gregory could always, and everywhere, have exhibited that mild forbearance which he generally recommended so strongly by word and deed, and which, in the sequel, he exercised in so noble a manner. As a proof of this, an incident that occurred somewhat later may here be related, as it is adapted to reconcile us again with Gregory, and to prove that those bitter and harsh expressions against enemies and offenders, which we occasionally hear from hit mouth, did not proceed from habitual acrimony of disposition, but from an excitable temperament. Somewhere about this time, Gregory was confined to his bed by sickness, when there entered into chamber some of the common people, and among them a young man in a black dress, with a pale face and long hair. Gregory, alarmed, made a movement as if he would jump out of bed. The men, after they had said something civil, by way of greeting, again retired; but the young man stayed behind, threw himself at the feet of Gregory, weeping, speechless, beside himself. To the bishop’s questions, ‘Who art thou?—whence comes thou!—what dost thou want? he replied only with still louder lamentation. He shed tears, he sighed, he wrung his hands, so that Gregory himself was moved to tears. When at length he had been removed by force, one of those who were present said, ‘That is thy murderer! God has guarded you from his intended blow, and he is now come hither, impelled by his own conscience—a wretch in his design of murder, but generous in his self-accusation; his tears make an atonement for the blood he intended to shed.’ Gregory, shuddering at this account, said to the young man, ‘God preserve thee! That I, whom He preserveth, should bear myself mercifully towards thee, is nothing great. Thy daring deed made thee mine; see, then, that thou henceforth worthily, as one who belongeth to me and God.’ mild forbearance operated with extraordinary influence upon the inhabitants of Constantinople, and won many hostile hearts to friendship with Gregory.

 

GREGORY PERSISTS IN REFUSING TO ACCEPT THE EPISCOPAL DIGNITY : HIS FRANK BEHAVIOUR TO ALL CLASSES OF PERSONS.

 

Gregory had certainly escaped with success from the first ebullition of popular favour, when, on taking possession of the church of the Apostles, he was to have been forced to accept the episcopal dignity; but there is great probability that the people renewed that effort with redoubled violence, and that they one day took him by surprise, and placed him, in the literal sense of the word by force, on the episcopal seat. A passage in his thirty-sixth oration seems decidedly to point to this, where he says, ‘This fact (namely, that Gregory could not always treat in a very friendly manner his obtrusively zealous admirers) was abundantly shown αἱ your recent act of violence towards me, when you (that is the people), carried away by zeal and passion, an regardless of all my reclamation and complaint, seated me on the episcopal seat, an appointment about which I am not quite resolved whether I should speak of it a hierarchically binding, or as a mere act of tyranny a compulsion. But you have even seated me the performing an illegal act, from pure zeal and affection. On that occasion, I expressed my anger with such special heat against some persons, that they have bee alienated from me, and their love has suddenly turned into hatred’.

This occurrence gave Gregory occasion to declare himself openly concerning the bishopric of Constantinople. It is in his thirty-sixth oration that he doe this. He first of all puts the question, what could it that thus attached his hearers to him, like iron to the magnet, since his discourses contained nothing particularly pleasing or attractive, and since he did not affect to announce any new doctrine, but trod in the old footsteps. It consisted plainly in the consideration of a certain truth, in which the minds of his hearers were already interested, who, in part at least, were scholars of the great bishop of Alexandria, the zealous defender of doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. He accounts, however, for the affectionate, zealous attachment of his congregation from the following causes: First, because hey had themselves called him to his charge, for it was in human nature that every one should love most his own work, his own creation, his own possession—a remark which is very striking, and is confirmed in all times by the fact, that those congregations which call and elect their ministers, show a much higher degree of interest in them than those on whom they are imposed by superior authority. In the next place, they were pleased that he had nothing about him that was extravagant, violent, or theatrical, showy or flattering, but lived a retired, modest, temperate philosophical life, And, finally, it could not escape their notice with what annoyances, sufferings, and persecutions he was forced to contend, for the sake of the pure doctrine. But the Sympathy thus called forth produced and elevated affection.

After these considerations, Gregory defends himself against the charge of seeking to obtain the bishopric of Constantinople. He must indeed (he says) be ashamed, if at his age, bowed down as he was with infirmity, he cherished such views; and strange were it to reproach him with lusting after the wife of another (i.e. the bishopric of Constantinople), when he had never wished for that which was his own (i.e. the bishopric of Nazianzum, or rather of Sasima). That however, he had hastened to Constantinople in order sustain the true faith, which was then in a tottering condition, deserved more praise than blame.

This same discourse, from which the above is taken and which was listened to by the emperor and court and many distinguished and highly-educated person: contains expressions which so beautifully convey the frank and open sentiments of the Christian teachers of that period (in which especially the noble-minded John Chrysostom spoke and laboured), that we cannot forbear to translate a portion of it, respecting which we may be allowed to wish, that it may be read by those who hay the high calling of impressing the truth upon the heart and minds of princes!

‘Ye princes, (he is addressing the emperor and the princes,) do honour to your purple!—for our discourse dares give laws even to the lawgivers—reflect how much is entrusted to you, and what is God’s great hidden purpose with regard to you,” The whole world is subject to your hand and governed by a little sceptre and a small piece of cloth (the imperial purple mantle). All that is above in heaven is God’s all that is here below is yours. Be ye therefore, (that I may say something even bolder,) be ye also as gods for the good of your subjects. ‘The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord’; so it is written, and so also we believe. Let, then, your power be founded thereon, (i.e. on God,) and not upon the abundance of gold, or upon armed troops.

‘But ye, who surround the princes and the throne, be not proud of the power which is committed to you, nor look upon that which is transitory as eternal. Be faithful to the princes, but first of all to God, and for the sake of those who are given up and entrusted to you. Ye who glory in the nobility of your family, be noble in your moral habits; or I shall be obliged to say something which, though certainly unpalatable, is yet to be accounted wholesome. Then only would your order be truly and in the highest sense noble, when no letters patent of nobility shall have introduced into your body is mean and ignoble.

‘You sages and philosophers, with venerable beards and mantles, ye professors and philologists, ye orators, who catch at the applause of the vulgar, truly I know not how you came to be called wise men, since the first principle (of all wisdom) is wanting to you. And ye rich men, hear him who saith—“ If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.” (Psalm lxii. 10.) Know that ye are trusting to an uncertain thing. lighten thy ship somewhat, that thou mayest sail the lighter; probably thou art wresting something from thy enemy, to whom all that thou hast shall fall a prey. And ye lovers of pleasure, withdraw something from the body and bestow it on your soul; see, the poor man is nigh at hand—relieve the sick, spend freely on him some portion of your superfluous wealth. What need is there you should both suffer—thou from repletion, he from hunger?—thou from intemperance, he from thirst?—thou, while thou loadest thyself with satiety and over-fulness, he while he totters from exhaustion and wasting sickness? Overlook not the poor ‘Lazarus’ in this life, that you may not hereafter become ‘the rich man in torment.’ And ye, inhabitants of the great city, the first next after the first (Rome), and ye who scarcely even allow that priority, be ye then the first, not in wickedness, but in virtue; not in disorderly living, but in a life of well-ordered sobriety. For how disgraceful is it to rule over the cities, but suffer yourselves to be mastered by your lusts; or to be wise and intelligent in other things, whilst by horse-races, and play-going, and betting, and hunting, you reduce yourselves to such folly and madness, as to look upon such things as the proper business of life? and thus the first of cities, which properly ought to be a pattern to other’s in all that is good, is become a city full of mere triflers! O that ye would put off that character, and be indeed God’s city? O that your names stood written in God’s register now, and that hereafter ye may be presented, together with us, pure and in a pure form, to the great Buikler of cities! Such are the blessed instructions I bring unto you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom be honour and glory and power, for ever and ever. Amen!’

Thus freely, and independently of the influence of the great and mighty, did Gregory speak; and in the same spirit he also acted. We have seen how graciously and encouragingly he was received by Theodosius. It would therefore have been an easy thing for him to obtain all the favour and influence of a court-ecclesiastic. But this had no charm for one like Gregory; on the contrary, he considered it becoming his own dignity, and the dignity of Him whom he served, to visit the court, and especially the great men of the court, but seldom; and he left to others of the clergy, whom he despised, to mount by flattery to honours and preferment. Gregory had the pride of one who would not obtrude himself onerously upon a great personage. Yet he did not so bear himself in this respect as to play the part of an arrogant, retiring, eccentric person; but when he was invited, he appeared even at the imperial table, and at the other entertainments of the great men. That, however, such hours did not leave upon his mind the most agreeable recollections, is shown by a poem which he wrote at a subsequent period in his retirement. In that composition he extols his heavenly freedom, in contrast with those painful moments when he sat silent and melancholy at the imperial table—when he was obliged by courtesy to press respectfully the hands winch had shed so much blood—and when, as a special act of grace, he was permitted to touch the imperial beard. With as little satisfaction does he speak of the birthday, wedding, and funeral-feasts, which he could not avoid attending. It may be fancied that Gregory, who had given up so great a portion of his life to solitary retire­ment, did not possess the heart and accomplishment of partaking in such things in a cheerful but innocent manner; but undoubtedly it was rather the case that his mind (devoted as it was to the higher good) made these pleasures insipid to him, while his strict earnestness rendered the luxury and extravagance that prevailed on such occasions offensive and objectionable to him. He was like an Elijah, or a John the Baptist, among that thoughtless generation. Far happier were the days he spent in calm repose, than they would have been in those brilliant circles. Even the solitary hours of night he gladly devoted to prayer, holy songs, and pious contemplations, deriving spiritual strength for his active duties from the source of all that is spiritual and all that is strong.

 

THE SECOND ECUMENIC COUNCIL AT CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SPRING OF 381 : GREGORY IS REGULARLY CHOSEN BISHOP: HIS REASONABLE PROPOSALS ARE NOT LISTENED TO.

 

After Theodosius, by several edicts, especially that of January the 10th, 381, had expelled the Arians, and the more insignificant parties connected with them, from all church property, and made the professors of the Nicene faith the sole predominant party, he wished to give complete sanction to this measure by an assembly of bishops from all parts of the Eastern empire, in which the ancient rule of faith might be renewed, and, if it were necessary, more exactly defined and com­pleted. At the same time, he wished to see some settled arrangements made respecting the bishopric of his chief city, Constantinople. For these purposes the council of the Church was actually convoked by him at Constantinople in the spring of the year of our Lord 381; an assembly which had been talked of for some time, and to whose future determinations Gregory had already referred, when it was attempted to impose the bishopric upon him by force. It was quite consistent with the whole previous proceedings of the emperor, that he should invite particularly those bishops from whom he could expect an agreement with the Nicene confession of faith. According to this regulation, they are reckoned (as it is well known) 150 in number, and, on that account, the assembly is also called plainly, ‘The Synod of the 150 Bishops.’ Those of the greatest weight amongst them are, Meletius of Antioch, Helladius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Amphilochius of Iconium, Diodorus of Tarsus, and Cyrill of Jerusalem. Other parties, however, besides the decidedly orthodox, were not entirely excluded from the assembly; for Theodosius had expressly invited the Macedonians with the hope of an union; and there appeared no less than thirty-six of their bishops, principally from the neighbourhood of the Hellespont. The most distinguished among them were Eleusius of Cyzicus, and Marcianus of Lampsacus. The emperor and the other bishops made every effort to induce them to receive the Nicene confession of faith; but they declared firmly against it, left Constantinople, and exhorted their respective communities, by letters, not to unite themselves with the professors of the Nicene doctrine. No mention has been handed down to us of the presence of a single Western bishop in this assembly; nay, it is certain that Theodosius had called together this synod without consulting the Roman bishop, Damasus, and that no persons took part in the proceedings as his representatives. It must have displeased Damasus still more that a person, whom he, with all the Western and Egyptian bishops, had not recognised as in legitimate possession of the episcopal dignity, there exercised the most decided influence, and, at first, even enjoyed the precedence in the assembly of bishops. Meletius, the venerable bishop of Antioch, an aged man, universally honoured for his mildness and piety, certainly at first presided at this meeting of ecclesiastics; but subsequently (as it is highly probable) Gregory of Nazianzum himself. The aged Meletius is described by Gregory (who had a particular affection for him) as a genuine angel of peace, simple, of an unsophisticated nature, full of heavenly sentiments, which beamed from his tranquil eye, but, at the same time, courageous and decided. He was, therefore, excellently qualified for acting as president of such an assembly, and it is only to be lamented that he could not animate it with his own spirit. Besides him, Nectarius is also named (in the Acts of the council of Chalcedon) as presiding at the synod of Constantinople, which can only mean, that he exercised that office as the newly-elected bishop of Constantinople, after the voluntary retirement of Gregory.

Meletius appears to have arrived at Constantinople earlier than the other bishops. After as many ecclesiastics had assembled as seemed necessary for the opening of the council, they proceeded (after a suitable address of greeting to the emperor) to the consideration and settlement of the questions relative to the Church of Constantinople, although the bishops of Egypt and Macedonia had not yet appeared. The recent election of Maximus to the bishopric of Constantinople was examined into, and, after due inquiry, set aside by the bishops. There occurs a special law on this subject, in the orders of the synod, to this effect: ‘In regard to Maximus the cynic, and the disturbance which took place on his account at Constantinople, neither with respect to the past nor to the present time is the said Maximus to be looked upon as a bishop; and the same holds good of all persons who may have been ordained by him to any spiritual office, whatsoever that office may be. Everything, generally, which has been undertaken with him and from him is here declared to be invalid.’

This canon was directed, as we see, not only against Maximus, but also against the Egyptian bishops who had consecrated him at Constantinople, and against the subordinate ecclesiastics whom he probably afterwards ordained in Egypt. It is highly probable that a partisan, like Maximus, had still his adherents among the Egyptian clergy, and that the Fathers, assembled at Constantinople, cherished a reasonable distrust towards their Egyptian brethren. This confirms the conclusion, hat the assembled prelates purposely settled this business before the Egyptian bishops arrived, or else hat their summons to the synod was so arranged, that hey could not come in time for the commencement of its proceedings. The assembled bishops had also, without doubt, passed before the arrival of the Egyptians a decree, which referred to the meddling of the Alexandrian bishop and his clergy in the concerns of the see of Constantinople, and was also intended to forbid anything of the like kind for the future; for they determined,—‘that all bishops should remain in their own dioceses, and not intrude upon another’s province; and, that they should not, uncalled, mix themselves up with ordinations in which they have no concern.’

When now the concerns of the Church in Constantinople were supposed to be securely arranged, it became necessary to proceed to the actual and legal election of a bishop for the chief city. And whom else could that election fix upon than Gregory? He, the courageous defender of the Nicene faith, beloved by the emperor, adored by the people, respected and feared by most of the clergy, was now actually elected by the synod as bishop of the Eastern capital. This, indeed was the only admissible mode of election, because he was not yet released from his bishopric of Nazianzum or Sasima. Gregory declares that even now the acceptance of this dignity was unpleasant to him, but that this unpleasantness was sweetened to him by the hope of being able, as legitimate bishop of Constantinople, to contribute much to the reconciliation of those disputes, which, originating with the Meletian schism in Antioch, separated and distracted the Eastern and Western Churches. The consecration of Gregory was conducted with much solemnity by all the bishops ben present, with Meletius at their head, and honoured with appropriate discourses.

This commencement was probably the calmest and brightest period of the synod; the old contention about he bishopric of Antioch was soon renewed, and, indeed, n a manner that was extremely unworthy of an assembly of ecclesiastics. The venerable old man Meletius died, and in him disappeared the angel of peace. After his funeral had been celebrated with great splendour, a contest arose about what he had left behind him,—viz the bishopric of Antioch, which his death had vacated. This might have been the moment for uniting the so long separated parties in Antioch, had the oversight oi the whole Antiochian community been transferred to the still surviving Paulinus. We are even told by ancient writers, that there existed an agreement between the clergy and the laity of Antioch, by virtue of which, after the decease of Meletius or of Paulinus, he which survived the other should be recognised as the sole bishop; nay, that this agreement had even been sworn to by a number of the clergy on both sides. Without doubt, such an arrangement would gradually, and in the safest manner, have produced peace. Gregory also looked upon the general acknowledgment of Paulinus as the most judicious measure for the attainment of union, and justified this view with thorough earnestness and warmth before the assembly. What he said on that occasion was essentially as follows—‘We ought now to take a higher view of the question, and not allow ourselves to be mixed up with the party feelings if a particular city. Were those individuals even angels, yet they deserved not that, for their sakes, Christendom, redeemed so dearly, and called to peace, should he involved in a general contest. But since the dispute is already kindled, it is now that it can again je best suppressed. Let him who is now in possession if the episcopal seat still retain it. Meanwhile, he also s growing old, and the common lot of mortals must befal him! Then a new bishop can be elected with the general consent of the laity and the clergy, and with the advice of the most judicious bishops. This is the only way to peace, which, after weighing well how destructive this contentious spirit is to the Church, we night to adopt from a holy sense of duty. But that you may be convinced that no regard to self-interest, no desire to please man, has moved me to give this council, now request permission to resign my bishopric, and to lead, if a more inglorious, yet a more peaceful life.’

In this clear and manly language spoke Gregory, but the spirit of party was too strong for the voice of reason to be heard. The assembled bishops were almost all supporters of Meletius (Paulinus had not even been invited to the synod), and might feel assured that the implacable jealousy of the Meletian party at Antioch would never recognise Paulinus as bishop. Supported, therefore, by that party-spirit at Antioch, the same spirit made its voice heard even here, in the assembly of bishops. Scarcely had Gregory finished his address, when, particularly, the younger ecclesiastics (whom he certainly had not flattered) rose up in opposition to the views proposed by him, screaming tumultuously (to use Gregory’s own expression), like jackdaws, and falling upon hint like a swarm of wasps. These brawlers succeeded in carrying with them even the temperate and the old, and thus the calm words of wisdom were perfectly inoperative. The actual result (probably at the instigation of the Syrian prelates, who did not wish to be subject to Paulinus) was, that a successor was given to Meletius, and a rival bishop to Paulinus, in the person of Flexianus the presbyter. With this choice the Meletian community of Antioch completely coincided.

 

GREGORY RESIGNS, AND LEAVES HIS CONGREGATION.

 

Meanwhile the sittings of the synod continued in so stormy a manner as could not be pleasing to an earnest-minded man. Gregory was glad to be prevented by illness for several days from attending the meetings, and at last, when he saw that his voice could not make its way there, he firmly determined to withdraw himself altogether. With this view he quitted his recent episcopal residence, and no longer assisted at the synod. This step made a great impression upon the people, who earnestly besought Gregory to devote the rest of his life entirely to them and to God, whose Gospel he had hitherto preached with such power among them.

Gregory was not yet able to come to a positive deter­mination of resigning his bishopric, when the proceedings of the synod, through the arrival of the hitherto absent bishops of Egypt and Macedonia, took a turn which brought this determination to maturity. These bishops, who naturally felt themselves neglected in the tardiness of their summons, were already, even on that ground, inclined to set themselves against that which the synod had already determined upon. The: showed themselves particularly dissatisfied with the election of Gregory; and this, as he himself says, not so much out of hatred towards him, or preference for another, whom they would rather have placed on the episcopal seat, but rather from a refractory spirit against those who had elected Gregory. So, at least, they secretly represented the matter to him.

According to all probability, this refers more par­ticularly to the fact, that Gregory had been elected under the influence of Meletius, and consecrated by him. But, publicly, they made use of another reason for rejecting Gregory; for instance, they applied to this case the 15th canon of the Nicene council: ‘that, to guard against irregularities, no bishop, presbyter, or deacon, should pass from one city to another. But should any one presume to act on this plan, the arrangement should go for nothing, and the ecclesiastic should be sent back to the church in which he had been first ordained.’ According to this, they now maintained that Gregory could legitimately be only bishop of Sasima, but by no means bishop of Constantinople. Gregory and his defenders, on the contrary, appealed to the fact that he had, by the declaration of a general synod, been released altogether from this already antiquated law; an argument which, however, was not raised above all doubts.

Gregory now considered himself so seriously ill, that, setting aside all other considerations, he formed a determined resolution to resign his office. He presented himself before the assembled bishops, and addressed them as follows:—‘Whatever this assembly may afterwards determine concerning me, I would gladly raise your thoughts beforehand to a subject of far higher importance. I pray you, then, be at harmony with each other, and united in love! Shall we always be derided as irreconcilable, and be animated only by one thing,—viz. contention? Offer the hand of brotherly affection. But I will be another Jonas. I will sacrifice myself for the safety of our ship (the Church), although I am guiltless as to the storm that has been raised. Let the lot fall upon me, and throw me into the sea; a hospitable whale will receive me in the deep waters. Let this be the beginning of your reconciliation. Unwillingly I ascended the episcopal throne, and willingly I again descend from it. My poor weak body also counsels me to this. Only one debt have I still to pay—the debt of death; and that is God’s concern. But O my beloved Trinity in Unity! only on thy account am I sorrowful. Wilt thou indeed have an honest man as my successor, who may defend thee with courage and a zealous devotedness? But fare ye well! and think, I pray you, of my labours and troubles.’ Thus spoke Gregory. The bishops, taken by surprise, hesitated, in doubt how they should declare themselves. Gregory left the assembly with mingled sensations, happy at the thought that he should now enjoy repose, but sad when he thought of his flock, and their feelings on becoming acquainted with what had happened. No sooner, however, had Gregory left the assembly, than the bishops showed their satisfaction at his resignation; a thing at which we might be inclined to wonder, if we did not take into consideration the ordinary course of human proceedings. The greater part of the clergy were heartily glad to be quit of a man whom they envied, who was superior to them in genius and eloquence, who often severely censured their violent conduct, and did not always deliver his wiser counsel with perfect mildness. And, besides this, the Macedonian and Egyptian prelates already formed a decided opposition, which was maintained by them the more firmly, because it sprung (especially in the case of the Egyptians) from the long­standing party spirit of their entire Church.

Gregory went straightway to the emperor, and, in the presence of many persons, requested his dismissal in a straightforward, dignified manner: ‘I desire not gold of thee, magnanimous prince, nor valuable ornaments for my church, nor honourable appointments for my relations. I believe that I have deserved of thee a far higher act of grace. Permit me, then, to withdraw myself out of the reach of envy.’ With such words Gregory approached the emperor, at the same time adjuring him to make every effort to restore peace among the excited bishops. Theodosius, though he viewed with the deepest regret his departure from Constantinople, solemnly promised the venerable bishop the strictest attention to his request.

Gregory now received so many proofs of the sym­pathy of his congregation, that he could not well avoid the public expression of a solemn farewell; it was also obligatory upon him openly to state his exact position, and to justify his proceedings. This he did in his famous Valedictory Oration, from which we the more willingly extract some striking passages, as it belongs to the most distinguished oratorical productions of Gregory. In the first place, Gregory addresses the assembled bishops in a conciliatory manner, and engages to give them an account of his previous official conduct. He describes the melancholy state of the orthodox community in Constantinople immediately before his arrival, under the government of Valens; how it scarcely presented the appearance of a community, being small, with­out a pastor, scattered, persecuted, unprotected by law, and robbed of all property. He then points to its improved condition at the time of his address: ‘Lift up thine eyes (he says) and look around, thou who wouldst test my teaching here. Observe this glorious wreath that has already been woven; see the assembly of pres­byters, venerable for their age and intelligence, the modest deacons, the excellent readers, the inquiring, docile people, the men and women, alike respected for their virtue. This goodly wreath (I say it not from the Lord, but still I say it), this wreath have I in a great measure helped to construct; this crown is, at least in part, the result of my preaching.’ Gregory was undoubtedly too modest to ascribe only to his own exer­tions the great alteration which, under favourable external circumstances, had been brought about in so short a time. He saw therein a divine providence. But yet, in the position in which he had been placed, he had also a perfect right to claim value for his personal co-operation, that had been so unthankfully received, and especially to exhibit forcibly the grave importance of the effort to maintain and establish the pure doctrine at that particular time in Constantinople. ‘For if this be not a great thing (he says, in reference thereto), to have fortified and established in sound doctrine the city, which is the eye of the world, the mistress of sea and land, the connecting link between East and West, to which everything flows in from all quarters, and from which everything issues, as from a common emporium of the faith—and all this at a time when it was disturbed on all sides by most opposite opinions—if this be not a great thing, scarcely could anything else appear great and worth an effort. But granting this to belong to praiseworthy things, then may I feel a little pride therein—then have I contributed in part to the production of that which you now see around you.’ Gregory might with a good conscience appeal to his ministerial labours. It had been his steady aim to act therein in reference to the good cause, and to the advantage of the community entrusted to his care, not for the attain­ment of selfish objects of gratification or advancement. ‘Have I ever (he could safely presume to say)—have I ever taken advantage of this people through love of gain? Have I been anxious to promote my own interest, as most people do? Have I ever grieved the Church? Others probably I may have grieved (against whom, because they fancied we might have surrendered our good cause, my preaching was directed), but not you, as far as I am conscious to myself. I have kept my priestly-vows pure and without falsehood. If I have done homage to power, or striven for dominion, or obtruded myself into the palaces of princes, then will no honour attend my name; or if I have gained any, I shall instantly lose it.’

Gregory then, after giving a full statement of the doctrine of the Trinity (by the force of which he was convinced he had wrought all this, the Holy Spirit working with him), presents to the assembled bishops his flourishing congregation, as at the same time his best defence and fairest gift, and asks of them in return his discharge from his post. ‘Grant me now also a reward for my past exertions. And what is it I ask? Not that which suspicious minds might suppose; but such as I can with security demand. Give me rest from my protracted labours. Respect this hoary head; respect the claims of hospitality. Choose in my place some other man, like me, subject to persecution; a man of clean hands, and judicious in his discourses, who is qualified to live in all things agreeably to your wishes, and able to bear up under ecclesiastical cares; for this is a necessary qualification m our days. Ye see how my body is wasted by age and sickness and over-exertion; what farther use could ye find in a sickly, debilitated old man? in one who, so to say, dieth daily, not only from bodily weakness, but from care and sorrows?

Gregory next laments bitterly the contentious dispo­sition that prevailed among the bishops, and the general party-spirit arising therefrom: ‘How,’ he asks, ‘could I support this holy war? for we may speak of a holy war as we do of a barbarous war. How should I endure those persons who, in the very discharge of their office, oppose one another, make their ministerial duties an occasion of dispute, and assemble together, not an united people, but a people split and divided by that separations, and, like their teachers, hostile to each other? nay, not only their own people are thus affected, but parties are formed through the whole world, in agreement with the views of those restless individuals; so that now the East and the West are divided into two hostile parties, and seem no less separated by their opinions than they are by their natural boundaries.

How long (the orator proceeds, in allusion to the Meletian schism)—how long shall we speak of my teacher and thy teacher, of the old school and the new, of the more eloquent or the more spiritual, of the more noble or the less noble, of him who has the larger or the smaller congregation? I should disgrace my old age, if I, who have my salvation through Christ, should suffer myself to be called after another (i. e., adopt any party name).

In continuing the discourse, Gregory defends himself against some unjust reproaches which were frequently made against him, particularly against the absurd charge of not having lived in the same expensive style as other wordly-minded prelates of that time indulged in. He considers himself rather entitled to censure the inhabitants of Constantinople for looking too much to externals in their clergy: ‘For (he says) they require not priests but orators, not curators of souls, but possessors of riches; not pure ministers of the altar, but powerful combatants.’

The orator then goes on to the conclusion, in which he once more brings together all his sentiments, and which, on that account, may here be introduced entire. ‘Now farewell, my beloved church, Anastasia, thou who beared so blessed a name! Thou raisedst up again our true faith, which at that time was still despised; thou field of our common victory, thou new Shiloh, where we first set up again the Ark of the Covenant, after it had been carried about during forty years’ wandering in the wilderness! And thou, too, larger and more celebrated temple, our new possession, who hast now first received thy true greatness from the true preaching of the everlasting word of God! And all ye houses of God, which come near to it in beauty, and, distributed in different quarters of the city, connect the neighbourly relation by a holy chain—ye folds, which not we in our weakness, but God by his grace working with us, hath filled with sheep that had else been lost! Farewell, ye apostles, who deign to inhabit this temple; ye types of my struggle!—Farewell thou, my episcopal throne, envied but dangerous seat! and thou assemblage of higher priests, and ye other priests, venerable by your age and humble bearing! and whosoever else serveth at the holy table of God, and standeth near to the ever-near God! Farewell, ye choruses of the Nazareans, ye harmonies of psalms and hymns, ye nightly prayers, ye chaste virgins, ye modest wives and widows, ye assem­bled orphans, ye poor, whose eyes looked up to God and me! Farewell, ye hospitable and Christ-loving houses, which have taken a kind interest in my weakness! Farewell, ye friendly listeners to my discourses, ye who have attended on them in crowds, and have even taken them down in writing, openly or secretly! Thou, too, my pulpit, so often closely pressed upon by my eager audience, farewell! Farewell ye princes, and ye palaces, and all ye that form the establishment and household of the emperor. Whether ye are loyal to the emperor I or not, I do not know; but to God ye are in a great measure untrue. Clap your hands, raise the shout of approbation, extol your preacher to the skies! The tongue that has been so troublesome to yon will speak to you no more; but it is not entirely speechless; it will still fight the good fight through the hand and the pen; it is only for the present that it will be silent.

Farewell, thou vast, Christ-loving city! for I will bear witness to this truth, even though thy zeal is not always combined with knowledge; approaching separa­tion makes me judge mildly of thee. Keep close to the truth; change at length for the better; honour God more than you have hitherto done; such a change brings no shame with it, bill perseverance in evil will bring destruction. Farewell, Eastern and Western lands, those for which and those by which I am persecuted and opposed! He is my witness, who will establish peace among you, if only some few persons would imitate my act of resignation; for surely they who descend from the episcopal chair, do not thereby lose their connexion with God, but rather receive a heavenly seat, far higher and safer than it. But above all I say: Farewell, ye angels, protectors of this church, my protectors both during my presence here and in my discharge from office! for in God’s hand lie all our destinies. And farewell, O Holy Trinity, my sole thought, my only jewel! Mayest thou be preserved to these, my people and mayest thou preserve them! For they are still my people, even when they are taken charge of by another. And that I may hear that ye are ever exalted and distinguished for sound doctrine and holy living! My children, cherish the truth which I have committed to you, and remember my persecutions for its sake. Th( grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen.’

Gregory’s resignation is one of the most important events in Ids life, and, in fact, closes his public career This renunciation of the highest station in the Church so perfectly suited to him, has not unfrequently been looked upon as one of the noblest acts and as the brightest point in his life ; for instance, by Sozomenus. Without denying the greatness of mind which really belonged to that voluntary determination, we yet think we ought not to assent to that unconditional praise; rather must we maintain that the motives of the proceeding, as far as we can discern then by means of safe historical traces, were of a mixed nature. Undoubtedly Gregory had been unjustly and vexatiously treated. He might with reason require au acknowledgment of his services in regard to the churchy of the capital, and expect a due regard for his person: and both of these things he experienced at the commencement of the synod. But, in a short time, external circumstances and a low tone of sentiment turned from him the favourable bias of the excited ecclesiastics and changed it into a disrespectful resistance. Gregory upon that lost patience, and would have nothing more to do with the great body of them. Now was he not (if we may presume to ask the question) too much provoked, too deeply wounded, by this mere human occurrence? Might he not, with a higher discretion, courageously have endured all those personal attacks, and calmly maintained the post which belonged to him, in order to effect the more good after the storm was over? We will not, however, be so unjust as to overlook the better motives which influenced him. Gregory really believed, that through his retiring the assembly would be more calm and peaceable (as it really then became), and so far his conduct was an act of self-denying, public-spirited sacrifice. In addition to this, he was old and sickly, and had well-established claims upon a quieter and more retired life, while a deep and inextinguishable longing ever attracted him to a life of solitary devotedness to God. Gregory’s resignation, therefore, proceeded quite naturally and necessarily from his intellectual constitution and his real character being placed in collision with those peculiar circumstances; and his better self (as well as the less worthy but strong sense of honour) appears to have contributed to this determination. Certainly, if we compare this act with the conduct of a great many other bishops, who thought no step too low in order to obtain an influential position, or to maintain themselves therein, it appears an heroic sacrifice, almost unique of its kind. For it was, undoubtedly, no small matter to relinquish a position won by so many labours, and earnestly desired, exactly at the moment when the fruits of those labours offered the­selves for more peaceful enjoyment.

We cannot suppose that Gregory remained long in Constantinople after the delivery of his farewell oration. He had probably taken his departure ere the synod chose a successor to him, in the person of Nectarius, who had hitherto been a senator, and had been invested with the office of praetor. This person is celebrated for his gentle and worthy character, but he had not qualified himself for a spiritual appointment. He had not even been as yet baptized. As a theologian, in the proper sense of the term, he was, therefore, by no means worthy of his distinguished predecessor; though it is not improbable that, by the mildness of his disposition, he exercised a more successful influence on the harmony of the assembled bishops than the strict Gregory had ever exercised.

It was probably in the month of June, a.d. 381, that Gregory left Constantinople, after he had laboured there between two and three years with the authority of a bishop, and the superiority of a distinguished teacher, but only for a few weeks as actual bishop. It was after the voluntary retirement of Gregory, that the now quieter assembly of bishops adopted those important decisions which make that council an epoch in the history of the constitution and doctrines of the Church. In relation to the first (the constitution of the Church) the celebrated law was passed, which gives to the Bishop of Constantinople, as the bishop of new Rome, the second rank; next, that is, to the Bishop of Rome. But in relation to doctrine, not only was the Nicene confession confirmed, with, additional condemnation of the heresies that were opposed to it, but it was also completed by several additions, the most important of which related to the Holy Ghost; so that now the doctrine of the Trinity, in its fundamental principles, was ecclesiastically settled, invested with triumph by public authority of Church and State, and therefore that result was attained for which Gregory had fought with the weapons of the Word.

 

FOURTH.

FROM THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 381 TO 390, AND THEREFORE FROM HIS FIFTY-FIRST TO HIS SIXTIETH YEAR.

CHRONOLOGICAL REVIEW

Gregory left Constantinople and returned to Cappadocia most probably in June 381. He lived there for a short period in the discharge of public duties, but afterwards, for the most part, in undisturbed retirement. In the summer of 382 he was invited to a synod at Constantinople, which he however declined to attend. Probably in the year 383 he caused Eulalius to be chosen bishop of Nazianzum, and from that time withdrew himself entirely to his private estate. It is not easy to arrange chronologically a list of bis labours and writings there. The death of Gregory took place a.d. 389 or 390.

 

GREGORY ENJOYS HIS RETIREMENT AND HIS RELEASE FROM SYNODS; HE IS, HOWEVER, CONSTANTLY ACTIVE IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH AT NAZIANZUM.

 

Gregory now withdrew from the dazzling arena of an absorbing activity to a quieter, though not altogether a secluded or inactive life. His soul longed after solitude and repose, but his ardent mind could not slumber in retirement.

He went first of all, as it seems, to Nazianzum, or to his patrimonial estate near Arianzum, to give some refreshment to his infirm body and to his mind, that had suffered from the stormy contests he had been engaged in. A letter which he wrote to his friend Philagrius gives us the best possible idea of the state of mind in which he then was; he therein first excuses himself for having been prevented by illness from visiting him, and then defends himself against the reproach (which his friend had brought against him) of having relinquished his post at Constantinople somewhat too hastily and inconsiderately. ‘I am weary (he says) of the struggle with envy and with the holy bishops, who destroyed all chance of union on public-spirited grounds, and sacrificed the cause of the faith to their private squabbles. Therefore 1 have thought it right to turn the ship about, and (as is related of the nautili, when they mark an approaching storm) withdraw into myself; so that I can now observe from my distant retreat, how others are knocked about and jostle with each other. Now when you write to me that it was a hazardous thing thus to leave the Church, I ask you, ‘What church? If it were my own, I should have agreed with her, and entirely justified her proceedings. But if it be one which does not properly concern me, and is not adjudged to me, then am I blameless. And if I have taken charge of it for a time, am I therefore irrevocably bound to it 1 If so, many others also would be equally bound, who have at any time taken the charge of churches that were not theirs. To maintain the contest is probably deserving of reward, but yet the act of withdrawing from it is not to be considered as a crime.’

Gregory had returned home with feelings of strong displeasure, and even of acrimony, at the conduct of the bishops towards him. He sought to relieve his full heart in the outpourings of epistolary correspondence ; and we are indebted to this impulse of his sensibility for a poem seasoned with biting sarcasm (viz. The Poem concerning the Bishops), in which he describes in the liveliest colours the corrupt state of the clergy of his time. The excited state of Gregory’s feelings may have caused some exaggeration; but, as a whole, it contains such individualized touches of features taken from the life, that it bears upon it the complete impression of truth, and affords us the melancholy fact, that the eccle­siastical offices, and especially the bishoprics, of that time were filled in a great measure by persons who were not only very ignorant, but also in moral sentiment utterly unworthy of their appointment. Another poem, concerning his own Life, was written by Gregory, in milder tone, though not unmixed with satire, which also seems to belong to this period, because it is continued exactly to his resignation of his office in Constantinople.

Gregory, however, could console himself in his life of retirement by the consciousness, that the good which he had done in Constantinople would follow him even in his solitude, and that he only left behind him in the unquiet capital struggle and suffering. After he had gotten over the first sharp pain occasioned by his un­grateful treatment at Constantinople, Gregory soon felt himself well in body and cheerful in mind. In this tone of feeling he writes to his friend Amazonius: ‘If any one of our common friends, (of whom I hope there are a good many,) should ask you, Where is Gregory now? and what is he doing? tell him only, in entire confidence of its truth, that he is enjoying, in perfect quiet, a philosophical life, and that he troubles himself as little about his enemies as he does about persons of whose existence he knows nothing. So little is his mind bowed down by recent events.’ Indeed he soon felt happy in his unenvied quiet, where, far away from the din of the world and the disputes of the clergy, he could occupy himself in prayer to God ; and he could, at last, even thank his enemies for having forced him into that solitary asylum. ‘I am leading’ (he writes to a friend, Sophronius, an officer of state)—I am leading a philosophical life in undisturbed quiet. This have my enemies procured for me; I could wish that they had even inflicted more of the like kind upon me, that I might recognise in them, even more than I do, my benefactors! For so it often happens, that those plants which seem to take harm are exactly the first to bloom, while those which seem to be in the most flourishing condition suffer damage.’

That Gregory cherished no ill-will against his successor Nectarius, but rather a most friendly feeling, appears from several of his epistles. We select, by way of proof, only one beautiful passage from a letter of introduction which Gregory gave to a certain person named Pancratius, addressed to the Bishop of Constantinople: ‘My affairs (he writes) go on quietly, just as it pleases them to go. I live now in peace, without contest or calls of business, and I value the security of undisturbed solitude as the highest reward that could be granted to me. Nay, I have even derived an additional advantage from this life of quiet, since by God’s goodness I have completely recovered from my sickness. But as for you, as holy David says, ‘Good luck have thou with thy honour!’ and may the God, who has called you to the priestly dignity also attend you in the same, and guard you from all rude and insulting treatment!’ Could Gregory express himself more mildly and affectionately to one who, wit bout any great merit, now enjoyed the fruits of his strenuous labours in Constantinople?                

How entirely in earnest Gregory was in his declarations of satisfaction with his quiet position, and how little he coveted the active occupation of ecclesiastical dignity, with all its weight and influence, is sufficiently proved by the expressions with which he declined repeated invitations to attend synods. When Theodosius (a.d. 382) caused him to be invited to a meeting of the bishops at Constantinople, he thus answered Procopius, who had communicated to him the wish of the emperor:

‘I am, if the truth must be told, in such a tone of mind that I shun every assemblage of bishops, because I have never yet seen that any synod had a good ending, or that the evils complained of were removed by them, but were rather multiplied; since the spirit of dispute and the love of power (and do not think that I am here using too strong language) are exhibited there beyond all powers of description. And any one who dares to speak against the baseness of others, would be more sure to bring down censure and complaints upon himself than succeed in subduing that baseness. For that reason I have retired into myself, and have found rest for my soul only in this withdrawal from the world. At present, however, I can also plead illness in justification of my resolve, since my end seems almost always at hand, and I am profitable for nothing. Therefore let your generosity pardon me: and I pray you also that you would reconcile the pious emperor to this refusal, so that ho may not condemn me as remiss, but make allowance for my weakness, out of regard to which he has granted to my petition, instead of all other favours, the privilege of retirement.’

A most remarkable letter! which certainly inflicts a heavy blow upon the godly character and reputation of synods. Gregory knew the synods by experience; he was convinced that they only multiplied evils in the Church: how could he, therefore, recognise instruments of the Holy Ghost in those same individuals, whom he saw to be so entirely animated by a spirit of contention and ambition? And these thoughts he expressed, not only in an occasional mood of excitement and displeasure, but repeatedly, and on different occasions. Among other passages, he writes thus to a friend who had invited him to a meeting of bishops: ‘I hasten to come to you, in order to talk with you solus cum, solo; for as to the assemblies and synods, I keep myself at a distance from them, since I have found by experience, that most of them (that I may express myself in moderation) are not worth much.’

On his return to his native city, Gregory did not find the Christian community there in quite a flourishing condition. We possess a poem by Gregory, which contains a description of the Christian community of Nazianzum after his father’s death, and, from several expressions in it, it might be fairly referred to this point of time. In this poem, the Apollinarians are especially designated as those who had brought the Church there into so sad a condition. Gregory, who must have felt this severely, exerted himself to give the community a director who would be able to oppose the prevailing evil. He thought to find such an one in a man, who certainly hail hitherto filled a secular office in the finance-department, but yet appeared to possess the proper qualifications, at least the right disposition, for the episcopal office. He saw himself, however, hindered in the execution of his plan by the presbyters of Nazianzum, of whom he remarks, that some concealed a real aversion by a hypocritical show of friendship towards him, while others had exerted themselves in open hostility against him. He also complains that bishops, who had probably promised to support his plan, had on this occasion deceived him. It appears that Gregory, after the failure of this attempt, gave the com­munity another ruler, whose name, likewise, is unknown to us. He soon after withdrew to his patrimonial estate near Nazianzum.

Scarcely, however, had Gregory been absent for a time from Nazianzum, when the necessity of possessing such a man as he was, was felt with renewed strength. The clergy and the people urged him to return into the city and oppose the Apollinarian heresy, that was spread­ing more and more around them. They would listen to none of Gregory’s grounds of excuse—even distrusted his assurance that he was too old and infirm, and actually gave him no peace until he once more formed the determination to undertake the superintendence of the Church of Nazianzum. In that passage of the poem where he speaks of this determination, he expresses himself as if it were his purpose to devote the rest of his life entirely to spiritual duties in that community; but he speaks, at the same time, in such strong terms of his bodily weakness, that it is to be presumed, from his very manner of expressing himself, that he could not long have supported the exertions connected, espe­cially under such circumstances, with the episcopal office, but would soon again have required the enjoyment of repose and quiet. In fact, we see that, without relating any particular occasion for the change. Gregory again de­termines to withdraw himself from public life; and he could now do so (in spite of the real sympathy and affection which he still cherished for his native city) with so much the greater satisfaction, as a worthy successor now supplied his place. He had been successful in persuading the bishops of the neighbourhood to comply with his wishes, by electing the presbyter Eulalius bishop of Nazianzum; a choice, concerning which Gregory thus expresses himself in an epistle to his relative, the Bishop of Nyssa: ‘I would most urgently request that no one would circulate false reports concerning me or the bishops, as if they, in opposition to my wish, had named some other person to be my successor; for I am by no means so despicable in their estimation, nor are they so spitefully disposed towards me. The truth is, that I have more than once prayed them, out of consideration to my half-dead body, and (because I feared the heavy responsibility of neglecting Christ’s flock) I have besought it as a favour, that they would give the Church a shepherd—a thing which is not against the laws of the Church, and might ensure my recovery. Such a shepherd was then appointed, in the person of one who is fully worthy to be remembered by you in your prayers. I now also place him in your hands—the venerable Eulalius, the bishop beloved of God, and in whose arms I would wish to breathe my last! But if any one thinks, that as long as a bishop is living no other should be chosen in his place, let him know that he thereby decides nothing against us, since everybody knows that I was not consecrated bishop of Nazianzum, but of Sasima, although I undertook, for a short time, the superintendence of the Nazianzen Church, as a guest rather than a bishop, out of respect to my father, and those who suppliantly entreated me to do so.’

 

GREGORY WITHDRAWS HIMSELF INTO PEFFECT RETIREMENT, BUT STIIL TAKES AN INTEREST IN CHURCH MATTERS, AND IN THE CONCERNS OF HIS FATHERLAND, OF PARTICULAR FAMILIES, AND INDIVIDUALS.

 

Gregory now regularly devoted himself to the solitude of the country, and led, up to the time of his death, the externally uniform life of a Christian ascetic in his patrimonial house at Arianzum, where a garden, with its shady trees and fountain, was his favourite resort. He however by no means gave himself up to an indolent repose; amidst strict religious exercises he was still earnestly active, and in many ways influential, even in worldly matters. This is proved by the vast number of epistles and poems which he wrote at this period, and which were, in part at least, intended to effect some good purpose in particular relations of life, whether far or near. It is hardly possible, and, if it were possible, it would excite very little interest, to particularize, in the exact order of time, all the little incidents which may have occurred in this epoch of Gregory’s uniform existence. We will rather arrange them according to some leading points of view, and thus exhibit the subjects which particularly engaged his attention, as well as his tone oi thought and activity of mind.

Although Gregory had wholly divested himself o ecclesiastical offices, properly so called, yet he did not cease to take a part in the general concerns of the Church. His efforts were particularly and constantly directed to the maintenance of peace and order. It was probably in the early part of his retired life, that for this object he wrote some letters to distinguished statesmen, whom he supposed likely to have a favourable influence on the minds of the bishops at an approaching synod. He was afraid that even in that assembly, the general good would be sacrificed to the spirit of contention and to private interest; he was willing, therefore, to make every effort to prevent that. With this feeling, he wrote thus to an influential person, named Posthumianus: ‘Consider no object more noble than that under your authority, and by means thereof, peace may Le maintained in the Church, even though it were necessary to proceed, for that object, with some severity against the noisy leaders of a party. If I seem in this to be somewhat premature, yet do not wonder that, although I have retired from actual business, I yet have not given up all anxiety for the common good; for though, according to the wish of those men, I relinquished the bishop’s chair and its proud dignity, I by no means gave up the practice of piety to them. So much the more, then, I think I may confidently reckon upon your compliance, inasmuch as I can have no eye to my own advantage, but solely to the common interests of the community.’ Gregory wrote similar letters to other eminent individuals, amongst others to the general, Modarius, whether on the same or on some other occasion, it would be difficult to determine. If now this step of Gregory’s be liable (as per­haps it may be) to be disapproved—viz., his calling upon secular placemen, and even a powerful general, to maintain order among the assembled bishops—we have only to reflect with what excited passions (a fact which Gregory had sufficient opportunities of knowing) a great portion of those ecclesiastics came to those meetings, and we shall, at least, not misapprehend his good purpose of promoting the best interests of the Church.

We have already remarked that, after his retiring from Constantinople, Gregory found the community of his native city disturbed, particularly by Apollinarians. These teachers maintained their ground perseveringly, made various attempts to establish themselves in the Church, or even to get the upper hand therein; and Gregory looked upon it as a duty, even in his solitary retirement, to contend against them. With this new, beside the poem, already mentioned, he wrote several epistles, the object of which was to thwart the influence of the Apollinarians. In a letter to Theodorus, bishop of Tyana, after lamenting the melancholy state of the Nazianzen community, and his own infirmities, which prevented his personal exertions, he says: ‘To pass over others, you will have heard from my honoured co-presbyters, the choir-bishop Eulalius and Celeusius what the Apollinarians (who are forcing themselves upon us) have partly done already, and are partly threatening to do. I am now too old and feeble to prevent this, but you are intelligent and sufficiently strong; and, what is more, God has granted you power for the general superintendence of the Church.’ Another epistle, addressed to the governor, Olympius, furnishes us with still clearer information respecting these circumstances. Gregory therein tells him, that he had at first endeavoured to gain over the Apollinarians by kindness, and to dissuade them from their errors; but that they had only been made worse thereby, and more obdurate; and he believed that more serious measures must now be adopted towards them. ‘For (he says) these pernicious men have presumed to recall, or at least (for I cannot positively say which) to make use of bishops, who have been de posed from their office by the whole assembled clergy of the East and West. In violation of all the imperial commands and our ecclesiastical regulations, they have assigned the name of bishop to a godless, fraudulent individual taken from their own body. And to this, as I believe, they have been encouraged by nothing so much as by my serious illness. Is this to be tolerated? You perhaps, as a strong man, may bear it; and so also can I endure it, as I have endured many other things. It is, however, too serious an evil to be neglected; and as the best emperors have not suffered it, so be you willing to correct what has been done amiss.’

Gregory preserved a continued interest, not only in the ecclesiastical, but also in the civil concerns of his fatherland. He endeavoured everywhere to avert disorder and mischief—to establish love and peace. The inhabitants of Nazianzum had on some occasion (probably of tumultuary excitement, which was at that time so easily called forth by any act of military despotism) provoked the auger of the Imperial lieutenant, Olympius; and this Olympias had determined to punish, or rather to revenge himself upon the refractory part of the conquered people, in a fearful manner, even by the destruction of the city. Gregory was prevented by sickness from appearing personally before the lieutenant (who, as it appears, was kindly disposed towards him), but he wrote to him an excellent epistle, full of urgent exhortations to mercy; in which, among other things, he says: ‘Terrible is the death of one fellow-creature, who today is, and tomorrow is no more, and will no more return to us. But much more terrible a thing is it to destroy a city, which an emperor founded, which time enlarged, and succeeding years have fostered. I speak to yon of Diociesarea, which was once a city, but now is so no longer, if you are not merciful to it. Imagine, pray you, while I lend it voice, that it is now fallen down before you, and through me addresses you. Clothed with mourning garments, her hair shorn off, as in a tragedy, she thus appeals to you: ‘Stretch forth thine hand to me, who am prostrate before thee on the ground, and help my weakness; increase not the calamities of the time, and destroy not what the Persians have still left to us. Surely it is far nobler to raise up again fallen cities, than to destroy those that are already suffering distress. Be rather a builder of cities, by either making them again to flourish, or, at least, by preserving them in their present condition. Do not allow it to be said, that till your government it was a city, but from that time was so no longer; and let not the melancholy tale be told of you, that you received it as a city, but left it a desolate place, where the eye would rest only on elevations and depressions, and on heaps of ruins, the signs of a former city. Thus far Gregory speaks in the name of the city; he then subjoins exhortations in his own person, while he declares it to be undoubtedly right to punish the guilty, but too cruel to plunge a whole community into misery, on account of the foolhardiness of some few young men. Gregory appears also to plead for the more merciful treatment of the authors of the tumult, while he also remarks how greatly they had been provoked: ‘They mourned, as it were, for their mother, who had been put to death; they could not endure to be called citizens, and yet be without a city (i.e., without political rights); it drove them mad, and in that state of mind they violated the laws, and forfeited their own interests; the unexpected misfortune deprived them of their senses. But must the city for that reason be destroyed? Far be it from a distinguished man like thee to order such a thing to be done!’

This epistle appears not to have failed of its contem­plated effect, for in another address, in which Gregory laments the recall of Olympius, he gives the most flattering testimony to his good government, and assures him that his departure would be deplored, that he himself would bear away with him great riches, and such as governors seldom collected, viz., a good reputation, and the privilege of being inscribed on the hearts of all in indelible characters. The friendly relation in which Gregory stood towards this governor is still farther shown by a whole series of letters, which, for the most part, were directed to the effecting some good for the unfortunate and those who had been unjustly perse­cuted, or to obtain a remission of too severe a punishment.

From his solitary abode Gregory frequently took upon himself, with affectionate solicitude, the charge of individual persons and whole families. Strict and severe as he was towards himself, we yet always find in him a true fellow-feeling for the peculiar circumstances of others. While he rejoiced with them that rejoiced, he not only wept with those who wept, but also assisted them where it was possible. He, who had himself renounced marriage and extolled the virgin-state, yet honoured, in return, the married state as God’s divine appointment, and laboured always to maintain domestic relations in purity and holiness. He, who in many moments of his advanced age felt painfully how lonely he was in the world, without wife and children, could rejoice with real sympathy in the happiness of two persons so bound together in love. It was with this feeling that he thus congratulates a young friend, named Eusebius, on his marriage:

‘Enopia, your beloved, is now thine; the moment of your marriage is arrived; the happiness of your life is made secure; the prayers of your parents are heard, and I, who ought properly to have been present, and have taken part in your solemn service, (as indeed I had even promised,) must be at a distance. What we wish for, we readily hope to enjoy; and we easily deceive ourselves, when we would gladly do a thing. I have even several times attempted to set out, then again I hesitated, and have at last been over­come by sickness. Others, then, must invoke the powers of love, (for playful mirth becomes the nuptial festivity,) and describe the beauty of the bride with a painter’s skill, and then, by way of contrast, the bridegroom’s gracefulness; and, lastly, bedeck the bridal-bed with complimentary addresses, as with flowers. I also will sing to you both my marriage-song: ‘The Lord bless you out of Sion, and bestow harmony on your married-state! Mayest thou by his blessing see thy sons (and sons’ sons I had almost said) still nobler than thyself!’ This is what I should have asked for you, if I had been present; and I now earnestly invoke it upon you.’ In another somewhat more grave epistle, in which Gregory greets a certain person, named Diodes, on the occasion of his marriage, he says: ‘One of the highest and greatest blessings is, that Christ is present in the marriage­solemnity. But where He is, there also is good order, there water becomes wine, there, generally, everything is changed for the better.’

As in these instances we see Gregory displaying a lively interest in domestic enjoyments, so we also find him exerting his influence beneficially where the happiness of a family, or the pure relations of the married life, were in danger of being disturbed. He endeavoured not only to prevent divorce, proceeding in such cases with great tact and discretion, (as several of his letters show,) but he also exerted himself to remove the minor discrepancies which had crept in between married people.

Remarkable in this respect is a half-jesting epistle of Gregory’s to Nicobulus, the husband of his niece Alypiana. in which he exhibits, in some excellent remarks, the unreasonableness of his ideas in treating the externals of his wife as mean and insignificant. ‘Thou jeerest me (he says) about Alypiana, as if she were too small of stature, and unworthy of thy stately size, O thou large, and powerful, and immeasurable one in form and strength! I have now learnt for the first time that the soul is to be measured, and virtue weighed; that rocks are more precious than pearls, and ravens superior to nightingales. Take now to thyself thy stature and those many feet in height which thou missest in thy wife, and be, I pray thee, as great as the famous Aloidae; for thou canst guide the steed, and hull the spear, and thy delight is in the chase; but she, forsooth, does nothing, for no great strength is required to hold the shuttle, to handle the thread, and to sit at the loom!

                   For that is the glory of women.

Or, if thou wilt add this also, that she is bowed down for the sake of prayer, that she is constantly occupied with God in great emotion of mind;—what I ask thee, is thy largeness and height of body here by comparison? Observe, however, her becoming silence; listen to her when she speaks; and see how unadorned she is, how active as a mistress, how economically she manages her house, how she loves her husband. Thou wilt then say, with the Lacedaemonian: ‘the soul truly is not to be measured;’ and though we are, as to each other, external, we must look to the inner man if we would know one another. When thou hast learnt to look at the matter thus, thou wilt cease to jest at her expense by laughing at the smallness of her figure, and wilt bless God for thy happy marriage.’

The letters which Gregory wrote to, and concerning, a person whom he had greatly befriended (and who is addressed as Sacerdos), are particularly beautiful. This Sacerdos had already, in his early youth, devoted himself with earnest zeal to a life of piety, and thereby gained the love of Gregory (who, with especial distinction, calls him his son, and attracted the attention of other distinguished ecclesiastics. He became a presbyter, and subsequently the superintendent of a considerable institution for the poor, probably that which was founded by Basil at Caesarea, and which was extremely important and beneficial. He seems, at the same time, to have been the head of a monastery, or (more probably) of the monks who had devoted themselves to the care of the poor and sick in that institution. It came to pass, however, (we are not positively told from what cause,) that Sacerdos had a misunder­standing with one of his friends, Eudocius, and thereby, probably, with Helladius, the bishop of Caesarea. This disagreement resulted in the removal of Sacerdos from his appointment, and his being persecuted by these parties. He had till then led a very quiet, undisturbed life, as to externals, and was not accustomed to vexations and trials of this sort. Gregory, therefore, considered it all but a duty to remind his friend, that such experiences were necessary for the formation of a truly pious and purified mind. He wrote to him several excellent letters. ‘If (he says) you expected to meet with nothing unpleasant when you devoted yourself to the pursuit of wisdom, your very beginning was without wisdom, and I cannot but blame those who educated you: if you did expect it, then thank God for the time in which it did not befal you. But if it now befal you, either bear it courageously, or know that your vow was a mere lie.’ In another letter, after showing from his own experience how a man can become truly stead­fast and approved only by trials, he says: ‘What greater benefit can we partake of than such trials? If you understand it aright, you will thank God for the injus­tice you hove suffered, even though you cannot thank those who home done it to you.’ A third, and somewhat longer letter contains quite as striking a remark: ‘What can be dreadful to us I Nothing but the falling away from God and godliness. Let all things else turn out as God may order them, whether he guides us now by the gentle instruments of justice in his light hand, or by those of a contrary character in his left. He, the director of our life, knows wherefore he does so. One thing only will we fear, lest we do anything unworthy of a wise man. We have fed the poor, we have exercised brotherly love, we have joined with pleasure in holy songs as long as it was granted us to do so. It is not permitted any longer; we will think, then, of something else; for grace is never poor. We will live for ourselves, devote ourselves to contemplation, purify our minds for the reception of heavenly impressions, which probably is a more holy occupation than the above­mentioned. We are not so constituted as to complain that we have lost all when one thing fails us; but if fair hope be still with us, we have still something remaining.’

Gregory wrote another series of letters,’ in order to bring about a reconciliation between Sacerdos and his opponents; with what success we know not exactly. Sacerdos subsequently travelled to Constantinople on his own affairs, with introductory letters from Gregory.We might thence conclude, that, being still persecuted, he went thither to obtain justice. It is certain, however, that Sacerdos departed out of this life before Gregory; since we possess a beautiful letter addressed by the latter to the sister of Sacerdos, the pious Thecla, in which he consoles her on the loss of her brother. ‘From whence, then, (he says, among other things)—whence had the good Sacerdos his origin? Was it not from God? And where is Sacerdos now? With God. With no reluctance (I know full well) did he depart out of the reach of envy and from the contest with the Evil-one. And whence are we? Are we not also from thence? And whither shall we go for perfect freedom? Is it not to the same Lord? Happy will it be for us, if we can do this with the same confidence?

At this period Gregory often received young men. in order to assist them in their studies. He particularly interested himself in his young kinsman, Nicobulus, son of the above-mentioned Nicobulus and Alypiana. He wrote, in the name of this young man, a poem of some length,with the view of obtaining for him his parents’ consent for a journey to Greece. He also furnished him with several introductory letters to celebrated teachers. Gregory supplied other youths also with similar epistles, since he kept up an intimate correspondence with many of the most distinguished masters in philosophy and rhetoric.

 

GEEGORY’S EPISTLES AND POEMS.

 

So many extracts have already been given from Gregory’s epistles, and the composition of the same (if we judge only from the number of those which remain to us) must have occupied so considerable a portion of the time spent by him in his solitary retire­ment at Arianzum, that it would not be superfluous to say something generally concerning his Epistles, even if we did not possess some remarkable declarations by Gregory himself, respecting this very point. It is not to be denied that the epistles of Gregory belong to his best literary productions. Many of them are composed with great industry, and a good number of them were manifestly calculated, not only for the use of the individual recipients, but also for a wider circle of readers. It must therefore be pleasant to us to hear expressly from Gregory himself the rules according to which, in his judgment, a good letter should be composed.

He attaches, in the first place, great importance to genuine, laconic brevity. ‘To write laconically is not to write a few syllables, but to say much in a few words. In this sense, I call Homer brief in expression, but Antimachus prolix. And how? Because I measure a poem by its contents, and not by the number of letters. He explains himself still farther on this point, as on many others, in an epistle to Nicobulus: ‘Of those who write letters (for I may be allowed to say something to you on this subject), some write at too great length, others are too brief; both fail of the proper medium. They are like persons shooting at a mark, who shoot, some above, some below; both, however, miss it, though for different reasons. The proper kind of letter-writing consists in the happy medium; we must neither write too long a one, if we have not much of importance to say, nor too short a one, when our matter for it is great. With respect to clearness or perspicuousness, it is I obvious that, in letter-writing, we should avoid as much as possible the oratorical style, and fall more into the tone of familiar chatting. To express all this briefly, that is the best and most beautiful letter which can carry with it the convictions of the unlearned and learned reader; the former, in so far as it is adapted to the comprehension of the many: the latter, inasmuch as, while it is intelligible to all, it speaks a higher language to him. It is certainly a troublesome thing to be obliged to interpret a letter as if we were solving an enigma. The third quality of a good letter is agreeableness; this we shall attain, if we write nothing that is dry and repulsive, nothing without point or ornament; but polished up, as people say; the epistolary style, therefore, does not exclude similes, proverbs, and pithy aphorisms, nor yet playful wit, or words of double meaning by which it is, as it were, sweetened. We must, however, also avoid the abuse of these things. Their absence, it is true, shows the want of education; their abuse, an insatiable appetite for them. Everything of the kind is to be applied sparingly, like purple in the texture of our clothing. Figurative expressions we also admit, yet few in number, and those unobjectionable. But antithesis, and playing with syllogisms and nicely-articulated propositions, we would leave to the Sophists; and if we ever make use of them, we would do it more in play than in earnest. My last rule I will give in the words of an ingenious man, who relates, that when the birds disputed among themselves for the mastery, and one presented himself with this ornament and another with It hat, the eagle was the most beautiful amongst them, simply because it was not remarked that he was beautiful. To this point, therefore, we should particularly attend in writing letters, viz., to be unadorned, and, as much as possible, natural. Thus much briefly concern­ing letters; what has been here said, however, is not to be applied to me, who have my heart oppressed with weightier matters. What else is wanting to complete the subject you will gain for yourself by careful study; for you are willing to learn, and those persons who are conversant with these things will instruct you fully therein.’ One cannot but see that, although Gregory in the last quoted words appears to disclaim it, he yet here develops the rules which he himself was accustomed to observe in the composition of his epistles. In fact, his letters are, for the most part, short, clear, expressed in beautiful yet unadorned language—in a word, excellently written. The language in which they are clothed is generally suited to the object which he wished to obtain ; and if, here and there, anything ornamented or are fetched in thought or expression has slipped in, it seems as if occasionally (when, for instance, he writes to sophists or rhetoricians, and other persons who paid homage to the perverted taste of the time) he had conceded somewhat to the requirements of the immediate readers of his epistles. Gregory himself prepared the collection of his epistles, at least of the greatest part of hem, at the request of Nicobulus, whom we have already several times mentioned, and who wished to see them collected, from the conviction that much useful information was contained in this correspondence. We have therefore to thank him for them.

Besides epistolary writing, the composition of many poems gave occupation to Gregory in his solitude. We could hardly pronounce so favourable a judgment upon these as upon his epistles. The mere circumstance, that Gregory first began to devote himself to poetry at an advanced age, and in a state of ascetic retirement, is a proof that no great fulness and power of the spirit of poetry naturally dwelt in him; else, without doubt, it would have made itself known earlier. On the other hand, we might also conclude from thence, that his writing of poetry was not the passing effusion of youthful prattle, but that a real, if not a rich vein of poetry was embedded in his nature. His poetic sense expressed itself, not unfrequently, in earlier life in his orations; afterwards, when he had no longer any occasion to express his poetic conceptions in an oratorical garb, he fell more into the formal exhibition of his thoughts in regular versification. Hence, however, consulted this untowardness, that the orations which he wrote in his earlier days were occasionally too poetical, while the poems, which he composed in his old age, an even more frequently, too prosaic. On this account, too, these poems of Gregory must necessarily have wanted the proper poetical keeping, because they were subservient to an almost absorbing object, moral or reli­gious, but external to the poetry itself. Honourable as this is to him as a man and a theologian, it was disadvantageous to him as a poet; for what he produced from such motives and in such a tone of mind, was rather the fruit of reflection and of calm consideration than of that truly poetic, creative energy, which is unconsciously drawn on to impart its feelings; and the charm of originality, which commands the hearts of all hearer—the ease, the bewitching brightness, which characterise the true poet—could not express themselves in his poetry. In their stead, he was obliged rather to exhibit the poetic tone in an external manner; that is, by means of figures and tropes, by ornamental or high-sounding expressions, which be only too often borrowed unsuitably from otter poets. And hence again arose frequently the strange inconsistency, that perfectly simple, ordinary, and highly prosaic thoughts are wrapt up in a cloud of figurative language, and, apparently, poetic forms. This holds good even of Gregory's better poems; not to speak of those which treat of perfectly dry, unpoetic subjects, while, for instance, they enumerate the plagues of Egypt or the canonical books of Holy Scripture, compare the two genealogies of Jesus, exhibit the Ten Commandments in a few verses ; and the like.

Most of Gregory's poems have the fault of length and diffusiveness. He often involves his thoughts and sen­timents in a multitude of words, from the midst of which it is difficult to find the simple truth; but then again we meet there, after toiling through much that is tiresome, with beautiful passages, full of deep feeling, and truly attractive. Some of his shorter pieces, which evidently issued from the pure feeling of the moment, might probably satisfy even the more rigid critic. Of these, however, there are but a few. He succeeded particularly in apophthegms, moral sentences, short and pregnant didactic poems. But as soon as he falls, in the course of his longer didactic poems, into dogmatic polemics and subtilties, or a discursive moralising strain, all claims to poetry naturally disappear. In thus speaking, however, we must not forget that Gregory actually looked upon it as a duty to compose in this style. In this respect, his poetry reveals the same active struggle which displays itself in his orations, his zeal for orthodoxy, and his opposition to the heretical opinions of his generation. Several heretics, such as Paul of Samosata, Arius, and Apollinaris, had given a great impulse to their doctrines by putting them into a poetic form, and thereby into the mouths and minds of the people. Gregory wished to counteract the mischief which had thus been occasioned, by means of poems written in an orthodox spirit, and a course of poetical polemics. Another similar motive for the composing of his poems has been mentioned in au earlier part of this work; they were intended to be a substitute for the heathen poets, which (at least for a time) had been withdrawn from the Christians by Julian, and which Gregory, on general grounds, saw with apprehension in the hands of young Christians, because they might possibly incite to immoral practices. How little, however, the poetical composi­tions of Gregory could become a properly-poetical compensation for those works of Grecian genius, is sufficiently obvious from what has been already said.

 

GREGORY’S DEATH; HIS CHARACTER.

 

Even the composition of poetry belonged, in the esti­mation of Gregory, to the ascetic practices, whereby he sought to subdue all the desires of sense, and to direct his thoughts at all times to the worthiest objects. He continued these practices, in their whole extent and compass, even in old age with all the strictness of youthful zeal. Even if many of the descriptions of his strict asceticism which he gives us in his poems—where, for instance, he speaks of himself as living alone in a cavern among wild beasts, going about without shoes, content with one coarse garment, sleeping on the ground covered only with a sack, and so forth—even if such representations may be rather poetically dressed up, yet it is clear, from his repeated declarations, that he renounced, almost entirely, the comforts and enjoyments which can agreeably cheer the life of man generally, and especially of an aged man. The older he grew, the more he desired (since no close family-ties any longer bound him to men) to devote himself to God, in solitary separation from the world. His life henceforth became more and more a mere preparation for death.

During the whole of his earlier life Gregory had vacillated between two antagonist principles, in the happy combination of which he but seldom succeeded,—viz., solitary, ascetic contemplation and ecclesiastical activity. His education had already taught him to love the calm, contemplative life, and to look upon it as the highest object of desire, and it only required an impulse to develop more decidedly the bias that was slumbering in his soul. The moral spirit of his age, and the then condition of the Church, confirmed him still more in this direction. On the other hand, he was prompted to active exertion in ecclesiastical concerns by a powerful sense of duty, in which he recognised the inward call of the Divine Spirit, as well as many inducements, and even obligations, from without, in which he likewise saw the finger of God directing him. Thus he was ever being drawn out from retirement into active life, and was again withdrawn from the business of life by an inextinguishable longing after contemplative solitude. And this gave to his life a restless, vacillating, and unsettled character. At length the first impressions of his youth and the dormant requirements of. his heart prevailed, and Gregory withdrew himself completely into solitude. In connexion, however, with the customary ascetic exercises, he gave himself up to that contemplation which, in accordance with his peculiar bias, seemed to him the surest and most direct way to a perfectly godly life, and to the closest connexion and most intimate intercourse with God. This he describes in the follow­ing passage:

‘Nothing ever appeared to me so glorious as, with the senses, as it were, locked up, existing already out of the flesh and the world, retiring into oneself, meddling with no earthly business, (except in extreme necessity,) conversing only with God and oneself, to live already exalted above the visible world; to bear about upon oneself heavenly forms and impressions, pure and unmixed with the changeable forms of earth; in fact, to be and to become ever more and more a bright mirror of God and godly things; to obtain light in addition to light, the clearer in addition to the less clear; to enjoy already in hope the good things of another world; to associate with angels; while yet moving on the earth to take leave of it, and to be transported by the Spirit to higher regions.’

Gregory made use of, as a means of higher moral purification, even the bodily sufferings with which he had to struggle severely in these his last years, His health, which, as it appears, was not strong by nature, and had been weakened by rigid asceticism, was now also affected by the infirmities of age. But he looked upon this infliction only as a means of spiritual training for a more complete education, and the sanctifying of the inner man. He wrote thus oil the subject to his friend Philagrius, who had also much to suffer from bodily discomfort:

‘It becomes you, a man so well-instructed in heavenly things, not to succumb to the body, but to bear suffering like a wise man, and now especially to purify your will, to show yourself exalted above the fetters of sense, and to look upon illness as a means of training us for our greatest happiness. But sickness becomes to us that greatest good, if it teach us to despise the body and all that is bodily, and, generally, all that is changeable and transitory; devoting ourselves wholly to that which is heavenly. So that, instead of living for the present, we live rather for the future, and make use of this life (as Plato says) only to learn how to die.’

He wrote at another time to the same friend in these words:

‘I am suffering from sickness, and I am glad, not that I suffer, but that I may thereby become a teacher of patience to others. Since, then, I cannot now free myself from suffering, I look upon it as gain to bear it patiently, and as in joy, so also in pain to thank God; for I am convinced, that nothing which befalls us by the appointment of Supreme Wisdom is without good reason, even though it may not appear so to us.’

Gregory was so entirely convinced of the moral benefit of bodily suffering for the improvement of the inner man, that he was thereby able to comfort and strengthen others. As he was once expounding a psalm in this sense to his friend Philagrius, while the latter was suffering severe pains, Philagrius was so affected thereby, that extending his hands towards the east (whither it was usual to turn in prayer), he looked up to heaven and exclaimed:

‘I thank thee, lather, Creator of all men, that thou showest us kindnesses even against our inclination; that thou purifiest the inner through the outer man, and conductest us through sufferings and calamities to a happy end, in the way that seemeth best to thee!’

Thus also Gregory himself, through a varied course of inward and outward struggles, and finally by bodily suffering, was brought by the Father of his days to the happy termination which he had so long and earnestly desired. He died, probably in the place w here he had been born, a.d. 389 or 390. We have nothing more exact handed down to us as to the circumstances of his death.

This, then, is the life of Gregory of Nazianzum. If at the conclusion of it we should attempt a sketch of him, both in his external and internal features, the principal lineaments would be the following:—

Gregory was of middle stature; rather pale, yet so that it became him. His hair was thin, and whitened by age; his short beard was thicker, and his eyebrows prominent. He had a scar over his right eye. His countenance was expressive of kindness, and prepossessing; his demeanour simple and unaffected.

The fundamental tone of his inner nature was piety. His soul, full of ardent, energetic faith, was devoted to God and Christ; while a lofty zeal for divine things marked the course of his whole life. This zeal certainly displayed itself in a strict assertion and defence of certain definitions of faith which that age considered of especial weight, as well as in an active contest (not free from the influences of party-spirit) against opposite opinions; it showed itself, however, no less in a real and living conception of active Christianity, whose establishment and extended influence in the minds of men was, above all others, an object of the greatest weight with him. His asceticism was carried too far, and was injurious to his health; it did not, however, degenerate into an affected sanctity. It served him as a means of raising and freeing the mind, without being considered by him as, in and by itself, a higher state of virtue. An innate love of solitude, strengthened as it had been by education, hindered him from devoting all his powers to the active promotion of the common good. His retired life, which did not admit of his acquiring a familial knowledge of men and of the world, made him occasionally incautious in placing confidence, sometimes distrustful and austere in judging of others. He required much from others, but most of all from himself. Susceptible for high and great resolves, and full of ardent zeal for all that is good, he was not always steadfast and persevering in the execution of it. In enduring and in contending for the truth he was generous and high-minded, temperate in victory, humble in prosperity, never flattering the great and powerful, but an ever ready helper of the oppressed and the persecuted; above all, a loving father to the poor. With these most excellent qualities in the character of Gregory were mixed (counterbalancing defects; he was not quite free from vanity, he was very irritable and passionate, but he also readily forgave, and cherished no secret ill-will. He was a man ever occupied in holy practices, and striving after the highest and the best; but he was not (as no human being is) perfect!