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Gregorius (Gregorios). Surnamed Nazianzenus, and usually called Gregory Nazianzen. He was born in a village near Nazianzus in Cappadocia about A.D. 329, and prosecuted his studies at Athens, where he earned a great reputation for his knowledge of rhetoric, philosophy, and mathematics. Among his fellow students was Julian, the future emperor, and Basil, with the latter of whom he formed a most intimate friendship. Gregory remained at Athens about six years (350-356), and then returned home. Having received ordination, [p. 750] he continued to reside at Nazianzus, where he discharged his duties as a presbyter, and assisted his father, who was bishop of the town. In A.D. 372 he was associated with his father in the bishopric; but after the death of the latter in 374, he refused to continue Bishop of Nazianzus, as he was averse to public life and fond of solitary meditation. After living some years in retirement, he was summoned to Constantinople in 379, in order to defend the orthodox faith against the Arians and other heretics. In 380 he was made Bishop of Constantinople by the emperor Theodosius; but he resigned the office in the following year (381), and withdrew altogether from public life. He lived in solitude at his paternal estate at Nazianzus, and died there in 389 or 390. His extant works are about 45 orations or sermons, 243 letters, and 407 poems of a very varied description, comprising hymns, prayers, epitaphs, epigrams, etc. His discourses, though sometimes really eloquent, are generally little more than favourable specimens of the rhetoric of the schools, more earnest than Chrysostom, but less attractive.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Gregorius Nazianzenus, St., surnamed theologos, from his zeal in the defence of
the Nicene doctrine (1), was one of the most eminent fathers of the Greek Church.
He was born at Arianzus, a village in Cappadocia, not far from Nazianzus, the
city of which his father was the bishop, and from which both father and son took
the surname of Nazianzen. There is some doubt about the date of his birth. The
statement of Suidas (s. v.) is directly at variance with several known facts in
his life. In all probability he was born in, or very shortly before, the year
329. His mother Nonna, a zealous and devout Christian, had devoted him even in
the womb to the service of God, and exerted herself to the utmost in training
his infant mind to this destiny. In that age of miracles and visions, we are not
surprised to find that Gregory, while yet a boy, was visited by a dream, which
excited in him the resolution, to which he was ever stedfast, to live a life of
asceticism and celibacy, withdrawn from the world, and in the service of God and
the church. Meanwhile, his father took the greatest care of his education in the
sciences and arts. From the care of able teachers at Caesareia he proceeded to
Palestine, where he studied eloquence; thence he went to Alexandria, and finally
his zeal for knowledge led him to Athens, then the focus of all learning. On his
voyage, the vessel encountered a tremendous storm, which excited in him great
terror, because he had not yet been baptized.
The time of his arrival at Athens seems to have been about, or before
A. D. 350. He applied himself ardently to the study of language, poetry, rhetoric,
philosophy, mathematics, and also of physic and music. At Athens Gregory formed
his friendship with Basil. Here also he met with Julian, whose dangerous character
he is said to have discerned even thus early. On the departure of Basil from Athens,
in 355, Gregory would have accompanied his friend; but, at the urgent request
of the whole body of students, he remained there as a teacher of rhetoric, but
only till the following year, when he returned home, 356. He now made an open
profession of Christianity by receiving baptism; and, declining to exercise his
powers as a rhetorician, either in the courts or in the schools, he set himself
to perform his vows of dedication to the service of God. He made a resolution,
which he is said to have kept all his life, never to swear. His religion assumed
the form of quietism and ascetic virtue. It seems that he would have retired altogether
from the world but for the claims which his aged parents had upon his care. He
so far, however, gratified his taste for the monastic life, as to visit his friend
Basil in his retirement, and to join in his exercises of devotion, A. D. 358 or
359. But he never became a regular monk. His fiery temper and the circumstances
of the age prevailed over the resolves of his youth; and this quietist, who replies
to the remonstrances of Basil on his inactivity, by the strongest aspirations
for a life of fest and religious meditation (Epist. xxxii.), became one of the
most restless of mankind. (Comp. Orat. v.)
In the year 360 or 361, Gregory was called from his retirement to
the help of his father, who, as the best means of securing his support, and probably
also to prevent him from choosing the monastic life, suddenly, and without his
consent, ordained him as a presbyter, probably at Christmas, 361. Gregory showed
his dislike to this proceeding by immediately rejoining Basil, but the entreaties
of his father and of many of the people of Nazianzus backed by the fear that he
might be, like Jonah, fleeing from his duty, induced him to return home, about
Easter, 362. At that feast he preached his first sermon (Orut. xl.), which, as
it seems, he afterwards expanded into a fuller discourse, which was published
but never preached (Orat. i.), in which he defends himself against the charges
that his flight from Nazianzus had occasioned, and sets forth the duties and difficulties
of a Christian minister. It is called his Apologetic Discourse. He was now for
some time engaged in the discharge of his duties as a presbyter, and in assisting
his aged father in his episcopal functions, as well as in composing the differences
between him and the monks of Nazianzus, the happy termination of which he celebrated
in three orations. (Orat. xii.--xiv.)
In the mean time Julian had succeeded to the throne of Constantius
(A. D. 361), and Gregory, like his friend Basil, was soon brought into collision
with the apostate emperor, from whose court he persuaded his brother Caesarius
to retire. Whether the unsupported statement of Gregory, that lie and his friend
Basil were marked out as the first victims of a new general persecution on Julian's
return from Persia, can be relied upon or not, it is certain that the passions
of the emperor would soon have overcome his affectation of philosophy, and that
his pretended indifference, but real disfavor, towards Christianity, would have
broken out into a fierce persecution. The deliverance from this danger by the
fall of Julian (B. C. 363) was celebrated by Gregory in two orations against the
emperor's memory (logoi steliteutikoi, Orat. iii. and iv.), which are distinguished
more for warmth of invective than either for real eloquence or Christian temper.
They were never delivered.
In the year 364, when Basil was deposed by his bishop, Eusebius, Gregory
again accompanied him to his retreat in Pontus, and was of great service in effecting
his reconciliation with Eusebius, which took place in 365. He also assisted Basil
most powerfully against the attacks of Valens and the Arian bishops of Cappadocia.
For the next five years he seems to have been occupied with his duties at Nazianzus,
in the midst of domestic troubles, the illness of his parents, and the death of
his brother Caesarius, A. D. 368 or 369. His panegyric on Caesarius is esteemed
one of his best discourses. (Orat. x.) A few years later, A. D. 374, he lost his
sister Gorgonia, for whom also he composed a panegyric. (Orat. xi.)
The election of Basil to the bishopric of Caesareia, in 370, was promoted
by Gregory and his father with a zeal which passed the bounds of seemliness and
prudence. One of Basil's first acts was to invite his friend to become a presbyter
at Caesareia; but Gregory declined the invitation, on grounds the force of which
Basil could not deny. (Orat. xx.) An event soon afterwards occurred, which threatened
the rupture of their friendship. Basil, as metropolitan of Cappadocia, erected
a new see at the small, poor, unpleasant, and unhealthy town of Sasima, and conferred
the bishopric on Gregory, A. D. 372. The true motive of Basil seems to have been
to strengthen his authority as metropolitan, by placing the person on whom he
could most rely as a sort of outpost against Anthimus, the bishop of Tyana; for
Sasima was very near Tyana, and was actually claimed by Anthimus as belonging
to his see. But for this very reason the appointment was the more unacceptable
to Gregory, whose most cherished wish was to retire into a religious solitude,
as soon as his father's death should set him free. He gave vent to his feelings
in three discourses, in which, however, he shows that his friendship for Basil
prevails over his offended feelings (Orat. v. vi. vii.), and he never assumed
the functions of his episcopate. Finding him resolved not to gd to Sasima, his
father, with much difficulty, prevailed upon him to share with him the bishopric
of Nazianzus; and Gregory only consented upon the condition that he should be
at liberty to lay down the office at his father's death. On this occasion he delivered
the discourse (Orat. viii.) entitled, Ad Patrem, quum Nazianazenae ecclesiae curam
filio commisisset, A. D. 372. To the following year are generally assigned his
discourse De plaga grandinis, on the occasion of a hailstorm which had ravaged
the country round Nazianzus (Orat. xv.), and that Ad Nazianzenos, timore Trepidantes,
et Praefectum iratum (Orat. xvii.), the occasion of which seems to have been some
popular commotion in the city, which the praefect was disposed to punish severely.
Gregory Nazianzen, the father, died in the year 374, at the age of
almost a hundred years, and his son pronounced over him a funeral oration, at
which his mother Nonna and his friend Basil were present. (Orat. xix.) He was
now anxious to perform his purpose of laying down the bishopric, but his friends
prevailed on him to retain it for a time, though he never regarded himself as
actually bishop of Nazianzus, but merely as a temporary occupant of the see (Epist.
xlii., lxv., Carm. de Vit. sua, Orat. viii.). It is therefore an error of his
disciple Jerome (Vir. Illust. 117), and other writers, to speak of Gregory as
bishop of Nazianzus. From a discourse delivered about this time (Orat. ix.), we
find that he was still as averse from public life, and as fond of solitary meditation,
as ever. He also began to feel the infirmities of age, which his ascetic life
had brought upon him, though he was not yet fifty. From these causes, and also,
it would seem, in order to compel the bishops of Cappadocia to fill up the see
of Nazianzus, he at last fled to Seleuceia, the capital of Isauria (A. D. 375),
where he appears to have remained till 379, but where he was still disappointed
of the rest he sought; for his own ardent spirit and the claims of others compelled
him still to engage in the ecclesiastical controversies which distracted the Eastern
Church. The defence of orthodoxy against the Arians seemed to rest upon him more
than ever, after the death of Basil, on the 1st of January, A. D. 379, and in
that year he was called from his retirement, much against his will, by the urgent
request of many orthodox bishops, to Constantinople, to aid the cause of Catholicism,
which, after a severe depression for forty years, there seemed hopes of reviving
under the auspices of Gratian and Theodosius. At Constantinople Gregory had to
maintain a conflict, not only with the Arians, but also with large bodies of Novatians,
Appollinarists, and other heretics. His success was great, and not unattended
by miracles. So powerful were the heretics, and so few the orthodox, that the
latter had no church capable of containing the increasing numbers who came to
listen to Gregory. He was therefore obliged to gather his congregation in the
house of a relation; and this originated the celebrated church of Anastasia, which
was afterwards built with great splendour and sanctified by numerous miracles.
Some of his discourses at Constantinople are among his extant works; the most
celebrated of them are the five on the divine nature, and especially on the Godhead
of Christ, in answer to the Eunomians and Macedonians, entitled Aoloi Theologikoi.
(Orat. xxxiii.--xxxvii.) It cannot be said that these discourses deserve the reputation
in which they were held by the ancients. They present a clear, dogmatic, uncritical
statement of the Catholic faith, with ingenious replies to its opponents, in a
form which has far more of the rhetoric of the schools than of real eloquence.
Moreover, his perfect Nicene orthodoxy has been questioned; it is alleged that
in the fifth discourse he somewhat sacrifices the unity to the trinity of the
Godhead. The success of Gregory provoked the Arians to extreme hostility: they
pelted him, they desecrated his little church, and they accused him in a court
of justice as a disturber of the public peace; but he bore their persecutions
with patience, and, finally, many of his opponents became his hearers. The weaker
side of his character was displayed in his relations to Maximus, an ambitious
hypocrite, whose apparent sanctity and zeal for orthodoxy so far imposed upon
Gregory, that he pronounced a panegyrical oration upon him in his presence. (Orat.
xxiii.) Maximus soon after endeavoured, in 380, to seize the episcopal chair of
Constantinople, but the people rose against him, and expelled him from the city.
This and other troubles caused Gregory to think of leaving Constantinople, but,
at the entreaties of his people, he promised to remain with them till other bishops
should come to take charge of them. He retired home, however, for a short time
to refresh his spirit with the solitude he loved.
In November, 380, Theodosius arrived at Constantinople, and received
Gregory with the highest favour, promising him his firm support. He compelled
the Arians to give up all the churches of the city to the Catholics, and, in the
midst of the imperial guards, Gregory entered the great church of Constantinople,
by the side of Theodosius. The excessive cloudiness of the day was interpreted
by the Arians as a token of the Divine displeasure, but when, at the commencement
of the service, the sun burst forth and filled the church with his light, all
the orthodox accepted it as a sign from heaven, and called out to the emperor
to make Gregory bishop of Constantinople. The cry was with difficulty appeased
for the time, and shortly afterwards Gregory was compelled to accept the office.
As the head of the orthodox party, Gregory used their victory with a healing moderation,
at least according to the ideas of his time, for the suppression of the public
worship of the heretics by the edicts of Theodosius was not regarded by him as
an act of persecution. On the other hand, many of the Arians regarded him with
the deepest enmity, and he relates a romantic story of an assassin, who came with
other visitors into his room, but was conscience-stricken, and confessed his guilt:
Gregory dismissed him with his benediction. The affairs of the church were administered
by him with diligence and integrity, and he paid no more court to the emperor
than the etiquette of his rank required. Several of his sermons belong to the
year of his patriarchate.
At the beginning of the year 381, Theodosius convoked the celebrated
council of Constantinople, the second of the oecumenical councils. One of its
earliest acts was to confirm Gregory in the patriarchate of Constantinople, and
soon after, in consequence of the sudden death of Meletius, he became president
of the council. He soon found, however, that he had not the power to rule it.
He was too good and moderate, perhaps also too weak and indolent, to govern a
general council in that age. His health also was very infirm. He gradually withdrew
himself from the sittings of the council, and showed a disposition to lay down
his bishopric. His chief opponents, the Egyptian and Macedonian bishops, seized
the opportunity to attack him, on the ground that he could not hold the bishopric
of Constantinople, as he was already bishop of Nazianzus, and the church did not
permit translations. Upon this he gladly resigned his office. His resignation
was accepted without hesitation by the council and the emperor, and he took leave
of the people of Constantinople in a discourse which is the noblest effort of
his eloquence. He returned to Cappadocia, and, the course of his journey leading
him to Caesareia, he there delivered his admirable funeral oration upon Basil.
Finding the bishopric of Nazianzus still vacant, he discharged its duties until,
in the following year, 383, he found a suitable successor in his cousin Eulalius.
He now finally retired to his long-sought solitude, at his paternal estate at
Arianzus, where the enjoyment of quiet philosophical meditation was mingled with
the review of his past life, which he recorded in an Iambic poem. This work breathes
a spirit of contentment, derived from an approving conscience, but not unmixed
with complaints of the ingratitude and disappointment which he had encountered
in the discharge of duties he had never sought, and lamentations over the evil
times on which he had fallen. He draws a melancholy picture of the character of
the clergy of his time, derived chiefly from his experience of the council of
Constantinople. He also wrote other poems, and several letters, in his retirement.
He died in 389 or 390. After the account given of his life, little remains to
be said of his character. His natural disposition partook of the two qualities,
which are often found united, impetuosity and indolence. The former was tempered
by sincere and humble piety, and by a deep conviction of the benefits of moderation;
the latter was aggravated by his notions of philosophic quietism, and by his con
tinual encounters with difficulties above his strength. He was a perfectly honest
man. His mind, though highly cultivated, was of no great power. His poems are
not above mediocrity, and his discourses, though sometimes really eloquent, are
generally nothing more than favourable specimens of the rhetoric of the schools.
He is more earnest than Chrysostom, but not so ornamental. He is more artificial,
but also, in spirit, more attractive, than Basil. Biblical theology has gained
but little from either of these writers, whose chief aim was to explain and enforce
the dogmas of the Catholic church.
The works of Gregory Nazianzen are, 1. Orations or Sermons; 2. Letters;
3. Poems; 4. His Will.
The following are the most important editions of the works of Gregory
Nazianzen:--An editio princeps, Basil. 1550, folio, containing the Greek text,
and the lives of Gregory by Suidas, Sophronius, and Gregory the presbyter. A Latin
version was published at the same place and time, in a separate volume. 2. Morell's
edition, after the text of Billius, 2 vols. fol. Paris. 1609-1611; a new and improved
edition, 1630; a careless reprint, Colon. (Lips.), 1690. 3. Another edition, after
Billius, by Tollius and Muratorius, Venet. 1753. 4. The Benedictine edition, of
which only the first volume was published: it was commenced by Louvart, continued
by Maron, and finished by Clemencet. It contains only the discourses, preceded
by an excellent life of Gregory, Paris. 1778. The discourses are placed in a new
order by Clemencet. The numbers used in this article are those of Billius. The
edition of Billius only contains a part of Gregory's poems. The principal edition
of the remainder is by Tollius, under the title of Carmina Cygnea, in his Insignia
Itinerarii Italici, Traj. ad Rhen. 1696, 4to., reprinted, 1709. Muratori further
discovered several of Gregory's epigrams, which he published in his Anecdota Graeca,
Patav. 1709, 4to. These epigrams form a part of the Palatine Anthology, and are
published more accurately in Jacobs's edition of the Palatine Anthology, b. viii.
vol. i.; and in Boissonade's Poet. Graec. Sylloge, Paris, 1824, &c. There are
many other editions of parts of his works. (The authorities for Gregory's life,
besides those already quoted, are the lives of him by Nicetas and by Gregory the
presbyter, the Ecclesiastical Histories of Socrates and Sozomen, the works of
Baronius, Tillemont, Fleury, Du Pin, Lardner, Le Clerc; Cave, Hist. Lit. vol.
i.; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. viii.; Schrockh, Christliche Kirchengeschichte,
vol. xiii.; Ullmann, Gregorius von Nazianz, der Theologe, ein Beitrag zur Kirchen
und Dogmengeschichte des vierten Jahrhunderts, Darmst. 1825, 8vo.; Hoffmann, Lexicon
Bibliographicum Scriptorum Graecorum.)
(1) In the Arian controversy, the terms theologhia and theologos were used by
the orthodox with reference to the Nicene doctrine, which they believed to be
contained in the passage of Seripture, theos en ho logos. It was in this cense
that they called the apostle John ho theologos.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Memorial 5 August. Died 374 of natural causes.
Married and converted Saint Gregory of Nazianzen the Elder. Mother of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Saint Caesar Nazianzen, and Saint Gorgonia. She outlived her husband and the latter two children.
Memorial 1 January. Born c.276 at Nazianzos, Cappadocia, Asia Minor. Death 374
Spent the first 50 years of his life as a pagan. Government official most of his adult life. Married to Saint Nonna, who converted him to Christianity in 325. Father of Gregory Nazianzen, Saint Caesar Nazianzen, and Saint Gorgonius. Bishop of Nazianos c.328. As bishop he became attached to an heretical Christian offshoot, but in 361 was brought back to the orthodox faith by his son Gregory. At age 94, he made younger Gregory his co-adjutor in Nazianos.
Gregorius Nazianzenus, the elder, was bishop of Nazianzus in Cappadocia for about forty-five years, A. D. 329--374, and father of the celebrated Gregory Nazianzen. He was a person of rank, and he held the highest magistracies in Nazianzus without increasing his fortune. In religion, he was originally a hypsistarian, a sect who derived their name from their acknowledgment of one supreme God (hupsistos), and whose religion seems, from what little is known of it, to have been a sort of compound of Judaism and Magianism with other elements. He was converted to Christianity by the efforts and prayers of his wife Nonna, aided by a miraculous dream, and by the teaching of certain bishops, who passed through Nazianzus, on their way to the council of Nicaea, A. D. 325. His baptism was marked by omens, which were soon fulfilled in his elevation to the see of Nazianzus, about A. D. 329. He governed well, and resisted Arianism. His eldest son, Gregory, was born after he became bishop. In 360 he was entrapped by the Arians, through his desire for peace, into the signature of the confession of Ariminum, an act which caused the orthodox monks of Nazianzus to form a violent party against him. The schism was healed by the aid of his son Gregory, and the old bishop made a renewed public confession of his orthodoxy, which satisfied his opponents, 363. In the year 370 he, with his son, used every effort to secure the elevation of Basil to the bishopric of Caesareia; indeed, the intemperate zeal of the two Gregories seems to have embittered the Arians against Basil. All the other events of his life, of any importance, are related in the next article. (Greg. Nazianz. Orat. xix.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
d.c. 375, feastday: December 9
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