GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS. - Together with Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, G. of Nazianzus forms the triad of the so-called "luminaries of Cappadocia." He did not possess, or did not possess to the same degree as Basil, the virtue of action, nor the speculative vigor of the Nyssen, but he did possess, albeit to a lesser extent, both virtues (although his was a meditative temperament, fond of solitude, and his mind was more that of a man of letters than of a philosopher): and, greater than the other two, the gift of speech; but not speech for its own sake, which is the reason for the impression of emptiness and falsity left by the books of contemporary pagan writers, but speech filled with all its dialectical and emotional significance. More than a "theologian," as he was called, he deserves to be called "the orator."
OUTLINE:
I. Life
II. Works
III. Doctrine.I. Life
G. of Nazianzus was born, most likely in 330, at Arianzus, a village in the Tiberine region of Cappadocia, near Nazianzus. His father, also named Gregory, had converted to Christianity after having belonged to the Judeo-pagan sect of the Hypostasians, worshippers of Athismus; he then became a priest and later a bishop. His mother, Nonna, was a Christian and was "a woman in body, but in character superior to a man" (De vita sua, 59). She desired to have a male child, Gregory recounts, and turned to God, offering Him the unborn child as a gift; and a nocturnal vision appeared to her, revealing the appearance and name of the son to come. And when the child was born, he was already alieni iuris, belonged to God "like a lamb or a calf, a most noble victim adorned with reason." He began his studies in Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he met Basil, to whom he was bound by a devoted friendship, despite the difference in their temperaments (his own being changeable and inconstant, Basil's decisive and sure), and in which Gregory's part always retained a tone of generous humility. He then went to Caesarea in Palestine, where he had as his teacher the rhetorician Thescipe, and thence to Alexandria, at the time when Athanasius was patriarch there; and from there, after an adventurous journey, to Athens, where he was joined by Basil and where he heard Prohaeresius, the Christian rhetorician, and met Julian, the future apostate emperor. At Athens he stayed a little longer than Basil, and perhaps gave lessons in rhetoric there; on the return journey to his homeland, he stopped in Byzantium, where he met his brother Caesarius, and where he received baptism (apparently in 360). Returning to Nazianzus, he "danced for his friends," as he himself says; that is, he practiced rhetoric: uncertain, then, whether to abandon himself to the solitude he desired and thus realize his ideal of ascetic life, which his stay in Alexandria, with its examples of cenobitic life, had confirmed in his soul, or to give necessary assistance to his aging and ill parents, he chose a middle path, dividing his time between Nazianzus and Basil's hermitage near Neocaesarea.From this period may date, along with the drafting of monastic rules, the *Philokalia*, a collection of extracts, also made in collaboration with Basil, from the works of Origen, whose memory was still alive in the schools of Caesarea in Palestine and Alexandria, and from whose influence he could not easily free himself. The conditions of the Church at Nazianzus indeed made Gregory's presence necessary at a time when the danger of heresy—the formula of Rimini, subscribed to even by Gregory's father "out of simplicity of mind," as the biographer of the son says—and the agitation of the monks threatened the peace and unity of the Church. Gregory restored peace, probably in 360; the following year—if the date is correct—he was ordained priest by his father, "with a tyrannical act," as he himself says; and he then fled, dismayed by the weight of the office, to Pontus, to his friend Basil, and did not return until after his father's insistent pleas, beside whom he would remain for nine years, assisting him in the administration of the diocese. One of the most notable acts he performed during this period was the reconciliation between the bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius, and Basil, achieved through his good offices. In 368 his brother Caesarius died; in 371 Basil, already archbishop of Caesarea for a year, during the jurisdictional dispute he had with Antimus, bishop of Tyana, created several new dioceses, and placed his friend Gregory at the head of that of Sasima. The wretched village, situated in the midst of the main road of Cappadocia, dusty and resounding with cries, weeping, and chains, inhabited by foreigners and travelers, was certainly not the environment suited to that life of "philosophy" which was Gregory's dream, and, from a religious standpoint, offered the unenviable prospect of a period of turbulence and strife. Gregory could not refuse, despite the sadness and indignation the measure caused him, but he did not take possession of the diocese, for, as his biographer says, he had "already meditated flight in his mind" as soon as the election had taken place. He took refuge in solitude, but once again he returned at his father's entreaties, to assist him as coadjutor. After the death of his parents in 374, Gregory was free ("free at a bad moment," "οὐ χαλῶς ἐλεύθερος"), and he then left Nazianzus to retire to the monastery of St. Thecla at Seleucia in Isauria; and it was here that he learned of Basil's death, which had occurred in 379 (though he would not be able to deliver the funeral oration at Caesarea until 381). Meanwhile, events were maturing that would once again draw him from his quiet.
Upon the death of Valens, Theodosius had succeeded to the government of the Eastern Empire in 379; with an edict of 27 February 380, the new emperor announced to his peoples that all must profess "the religion already taught by the Apostle Peter to the Romans, and now proclaimed by Pope Damasus and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria." In Constantinople the churches were still in the hands of the Arians, with Demophilus as their bishop.
But as soon as the situation began to look more favorable, the Orthodox took heart again and thought of reorganizing themselves. The Orthodox of the East encouraged this revival among their friends in Constantinople, and among them, even from the time of his retirement at St. Tecla, G. was chosen to govern that nucleus of Orthodox. G. was very reluctant, but finally, in 379, he agreed to set out for the New Rome. An improvised little church, the Anastasis with its fine symbolic name, welcomed the small flock of the Nicaeans and witnessed—until the cathedral was restored to the Catholics—the triumph of G.’s great eloquence (it was in this period that the five Theological Orations were delivered, which earned him the name of “Theologian”), for which Jerome would travel from Syria to Constantinople to listen to the words of the man he would later call his master (De viris ill., 177). However, the task of the new shepherd was made particularly difficult, not only by the hostility of the Arians but also by the rivalries and discord among the Catholics themselves. The case of Maximus, a dubious figure of a Cynic philosopher and ascetic, who, relying on the support of the bishop of Alexandria, Peter, after insinuating himself into the good graces of the good G., attempted by a coup to have himself proclaimed bishop of Constantinople, is characteristic of the religious customs of the time. Maximus was driven out by the mass of the faithful who loved G., and in vain he sought justice from Theodosius and from the bishop of Alexandria—in later times, it seems with better fortune, even in Rome before Damasus—but all manner of insults and violence (G. himself had at first run the risk of being stoned) were enough to wear down even a temperament like his: he would have fled once more had he not reflected that “with him the Trinity would depart from Constantinople.” Meanwhile, the situation resolved itself in his favor. Theodosius entered Constantinople on November 24, 380, and two days later took the churches away from the Arians to restore them to the Catholics; Demophilus was forced to leave Constantinople; G., following the Emperor, was led in procession to Hagia Sophia with great solemnity, amid a large display of force. In the church, where the sun suddenly breaking through the windows on that cloudy morning seemed a sign of God’s favor, the crowd acclaimed G. as bishop; and he was bishop in fact, even before the Council convened by Theodosius in 381, under the presidency of the bishop of Antioch Meletius—at least the first bishops to arrive—had proclaimed him bishop of Constantinople.
Yet new difficulties soon arose. During those same days, Meletius died, and the succession to the see of Antioch was open; G., ever conciliatory, who had meanwhile been called to preside over the assembly, favored the succession of Paulinus, who had been bishop of Antioch during the schism of that see and was the natural solution, also advocated by the Westerners. But the Meletians, who were in the majority in the Council, refused to recognize Paulinus and opposed another candidate, Flavian. Meanwhile, new participants arrived at the Council, the bishops of Egypt and Macedonia, who favored Paulinus (among them Timothy, successor of Peter in the see of Alexandria), and who, not out of hatred for G. but against the Meletians who had slandered him, proceeded to contest G.’s election on the pretext that, as bishop of Sasima, he could not, by the canon of Antioch, be transferred to another see (in reality, G. had never taken possession of the diocese of Sasima). All this deeply embittered G., who finally resigned his office—whereupon he was succeeded by Nectarius—and in July 381, after bidding farewell to his church in Constantinople, returned to Cappadocia, to Nazianzus. There he remained for two years, administering that church which had long been without a bishop; afterward, having arranged for a successor in the person of Eulalius, he retired to Arianzus, where he lived—it seems until 389 or 390—devoting himself to ascetic practices and to the studies he loved, from which the sometimes turbulent events of life had distracted him but never entirely turned him away.
Doctor of the Church, feast May 9; in the Greek Church January 19 or 25.
II. WORKS
G.’s work is very extensive: it comprises 45 orations, 245 letters, and a large quantity of verse, about 17,000 lines, distributed among several hundred poems. Of the orations, few are exegetical in character (XXXVII, XLV: the one in which G. recounts Jerome’s statement, Ep. 5 ad Nepotianum, about a declaration Jerome claimed G. had made on exegetical matters is less—indeed not at all—a proof of the orator’s superficiality in this field than of the habits of the crowd, “which admires most what it does not understand”), and moral in the strict sense. Among these, the one on love for the poor, XIV, delivered at Caesarea, probably in 373, some time before the construction of that great hospice for the poor and lepers which was “Basil’s city” (with which it must nonetheless be connected), is particularly fine. Most are occasional or polemical discourses; few, but of the highest importance, are the theological orations.Among the occasional discourses, the Epiphanies or funeral orations are especially noteworthy: for his brother Caesarius (VII, delivered between 368 and 369—it must be said at once, though this observation does not pertain to this oration, that the chronology of the orations is in many cases uncertain), for his sister Gorgonia (VIII, between 369 and 374), for his father (XVIII, of 374), and especially the one for Basil, which many, not without reason, consider the masterpiece of G. (XLIII, of 381): all rich in family and historical information, and fresh with vivid memories and impressions, despite the rhetorical conventions of the genre. Of particular importance is the Apology of His Flight (II, of 362, shortly after the first, delivered upon his return from exile): in it—this oration is an expansion of the one delivered—he justifies his flight after having been ordained priest by his father: a justification, however, that treats especially of the duties and responsibilities of the priest, before the immensity of which he had fled, not out of cowardice or weakness, but out of fear of being unequal to a task whose superhuman grandeur he alone, unlike others, perceived; the homily is therefore almost a treatise, and it was held in high regard by St. John Chrysostom in the composition of his own fine De sacerdotio.
Two discourses of slander stand apart from the others by their particular nature: the *olyo στήλη εὐτυχίαν* — IV and V, from 363-64 — against Julian the Apostate, which almost certainly were never actually delivered. These speeches are marked by overflowing violence and, consequently, perhaps not always serene in their assessment of events, laden with rhetorical artifices, yet animated by a breath of sincere, powerful passion. Some are panegyrics of saints (of St. Cyprian of Antioch [XXIV, 379], St. Athanasius [XXI, 373 or 379]) or encomia (of Heron, the Alexandrian philosopher, in whom some have seen the Cynic Maximus [XXV, 379], of the Maccabees, XV, 373), or speeches intended for particular festive solemnities (Nativity, XXXVIII, 379-80; Epiphany, XXXIX, 380-81; Easter, XLV, after 383; Pentecost, XLI, between 379 and 381, along with that on Baptism, XL, delivered the following day; *In novam dominicam*, XLIV, 383).
Particular interest attaches to those discourses that refer to facts and episodes in G.’s life or to events that, even indirectly, concerned him: his nomination as bishop of Sasima (IX-XI, 372), the attempt by Maximus (XXVI, 380), his proclamation in Hagia Sophia (XXXVI, Nov. 380), his definitive departure from Constantinople after his resignation (XLII, 381), the schism at Antioch (XXIII and XXXII, 379), the count of his public (III, c. 362), his installation in the church of Nazianzus (XII, 372), the consecration of Eulalius as bishop of Doara (XIII, 373), the conditions of the city of Nazianzus (XVI, XVII, 373; XIX, 374), the controversy with the Arians regarding the restitution of churches (XXXIII, XXXV, 379-80), the arrival of the Egyptians (XXXIV, 380), the reconciliation between G.’s father and the monks (VI, perhaps 364).
There are five theological orations (XXVII-XXXI), delivered in 380, apparently after February 28 and before November 24, in Constantinople, in defense of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arians. They represent the finest product of theological eloquence in the 4th century. In the first, against the Eunomians, he speaks of the qualities — which are not of the first wind, even if talented, but require the attainment of a high degree of moral perfection — that must be possessed by one called to speak of dogma; in the second, he treats of the nature and attributes of God, reaffirming the impossibility of defining Him in positive terms without resorting to anthropomorphic expressions, which would risk falling into idolatry; in the third, on the dogma of the Trinity, he establishes the equality of the Three Persons and, by recourse to Scripture and faith, affirms the divinity and consubstantiality of the Son, in opposition to the views of Eunomius; in the fourth, he gives the correct interpretation of biblical texts, above all Prov. 8:22, which the Arians used; in the fifth, against the objections of the Pneumatomachians or Macedonians — who relied on the absence of any mention of the matter in Scripture — he affirms the divine nature of the Holy Spirit, not generated (unlike the Son) but proceeding from the Father by *ἐκπόρευσις*, by procession. Other discourses of a theological nature are XX and XXXII: the former, *De dogmate*, in which he demonstrates the necessity of knowledge of Scripture and of a holy life in those who wish to engage in theology (and affirms, against Arius and Sabellius, the unity of nature and the Trinity of Persons in God); the latter, *De moderatione in disputationibus*, in which he combats the theological mania of the Orientals. The first was delivered in 379, the second in 380-81. Polemical but fundamentally doctrinal in content are also the discourses cited as XXXIII and XXXV, against the Arians, and that on the arrival of the Egyptians (XXXIV).
The letters, for the most part, seem to belong to the final years of G.’s life (383-89). Important from a literary standpoint — they appear to have been written with an eye to publication — they are less so, or not as much as the letters of Basil or those of John Chrysostom, in historical and documentary terms. Some — CI and CII to the priest Cledonius, CCI — are also of theological importance for the clarification they bring to dogmatic concepts and for the battle they wage against heresy, especially Apollinarianism, and they exercised notable influence — CI — on the theological elaboration of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. The authenticity of the letter CEXLI to Evagrius is doubtful; it is also notable theologically (the authenticity of letters XLI, XLII, XLIII is disputed, but not, it seems, on solid grounds).
The poems, likewise mostly composed in the final years of G.’s life, may be distinguished into autobiographical (among them, the remarkable long poem *De vita sua*, of 1949 verses; satirical and polemical poems, such as that against Maximus and that against Apollinare, could also be included in this section) and poems relating to others, as well as theological-moral poems. A separate section would be formed by epitaphs and epigrams; those in iambic meter to Seleucus seem to be by Amphilochius of Iconium. Many of these poems, and not only those written for purely practical ends, are nothing more than versified prose; but in several there is true poetry — those in which the author confesses, questions himself, addresses his soul, expresses new sentiments unknown to pagan poetry, and sometimes with a new accent — and which reflect, even more than the orations and letters, his temperament as a man of delicate sensibility, inclined more to meditation than to action, in the conflict that always tormented his spirit between asceticism and active life. Yet even some of the reflective poems, the dogmatic poems, despite the weight of erudite references and the effort of polemical construction, sometimes reveal, in the tremor of emotion and the yearning for conquest, the drama of the soul in which poetry resides. Two poems are particularly noted — one, *Vespertinus*, and the *Exhortation to a Virgin* — because they may present the earliest example of accentual meter. Not his own, but by a much later author, is the tragedy *Χριστὸς πάσχων*, which in the manuscripts bears his name; it is, moreover, a work of very slight value.
On the letters: M. Guignet, Les procédés épistolaires de St. G. de N., Paris 1911 (in appendix to the aforementioned volume); G. Przychocki, De Gregorii Nazianzeni epistulis quaestiones selectae, Cracow 1912; P. Gallay, Langue et style de St. G. de N. dans sa correspondance, Paris 1933; id., Liste des manuscrits des lettres de St. G. de N., in Revue des ét. grecques, 1944, pp. 106-24. — On the poems: A. Grenier, La vie et les poésies de St. G. de N., Clermont-Ferrand 1858; P. Stoppel, Quaestiones de Gregorii Nazianzeni poetarum scaeniorum imitatore, Rostock 1881; W. Ackermann, Die didaktische Poesie des Gregor von Nazianz, Leipzig 1903; L.F.M. De Jonge, De Gregorii Nazianzeni carminibus quae inscribi solent neque evato, Amsterdam 1910; Q. Cataudella, Le poésie de G. N., in Atene e Roma, 1927, pp. 88-96; M. Pellegrino, La poésie de G. N., Milan 1932; B. Wyss, in Museum Helveticum, 6 (1949), pp. 177-210.
III. DOCTRINE
G. was, despite the vices of the prevailing Asianism, largely redeemed by the sincerity of his feeling, a writer of uncommon quality, a vigorous and effective orator, a lively polemicist, a clear and well-armed reasoner: but he was not an original thinker, a philosopher, nor did he create, nor even possess, a precise system of doctrines outside the dogmatic sphere. He knew the Greek philosophers, and one can recognize in his work the influence of Plato (e.g., the idea that like is known by like, etc.), of the Stoics, Cynics (in certain aspects of morality), and Neoplatonism (the world of spiritual essences, etc.): unlike some currents of Christian thought, he did not reject secular science but wished to subordinate it to sacred science. In the moral sphere, and especially in the social sphere, certain radical assertions of his are noteworthy regarding the natural equality of all men — slaves and free, rich and poor — and on the problem, moreover viewed in moral terms, of individual property and wealth; yet even here the authority on which he relies is essentially the sacred books and apostolic tradition.Despite the nickname of “Theologian” that he earned and the authority he acquired in this field — so much so that Rufinus could say (in the preface to his translation of some of G.’s orations, CSEL, 46) that “there is no one who disagrees with the faith of Gregory in the faith of the Greeks” — one cannot place his work on the same level as that of those who constructed the edifice of Catholic theology. It would not, however, be fair to reduce, as is often done, G.’s work to that of a mere self-appointed representative of the common belief of the Greek Church of the 4th century, and thus a mere interpreter of the doctrine received by tradition.
Certainly, he is a first-rate interpreter of Trinitarian faith, a lucid and coherent expositor of the doctrine of Athanasius and Basil (the formula he defends: one essence in three hypostases) is clarified by the other: “unum tres divinitate, et hoc unum tres proprietatibus,” which expresses with admirable clarity his doctrine on the indivisibility of the Godhead in the distinction of the three hypostases. Yet one must also add that he does not share the hesitations attributed by G. to his oikoumenē, that is, to prudent concessions to the expediency of the moment, at one point in Trinitarian doctrine, namely that concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit. G. does not hesitate to proclaim it openly (“Is God the Spirit? Certainly. Therefore consubstantial, oikoumenē? Yes, if He is God,” Or., XXXI, 10), and in defining the relationship between the Three Persons, and in particular the relations of the Holy Spirit to the other two Persons — for which there was as yet no fully established doctrine — he contributed clarification and precision, going further than his predecessors in formulating the doctrine of the procession (“ἐκπροσευσις”) of the Holy Spirit. He defines the first of the Three Persons (hypostases) by the ἐκπροσευσις, the second by the γέννησις, and the third by the ἐκπροσευσις. The Holy Spirit — he says in the same theological oration V — inasmuch as He proceeds from the Father, is not a creature; inasmuch as He is unbegotten, He is not the Son; inasmuch as He is in the middle between the begetter and the begotten, He is God. “You ask me what this ἐκπροσευσις is: well, tell me what the γέννησις of the Father is, and I will explain to you what is the γέννησις of the Son and the ἐκπροσευσις of the Holy Spirit.” Catholic theology had only to take one further step, with the proclamation of the Filioque, to arrive at the orthodoxy that was to be definitively fixed thereafter.
In the problem of the two natures in the person of Christ, Basil had not been rigorous enough, at least not as much as G., who tenaciously combated the Apollinarian heresy (Basil was instead accused of having been on good terms with Apollinaris), maintaining the impossibility that Christ could have possessed only the divine νόμος and not also the human νόμος, and demonstrating that the Redemption could only be the work of a Jesus in whose person the two natures, human and divine, were united together without either having to suffer diminution. To Mary he explicitly acknowledges the title of Θεοτόκος, Mother of God. Regarding the doctrine of the Redemption, G. resolutely condemns, unlike others, the idea of a ransom price — which would be Christ — paid by God to the devil: to believe such a thing seems to him to do an injustice to the Lord. He admits the existence of a first sin, and, while not denying man’s contribution, he attributes to Grace the principle and the end of every good: he believes — against the Novatians — in the efficacy of penance.
In biblical exegesis, G., while clearly under the influence of Origen, maintained, like the other Cappadocians, a middle position between the allegorical interpretation of the Alexandrians and the literal interpretation of the Antiochene school (but, unlike Nyssen, with a more pronounced tendency toward the former); moreover, he considers as depositaries of revealed truth not only the Bible but also all those who, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, were enlightened by II.
Quinto: Cataudella