Beatus

ON ST. BEATUS

OF VENDÔME IN THE DIOCESE OF CHARTRES.

Beatus, of Vendôme in the Diocese of Chartres in Gaul (S.)

G. H.

[1] Some difficulties appear concerning S. Beatus,

so that it can be doubted whether one or several

are to be established. We will indicate clearly what

is the sense of the ancients. The first

memorial is made in four ancient apographs of the Hieronymian Martyrology

but on various days, especially toward the end

augmented in Gaul and England. Of these the most ancient

is the Epternacian, Ancient cult. inscribed nearly a thousand years ago. In which

toward the end these things are read: And elsewhere of Beatus the Confessor:

in the other three, namely Corbeian, Lucan and Blavian, these things

are had, The birthday of S. Beatus the Confessor. But the MSS. of Reichenau

near Constance in Swabia, of Prague of the Cathedral

Church, the Augsburg of S. Udalric and the Parisian of Labbe, not at Rome

mention only Beatus the Confessor, who in the MS.

of Trier of S. Martin is called Beatus the Presbyter. Behold the illustrious

vestiges of ancient cult, but no place is indicated.

First Rabanus in his Martyrology hands down these things: At Rome

the birthday of S. Beatus the Confessor. Rabanus was copied by the author

of the Martyrology supposed under the name of Bede, and this by Galesinus.

But the MSS. of Arras of the Cathedral Church, of Brussels of the church

of S. Gudula, and of Tournai of the monastery of S. Martin, conjoin

these things: At Rome the birthday of the Saints Beatus the Confessor

and S. Primolus. That an error crept into these from the adjoined

Primolus, who suffered at Rome, and is immediately placed before S. Beatus

in the cited four apographs of the Hieronymian Martyrology,

is gathered from the MS. Epternacian: where between Primolus

and Beatus is expressly placed, and elsewhere: which

is the same as if it were said, not at Rome. But that place

in the most ancient Martyrology of the Queen of Sweden marked num. 313 is thus indicated: but to be assigned to Vendôme. In the territory of the city of Chartres at the castle

of Vendôme, the birthday of S. Beatus the Confessor. The same things drawn from there

Lucas Holstenius has in his Animadversions to the Roman

Martyrology. But Usuard: At the castle of Vendôme

the deposition of S. Beatus the Confessor. The same or similar things have

Bellinus, Grevenus, Molanus, Maurolycus, Felicius,

Canisius, Saussay, with today's Roman Martyrology.

[2] Various Acts found multiple times differing only in style. In the MS. of Ado of the monastery of S. Lawrence at Liège

it is added, that his Acts are had. These we have multiple,

but none of first note and credit: which we have differ from one another

only in style. Wherefore we give only those which

we think older than the others, transcribed by Father John Gamans

from a notable parchment Passional of the Bodecense monastery,

of the Order of Canons Regular of S. Augustine in Westphalia

and the diocese of Paderborn, collated with another codex

MS. of the Church of the Holy Saviour. Others, somewhat more adorned

with cultivation of words and almost extended to double,

we have from four MS. codices, namely those we ourselves transcribed

from the MS. codex of the above-indicated Queen marked

num. 863, likewise at Paris from two MS. codices preserved

among the Fathers of the Feuillants, among the collectanea of R. P. John

the other was distinguished into nine Lections, and in place of Beatus

bore the name of Siviardus. The fourth copy was sent to us

from Rouen by R. D. Francis Pommeraius Religious

Benedictine. With these four copies collated with each other,

we had prepared a second Life for the press, with that intention,

which in January and February we used several times, concerning those Saints,

of whom we had no life of preeminent authority and antiquity,

we gave several of inferior note and credit, differing almost

only in style, that free choice might remain to the reader.

But because we have observed by use that it is the judgment of many,

that those Lives are little usefully multiplied, of which even one

would be too much to read, desiring that more certain and only first-

credit Acts be proposed in this work; we judged that we should abstain

from its edition, and refer to the notes if

anything singular occurred in others. From either Life moreover

are taken Lections from an old MS. Breviary, sent to us

formerly by P. John Wallon at Rouen: likewise other

compendia which exist both in the Breviary of Chartres printed

in the year MDCXXXIII, and in the proper offices of the Church of Constance

in Swabia, in these themselves it is read that his body

was given for burial in the castle of Vendôme. Namely, as also

has the Breviary of Chartres, when in a crypt close to the castle

of Vendôme he had passed the rest of his life;

and all the Lives, which we have mentioned, agree.

[3] That in the diocese of Chartres and the Deanery of Vendôme

is a village and parish of S. Beatus, parish, Relic. pertaining to the patronage

of the Abbot of Vendôme, the Register of benefices

of the diocese of Chartres printed in the year MDCXLVIII attests. There is moreover

there an Abbey, dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity, of the Order

of S. Benedict, in which is preserved the arm of S. Beatus

enclosed in silver, the above praised Pommeraius

the Benedictine indicated to us. And all these things confirm S. Beatus

in the said diocese of Chartres and in the vicinity of the city of Vendôme,

commonly Vendôme, to have piously passed his life and concluded it with a holy

end, and there to have obtained ancient veneration.

[4] In what century he flourished. But now in what time he flourished there is to be investigated.

The Acts to be given below have him among other Apostolic men chosen

by S. Peter the Apostle, instructed and sent into Gaul.

Meanwhile the said Pommeraius, when he sent us those

Acts, in the accompanying letter indicates that he judges he

flourished in the fourth or fifth century of Christ. Indeed some

scruple is injected from the lections of the Breviary of Chartres,

because in them no mention is made either of the city of Rome, or of S. Peter,

or of the Roman Pontiffs, since from this mission of S. Beatus

made by S. Peter could accrue the highest dignity and excellence

to the said diocese. In the Breviary of Constance

he is handed down as sent by the Roman Pontiff into Gaul, for the cause

of disseminating the Gospel. What therefore is to be said to the said

Acts? Perhaps they would seem to someone written from pictures formed

in honor of S. Beatus, in which is indicated the mission

made by some Pontiff, with keys painted in signifying the power of loosing

and binding, and soon from sole love of antiquity,

with which everywhere men burn in promoting

the beginnings of the received faith, someone presumed that Pontiff

to have been S. Peter the Apostle. Consult Francis

Bosquet, who hands down similar things in the book of histories of the Gallican

Church: some of which we insinuated on XXII of March,

at the Life of S. Paul Bishop of Narbonne. We leave these things

to be further discussed by the learned men among the Chartrains and Vendômois.

[5] Another, and perhaps more doubtful thing, is ascribed

to S. Beatus, and what kind of fight he had with a dragon. as if he no less than S. George had to

fight with a Dragon or some huge serpent,

which he had to expel from a cave or crypt. The Acts of S. George

we elucidated on the day XXIII of April, and §.III at length we showed

the fight imputed to him on occasion of images, which

in similar manner expressed his victory, idolatry having been destroyed

won over the diabolical infernal dragon: which here also

seems to be able to be believed, and therefore about the serpent or dragon nothing

is handed down in the printed Lections, indeed even in the ancient Lectionary

MS. as below to the prior Acts we annotate.

[6] Near Confluence the city of the territory of Trier, where

the Moselle falls into the Rhine, Another S. Beatus among the Treverans. there is the mountain of S. Beatus,

where Carthusians dwell, we found noted at the miracles

of S. Servatius on the day XIII of May num. 34, whose body brought

there is said, as if saluting the said Beatus, three times

to have inclined itself. He is venerated XII of May, S. Modoald

Archbishop of Trier, whose body was in the year MCVII

translated to the monastery of Helmwardenhusen, together with

a tooth and part of a rib of S. Beatus the Confessor, obtained at Trier

from two women devoted to God, in the church

of B. Mary enclosed, as there in the History of the Translation

num. 16 is read. John Enen and John Scheckmann

in the Epitome or Marrow of the Trevirian Deeds printed in the year MDXVII

page 57, report the sacred Relics of the monastery

of S. Mary at the Martyrs near the bank of the Moselle and among other things

have these: A finger of S. Beatus the Confessor, who also

with body here reposes. But that he is buried at Confluence among the Carthusians,

is indicated in the Martyrology of Cologne and Lübeck printed in 1490, likewise in Canisius,

Molanus and others: but on the day XXVI of July: and that he with

his brother Banton lived in the Vosges, is indicated in the Life

of S. Magnericus Bishop of the Treverans XXV of July. Consult Brower's

Annales Trevirenses book 7 num. 32: and from all these

conclude that that Beatus of Confluence is different from that of Vendôme.

LIFE

From the MSS. Bodecense and Utrecht.

Beatus, of Vendôme in the Diocese of Chartres in Gaul (S.)

BHL Number: 1064

FROM THE MS.

[1] In those days, when very many Provinces

were devoted to warlike pursuits, Among other Apostolic men Aquitaine and at the same time

all Germany were sweating in public errors, and the whole

multitude of the gentiles lay subject to the vanity of idols;

it was done by the providence of divine restoration,

that for recalling peoples from their madness, very many

athletes, armed with piety and faith, by S. Peter the Apostle

from the city of Rome were directed into all the ends of the earth:

who by the seedbed of the doctrine of God might call the Gentiles

to grace, so that from the throng of believers

daily growing the Church of Christ might leap forth. Among

whom stood out the man of God, Beatus by name and by work,

great and excelling in religion, noble in birth, but more noble

and more sublime in faith; comely in form, endowed with wisdom,

rich in resources, but more rich in the grace of God.

He coming with not double but suppliant heart

to conversion, S. Beatus, his goods having been distributed to the poor in part distributed his substance to the poor,

in part divided to the Church and brethren,

and retained nothing for himself except simple clothing,

fearing that example of Ananias and Sapphira

or punishment, especially that which the Lord in

the Gospel says: He who does not announce all that he possesses,

cannot be my disciple. Thus therefore

naked and unencumbered to the world, but with the arms and

virtues of Christ clothed, by Bl. Peter sent to preaching,

a pilgrimage into Gaul ^a he is handed down to have undertaken

joyfully, that he who among acquaintances was venerated as greatest,

among the unknown might be reckoned a beggar; recognizing in himself, in Gaul he preaches:

what the Lord to the poor and humble

his own promises again, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit

for they shall possess the earth. Luc. 14, 33, Matth. 5, 3

[2] And so the journey of preaching having been undertaken, the word

of truth in seed was not lacking to him, nor fruit in operation,

nor harvest in retribution. For to whatever

peoples he came preaching the word of God of their conversion

he merited to receive from the Lord very much

fruit. ^b But he was glorified by signs and virtues in all things,

so that whatever sick or feeble ^c his healing right hand touched,

it conferred salvation and health on them from divine mercy.

Nor wonder, for he was of such great continence,

innocence and purity, that it did not seem to him to be

absurd, what in the Psalm he daily ruminated

the canticle, Innocent of hands and clean of heart, who

has not received his soul in vain. Ps. 23, 4 For now in flesh

dead beforehand, in mind he unceasingly desired heavenly things;

and the songs of prayers without ceasing resounded

his lips. he labors with his hands: Nor less did he work servile work with his hands,

that he might have whence to give to those suffering need,

offering an example to others, that they not refuse

the daily work of labor. He performed with his hands

work in rushes, nor did he diminish the work of the mouth in Psalm:

he wove little baskets, and exchanging them for daily food,

he imitated the examples of the ancient monks,

and observed the precept of the Apostle with

diligence, who in order to rouse the sluggish and idle, He who

does not labor, he says, let him not eat. Thess. 3, 8

[3] he converts very many to the faith. Faith burned in his breast, and the dignity of religion

flashed in his face. He regenerated through the laver

multitudes, and from the error of paganism removed huge

troops. For through his prayer and divine inspiration;

the very worshippers of idols destroyed

the temples of the images and profaned the rite of sacrifices

of their own, confessing and desiring to observe

the true religion of the Christians. For wherever

the man of the Lord S. Beatus the Presbyter remained,

he could in no way long lie hidden, because the light upon

the candlestick was placed: since for his daily

virtues he was venerated with the highest honor and loved

by all. But if ever he conceded

a little sleep to his eyes, sparing in sleep and food. he cast his weary limbs

upon the ground and the bare hair-shirt: but about food and

drink there is no need to say, since he was of such great abstinence,

that many even after his death taking the example of his continence,

obtained the effect of his virtues and

signs. One Companion

to whom strenuously and continually he rendered service,

so far that he often took off his shoes and bestowed the love

of pure and sincere charity on him;

procured food for him fasting, and indefatigably extended his own fasting

through three days, nor however did he remain more severe

thence.

[4] And when with such glorious fruit of good works

he was running through innumerable provinces, he profits much among the Nantes: he turned aside into

the city ^e of Nantes, situated upon the river Loire,

where he was received as guest by a few Christians and honored

after the manner of a pilgrim. Having tarried there for a short time,

he kindled the hearts of all from the divine

eloquence: for he spoke and exhorted all the hearers

about the principate of the Patriarchs, about the consecrated

number of the Prophets, about the choir of the Apostles, about

the glorious army of Martyrs, about the reward of the Confessors,

about the brightness of the Virgins, among whom Bl. Mary

the Mother of God obtains the principate. So he instructed

the souls of the faithful, proposing to them the examples of all

the Saints, kindling their hearts to the fellowship

of the supercelestial virtues, concluding the last sermon

about the nine orders of Angels and about the beatitude

of the holy souls, over whom alone reigns

Christ, who is Holy of Holies, to whom with

the Father and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory unto ages of ages.

Amen. After these things when he had very many there

confirmed in the worship of God, and having heard that near Vendôme there was a cave suitable for him, through whom of the holy

Church the institute of religion might be confirmed; he began

to inquire from all about a more secret and remote place from

men, where he might be fed by sole

divine contemplation. And when he was diligently investigating from sailors

a business of this kind, he heard from the shipmasters about a town of Vendôme

a message dear to him, namely that there was

a cavern hewn in stone in some more remote place, not

far ^f from the castle Ledum, at the roots of a mountain, above

covered with a grove. But he with humility supplicated

the shipmaster, that the faculty might be given him to pass through with

them. Who when he asked from him fare or viaticum,

he produced the little book of the Sacraments, whence he was wont

to celebrate the divine ministry, when to the Lord

he immolated the most holy sacrifice. Whom

the shipmaster when he had recognized to have nothing more except the sole

clothing, was unwilling to receive

anything from him.

[5] Therefore ascending the ship, with the Lord so directing

they had a prosperous course, he sails there, so that the sailors said among

themselves mutually, that they had never sailed so prosperously. For

a thin breeze breathed for them, and the wave was placid in service,

whence with one accord all who were in the ship rendered thanks

to God, saying, Now certainly we know, that this man

is truly a servant of God, to whom water divinely renders service,

and also the blasts of the winds give

the support of aid. Thus therefore the Saint of the Lord

Beatus, always bearing a blessed mind, with prosperous

journey, with the Lord mediating, came to the desired

place. Therefore seeing the cave in hollowed stone,

remote from all fellowship of light, covered by the density of woods,

and the serpent removed there as a solitary he lives he greatly rejoiced over it. They report

moreover this about the same place, men dwelling not

far from there, that a serpent of wonderful magnitude

once possessed that habitation,

who in the same region a great destruction, both in men

and in beasts, is said to have perpetrated: whom the man

of the Lord, relying on divine help, when he had exterminated,

and had cleansed that place from its filth and stenches,

as if into a workhouse he thrust himself into the cave,

for the Lord and for the kingdom of heaven; that

he might fulfill, that Prophetic word, He dwelt in the heights

of the most firm rock, placing in the height of the mountain

his nest and with the beasts his bed: and he holily dies. and again another

Prophet says: He shall dwell in the heights, the fortifications

of rocks his sublimity: He shall see the King in his

beauty. Is. 33, 16 With roots of herbs he sustained his body:

and if ever he took dry bread, he said it was the highest

banquet. ^g

[6] In this place therefore, the man of the Lord remained leading a harsh

and strict life, and ascended to decrepit

age, honored by divine signs and virtues,

until from the calling of the Lord himself

he was clemently visited ^h. Then that happy soul, to

the heavens gloriously migrated to the kingdoms, and in the same

cave, his holy little body was honorably buried by religious men:

so that the cavern itself, which had had as a guest

him alive, might have him also as deceased,

and might become salvation of very many ailing ⁱ.

[7] After these things a long space being completed, a certain Alessia,

a woman, [there is buried Aleffia the Virgin. consecrated to Christ from infancy, shining

from a noble race, remaining more noble by illustrious

virginity, had the fame of her religion spread far and wide.

She when she was completing the term of life,

issued this precept to her familiars, that they should bury

her little body next to Beatus the Presbyter: that in one

place they might honorably be preserved in the tomb, whom

the religion of one faith had made companions in heaven. From ^k that

time, with God Almighty mediating, daily

there in the people signs and miracles are wrought without

number, the infirm receiving health, the consolation

of the oppressed, and salvation of every kind to all the faithful,

through Christ our Lord, to whom

is honor and glory unto ages of ages. Amen. ^l

ANNOTATA.

Vendôme. Here above Angers joined to the Sarthe, soon into the Mayenne,

then flows into the Loire: whence appears the reasoning of the navigation, here more

obscurely indicated.

Before this time he had converted few pagans from the cult of the idol of Iacus: but when

the fame of his miracle increased, he began to be held in price among the Vendômois,

and his teaching to be made of greater account. Frequently he went to the city to teach Christ

the Lord; his sanctity moved more than the magnificence of his speech. From

the faithful he accepted nothing: but on herbs and roots

he subsisted: after three days he sometimes only took those foods. On

solemn days only, if any of the faithful offered, he received bread,

and holding it in the highest delicacies he ate. He touched no wine,

unless when he handled the most sacred mysteries: he knew no drink besides water.

He passed sleepless nights in ashes and hair-shirt. But what here about the harshness of life

are exaggerated, are taken from another Life.

Before he died he was seized with a very light fever, by which his strength

little by little diminishing, from the little bed,

where in the beginning of the disease he had been laid, into ashes and hair-shirt

he let himself down: where among the Angelic troops of the heavenly army, which were

both heard and seen to descend from heaven, he most placidly breathed forth his soul

on the seventh of the Ides of May.

where virtues from that time began to grow up and miracles to flash forth:

whose fame having spread far, very many from various places

came together, where they recovered the health which they were seeking.

And there be supplied about this the saying of the Apostle, Honorable marriage and

undefiled bed. For not one from himself: but through the merits of both,

with the Lord mediating, daily there flash signs without number: but most

it is to be believed for the honor of S. Beatus, who finished a pilgrim life for the love of the Lord

in the world, with our Lord granting etc.

APPENDIX

On the veneration of S. Beatus among the Helvetii: and whether another Beatus announced the faith of Christ to them.

Beatus, of Vendôme in the Diocese of Chartres in Gaul (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

[1] Some Life of S. Beatus published in the year 1511. George Carnefelt the Cologne Carthusian book

4 on the Lives of Hermits ch. I sets forth S. Beatus

an Apostolic man, and writes these things: To the Index in

the Life of this Saint, which bears an ancient character,

and was published by Daniel Agricola in the year of the Lord

MDXI at Basel. From this I will briefly narrate. While S. Barnabas

was preaching in the parts of Scotland and Britain,

Suetonius a young man believes in Christ, and being baptized

is called Beatus: then he comes to Rome, and by S. Peter

the Apostle is sent to the Helvetii to be converted.

He did his work for some years strenuously; and after

inflamed with love of the solitary life, withdrew into a desert;

killed a dragon, and died happily in the year

of Christ CXII, about the age of XC. And I think the same

is he, of whom the Roman Martyrology IX of May,

Molanus, Canisius, and others. And in the margin are placed

these words: At the castle of Vendôme the deposition of S. Beatus

the Confessor. This Life, by the work of John Grothausen

Presbyter of the Society of Jesus, transcribed from the Cologne Charterhouse

we obtained, and first of all began to prepare for the press,

then we began to survey the other Acts, of which we have treated above;

and soon we feared something of fraud lay underneath,

because with some additions and changes the same matter was being narrated.

Therefore we collected all monuments of antiquities, and

nowhere before the year one thousand and fifty did we find

any vestige of the Apostolate of S. Beatus among the Helvetii.

But at length we fell upon the bright Commentaries of German Affairs,

issued in the year MDXXXI and

then reprinted, by the industry of Beatus Rhenanus, born in the year MCCCCLXXXV

at Schlettstadt and dying in the year MDXLVII at Strasbourg.

He solicitous for his Patron, whose name he bore, book

3 page 161 of the prior edition of 1531, or page 172

of the later edition of 1551 brings forth this observation worthy of note:

A certain man in past years, who I still hear survives,

invented that Beatus, the Helvetian anchorite,

as the common people preach, was called Suetonius,

describing his life, and that he had as companion,

whose name was Achates. I went to the man, intending to ask

whence he asserted that: for I thought these things

he did not say without an author. But hear his impudence.

Therefore, he says, I added that he was

called Suetonius, because I read that he came forth from Sweden: and because

faithful Achates always clung to the Virgilian Aeneas, and his companion Achates, therefore

I gave his comrade this name, who otherwise would be anonymous.

And nevertheless this history; if so we wish to call it,

is not only painted in temples and written,

but also struck off in print. Thus Beatus Rhenanus. Meanwhile

the said Life published by Daniel Agricola obtained credit among

posterity, and at first whom the author had said to Rhenanus came forth from Sweden,

in the Life he asserts to have been a young man named Suetonius converted by S. Barnabas and in baptism

called Beatus, [why might he not also have invented him in England or Scotland converted by S. Barnabas?] when the said Barnabas was traversing the provinces of England

and Scotland. And perhaps the author asked,

why he wrote that he, whom others have said was a Roman citizen,

was converted in England, of which then the appellation was not yet born,

or in Scotland and baptized by S. Barnabas; would have replied,

that under the beginning he might say something different from the other

authors, whom he was copying: then that S. Lucius the Apostle of the neighboring Rhaetians

came from Britain: and assumed

Barnabas, because S. Aristobulus (whose Acts we gave

XV March) is said to be brother of S. Barnabas, and to have promulgated the Gospel in

Britain. As if indeed it followed thence that S. Barnabas

also set out into Britain.

[2] Dempster wished him to be called Setonius, Dempster book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of the nation of the Scots

ch. 159 makes him a Scot, and not Suetonius

but Setonius called, because there still exists a most noble

and most excellent stemma of the Setonii. But of what credit

Dempster is in his Scottish affairs, is known to learned

men. One thing we wonder, that he did not bring forth some

books written by him, as he everywhere feigns about other Scots. Dempster

is rejected by Michael Alford in the Annals of the Church of Britain

at the year 59 num. 10, 11 and 12, others either by others in Britain and asserts that Suetonius,

son of a noble man in Britain, was converted

to the faith by the first preachers of this island, and

after baptism called Beatus, and was sent to S.

Peter at Rome: and first Rhenanus is cited, but not read

by him, because the words of him reported indicate that the plain contrary is said

by him. Others whose words Alford brings forth, are

Henry Pantaleon and Peter Merseus Cratepoleus, or baptized at Rome. but

these hand down that he was baptized at Rome, and are more recent authors,

and Pantaleon a non-Catholic man published the Prosopographia

of Heroes in the year MDLXV, in whose first part page 114 about

S. Beatus he treats: Cratepolius wrote his little book on the Saints of Germany

in the year MDXCI. Another is Francis Guillimanus

on the Affairs of the Helvetii published in the year MDXCVIII,

who book I ch. 15 judges that Suetonius converted by S. Peter going into

Britain, and his companion Achates,

were sent into Helvetia. No more conducive to making credit

are John Stumpf book 7 of Helvetic

Affairs ch. 122. Eisengrenius century 2 part

5, distinct. 2, and George Wicelius book 5 ch. 38, who

wrote after the year MDL or even MDLX, and one from the other

took his own things, which finally all are resolved into the Life of S. Beatus

published by Daniel Agricola: whence also chiefly

the Life of S. Beatus written in German in Helvetia Sacra

published in the year MDCXLVIII Henry Murerus drew, who

also asserts that he was first called Suetonius, and separately the Life

he adds of Achates, whom he also calls a holy Anchorite

and Confessor, but would prefer them to have been instructed at Rome or Milan

by S. Barnabas. But of whatever quality they are,

they sufficed, that in the English Martyrology of John

Wilson the name of S. Beatus, because another was lacking, was placed at

this IX of May, where he is said to have been consecrated Priest by S. Linus the Pontiff.

But alas! it is enough: let us proceed to the rest

attached to this Saint.

[3] in all the Acts the same things are said about almsgiving and clothing, In the other Acts above brought forward it is said that he being about to be sent from Rome

to Gaul distributed his possessions to the poor and the churches,

this Agricola hands down he did in England or Scotland, before

he departed thence to Rome to S. Peter. We praise the prudence

of the writer, that he was mindful of his fiction. Indeed because

in the other Acts he is said to have retained simple clothing;

Agricola adds that he was stripped of all except a hair-shirt to

the bare body, and a simple and cheap garment retained over.

Then he is said to have been instructed by S. Peter,

after other Orders received ordained Priest, to have confirmed the word of God

with miracles, and humble in his own eyes converted many.

These last things accomplished in Gaul are handed down in the other Acts,

since he was sent into them, and with woven baskets. but in place of Gauls and

especially of Aquitaine, are placed Helvetii, and then the same things

are everywhere handed down, namely that he according to the saying of Paul, He who

does not labor, let him not eat, lived from the labor of his hands, and rush baskets

wove: and because in the prior ones he is said to have come

to the city of Nantes, situated upon the river Loire,

it is ingeniously asserted in Agricola, but in place of Vendôme Vindonissa, that to the valley Interlaken

in the upper boundaries of the Helvetii he turned aside

at the river Aar, whence ingeniously others interpret

that valley of Interlaken to be between the Aar and the Reuss,

where the village of Windisch is situated, formerly Vindonissa an Episcopal city,

whence the See was translated to Constance. Further

they hand down that this Vindonissa in the Martyrologies is called

the castle of Vendôme. Could they also add it situated

in the territory of the city of Chartres, in which the city

is called by the Gauls Vendôme? The English Martyrologist thus

begins: At Vendome in Helvetia the deposition of S.

Beatus Confessour. But who would not spit out such ignorance? and his first Bishop, recently was handed down.

[4] In the Chronicle of the Episcopate of Constance to the year

MDCVII brought down, and published by John Pistorius,

S. Beatus is established as the first Bishop of Vindonissa, and

were followed by Bucelinus, in part I of Germania Sacra published in the year MDCLV,

and Jacob Merck in the Chronicle of the Bishops of Constance

published in German in the year MDCXXVII. But

no mention of Episcopal dignity conferred on him is had in

any Acts, even those published by Agricola. But Caspar Bruschius,

in the Bishops of Germany printed in the year MDXLIX, enumerates these

alone as Bishops of Vindonissa: Paternus, Lando,

Maxentius, Bubulcus, Grammatius, and

Maximus or Maximinus, who is held the first Bishop of Constance.

We have the Breviaries of the Church of Constance,

revised by the order of Christopher Bishop, and at Lyon

in the year MDLXI printed, and again by the authority of Marius

Sittich the Bishop and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church revised and at Dillingen

reprinted in the year MDLXXV, but without any notice of S. Beatus.

But in the proper Offices of the same Church of Constance,

printed some years ago, he is celebrated equally as in

the Breviary of Chartres under the rite of a Confessor not Pontiff and

an Antiphon is assigned, I shall liken him, and the Prayer for the Constancers

the first from the Common, God who us of S.

Beatus Confessor etc. but for the Chartrain the second from the Common,

Be present O Lord to supplications. the same about anchoretic life,

[5] But these being rejected let us proceed to the remaining Acts of S. Beatus,

in which he is said to have panted for the anchoretic life,

and when he had nothing but the book of the Sacraments, which

he used while sacrificing, kindly received by the sailor

and freely transported, with the highest tranquility

and admiration of the sailor. These things are common to all the Acts.

but with places changed, But in the prior Acts and Martyrologies he is said to have sailed

from the city of Nantes through the Loire, and leaving it

to have come to Vendôme-castle of the diocese of Chartres

upon the river Loir. But in Agricola it is said,

that he sailed across the lake to the root of the mountain, and

then what is in fewer indicated about the huge serpent or dragon in

the prior Acts, are described in Latin in Agricola: likewise about the dragon expelled

and the flight of the Dragon through the air in the image at

Murerus is expressed: by which symbol nothing else is signified than

idolatry conquered with the demon, we have shown above. abstinence and death are said. In

the cave S. Beatus in great abstinence and on wild herbs,

and dry bread lived, and at length in good

old age holily died, and buried in his crypt

shone with miracles, all the Acts have. In Agricola

by Achates his companion, to whom he had commended this, is said to have been given

burial. By others the year of death is assigned

the one hundred tenth and the place of habitation and burial

not far from Lake Thun under the town of Under-Seven:

where the cell of S. Beatus is said to be, where also a boy fallen from a height

and harmed by a grave bruise is handed down in Agricola

to have been healed in the year MDXI.

[6] Relics at Lucerne and elsewhere. Murerus adds that some bones of S. Beatus, because heresy

prevailed there, thence in the year MDLIV to Lucerne

were translated. Bucelinus in the Sacrarium Benedictinum at

this IX of May, writes that the arm of S. Beatus the Apostle of the Helvetii

is at Einsiedeln. Why might not all those

Relics translated to Vendôme, commonly Vendome, or to Trier,

have given occasion of inventing this third S. Beatus? whose Beati they are.

we propose these things with all reverence to be discussed for further and safer

knowledge, wishing nothing detracted

from the Helvetii, if they can prove some Beatus their Apostle from elsewhere

with greater certainty.

ON S. GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN

ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE

OF NAZIANZUS IN CAPPADOCIA.

A.D. CCCLXXXIX.

Gregory of Nazianzus, Archbishop of Constantinople (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

§ I Life written by himself, another collected by Caesar Baronius: another published by others: cult

among the Greeks and Latins.

[1] In the fourth century of Christ shone forth a most brilliant star of the whole

Church, S. Gregory, on account of

his singular doctrine of divine matters surnamed

Theologian, Before his own Poem on his Life rendered into prose, who

in the ninth year before death, that he might stop the mouths of detractors,

wrote a prolix and excellent Poem about his own life.

This when not only into Latin to render, but also to bind in similar meter

interpreters wished, first they lost those things

whence the chief praise of an interpreter is born, namely clarity

and the genuineness of native expression; nor however could they

attain, that they at least appear as Poets. Wherefore since this writing

is the basis and foundation of most of those things which afterwards

were written about Gregory; we judged we had altogether to take care

of a new paraphrase of it: which produced in a freer

style, we would give in the first place, did we not notice,

that in this Poem many things are omitted, many things merely in passing touched,

which to the full history of the Life, both from his other

writings and from the monuments of the ancient authors, could be added.

Such collection therefore judging it to be set before all others,

we were thinking to make it through ourselves,

in that very style and manner with which we compiled the Acts of S.

Athanasius Archbishop of Alexandria, on the day second of this

month of May published, but to those thinking this it was opportunely offered

by the Reverend Fathers of the Roman Congregation of the Oratory

the Life of S. Gregory of Nazianzus by Caesar Baronius, the Life is given by Baronius collected from the Saint's writings.

afterwards Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, from his works

with utmost care and diligence put together. Which

offering when we accepted with most grateful mind; the copy

elegantly transcribed with the original autograph of Baronius

was exactly collated by Petrus Possinus, of the Society of Jesus a most learned man,

and a singular favorer of our studies. Baronius

in the Epilogue asserts that the most sincere truth, which

he uniquely professes, is in this his writing of such kind,

that he scarcely concedes to anyone in it, and he himself offers it to S. Gregory

as the firstfruits of his lucubrations. He had dedicated

it however to Gregory XIII Pontifex Maximus, on the occasion of the magnificent

chapel, which he in the Vatican Church to S. Gregory of Nazianzus

had erected, hitherto unpublished due to various impediments, and had enriched with the treasure of this sacred Body.

[2] Wherefore that Baronius did not publish this little work of his in print,

various impediments seem to have been the cause:

of which the first I gather from the Annals themselves at the year 389, num.

22, where he calls this writing the affairs of Gregory of Nazianzus

produced in the first edition; and adds that overlooked,

what he plainly did not know, was a testament made by him.

While to acquiring this and adapting to the press,

Baronius applied his mind, the mentioned Gregory

XIII seriously thought about reforming the Roman Martyrology,

and entrusted that province to most learned men: which,

driven especially by William Cardinal Sirletus, Baronius

undertook, and completed, as far as it itself by the authority and command

of the same Pontiff was published with an Apostolic Brief prefixed

signed XIV of January, in the year MDLXXXIV, of his Pontificate

XII. The same then, with S. Philip Neri ordering, with most accurate

notations he illustrated, and dedicated to the Supreme Pontiff Sixtus

V. Among these labors the care of completing the Life

of S. Gregory of Nazianzus had been set aside, and because Gregory

XIII, to whom he had inscribed it, had passed away, it seemed

to be set aside and inserted into the Ecclesiastical Annals, of which

the first tome the author inscribed to the same Sixtus V. From this

however Life of S. Gregory of Nazianzus already before composed it will be established,

how true was that, which the same Baronius in the Dedication

of the Martyrology, to the same Sixtus V wrote, that he then had

worn out a great part of his age, not only in

reading common histories, but in unrolling and scrutinizing

the writings and monuments of the holy Fathers.

And truly unless he had done this, how could he have inserted

into the Martyrology so many illustrious heroes, who against the Arians

and other heretics had contended; whose illustrious name

lay hidden, and the sacred memory had to be brought from darkness to clear light.

Marvel, reader, at the accurate doctrine of Baronius

shining forth in this Life, which after our manner we interpolate

with our Notes, illustrate with marginal synopsis,

and distinguish into chapters and numbers. After this we give

a new paraphrase of the aforesaid Poem, to which there will be no need

to add laborious Annotations; since almost all things which

would need discussion or illustration, are had illustrated and discussed

with the Life.

[3] But it pleases here to indicate some chief

Saints, inscribed in the said Roman Martyrology, parents inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. of whom in

this Life mention is made, with whom S. Gregory lived,

excited by their sanctity to the pursuit of virtue, or himself

made to it for them a master. First of all are offered his

most holy parents, namely S. Gregory Bishop

of Nazianzus, and S. Nonna: of whom the former on the very

Kalends of January is set before by us, the latter to be recalled on the day v of August.

Who baptized the father and afterwards consecrated him Bishop,

was S. Leontius, Bishop of Caesarea

in Cappadocia, reported XIII of January. Next to be reckoned

S. Caesarius the brother, and S. Gorgonia the sister: brother and sister, dedicated to the brother

XXV of February, and to the sister IX of December. After these

consanguinei the first is S. Basil, from his Athenian studies

until death the intimate friend of Gregory: S. Basil, so that

a great part of the affairs done by him among the Acts of S. Gregory

is to be remembered, as the affairs of this are mixed in his Life, on

the day XIV of June to be published. There approach the brother of S. Basil S.

Gregory Bishop of Nyssa, and very many others, with whom he lived. and the sister S. Macrina

the Virgin, to whom are dedicated the days IX of March and XIX of July.

Others are SS. Paul and Evagrius Bishops of Constantinople,

of whom the former under Constantius the Emperor by the snares

of the Arians was cruelly strangled VII of June, the latter

under Valens migrated as exile VI of March. S. Athanasius Bishop

of Alexandria II of May, whom he honored with his oration.

S. Eupsychius Martyr at Caesarea in Cappadocia under

Julian, IX of April. S. Eusebius Bishop of Vercelli

under Constantius an exile, I of August. S. Eusebius Bishop

of Samosata under Valens an exile, comforted by S. Gregory,

XXI of June. S. Amphilochius Bishop of Iconium,

his companion in the desert, XXIII of November. S. Eulogius

Bishop of Edessa, v of May. S. Damasus Pope, XI

of December. Finally S. Jerome, XXX of September,

whom to glory in S. Gregory as master is shown below num. 70.

[4] Flourished in the tenth century of Christ Gregory the presbyter, the Life written by Gregory Presb. cent. 10 is omitted.

whose oration on the Praises of Nazianzen is extant, but in which

Baronius noted certain things little consonant with the truth of history;

some things however he received from here. But sufficiently

now is it had, as being prefixed before the very works of S.

Nazianzen, published by Jacob Billius both in Greek and in Latin

with Billius himself as interpreter: it is also in Latin among the Surian

works reprinted; so that without scruple it can here be omitted. and various Greek encomia. Among the Greeks

various wrote encomia about S. Gregory the Theologian: among

whom is Theodore Metochites the Genic Logothete, or from

the office of the public treasury the great Logothete, under Andronicus

Palaeologus the elder, in the XIII century of Christ, of whose encomium

Allatius makes mention on the writings of the Symeons p. 103. Another and rather

long encomium, in the relation of the sacred Relics of S.

Gregory we transcribed at Turin in the Library of the Duke of Savoy,

from the tome whose title is Βίοι

διαφόρων

ἁγίων

ὰ from fol. 327 and

at the end we give. But because to this Saint and at the same time to SS. Basil

and John Chrysostom a common feast, on the day XXX

of January instituted, was most celebrated among the Greeks, and

is even now; hence it has happened that common encomia to those three

were also written by some chief orators. some of which on SS. Basil, Gregory and Chrysostom. Such many composed John Metropolitan of Euchaita.

Such some we have from Jacob Pontanus rendered into Latin:

two others are cited by the said Allatius p. 103 and 112:

others are indicated by him as written by Matthew Camariotes p.

88, and by Philotheus Patriarch of Constantinople p. 112.

But all these we refer to the Life of S. Basil, who as before

others he departed from life, so almost in the first place is named.

[5] Elogium from the Martyrology of Emperor Basil 25 January. But the chief feast of S. Gregory among the Greeks is celebrated

XXV of January: on which day this elogium of his is reported in

the Menology of Emperor Basil. Gregory the Theologian

the great, in Cappadocia at Nazianzus from Gregory and Nonna

born by an oracle, flourished under Constantius the Emperor son of Constantine

the Great, and lived to the times of Theodosius the Elder.

He burning with the highest desire of comprehending the science of all

disciplines, to Caesarea

first, then to Alexandria, finally to Athens

withdrew: to whom holding with whole mind the constituted journey,

great spur was added of contention with

Basil the Great. By which it was done, that while one strove

to conquer and gloriously surpass the other; both

reached the goal proposed for themselves, and

excellently instructed in all arts and disciplines, returned

to their native country. Wherefore Bishop of Sasimi

Gregory was made: then in the city of Nazianzus

of his father now grown heavy with old age the office, in teaching

and performing sacred things, he zealously took up and fulfilled. After

these things having set out for Byzantium, he confirmed the souls of the orthodox

in the right faith against the Arian heresy:

and even of the same city was declared Patriarch.

But not long after, the cause of his counsel having been brought,

he abdicated the Patriarchate: and into his villa

withdrawing himself, he passed life in most honorable leisure.

These things there. Similar things are had in the most ancient MS.

Synaxary of the Church of Constantinople pertaining to the Parisian

College of the Society of Jesus: Translation to C. P. where after the indicated Translation

of the sacred body from Cappadocia to Constantinople,

(of which matter, and of the translation to Rome a special tractate will be given at

the end) and his deposition in the Church of the most famous

holy Apostles is added, that the solemnity

of him is also celebrated in the most holy great

church, and in the Martyrium in the Embola of Domninus.

These things there, and almost the same are read in the Menaea MSS. and

printed.

[6] Among the Latins similarly on various days the memory of

S. Gregory of Nazianzus is recalled, namely in the MSS. of Trier

of S. Martin and of Utrecht on the day XI of January, cult among the Latins, in

Peter de Natalibus book 2, ch. 69, Maurolycus and others

on the day XIII of January: again in the said MS. of Trier of S.

Martin and another of the monastery of S. Maximinus XXIX of March. But

the chief day of veneration of him is this IX of May, on which as

is celebrated, and long encomia are reported in Ado, Usuard,

Notker and other Martyrologists. In

today's Roman Martyrology these things are recited: At Nazianzus

the birthday of B. Gregory the Bishop, on account of his singular doctrine

of divine matters surnamed Theologian:

who restored the Catholic faith collapsed at Constantinople,

and crushed insurgent heresies. Of the triple

translation of the sacred Body below after the Life will be treated.

§ II Chronology of the life of S. Gregory weighed and renewed.

[7] From certain places negligently rendered into Latin In ordering the time of life led by S. Gregory, and the years of his

age being defined, the matter in our Author

is most complicated. For wishing to inquire into this matter from the Saint himself, as

was fitting, the most certain witness of his own age; but

unskilled in the Greek language, not otherwise able to understand his sense,

than as it had been rendered into Latin by interpreters,

there for the most part by no means careful, where they ought to have been most scrupulous

(as in the tractate on S. Athanasius's

Life it has been noted often) first of all he hit

upon his verse on his own Life, in which the interpreter made him to indicate,

that

He was now passing the thirtieth year of his age,

When at Athens with Basil departing, he was forced to remain,

to publicly profess Rhetoric there (as Baronius understands it).

believed in the year 355 to have been thirty, But this when it was established to have been done after the year

of Christ CCCLV, in which Julian for the cause of studies arrived at Athens,

was there known by SS. Basil and Gregory;

it seemed to follow consequently, that Gregory was born after

the Council of Nicaea, celebrated in the year CCCXXV. And the same

again could be confirmed from the Oration of Gregory in praise

of Basil, where the Saint according to the Latin interpretation about himself and his

Basil seems thus to say: Returned home, indeed beardless, namely from

Athens, we are made of our own right as soon as possible, and

from beardless are reckoned among men, more strongly and manfully

ascending to Philosophy: which scarcely about a thirty-year-old

can be said, much less about him who has by many years

passed beyond that age.

[8] Much more efficaciously moreover this lesser age of Gregory at this time

is proved, if he was born with his father not only

now Christian, contrary to what commonly the Greeks in the Menaea

and Synaxaria assert (he was however baptized by S. Leontius

setting out to the Council of Nicaea) but also already a Priest

or Bishop (which cannot be conceived as having happened before the year CCCXXVIII:

or even with his father already Bishop he was born, but this follows from these Latin words of his to his son:

You have not yet completed so many years in your life,

As I have already consumed in the sacred office.

But this last is most absurd, since the disciple of Nazianzen Jerome book I against Jovinian says; which can in no way be said.

Certainly you confess, that he cannot be Bishop, who

makes sons in his Episcopate: otherwise if caught,

he will not be held as a man, but condemned as an adulterer:

therefore also sons so procreated will be reckoned spurious. But this

if it could truly be said of Nazianzen, how would the Arians

not have reproached him, who objected so many other much smaller things?

But if you should say that Gregory was the last of his parents'

sons; and conceived before the father's Ordination,

came forth into light when it was completed: first indeed you will resist

the common opinion of the Greeks expressed in the Synaxaria,

then you will gratuitously make Caesarius the brother senior to Gregory.

Baronius therefore, lest he should be compelled to admit anything

such, preferred to judge the words of the father, comparing the age of his son

with the years of his own Priesthood, as not said except hyperbolically.

[9] But if the individual things are weighed rightly, as in Greek they were

written by Gregory himself; therefore the very places of the Greek text are explained. in those passages from which the aforesaid are deduced,

you will not find even one sufficient for founding the prefixed

Chronology. To begin namely from that last,

in which returned from Athens he seems to say, that he then first

from beardless among men began to be reckoned: far different

is its sense. For thus it has: Ὡς

δ᾽

οὖν

ἐπανήκαμεν,

μικρὰ

τῷ

κόσμῳ

καὶ

τῇ

σκηνῇ

χαρισάμενοι,

καὶ

ὅσον

τὸν

τῶν

πολλῶν

πόθον

ἀφωσιώσασθαι

(οὐ

γἀρ

ἀυτοί

γε

εἴχομεν

θεατρικῶς

οὐδ᾽

ἐπιδεικτικῶς)

τάχιστα

ἐγενόμεθα

ἡμῶν

ἀυτῶν,

καὶ

τελοῦμεν

εἰς

ἄνδρας

ἐκ

ὰγενείων,

ἀνδρικώτερον

τῇ

φιλοσοφίᾳ

προσβαίνοντες.

These I render thus: As therefore we returned home,

we who had served the world and the stage somewhat,

namely as much as was enough to gratify the desire of many others

(for we ourselves did not incline to theatrical

ostentation) immediately we became

of our own right, and 1, the metaphor taken from change of age, and as if from beardless

made men, we betook ourselves to philosophizing more nobly.

The metaphor of this place, which by adding the particle

"as if" I have signified, is made manifest by its first

part, in which he says that he and Basil then first became of their own right:

which as he does not wish to be understood about legal emancipation,

but about figurative, by which they had been forced to serve the world:

so neither what he says about being made men from beardless, ought to be taken with respect

to age, but referred to the soul: which then

first began to be raised manfully and strengthened, when, the zeal of pleasing others having been set aside,

which is of the imperfect, to true and solid

virtue, which is of perfect men, they

intended their effort.

[10] 2 the year 30 of rhetorical study is indicated, Now what concerns the

thirtieth year, joined with the departure from Athens, gratuitously is presumed to be marked

a year of age, where a year of study, of acquiring eloquence at Athens

spent, much more congruously can be understood. Take the very

Greek verses:

Καὶ

γὰρ

πολὺς

τέτριπτο

τοις

λόγοις

χρόνος,

Ἤδη

τριακοστὸν

σχεδόν

μοι

τοῦτ᾽

ἦν

ἔτος.

which sound thus, For long time I had spent

on exercising eloquence: and that year was for me almost

the thirtieth: namely in this study: otherwise how

would he have called the time of eight or ten years (for he could not number more

then, if he was only thirty) long for

that exercise, to which very many dedicated their whole life, nor

even in extreme age believed they had attained the perfection of the oratorical art?

This sense would be even clearer: if

for τοῦτ᾽

ἦν, this was, you read τοῦδ᾽

ἦν of this thing, that is,

of study, was for me a year almost thirtieth. Consonant with

these is Gregory the Presbyter in the Life of the Saint, expressly affirming,

that he returned from Athens to his native country τριακοστὸν

ἤδη

ἔτος

πληρούσας when he had completed the thirtieth year:

for he does not stop here, nor add, ἐν

βίῳ, in

life: but ἐν

τοις

μαθήμασιν, in the disciplines of arts

handled.

[11] 3 the words of the father are declared Finally the words of father Gregory to his son, which have not failed

to torture anyone, with a slight correction applied, easily

seem able to be brought to a sense not alien from the history and from the reckoning

of greater age; if, where now in the printed editions is read,

Οὔπω

Τοστοῦτον

ἐκμεμέτρηκας

βίον,

Ὅσος

διῆλθε

θυσιῶν

ἐμοὶ

χρόνος.

if, I say, we should believe the last verse to have been so written by the author,

Ὅσος

διῆλθ᾽

ἐτησίων

ἑμὸι

χρὸνος.

then namely it ought to be rendered into Latin in this manner:

So long an age has not yet been completed for you,

As the time of the Etesian winds has passed for me.

setting forth his extreme old age to his son, For since anciently those were not noted, which we now use,

accents and breathings; it was very easy, that

some scribe finding ill-joined or otherwise divided words,

as if it were διηλθεσιων or διηλθε

τησιων, and

taking no sense from the so joined or divided words, substituted θυσιῶν,

and gave to many after him an occasion of erring.

Nor ineptly (as perhaps to someone it will seem) the father said to his son,

that he has not yet reached his age. For it was being treated

about the administration of the Episcopate of Nazianzus

to be undertaken, from which the son seeking to be excused, having died as Suidas

says a nonagenarian, and so being then aged LXXII years,

deservedly excused his age, which it would be more fitting

to keep henceforth free for himself and God: but with greater right replies

the nearly-centenarian father, that he is still much

far from his old age; but when he has buried the father, whose death

was seen in the very gates, then at last his withdrawal would be

excusable: meanwhile let him concede so little a delay to an old man,

which he could not deny with piety preserved. Favoring this explanation

are the verses which precede and follow, and so

the otherwise insoluble knot is solved.

[12] For when those things are understood as said by the father immediately after the Episcopal consecration of his son

that is in the year CCCLXXI; the son would not have been much more than forty according to that

reading: who however in the Poem on his own affairs, which before

that time, not long after the death of his brother Caesarius and his sister Gorgonia

was composed, thus complains:

Now my head whitens with grey hairs, and my wrinkled limbs

Sad to the setting of life are borne forward prone for me.

Nor would you understand a premature greyness perhaps, then also old, bent and grey as the interpreter

serving the meter said his premature old age in

the same poem a little after: for the Greek text does not have this,

it only indicates that χαλεπὸν

πάθος, namely the troublesome conflict of temporal cares which he had described before,

him, impatiently desiring a quieter life, κατὰ

γῆρας

ἔχευε precipitated into old age, not whatever kind,

but as if extreme: for therefore he adds Καὶ

κύπτω

ποτὶ

γαῖαν, and I lean toward the earth, which is of senile

dotards. But that this Poem was truly composed before

the elder Father said those former things, more evidently is clear,

from its very argument, which is to lament the hardships endured up to that point.

Therefore he had not yet then incurred that by which unwillingly he was made

Bishop, and which afterwards he felt above all others

and deplored, here however he does not even touch with a word. Furthermore

he who then was grey and bent (which in a seventy-year-old

old man is no wonder, in a forty-year-old man would have been portentous)

a decade later, when prevented by sickness from approaching the Praefect Olympius

himself to plead pardon for the citizens accused, addressing the same

through Epistle 172 deservedly uses these words: Let

our greyness move you, which has already moved you before this and indeed

very often. In a similar way Oration 17 supplicating for the citizens,

at the same one, or rather another his successor;

Will, he says, my greyness be offered to you in place of a

suppliant booklet and the number of years?

How many these, or what those? if Gregory was born in the year CCCXXVI or even later?

The greyness and years of his father, says

Billius. I know that Baronius indicates some who believed these things to look

to the times of Valens: but he himself convicts them of manifest

error, since the whole oration, which looks to the Praefect,

addresses a most Christian man and sincere worshipper

of the Trinity, to such no praefecture of the eastern provinces

was committed before Theodosius. He understands therefore his own

greyness, alleges the number of his years

such surely which especially ought to move pity.

But such you will have, if you believe Suidas, as we have already said,

asserting, that S. Gregory of Nazianzus had carried beyond his

age the ninetieth year when he died,

in the XIII or XIV year of Theodosius the Emperor, of Christ CCCLXXXIX.

[13] Come therefore, and according to this calculation, which of all

which seems most certain to us, ordering his age, let us compare it with the age of his parents.

The Father, who from parents born about the year 275, as in Oration

XIX the son says, died when he had lived

almost a hundred years, and from these had passed in the Priesthood five

and forty, completed about the year of Christ CCCLXXIII.

For the series of things following does not permit, that he afterwards

lived. Therefore he was made Bishop about the year CCCXXVII,

aged LV: and just so many years then

his wife S. Nonna had, as the son asserts that to her husband

she was not only ὁμόζυγον yokemate, but also ὁμόχρονον

contemporary: ἴσον

πολιῇτε

καὶ

ἤθεσι, equal in customs and

greyness. But the firstborn from this marriage is believed

S. Gregory, how therefore can he be believed to have been born about the same

time? unless either you say the parents were fifty years old

when they were joined in matrimony, which at least

of the mother is not probable: or that offspring at last was

granted to them after the long expectation of about thirty years.

But this so unwonted and so prodigious, in

which to old Sarah, rightly will he be said procreated before the year 300 Abraham's wife, S. Nonna would have been

so similar, who would have begun to give birth at fifty, how

could the son have passed over silent, going to have so great matter here

for pouring himself forth, in that oration in which he praised his parents,

weighing many things much more minute? Therefore about

the year of Christ CCLXXV was born S. Gregory the father, and

in the year about XXIV of his age from his wife Nonna of nearly equal age

he begot Gregory. He moreover, after the first elements of liberal

the flowers of the disciplines plucked not negligently in Palestine and Egypt, for seven or eight years, around the year of the age and of his own time about the XXVII, he sailed from Alexandria to Athens, to hear the Sophists Himerius and Proaeresius; after some years (then, since the ardor of his age did not yet endure long delays in one place) he departed into Syria, allured by the famous renown of the Sophist Libanius; and passing along the route through Nazianzus, from the year 327 to 356 he devoted himself to cultivating eloquence, he received baptism. Finally, having attained the summit of eloquence, he returned to Athens, where he found S. Basil and there clung to him until after the year CCCLV; when, both having departed into their own fatherland, they began with their whole strength to strive toward the highest Christian perfection, by whose merit Basil, made in the year CCCLXX Bishop of Caesarea, in the year LXXII ordained his friend Gregory, formerly a Presbyter, Bishop of Sasima. Who, thenceforth filling the place of his decrepit father in governing the Nazianzene Church, finally in the year CCCLXXXI, his father and mother having been buried seven years before, was elected Bishop of Constantinople, bringing thither a great age; and the more readily resigned the burden, the more easily it was for him to look rather toward a quiet death in his fatherland than toward new labors, and those most turbulent, in a foreign region.

§ III The Baptism of S. Gregory and his exercise with Basil in Pontus.

[14] He seems to have been baptized in his fatherland by his father. The time of the Baptism received by the Saint, Gregory the Presbyter, and the author who wrote the encomium of the Translation in the X century, seem to defer it until after the return from Athens, and so after the year CCCLV. But it is familiar to that Gregory (whom alone the later encomiast had before his eyes), regarding rather the order of things than of times, to join even disjoined matters together, nay even to represent a thing repeated several times as one single action of the same time. Thus he treats of the several withdrawals of Gregory into Pontus, of which presently below, after the manner of one: and the flight entered upon after he had received the Presbyterate with a reluctant mind, he does not distinguish from another which he took nine years after lest he should be ordained Bishop. Therefore I hold this only from that author, that Gregory was baptized in his fatherland by his father the Bishop: for to whom rather would he defer this office? It is not needful to seek far for the occasion of his returning to Nazianzus, Athens being left; since Sozomen says in book 6 chapter 16, that both he himself and Basil, while they were yet youths, gave themselves into the discipline of Himerius and Proaeresius, the most excellent sophists of that time, at Athens, but afterward at Antioch to Libanius the Syrian: at length indeed, both the art of the sophists and the pleading of causes being set aside, when from Athens he passed by way of Antioch to Libanius, they transferred themselves wholly to the study of Christian perfection and of sacred letters. There was not therefore, from the time the youth Gregory came to Athens, so fixed to it, but that, with the same impulse of hearing all the most famous masters by which he had first deserted Caesarea, then Alexandria, he should also have made an excursion to Antioch; but on this occasion nothing was readier than that he should pass through Nazianzus, to congratulate his father on the Episcopate of the fatherland received, why not also to receive baptism from his hands?

[15] You will ask, Was it with his companion Basil? Surely no authority compels us to believe but afterward, having returned to Athens, that both gave their labor to the same masters in the same order and at the same time; nor in any part of his writings does Gregory hint that Basil was known to him either at Caesarea or at Antioch: but how could he have been silent of this, if he had had him as companion in so many places not only of disciplines to be learned, but also of journeys undertaken for that cause? Therefore it is to me more likely that Basil studied at Caesarea, while Gregory was acting at Alexandria, Athens, and Antioch; and that he came to Antioch when the latter had returned to Athens. But if this seem to anyone unlike the truth, because Gregory in the Praises of Basil leads the latter immediately from Caesarea to Athens, no mention being made of Antioch; let him consider that, the earthquakes lasting at Antioch throughout the whole year CCCXLI, Libanius passed over to Caesarea, and there received Basil, now by no means a tyro, into discipline, and afterward sent him on to Athens. Meanwhile from what has been said it follows for me that the Saints Gregory and Basil knew one another at Athens only in manly age, Libanius perhaps, the common master of both, commending the one to the other. There he received Basil. To this conjecture Gregory gives his support, when he narrates that it was brought about by his own effort that Basil, coming to Athens, was held exempt from that sportive ordeal by which it was the custom that new disciples be received; which was for them the beginning of a friendship to be knit. For hence it can be presumed that Gregory was by no means then new at Athens, who already prevailed there with such authority that he could obtain so unusual a favor for Basil; but the latter must at that time have attained such a degree of age and learning as deserved to be so far beyond custom exempted from the accustomed harassment, Gregory intervening for this.

[16] The Baptism therefore of Gregory, He was therefore baptized about the year 328 or 329, which according to what has already been said would have preceded the conjunction of this man and Basil by a notable time, could not long be deferred after the ordination of Gregory the father as Nazianzene Bishop, which is thought to have happened about the year CCCXXVIII, when the son had passed, in our opinion, the XXVIII year of his age. But there preceded, and probably hastened, the Baptism of the younger Gregory, a twofold peril, in which placed, by nothing was he more troubled than that he feared to die unpurified. The first, when he sailed from Alexandria to Athens, tossed by tempest for full twenty days and nights, when he seriously devoted himself to Christ, having until then perhaps been doubtful, amid the ardors of advancing his studies, about taking up religion. The other, when all Hellas trembled with a heavy earthquake, and, with houses everywhere falling, no sure escape lay open. Baronius here understands the famous earthquake of the year CCCXLI, by which the Eastern parts especially were shaken, after the earthquake in Greece, and Antioch indeed for one whole year. Godefridus Hermant, agreeing with Baronius from the common opinion, suggests that Gregory, when he last departed from Athens in the year CCCLVI, was acting only the nearly thirtieth year of his age; and seeing the Saint speak of some earthquake which happened when he himself was already studying at Athens; but believing it too absurd to assert that Gregory was at Athens acting the XV year of his age, who is established to have given his labor to eloquence earlier at Caesarea and Alexandria; suggests another earthquake of the year CCCXLV, by which Dyrrachium fell. But just as either year, in their opinion, is too premature for bringing Gregory to Athens; so is it too late in ours; for thus we should be compelled to say that, after the tempest and the aforesaid vow, the baptism was deferred for Gregory beyond fifteen or twenty years, and the XL or even XLV year of his age. Besides, it is gratuitously assumed that the earthquake different from the earthquake in Asia noted in the year 340, which especially shook the East, was in the West (for Hellas looks hither in respect of Constantinople, the royal city) so vehement that the Saint should have wished to make mention of it, no mention being made of Antioch, which made him so celebrated to historians. Therefore I judge that some other one is here indicated, which properly shook Hellas about the year CCCXXVIII. That more frequent earthquakes existed in this century, while the whole Church was shaken by the commotions of the Arians, Ephrem the Syrian makes probable, when in the preface to book 2 of the Lives of the Fathers he says: The earth trembling at the face of the Lord is moved beneath our feet … whole cities have been swallowed up, and places desolated by the wrath of the Lord.

[17] It remains to add a word concerning the Pontic solitude of Gregory. Rufinus assigns him thirteen years, He withdrew into Pontus, Baronius confesses that he can scarcely find seven years. Gregory the Presbyter seems to speak as though that solitude were continuous, and interrupted by no return into the fatherland. I distinguish and order the various withdrawals from the Saint himself thus: that to Basil, who in the year CCCLVI or VII had retired into Pontus, Gregory joined himself in the year next following: yet with that mind which Epistle 5 indicates, that partly he should be with him in Pontus, partly have him with himself at Nazianzus: which last when he could not obtain from Basil, and the father, alleging his old age, most insistently recalled the son, Gregory returned alone to Nazianzus, first for 3 or 4 years, in the year CCCLIX or the following. Then ordained in the year CCCLXII against his will a Priest at the feast of the Nativity, Epiphany, or Lights; for grief at the violence done to him he fled to his friend, then for a shorter time once, still dwelling in his solitude: of whose sweetness having tasted again and being somewhat refreshed, he returned again at Easter to his parents and the paternal church. Then when Basil, now a Presbyter, on account of the rising quarrels with Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea, had sought Pontus again, and had invited Gregory thither; the latter excused himself on account of the illness of his mother, grievously sick, a little after miraculously healed of her husband: she being relieved by no lesser miracle, immediately, as he had promised, he hastened back to his friend in the year CCCLXIII: with whom he also elaborated those two most beautiful invectives against Julian, and again, spending there the rest of the summer and the beginning of the following year; so that, returning before the feast of Lights, he delivered that oration which is extant concerning that day; although he was not John, yet coming from the desert, as he there premises: and with his father he reconciled the monks dissenting from him on account of the signing of the Ariminian faith. Then in the year CCCLXVII Gregory went again into Pontus, not to tarry there, but to lead Basil back to Eusebius, now by his own effort placated toward him, to Caesarea; who, the affairs of that Church being composed, could in the following year have returned into Pontus, to revisit the monasteries there established by him, and have had Gregory as companion of the journey; nay even a third time, if it is true, which the other Gregory writes in his Life, that the death of his brother Caesarius compelled him to return in haste to Nazianzus, to console his aged and most afflicted parents. For that death happened in the year CCCLXVIII: after which year we know no other withdrawal of his, except that which he undertook, impatient of the contentions in which he saw himself entangled in the year CCCLXXI, being consecrated Bishop of Sasima, when again a fugitive he made an excursion into the mountain, which I would gladly believe to be that Pontic one; the same in which before this Basil had lived and had left his disciples.

[18] S. Basil contemporary of S. Gregory. Moreover those whom Rufinus followed seem to have reckoned the anachoresis of Basil from his departure from Athens up to his Episcopate, and so to have numbered thirteen years, from the year CCCLVII to CCCLXX: although he did not pass them continuously in the wilderness: but the famous and celebrated withdrawal of Gregory is to be placed before he was ordained a Priest, nor to be extended beyond three or four years. Concerning the age of Basil moreover (that I may touch this in passing) I judge with others that he was contemporary with Gregory: but, as the latter, so also the former came into the light before the year CCC: and accordingly Gregory could truly write of him in the year CCCLXVII to Eusebius of Caesarea Epistle 26 that he was, both in life and discourse and gray hairs, the most excellent of all whom he had known: which of a man of only XL years,

such as others have hitherto made him for that time, could not aptly be said: and so Basil, dying in the year CCCLXXIX, would have been at the least an octogenarian, whom his brother, following him to the better life twenty years after, as we suppose, the younger S. Gregory of Nyssa, himself also very far advanced in age when he died, could have had as a brother, just as he also called him, a master. But all these things will have to be treated more professedly, and strengthened by more supports, at the Life of S. Basil himself on June XIV.

[19] Why Notes have been added by us to the Life. These things being thus laid down, which we shall not without difficulty dismiss when another more convenient way is offered, it will be necessary for us, besides the published proper poem of the Saint about his own life, also to add some notes of our own to the Life collected by Baronius, saving the reverence of that most diligent man: to whom his honor will always remain among posterity, that, having first entered upon a difficult argument, he has paved the way for us and others, which, at first rougher, with some things removed and added or otherwise explained, it has been easy here and there to render plainer. But in these notes we shall endeavor, by the exhibition of the very passages, especially to illustrate and confirm those points which in this last paragraph we have asserted concerning the baptism and the withdrawal of S. Gregory. For other things to be more distinctly explained, we freely confess that we have been much helped by the Life of SS. Basil and Gregory, published in a style similar to that in which the Life of S. Athanasius had earlier appeared, edited in French in the year MDCLXXIV by Godefridus Hermant, who, in citing the passages he alleges from S. Gregory, used the Paris edition of Morel, prepared in the year MDCIX, which we also from time to time shall cite in the Notes, the page number being added (as he does, and as we did above in S. Athanasius): although Baronius in his manuscript and afterward in the Annals generally uses the Leunclavian edition, prepared at Basel about the year MDLXXII: which it is fitting the reader not be ignorant of; as also that he generally alleges the old version, in which we wished it to be sometimes lawful for us, that we might from time to time recall certain verses nearer to the sense of the Greek words, where the Latin seemed too obscure or otherwise distorted.

LIFE

By the Author Caesar Baronius,

Collected from S. Gregory himself and from all the best Ecclesiastical writers.

Gregory of Nazianzus, Archbishop of Constantinople (S.)

AUTHOR. CAES. BAR.

DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

To the Most Blessed Father Gregory XIII, Supreme Pontiff.

[1] On the occasion of the chapel erected to S. Gregory of Nazianzus, Whereas many things, for the glory of God and the utility of the Christian Commonwealth, have been piously and admirably accomplished by thee, Most Blessed Father; so among the rest there will be an illustrious monument for the memory of posterity both of thy piety and magnificence, the most noble Gregorian chapel, like a temple; which, built at great expense, adorned with magnificent work and the highest artifice, wonderfully turns upon itself the eyes and minds of all. In it thou, Gregory Best of Pontiffs, not without the inspiration of the Divine gift, hast placed the sacred bones of Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Constantinople, and of the sacred Body translated into it, a most holy and most eloquent man; which had now long lain hidden in a humble and obscure place. For we saw the whole city exulting with incredible joy, when, a solemn procession being proclaimed, with the greatest concourse and veneration of the whole people and of all orders, that holy body was carried forth. When thou, Holy Father, with tears arising, having venerated and embraced those sacred Relics, as a most illustrious guest, didst with thine own hands lead it into the most ample shrine; so that now that lamp of the East, burning and shining, may not lie hidden under a bushel but may shine forth in the most beautiful and most adorned place of the Vatican basilica, that is, in the domicile of religion and the theater of the world's lands, as upon a certain vast candelabrum.

[2] From that so vast a translation and placing of the Relics it came to pass, Most Blessed Father, that many, the more vehemently inflamed to cultivate the memory of this Saint, greatly desired to know his deeds and life; Baronius incited, of which number some friends rather often dealt with me about that matter; and asked the more earnestly that I should undertake this burden. To whom when I replied that this was not for my weakness; and that there existed the oration of Gregory the Presbyter on the praises of the Nazianzene; they did not accept my excuse: but said that Gregory the Presbyter had written not so much a life as a laudation; that many things likewise were omitted by him, many things more briefly than was fitting, some things narrated in the wrong place, certain things even little consonant with the truth of history. What more? They prevailed, and pressed me. Therefore not so much willing as obedient, having entered upon a great work, I undertook to write the life of Gregory of Nazianzus. But I have endeavored, though plainly a rude craftsman, in some manner to imitate those excellent paintings of the Gregorian chapel. he composes his Life, For as there an excellent painter, from little tesserae and stones, composed and joined together by wondrous mosaic artifice, most charmingly expressed the effigy both of certain other Doctors of the Church and of our Gregory; chiefly from his writings, so I, chiefly from the writings of the Nazianzene himself, which he wrote about himself in various places, running on something else, doing something else in passing, or even of set purpose commemorates, have carefully gathered select fragments, as gems and little stones: which, the order of times being preserved, I have placed in their own places, and as it were glued together among themselves; that from these, as from the most splendid colors, we might have a living image of the admirable man, not so much of the body as of the soul, if not altogether expressed, at least sketched. For I do not deny that many things can still be desired: and we perhaps at some time shall more diligently polish the work, especially if very many poems of Gregory, and certain other things not yet edited from ancient codices, shall come to our hands, as we hope.

[3] and offers it to Gregory XIII. Meanwhile, Most Blessed Father, with cheerful countenance, according to thy supreme benignity, receive thy Gregory, for so it is lawful to call him: and while at Tusculum thou for a little while refreshest thy mind from most grave cares, employ him, if it please, as the most urbane companion of suburban rustication, with whose sometimes sweet and holy converse thou mayest most pleasantly enjoy thyself in the afternoon hours.

Caesar Baronius

of Sora, Presbyter

CHAPTER I.

Fatherland, parents, education, the love of chastity strengthened by a vision.

[4] Fatherland Nazianzus, This our Gregory, called the Nazianzene, because he was ^a born at Nazianzus. For Nazianzus was a city in the Province of Cappadocia, which they ^b called Pontus, under the Metropolis of Caesarea, of which thus he himself.

But since afterward Cappadocia was divided into two provinces, Pontus ^c was called second Cappadocia. Moreover the name of Nazianzus was so obscure that none of the ancients made mention of it. also called Diocaesarea, Yet by another name we find it styled Diocaesarea: for he himself says, treating of himself,

--- Whom the small city of Diocaesarea bore in the fruitful land of the Cappadocians:

and elsewhere,

We are citizens of a small city indeed, that is, of Diocaesarea:

and the same, writing to Olympius, says his fatherland is Diocaesarea: which name indeed was very well known to the ancients. On his calamities, To Hellenius, Ep. 49. For just as Caesarea, the Metropolis of that province, was called Mazaca; so also Nazianzus was called Diocaesarea. Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, in Basil. Yet it was so small a city that the Arians, against whom he had undertaken a sharp contest, were wont to reproach him with the ignobility of his fatherland, as Gregory himself signifies by these their words: Small, thou sayest, is thy city, and not even a city, [d but an arid place, unpleasant, and unfrequented] &c. Or. I against the Arians. Which nevertheless, although by the circuit of its walls very small, he professes to be nonetheless most celebrated, and most ample by the merits of the faith; for which cause now Noah's ark, now Bethlehem he was wont to call it, as when of his parent he thus speaks.

[He brought it about that, as a new Jerusalem, and as a certain second ark borne over the waters, just as that great one of Noah, the parent of the second world, so this Church might be called. Inasmuch as in that deluge of souls, which then everywhere overwhelmed all things, for the constancy of the faith it is compared with the ark and amid the importunate assaults of heretics, it should swim out aloft and unharmed: and by how much it yielded to others in number, by so much it should be superior to the same in splendor and glory; and the same should happen to it which we see to have happened to Bethlehem, and to Bethlehem, which nothing prevented from being both a small city, and the metropolis of the whole earth, inasmuch as it was the parent and nurse of Christ, the founder and conqueror of the world]. in the funeral of his father, These things Gregory, alluding namely to this, that while the whole East was ablaze with the conflagration of heretics, yet impiety had no access thither, but the Catholic faith was preserved there incorrupt.

[5] Gregory had a father of the same name, ^e once a Gentile man, thence a Christian and a Bishop, and famous for sanctity, The father also called Gregory, of whom these things he himself: [He—that I may remit to the laws of encomiums the fatherland, race, gifts of body, external splendor, and the rest by which mortals are wont to glory, and may make the beginning of speaking from those things which are first for us and most peculiarly our own—was a shoot of a root by no means excellent, once a Gentile, of a Jewish mother, nor conveniently born to piety, nor planted in the house of God (for I do not blush at the confidence of the lowest things first), nay rather of a stock altogether preposterous and portentous, conflated ^f from two things very contrary, namely the Gentile error and the Legal vanity.] In the funeral of his father. These things Gregory of Gregory the father: who in the same year in which from almost the whole Christian world Bishops were assembling to the most sacred Council of Nicaea, by S. Leontius Bishop of Caesarea, who in the year 325, most illustrious for piety and erudition, is initiated by sacred baptism, Paulinus and Julianus being Consuls, in the year of Christ the Lord, according to the computation of more recent men, the three hundred and twenty-fifth. The same Gregory has admirably woven the series of the deed, how namely, when he was imbued with the best morals, he was anticipated by the Lord in the blessings of sweetness, in this manner through a vision. [He thought, he says, that—which he had never done, although his wife was frequent in prayer—he was singing from the Psalms of David that part, I was glad in those things which were said to me, excited to the faith by a dream, we shall go into the house of the Lord. Ibidem, Ps. 121, 1 New and unusual was this song: and together with the song desire enters in. Which when the woman his wife, namely a Christian woman and indeed remarkable for piety, understood, now made partaker of her vow, she seizes the offered occasion, interpreting this vision in the most pleasant part, declaring the greatness of the benefit by the gladness of her mind, and urging on salvation, lest anything that should obstruct the calling should intervene; and break off the business on which she was leaning with so great zeal] &c.

[6] He narrates at length the history of the whole deed concerning his baptism, by which he was initiated by S. Leontius, and baptized by S. Leontius, when the latter, about to come to Nicaea, passed through Nazianzus: and that the same holy Priest, when he was about to say those mystic words by which the sacrament of Baptism is conferred; lapsing by an error, it is not known how, uttered ^g other different ones, by which Clerics are initiated into the Priesthood? When the same Leontius, inspired by the divine spirit,

^h, knew that it had been not an error, but a prophecy, and that it was a divine sentence; that the one whom he then made a Christian, he ought afterward also to create a Bishop. Obedient therefore to the spirit, he then illustrated him with sacred baptism, but after some years, when the first Bishop of that city had died, he ordained the same man second Prelate of Nazianzus. The remarkable miracle which was wrought divinely, when, having been baptized, he came forth from the waters, Gregory narrates in these words: [As he came forth from the water, a light and glory shone round about, and to some indeed conspicuous: who then kept the miracle within themselves, not daring to relate it for this reason, that each one believed this vision had befallen himself: but somewhat afterward they dissembled it among themselves]. In the funeral of his father. These things he himself. afterward he was Bishop of Nazianzus. Made thence, according to the preceding prophecies about him, a Bishop, he sat forty-five years, and migrated from this life nearly a centenarian.

[7] The mother Nonna. But the mother of Gregory was called Nonna, a woman of excellent piety: through whom, according to the Apostle, an unbelieving husband was led to the faith: of whom these things he himself: [But my mother, now long ago and from her very forefathers consecrated to God, deducing piety as a kind of necessary inheritance, not only to herself but also to her children, was from holy first-fruits a truly holy sprinkling] &c. [1 Cor. 7, 14, in praise of Gorgonia and on her life, In the funeral of his father.] He calls the same, by excellence of pious sanctity, a Sarah, and in this commends her above her, that the one was joined to a pious man, the other to an unbeliever; through the husband the one, but the husband through her, cultivated piety equally. And while he proclaims the incomparable virtues of her soul, he commends her lavish bounty toward the poor, and so disposed thereto, [that if it had been permitted, as he says, she would for that cause have sold herself and her sons; and so by that art of hers would have transfused herself and hers into God, whom she loved before all others, with immense love]. He recounts her assiduous prayers to God, her nocturnal vigils, frequent fastings, contempt of womanly adornment, perpetual silence in church, in sacred things and places a most religious observance: so far that to spit on the pavement of the Church, and to turn her back on the sacred Table, was for her a matter of scruple. From these least things, as they say, the Lion from its claws, in adversities unconquered: the rest will be easy to conjecture. And what is the illustrious praise of a strong woman, which can scarcely lawfully be said of few, to the bearing of adverse things she was so composed that she always remained unconquered: so far that in such cases not after the womanly manner into mourning, but into thanksgiving, her first voice always burst forth. These, and many other things, the most pious son proclaims of his most holy mother.

[8] This blessed woman, Gregory obtained from God by her prayers, S. Gregory, emulating those most religious women who dedicated to God the offspring of their womb obtained by prayers; by frequent supplications with God she acts, that she might conceive a male offspring, whom, as Anna did Samuel, she might offer to God. For these things of his mother Gregory writes in these verses.

[--- My dear mother vowed me from the very womb to thee, when, desiring that there might be a male offspring, she used these words of Anna. Give me, give me a boy, O Ruler of highest Olympus, and in thy halls he shall serve thee all his years. She had spoken; and, bent by the prayers, in the night designating to the parent the name of the boy, the offspring followed] On his own affairs.

Moreover that not only the name of the boy to be born, but also his very form, had been foreshown, the same he narrates in these verses.

[In a dream his shade was seen, which she was asking for. For my form indeed stood by her clearly, and likewise she learns my name in the night. On his own life.

[9] Gregory is born, obtained by the Divine promise to his mother's vows, born when his father was not yet a Christian, his father not yet a Christian, as can easily be known from that oration which Gregory delivered at his father's funeral, and from other sure reasons. Whence you should take it as said only hyperbolically, that the same Gregory, in the person of the parent urging him to take up the Episcopal office, thus says. Annal. 371 and 102. [Thou hast not yet completed so many years in thy life as I myself have already consumed in the sacred office i]. On his own life. And this will appear more clearly, when below we shall subtract the reckoning of the years of Gregory the son. That golden womb also bore (to use the words of Jerome) two other children, [k Caesarius and Gorgonia, holy offspring and most worthy of so great a mother]. When Gregory had now passed that age of boyhood which they learn devoid of reason, and now freely began to moderate the judgment of his own will by right reason, being now about to be offered to God by his mother; she instilled into him examples of divine scripture, by which she signified the vows of parents, as a youth he approves his mother's vow concerning him by which they offered to God their dear sons, and the history of Abraham and Isaac, of Anna and Samuel, and other things of this kind, and thus addressed the little boy when she offered him to God:

[Son, I offer thee living to Christ, most dear one, as a gift, by which thou mayest confirm thy mother's vow and promises; thou whom I conceived by prayers: and whom, that thou mayest be both excellent in life, with burning vows I begged. This was the parent's vow: to which forthwith I myself thought I should yield, although in tender age] &c. On his own affairs and on his own life.

[10] Meanwhile he was being imbued with the best morals, and growing in age together ^l with wisdom, a certain divine ardor of preserving chastity entered upon his soul, and he conceives a love of preserving chastity: which a certain heavenly vision shown to him more and more established and made solid, which he himself describes in these words. [Then, he says, through a nocturnal vision the Lord inflamed me with the love of a chaster life, which I judge worthy of commemoration. Prick up your ears, whoever burn with the zeal of piety; but you who are of profane minds, stop them against the discourse. I was a boy, and not quite a boy, but of that age in which the images of virtues and vices are inscribed in the soul: for the mind has not yet a firm and solid form of thoughts, but is first informed by the institutions and morals of others. And indeed my parents by no means painted it in evil colors, namely by the example and admonitions of his parents, educating me to every best kind of virtue: for they flourished with an excellent praise of virtues admirable to all men, in hearts and minds they cultivated piety, and no less by integrity of morals than by old age and years exceeded the measure of human life]. On his own calamities. And a little after: [By these my soul was made new and rude, and like fresh cheese at once received as it were a form. But to me in my sleep I once seemed to see something of this kind, from which I easily was kindled into the love of virginity.

[11] Two virgins were standing near at hand, clad in white garments, both beautiful and of the same age, both unkempt and unadorned, and therefore adorned (for the contempt of adornment confers elegance and grace upon women) not with gold. Their neck was not decorated with hyacinth, theirs were not silken garments, nor woven of fine and soft linen, eyes imbued with paint did not glisten, nor anything of those things which the artificers of stirring up lust have devised in the forms of women: golden hair spread over the shoulders did not play with the gentlest breeze: and by a vision of two maidens, with modest habit: nay rather their excellent garments were bound by a girdle, and let itself down even to the ankles. To these things they had covered with a veil not only the head, but the very cheeks also, and held their very eyes fixed on the ground: nay both, no little modesty was lent by the bashfulness of their countenance, and the face tinged with blush, as much indeed as it was permitted me to look across their veils: and besides, as a rose by its little leaves, so the lips of each were pressed by silence, by the aspect of whom I was suffused with a certain wonderful pleasure: for so I persuaded myself, that they were far greater and more august than human condition. These moreover, since they perceived me cheered by the sight of them, affected toward me also with benevolence, began thereupon to embrace me as their son. And to me asking who they were and whence they had come; the one, of these the one called Chastity, the other Temperance, said that her name was Chastity; the other, Temperance: who, assisting Christ the King, delighted in the beauty of the heavenly Virgins. And turned to me: Come, they said, son, join thy mind to our minds, and thy face to our faces. So it shall come to pass that, endowed with a certain excellent and singular splendor, we shall bear thee into heaven, and place thee near the radiance of the immortal Trinity. This oration being delivered, they were borne through heaven, and I myself with my eyes followed them flying; but these were conspicuous to me only in sleep.

[12] But for a long time my soul was delighted with this grave and illustrious simulacrum of the night, and with the image of white virginity. But to me even then their discourse was being gathered in my mind, when the knowledge of virtues and vices is truly and plainly impressed upon men: and the mind offered itself a leader to desire, and the beauty of the nocturnal vision was discerned somewhat more obscurely. But as a certain hidden spark of fire, hence the more kindled, feeding upon dry stubble, at once shines forth, and a small flame then grows into a great conflagration; so I, when I had been kindled by the nocturnal vision, immediately love shone, and flashed forth in the eyes of all, inasmuch as it could now no longer be hidden in the inmost recesses of the soul. First therefore I contracted a manner of life with these men, he joins himself to those professing continence, who fled the bonds of matrimony, and tore themselves away from the contagion of the world, that they might follow Christ the King on the wings of the soul, hence not without great glory bearing forth their foot. These I, embracing with singular love and with my whole breast, held as leaders of heavenly hope; and afterward I removed from myself the heavy yoke of matrimony, aspiring namely to the lofty company and order of those who flourish in perpetual virginity: for all heavenly natures live without the perturbations of marriage and of the soul] &c. ^m And he adds these things below: [Therefore, incited by the goads of love and desire, I tended thither, nor could I now endure to fix a footprint on the earth, and the same happened to me which happens to those who in any way have tasted the sweetness of milk or honey; for so I myself, having tasted the suavity of that choir, could now by no means be brought to approach that bitter food, that is, the pestilential vice of the soul, which is born in this life. No longer the banquets which are wont to be a care to youthful age; avoiding the enticements contrary to it. not soft garment, not delicate hair, not the graceless charm of base and obscene words, not petulant laughter, not the heats of the flesh, the enemy, smiled on me; nay even crags and mountains, and neighing horses, and the packs of hunting dogs I dismissed to others; and, all the beatitude of this life being shaken off, I subjected my neck to temperance and frugality: which indeed took care of me, loved me, advanced me to the most ample glory, and finally placed me carefully in the hands of Christ]. These things Gregory of the institutes of his own life.

NOTES.

is called by Nicetas in his Commentary on Oration 15 of the same S. Gregory, from the version of Billius, Arianzus, the natal village of S. Gregory himself, the village of S. Gregory, situated in the Tiberine region, which Hermant judges to be reckoned suburban to Nazianzus, because, that very place being laid waste by hail, Gregory exhorts the Nazianzenes to penitence in that oration, as those whom that calamity more nearly concerned. These things are drawn from Collation 5 of the Vth Synod, where Euphrantas Bishop of Thyana says, Arianzus indeed is an estate whence Gregory sprang, established under Nazianzus: which I do not see why it ought to be referred to his nativity, since it suffices, if from that estate of his possession Gregory's father or grandfather migrated into the Nazianzene city itself, and there the mother bore the son Gregory: whence Theodore of Mopsuestia, writing to the same Gregory, says, In your Arianza we celebrate the annual honor to the holy Martyrs. s. 2 p. 645 Besides, Arianzus seems not to have been an estate, but a village, in which Gregory had an estate, and that bought from a certain Rheginus, Pontus a province distinct from Cappadocia, when Gregory was perhaps already of middle age.

No one, that I know, called any part of Cappadocia Pontus: nor could he call it so: since it itself per se constituted a province, nay two provinces, under the Amasene and Neocaesarean Metropolitans; just as on the other side toward the Mediterranean sea there was a twofold Pamphylia, between which and Pontus the Mediterranean Cappadocia lay, in the age of the Nazianzene divided in two parts, but afterward in three parts by the Emperor Justinian, by whom, the Metropolis of third Cappadocia being established at Mocissus, it was thence called Justinianopolis. t. 2 p. 76 The cause of erring, and of confounding Pontus with Cappadocia, an utterly inept version furnished Baronius. "Pontus, by far most dear to me, ancestral land," whereas in Greek it is

Earth dear and Pontus, soil of fatherland and of a foreign land.

Where it clearly appears that both regions are distinguished from one another, and as the "soil of fatherland" is called "dear earth," so "of a foreign land" refers to Pontus: just as in the next verse following they are distinguished.

And youth and old age;

— winged fables … and the discourses which the manifest Spirit begot,

And cities and deserts.

All which, compared among themselves by an elegant antithesis, the Saint calls at the beginning of the Poem, as witnesses of his whole life; but it would have been difficult so to render each by a Latin verse that the same elegance should remain: this therefore the interpreter lost while he follows him; and obscured the whole matter vehemently, as will easily appear to one considering, and comparing the Greek text with the Latin version.

the pious education of Gregory. In the Poem on his own affairs.

But my mother fostered a better hope in her heart, when she granted thee as a part of her own children. For her diligent hand also surveyed the divine books …

by exhibiting the sacred scriptures to be handled by tender hands, and from them by narrating or reading aloud the history of Abraham, prepared to immolate his son Isaac, as in the same place he more fully describes.

CHAPTER II.

Studies accomplished at Caesarea of Palestine, at Alexandria, and at Athens. Various perils of life averted.

[13] As regards likewise the study of letters, although he held nothing more ancient than sacred letters, yet with what counsel he procured for himself also external ones, he writes in these verses.

[Books I loved by which we speak with God; men I loved whoever were the best.

& a little after.

My cheeks were beardless: toward letters By the love of acquiring knowledge, I burned with great love. For by true letters I wished to bring help through the false: that they might not be able to boast themselves, nor anything else, whoever are skilled only in vain eloquence, set only in sounds and the throat; nor should I be bound by the bonds of sophisms. This indeed never entered my mind, that I should prefer anything to sacred doctrine.] On his own life.

When therefore with avid mind and lively genius he had drunk in all the letters which were in the fatherland, more avidly thirsting, he set his mind also to investigate the external ones: and first for that cause he seeks Caesarea of Palestine. For those schools were illustrious and most flourishing, he goes to Caesarea of Palestine: in which from among the Christians once Origen, Pamphilus the Martyr, Eusebius, and other most learned men had taught; but in these times Gregory (as Jerome is the author) had Thespesius the Rhetor as preceptor. Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, in this man. But Caesarius his brother, for the same cause, set out for Alexandria, as the same Gregory testifies, in these words: [I, inflamed with love of the oratorical art, fixed my foot in the Academies of Palestine then flourishing; but Caesarius proceeded to Alexandria, a city then, and at this time not falsely esteemed the workshop of all doctrines]. in praise of Caesarius. These things Gregory.

[14] Moreover not only Gregory, but Basil also for the same cause, though not at one and the same time, hastened to Caesarea, as the same writes in these words: To Caesarea, [a that he might be partaker of the schools of that city, he speedily hastened. This, I say, excellent city, and ours (for it was the leader and mistress also of my studies) as he testifies S. Basil also did: the Metropolis no less of letters and doctrine than of the cities over which it presides and rules: which if anyone should despoil of the palm of doctrine, he would snatch away the most beautiful thing of all and most peculiar to it. For whereas other cities glory in other ornaments either old or new, according as, I think, they are adorned either with histories or with things of whatever kind to be seen; this one on the contrary, as arms or tragedies certain marks and insignia, so the glory of letters ennobles and renders illustrious]. in praise of Basil. And after other things these likewise of Basil. [Hence, he says, Byzantium, the city holding the principate of the whole East, for it flourished with the most excellent Orators and philosophers, of whom in a short time he gathered all the best by the celerity and greatness of his genius

gathered, and thence to Athens, that is, the domicile of letters, he is sent by God and by an insatiable and likewise praiseworthy desire of doctrine; to Athens, I say, truly golden to me, and, if to any other, the parents of good things: for they rendered the man, not indeed before unknown, but yet more known]. For I judge that he had known him at Caesarea of Palestine, but had not yet insinuated himself into his friendship. ^b

[15] After these things Gregory, savoring greater things, thinks of Alexandria. There were there, as we just saw, the most replete storehouses of all the sciences. then he studies at Alexandria: There Clement, Origen, Ammonius had once illustrated those schools, and at last Didymus the Alexandrian rendered them more celebrated, with whom Jerome, now growing old, found what he might still learn, and most gladly acquiesced to profess himself a disciple from a master. Jerome, ep. 65 Our Gregory was, though once by vow offered to God, yet still a catechumen. For there had grown up in those times a usage to be condemned, that under a certain pretext of piety very many should await the age of Christ, still a Catechumen: and the time at which He was baptized, that they might be initiated by sacred baptism: which abuse indeed, as adverse to the ancient customs of the Church and to the Apostolic traditions themselves, and bringing no slight loss, both Gregory himself afterward, and Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, by most grave orations assailed and endeavored to remove from the Church of God. Setting out therefore for Alexandria, having found there his brother Caesarius, he lived with him; who as he had come thither before, so also departed last, and not until, as will be said below in its place, Gregory had now departed for Athens. When therefore Gregory had drunk in the Caesarean fountains of the sciences, and the Alexandrian streams; with greater ardor of soul he thirsts for the rivers of Athens, and impatient of delay, the opportune time of navigation not being awaited, he improvidently committed himself to the sea, as he himself shows in these verses, when he narrates the peril into which he fell.

[At least, what happens to the heat of youths, who are borne by a disordered impulse, as a colt full of spirit leaps forth to the course, about to sail to Athens, he is shaken by a tempest, that happened to me. For at an inopportune time, in which the sea is not wont to be tranquil, but waves are wont to be stirred up by ^c Taurus, as the learned speak, when no prudent man sails rashly. Then deserting Alexandria, where I had plucked the flowers of the studies of doctrine; I board a ship, and cut the Pontus of Greece past Cyprus]. &c.

He describes that tempest of the sea, which also elsewhere he relates in these words.

[16] When from Alexandria through the Parthenian sea [d I was sailing into Greece, I was sailing in an utterly untimely part of the year, the mind so impelling, in an Aeginetan ship; for this above all impelled me, that I had fallen in with sailors familiar to me; When, I say, I was sailing, and we had proceeded a little, so atrocious a tempest arose that those who sailed with me remembered not many equal. In the funeral of his father. ^e Here, all being struck with the fear of death, I myself the more grievously dreaded the death of the soul: for I had come into peril, wretched, and terrified by the danger of dying without baptism, lest uninitiated by baptism I should depart from life, desiring the spiritual water amid the deadly and death-bringing ones; and therefore I cried out, I besought, I sought some space of time. ^f They also cried out together, though in a common peril of life, who were sailing together, and indeed the more grievously, as certain of my familiars and intimates, kindly hosts namely and endowed with humanity, and having attained this from perils, that they should be moved by the calamity of others. In this evil, in which I then was, my parents also were involved, coming through a vision of the night into a part of the peril: and from the land they brought help, as it were charming away the force of the waves by prayers, as afterward, the reckoning of time being subtracted, the storm calmed at the prayers of his parents having returned home we learned: which also a salutary sleep indicated to us, when at length at some time we had taken it, the tempest somewhat remitting. I seemed to see a Fury holding something truculent, and threatening peril: for the night set this clearly painted before us. Another of the passengers (he was a boy most studious of me and most loving, and on my account vehemently anxious) when I was in that state, seemed to see my mother, who, having entered the sea, was dragging the ship, seized with no great labor, to the land. And this vision gave faith. For the sea was being calmed, and immediately, without great vexation, we put in at Rhodes. he puts in at Rhodes: We were a gift of this peril, for as we vowed ourselves to God, if we should escape the danger, so, freed from peril, we offered our very selves]. These things Gregory, who sang the same tempest of the sea again in excellent meter. On his own life.

[17] But that he says he, freed from peril, immediately by vow offered himself to God, we think this to be nothing other than that he attained the baptism so greatly sought. On his own affairs. For we do not assent to Gregory the Presbyter, when he says he deferred that until the thirtieth year of his age, ^g when he returned from Athens into the fatherland; for from these things which he himself here relates, and which followed at Athens, where living together with Basil he gave a specimen of a most perfect Christian, we are persuaded of the wholly contrary. Not only is Gregory initiated by sacred baptism, [and having embraced the faith of Christ by vow with the other companions of the peril,] but also all the unbelievers who were in the same ship, saved by the benignity of God, embraced from their heart the Christian Religion, as he himself testifies in these verses.

[There accrued also this gain to my vow: for whatever of mortals there was in the ship, all that soon gave its name to the faith of Christ. By divine power having obtained a twofold salvation.] &c.

These things, since treating of his own affairs in verse he relates exactly, he added, rendering thanks to God ^h for the benefits received, other most grave perils, into which at other times he had fallen, but had been saved by the help of God, in these verses: again he is saved from the perils of an earthquake.

[Not when broad Greece was shaken by a heavy motion, nor any hope of aid lay open from elsewhere; but a horrible trembling had invaded my cold limbs, for not yet had I a breast imbued with sacred baptism, when grace is drawn by the lustral waters.] &c. On his own affairs.

[18] This I think that most famous earthquake, which happened in the fourth ⁱ year of the Emperor Constantius, as Jerome is the author in the Chronicle, of which more Ephrem the Syrian and the Historians of the Greeks have written. Ephr. in the preface to book 2 on the Lives of the holy Fathers But again, when sick in the throat, and almost suffocated, he was freed by divine help, in the same place he thus describes.

[Not when once the harsh force of disease had filled my throat with strong breath, and oppressed with savage pain the ways of life and the passages of air]. Socr. l. 2 c. 7. Soz. l. 3 c. 5

He adds also this, of quinsy, and of blindness. when, incautiously pricking his eye, he was to be deprived of sight, unless God had intervened. And thus he describes the deed:

[Not even then, when, twisting a withe with ill-sound mind, I rashly pricked the corner of my eye, when sudden blood flowed forth and all light fell: nor do I first attempt to transmit with my hands the sacred ^k spiritual thing to God, before the fault was loosed by tears].

Such a stroke rendered the countenance of Gregory not a little inelegant. For the Arians by their jests were wont to reproach him with an uncomely countenance, as will be said in its place.

[19] Gregory, free from so many perils, although he had once been offered to God by his mother, and had again ^l given himself to God through Baptism, by an oath he binds himself the more strictly to God: nonetheless, a vow being conceived into a kind of stricter form of an oath, bound himself to God by the severest laws and the same inviolable. There is still extant such an oath written in these words.

[The Word Himself I have sworn, who is to me the greatest God, beginning from beginning, begotten of the Father, the image of His exemplar, and of the same nature with the Father, who came from heaven to mortals. Carm. 17. The Word, I say, Himself I have sworn, that I shall cast forth neither that sublime and eternal mind by a hostile mind and thought, nor the Word by alien and inimical speech. If, following the nod of the times, I shall offend against the most holy Godhead of the Trinity: if I shall ever burn with desire of any lofty throne, or shall bring aid to others burning with such desire; if I shall seek the help and assistance of men rather than the protection of God, tying the ropes of my life to a weak and fragile rock; if I shall be either in prosperity proud and insolent, or again in adverse and grave things of a downcast and abject mind; if in deciding controversies I shall deflect from the norm of equity; if I shall make more of superstitious and arrogant men than of pious men; if, perceiving either the tranquillity of the wicked, or the crags and tempest of the good, I shall for that cause cease to hold the right way; if I shall have a breast infected with envy; if I shall feign laughter to myself from the calamity of nefarious men, just as if I myself were placed beyond the hazard of chance; if my mind, overwhelmed by anger, shall fall; if with unbridled impulse my tongue shall run; if with an unchaste mind I shall look upon a woman; if I shall undeservedly hate anyone; if I shall avenge an injury inflicted on me by an enemy, either secretly or openly; if I shall send the hand of a poor man empty from my house; if I shall frustrate the desire of a soul wasted with thirst of the divine word; if, I say, I shall admit any of these things, I do not indeed refuse but that Christ show Himself placable to others: but to me may He render vain and idle all the labors which from my early age even to extreme old age I shall have borne. By these laws I have bound my life. But if it be granted me to obtain my vows, to thee, immortal God, must thanks be rendered.]

Thus far the vow and oath of Gregory, although in other things he always lived ^m unsworn, as he himself writes of himself. On his own life.

[20] But now, freed from the peril of the sea, as we saw, he composed a most elegant prayer suited to one making a journey, of which the exordium is ⁿ In thee we rest, Word of God, when we remain at home. &c. He comes to Athens, But now at length let us follow his journey: Loosing from Rhodes he came to Aegina: for he was carried in an Aeginetan ship, thence he betook himself to Athens, long sought; for since he had made ^o shipwreck of all things for Christ's cause, he was held only by the desire of Athens. Whence he himself at one time,

[Doctrine alone goaded my breast with burning love, which the glory of the Argive nation, Athens, and the setting and rising of the sun alone, sought for me: on which I bestowed much labor, and underwent much toil through a long time: but this also I [p] compelled to lie humble and prone before the feet of Christ.] On his own affairs.

There taught at Athens in these times of the Emperor Constantius Anatolius, a most illustrious Orator, very dear to Constantius Augustus, who called him to Rome, and distinguished him with the Prefecture of the Praetorium. the wrestling-school of erudite men. There also taught Diophantes the Arab, of celebrated fame; Proaeresius also, who for facility of speaking was sent first into the Gauls, thence to Rome by the same Constantius, and there by decree of the Senate was presented with a statue, ennobled with such an inscription, Rome, queen of things, to the king of eloquence. This man, whom as a Gentile Eunapius of Sardis claims for himself, there is some conjecture to have been a Christian. For when Jerome writes that this man, a law being given by Julian that Christians should not be Doctors of the liberal arts; when Julian specially conceded to him that he should teach Christians,

he of his own accord deserted the school. in the Chronicle, year 2 of Julian. These things help, which Eunapius also relates, that Proaeresius was by the sentence of Julian removed from teaching: which indeed Julian seems by no means to have been about to decree, unless he had been a Christian, since otherwise he was most studious of the Ethnic Philosophers. There taught in the same times at Athens Musonius, whom the same Apostate ordered to cease. Sozomen adds that Gregory and Basil obtained as preceptors Himerius [q] and Libanius: of Libanius Basil himself confesses this very thing. Ep. 146.

NOTES.

The tail of Taurus they say is not without peril, who are skilled in such things. ---

The tail of Taurus they say is not without peril, who are skilled in such things: where Billius notes that the wintry rising of Taurus is understood, which is about the middle of November.

The time during which that tempest lasted, in the Poem on his own affairs he thus expresses:

For ten nights here and twice as many days, asking with suppliant voice the heavenly Godhead, I lay lifeless at the stern.

But how did it not occur to him in such a case, that he should seek baptism from any of the passengers? Baptism conferred by a layman, was it once approved by all? for that many of them were Christians these verses persuade:

All to a man bedew their cheeks with weeping, and joined call upon Christ with groaning voice, these also who knew not God before.

Hermant answers learnedly in his annotations: that the validity of baptism conferred by laymen was then still not sufficiently known to the Greeks, nor indeed to all the Latins: for (besides that S. Basil in the books against Eunomius somewhere says that those who were baptized outside the Church, that is, by heretics, are to be held like those whom laymen had baptized, and to be purified by the baptism of the Church) S. Satyrus also, brother of S. Ambrose, about to escape an imminent shipwreck by swimming, is narrated to have received from those who had baptized with them the Eucharist, the same wrapped in a cloth, although not yet initiated into the more perfect mysteries; but after he had swum out, that thing which he bore on his neck sustaining him, he sought the church of God, that he might learn the eternal mysteries: by which it seems to be indicated that he was then still a Catechumen, and afterward sought baptism, but not in that so urgent necessity, because the Christians who were in the perishing ship were laymen. The Council of Elvira also in the year 324 Canon 38 established, that those sailing abroad, or if a church be not near, a faithful person, not anyone, but who has his washing entire, that is, is stained by no mortal sin, or at least is not excommunicate, nor a bigamist, may baptize a Catechumen placed in a case of necessity.

This namely intimates that he was then at least a Presbyter: and that in that fortuitous case he had contracted guilt,

Not otherwise than he who pollutes with the crime of slaughter his right hand ---

Thus he himself, explaining for what reason in the year 381 he promised not to leave Constantinople, yet without an oath:

Not even thus do I swear: for it has not befallen me to swear (that I may a little glory in the highest God) the vow of S. Gregory after baptism. since I was lustrated by the grace of the Spirit. t. 2 p. 18.

Gregory in the Life, when he had said the baptized man returned into the fatherland, adds that he then enjoined upon himself a law of never swearing, so long as he should dwell in this life. Let him call it a vow who will: but let this for that time be enough, and abundantly enough. For Oaths and promises confirmed by oath (as the title has), which the Poem expressed in distichs contains (which in loose prose Baronius here exhibits, deceived by the Latin title, so as to believe it the Oath of Gregory) are nothing other than a Poetic sport, containing all those things which a Christian man and one studious of perfection can without scruple swear. t. 2 p. 92 But if by such an oath he ever really bound himself, why it should be referred to his baptism, and not to far later times, there is no cause.

p. Then namely, when, Athens being dismissed, he turned himself wholly to the spiritual life, now more advanced in age. But note "a long time," which he says was spent by him in cultivating eloquence, by no means understanding those few years which before the 30th year of his life were spent on other arts.

q. The words of Sozomen we have given in the preceding Commentary num. 14. They are moreover almost taken from Socrates book 4 chapter 21: but Socrates adds that at Antioch they came to the summit in the faculty of speaking. We do not however believe that both heard Libanius at the same time; but Gregory first, then Basil: but for how long a time each, we do not define: Gregory perhaps less long than Basil.

CHAPTER III.

The intimate friendship with S. Basil. The presage concerning Julian: the departure from Athens: the arrival of S. Caesarius the brother.

[21] After some space of time from the arrival of Gregory at Athens, Basil, whom we have said had set out from Caesarea of Palestine to Constantinople for the study of letters, betook himself thence to Athens. With what offices of humanity Gregory received his countryman, can scarcely be believed: for he not only numbered him among his intimates, He contracts a friendship with S. Basil: but also wished to have him as a messmate: whom not only a common fatherland, but equal studies, similar morals, associated, and bound by the closest bond of love. As soon as he came he was at hand to him, and when the Armenian disciples were insulting him, and busying themselves to depress him with certain captious disputations, he was at once present: ^a and besides rendered him cautious lest he be led away and derided by those jokes with which the veteran scholars were wont to mock the Recruits. on the praise of Basil By these offices of friendship Gregory so conciliated Basil to himself, and on the contrary the latter by suavity of morals so bound Gregory, that, made unanimous together, each seemed to himself most happy, that he had obtained such and so great a friend. Whence of these Gregory: [Basil from Byzantium is sent by God to Athens, that is, the domicile of letters: to Athens, I say, truly golden to me, and, if to any other, the parents of good things: for they rendered the man to me, not indeed before unknown, but then more known: and seeking out letters, I perceived beatitude: and to me in a different manner the same happened which happened to Saul, who, seeking his father's asses, found a kingdom]. These things of the gain of friendship, which Gregory glories he obtained by the arrival of Basil.

[22] with him toward doctrine But of the common studies of life these things in the same place he narrates. [An equal hope, he says, of doctrine, that is, of the thing most envied of all, led us, and yet envy was absent, and we burned with emulation alone. This indeed was the contest between us, not which should carry the first place, but which should first yield it to the other: for each esteemed the glory of the other his own, one soul of both was divided, bearing two bodies. But if less faith is to be had in those who say that all things are in all: yet to us certainly it must be believed that each was placed in the other and with the other. This one thing was done by each of us, that we should cultivate virtue, and accommodate the reckonings of our life to future hopes, and striving together for virtue, migrating from the earth before death. Which indeed setting before our eyes, we directed our life and all our actions, both following the leading of the divine precept, and each stimulating the other to the study of virtues, and, unless I seem to say this arrogantly, each was to the other a norm and rule, by which the right is discerned from the depraved. For we did not have, after the manner of comrades, intercourse with the most flagitious and most petulant of any kind: but with the best and most honest, with the most tranquil and most peaceful, whose intercourse namely brings the greatest fruits: having that indeed explored, that vice is much more easily drawn than virtue communicated. Moreover by disciplines not so much most pleasant as most excellent we were delighted: for hence also young men are formed to virtue].

[23] and fleeing vanities: Two ways were known to us, the one principal and more excellent, which namely led to the sacred houses and sacred doctors; the other secondary, not of the same honor, namely which led to the professors of external doctrine: all the rest, which led to feasts, spectacles, celebrated assemblies, banquets, we left to those willing. For nothing in my opinion is to be made much of, which brings nothing to living rightly and honestly, nor renders those studious of it better. Whereas to others there are indeed other surnames, either received from parents, or by themselves, that is, procured from their own studies and institutes of life; to us on the contrary it was a great thing, and an illustrious name, to be and to be named Christians, and by that thing we were more exalted than Gyges ^b by the turning of the bezel of the ring (if indeed that were not fabulous) by which he seized the tyranny of the Lydians.] These and very many other things of this kind Gregory, by which he insinuates that Athens, pernicious to others, was to himself very profitable and salutary. But as to erudition

is concerned, he adds these things: of celebrated fame throughout all Greece. [Not only with our preceptors and companions, but with all Greece, and especially the most illustrious men of Greece, were we celebrated with illustrious fame, because we advanced even beyond the bounds of Greece, as was learned by the discourse of many. For as wherever the fame of Athens went, thither also the fame of our preceptors carried itself: so whatever preceptors, the same also knew us, and at the same time heard of us, and spoke forth, and we were and were called among them a certain pair not obscure and not uncelebrated; nor did they think Orestes and Pylades by any means to be compared with us; nor those Molionidae, ^c celebrated by the Homeric verse]. These things Gregory.

[24] The Emperor Constantius was passing the eighteenth year of his Empire, being himself the seventh, and Gallus the third time Consuls, when, his brother Gallus having been slain, Julian, fearing for himself; who is called the Apostate, lest he come into suspicion, Julian the apostate coming to Athens like the other, of Constantius; obtained from Constantius license of going to Athens, and of investigating the schools of philosophers. This is the year from Christ, according to the truer computation of the more recent, three hundred and fifty ^d fourth. When he had come thither, Gregory, having beheld the man, soon became a most true prophet of future evils, as in the second oration which he delivered against him he signifies in these words. [These things were in a manner long beforehand foreseen by me, from the time I dwelt with him at Athens: For thither also he set out immediately after those things which were designated against his brother, having deprecated the Emperor for this very thing. For he had a twofold cause of going thither, the one more specious and more honorable, that he might see Greece and its schools; the other more covert and known to few, that he might consult the sacrificers and impostors of that region about his own affairs, impiety namely not yet having full liberty. Then therefore I remember that I was no bad conjecturer of this man, from his morals he knows and foretells he will be most wicked. although otherwise not best fitted by nature for such things: but yet the inconstancy of his morals, and a certain incredible commotion of mind, made me a prophet: since indeed he is the best prophet who knows how to conjecture rightly. For there seemed to me to signify and bode nothing good: the neck not steady, the shoulders leaping up and agitated to a balance, the eye insolent and wandering and furiously gazing, the feet unstable and tottering, the nose breathing contempt and contumely, the lineaments of the countenance ridiculous signifying the same, the petulant and unbridled laughter, the rash nods and refusals, the speech halting and cut short by the breath, the foolish and precipitate questionings, the answers no better than these, leaping one upon another, neither grave and constant, nor proceeding in the order of erudition. What need is there to describe each? Such I beheld him before his works, as I afterward knew him in his works. But if any of those who were then present, and heard what I said, were now at hand to me, they would not unwillingly testify: to whom, as I beheld these things, I straightway said, What an evil does the land of the Romans nourish! though premising, and imprecating upon myself, that I might be a false prophet]. These things he himself of Julian.

[25] He is saddened at the departure of Basil, When Gregory and Basil had lived at Athens some years with equal studies and concordant minds, Basil meditates departure, and now prepares his return into the fatherland. in praise of Basil. The day approaches. With how very grievous and unwilling a mind Gregory bore this, his words declare. [There was at hand, he says, the day of departure, and whatever pertained to departure, the last colloquies, escortings, recallings, groans, embraces, tears: for nothing is to anyone so grievous and bitter as for those who were brought up there together, to be torn both from Athens and from one another. Then therefore a sad and miserable and commemoration-worthy spectacle occurred. A choir of comrades and equals, and of some Masters also, stood around us; utterly denying that they would give us power of departing; beseeching, asking, exhorting, finally doing and saying all things which it is likely those who dwell in grief do]. For he somewhat accuses Basil, that he could not be overcome by friends, and at last adds these things. [A thing assuredly, before it had happened, incredible: as if it should happen that one be cut in two parts, and each part die; or that certain foster-brother and yoked oxen be disjoined, mooing on either side something mournful for the sake of one another; nor enduring separation]. These things of the departure of Basil Gregory.

[26] If anyone wish more curiously to inquire into the cause of Basil's departure, he will perhaps find what he may wonder at. For such and so great was the erudition of the man, which the same Gregory affirms of him, that the schools of Athens seemed to him very poor and meager, and celebrated only by fame: and he was often wont to groan for that cause, grieving namely that he had not found at Athens what fame had spread abroad: and Gregory could scarcely console the mourning man, and retain him for some time. And so most desirous of learning, departing from Athens, he betook himself to Eustachius the most celebrated of philosophers, as his letter given to him testifies, when he says [I had left Athens, moved by the celebrity of thy philosophy, despising those things which there are greatly esteemed]. Ep. 165. with the same mind he afterward remains conjoined.

Oblivion never effaced the memory of the departing friend Gregory, which in him remained fresh and green even to old age: often repeating that, O messmateship of friendship! O dear Athens! O the beginnings once laid of a life to be piously and holily instituted! and other things of this kind. For they had given each other their right hands of abdicating themselves from the acts of the world, and of inhabiting the wilderness that they might be free for divine contemplation. This indeed Gregory relates in these verses, when at one time for another cause he complains of Basil.

[But these Athens, these are the common studies of eloquence, this life led in messmateship, the same in both, this one mind? Which was a miracle to the Greeks: these right hands given, of deserting the world that we might ^e worship God?] On his own life

[27] Gregory was then passing the ^f thirtieth year of his age, when the Athenians, fearing After which he was with difficulty retained at Athens. lest, on account of the immense force of love, he should follow Basil departing, in order to retain him at Athens, took counsel that they should give him a place among the Doctors, and set him over the school of the Rhetorical faculty: they compel the unwilling man to ascend the chair of Professor, ^g and from a lofty throne publicly to teach. on his own life. For these things he himself relates in these verses:

(For long had I been free for the studies of eloquence, and that year was nearly the thirtieth ^h in these. Then was known by me what love there was of comrades toward us, what opinion of us. Now the time was at hand, at hand also much labor; embraces and words sad about a departure had to be used with great ardor of breast. And to Basil indeed scarcely by force, yet nevertheless they yielded, as he declared the causes of his journey: but the tear flows from me even now, when I recall that disturbance. All stood around me on the spot, acquaintances, and doctors, equals, hosts: and me with complaints, with adjurations, by force they detained, for love commanded this, and tooth and nail; when they said they would not dismiss us thence in any way. Nor is it fitting, they say, that thou shouldst lose the best Athens. They wish, in fine, that I should approve to them my eloquence: they bend me. An oak alone would have so withstood so many words, tears.

[28] These things Gregory: who however could not by these fetters be longer retained: he himself also departs. for all things without Basil seemed to him foul and unpleasant, panting after that tranquil life which they had agreed to lead together in solitude. For of his own desire of returning to Basil he himself thus at one time: [Nor however was this calamity prolonged for me into a long time: for I could not endure to be seen pitiable any longer, and to render to all the reckoning of our disjunction. in praise of Basil. But not so very long a time afterward, having tarried at Athens, for the desire of soul I imitate that Homeric horse, the chains of those by whom I was held being broken, I strike the fields with my feet, and am borne with an impulse to my comrade]. These things he, who elsewhere also to the same effect in these verses.

Wherefore, when I had not long remained at Athens, I withdraw myself almost stealthily, and go into my fatherland. on his own life.

There are convicted of error from all these things those things which Rufinus writes when he says: that Gregory withdrew Basil from the chair of Doctor, and with hand laid on led him with him into a monastery. book 2 c. 9. For that Basil first, and thence Gregory, departed from Athens, is held sufficiently explored.

[29] Gregory, departing from Athens, about to return into the fatherland by a journey on foot, came to Constantinople: and passing through Constantinople and at the same time Caesarius his brother, returning from Alexandria, opportunely put in there: of which these things he himself. [Behold, he says, God, who hears just prayers, and embraces with honor the love of parents toward their benign sons, so impelling, neither by counsel nor by appointment, the one from Alexandria, the other from Greece; the one by sea, the other on foot, at the same time put in at the same city, for this was Byzantium, in which Caesarius in a short time attained so great glory that public honors and a noble marriage, and Senatorial dignity were offered him, and by common decree by the Great Emperor through legates it was sought, that he should be willing that the Principal City be adorned and honored by a man chief in erudition and eloquence; if indeed it were a care to him, that it should be truly primary, and worthy of its name, and that to its other praises this be added, that it be adorned by Caesarius as both physician and citizen, although otherwise, besides the splendor of the rest, it abounds in men eminent both in Philosophy and in other kinds of arts. But of this matter enough.]

[30] [But that which then happened, although to others it might seem to have befallen by chance, the citizens laboring in vain to retain him, of which kind chance brings many in human affairs; but among pious men it clearly stood that that thing was to be ascribed to none other than to parents beloved of God, gathering their sons together into one both by land and by sea, to fulfill the sum of one vow. Come, let us not pass by even this praise of Caesarius, which, although to others perhaps small, and not worthy of commemoration, yet to me both then and now also has seemed most illustrious, if only fraternal love deserves praise, nor shall I ever cease to place it among the first, as often as a narration of his affairs has been instituted by me. For in those, he leads him with him to his parents. which we have said, honors, when the city retained him, and denied that it would by any reason give him power of departing; I however, whose authority Caesarius made most of in all things, strove for the contrary, that neither parents in their vow, nor the fatherland in the office due to it, nor finally I in my desire should be frustrated; he joined himself to me as companion and comrade of the journey: and put me, not only before cities and peoples, not before honors and revenues, which many flowed to him from every side partly together, partly were in hope and expectation

were; but almost before the Emperor himself and his edicts. Hence I, shaking off all desire of honors and glory, as a kind of grievous Lord and most grievous disease, resolved to philosophize and to accommodate the reckonings of my life to the supernal life: for the desire of this life was older than life itself. But Caesarius, when he had consecrated the ⁱ first-fruits of his doctrine to his fatherland, and had stirred up an admiration of himself worthy of his labors; afterward, by zeal of glory, and for the cause of procuring, as he persuaded me, the public advantage, betook himself into the court, and although it was to us not at all grateful and from the sentence of our mind: for I will clear myself before you, since it is more sublime and more excellent to be placed in the lowest order with God, than to hold the first-fruits of honor with an earthly emperor: yet it is of such a kind that it cannot deservedly be reprehended.] These things he.

NOTES.

The principate of eloquence offered to Gregory. Thus Baronius understands and explains the following verses:

They wish, in fine, that I should approve to them my eloquence. --- another version: And at the same time they promise me by their votes the principate of eloquence. t. 2 p. 5.

And this more according to the sense of the Greek text:

As if by common suffrage about to give the principate of discourse: where you see only the principate of eloquence promised: which whether it ought to be understood of a public chair, as Baronius understood, is sufficiently uncertain.

CHAPTER IV.

Life passed for some time at Nazianzus: a schism removed. His priesthood and that of S. Basil. Aids afforded to his sick parents.

[31] Gregory, returned into the fatherland, was for some time there retained unwilling, and as neither to Basil, so neither to him was faculty given of withdrawing into solitude; for he says: [Returned home, when we had served the world and the stage somewhat hitherto, namely that we might in some way satisfy the desire of many men (for we indeed shuddered at ambition, and a certain Theatrical ostentation of genius) we returned to ourselves as soon as possible: retained at Nazianzus on account of piety toward his parents and as from beardless youths made perfect men, we began now more manfully to advance to Philosophy, not now in body (for envy did not permit) but conjoined in desire and love. in praise of Basil, poem on his own life. For he is retained by the Caesarean city, as some other founder and conserver: and then, since he did not enjoy ^a me, he entered upon certain necessary peregrinations, and by no means alien ^b from the scope of the proposed Philosophy. But me both piety toward my parent, and the care of senile age, and incursant calamities, held drawn away from that consortship, not rightly indeed and justly, but yet held. But I know not whether from hence also all the difficulty and asperity of my life flowed, through which I had an inconvenient and rough way to Philosophy, nor sufficiently worthy of my desire and the purpose of my mind; but let the state of our affairs be borne whither the will of God shall be]. These things he himself.

[32] he is free for action and contemplation: But since piety toward his parents had retained Gregory at Nazianzus beyond his design, and to this his father's command had compelled him; he so instituted his life that, walking by a certain middle way, as he himself says, he was free both for action and for contemplation. Of these the same these things at times. [Their old age (for what is more pious…) I diligently fostered according to my strength: this I propped, that I might render to myself old age commodious, fostering their languid old age, for so we reap as we have done the sowing.] on his own life. And a little after:

But nevertheless I was more [c solitary, although I seemed to dwell among men. For solitude is of morals, not of bodies].

Whence at that time it often happened, as Gregory the Presbyter is the author, that he beheld Christ also plainly in dreams and in nocturnal meditation, as Scripture speaks, and bore that reward of purity, of which Scripture speaks, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Job 33, 5 Matt. 5, 8

[33] the Arians, under pretext of the Ariminian synod Gregory stood by his parent the Bishop, when he strenuously contended against the Arians. That was then a most lamentable time, when, Eusebius and Hypatius being Consuls, the Seleucian Synod being celebrated in the East, and the Ariminian in the West, by the Arians (this is the year of the Lord, according to the computation of the more recent, three hundred and fifty-ninth) a vast disaster of the Catholic Church followed, to use the words of Jerome, and the world groaned, and wondered that it was Arian: of which also here Gregory. against Lucifer. In praise of Athanasius. [But I, he says, esteem this earthquake arisen in our tempest to be inferior to none of those which have already existed, by which all the followers of monastic philosophy, endowed with the fear of God, and before time discharging the number of citizens in the heavens, were removed from us]. &c. Truly to be called an earthquake of the Catholic faith, by which the solid columns of the temple were prostrated, or at least moved from their place and inclined, since indeed even the unwilling were seduced. seducing many to the signing of the homoeousion For that was the fallacy and guile of the Arians, that they delivered the homoeousion to be subscribed and professed, by the change of one little letter bringing in a great diversity of sense: namely that they should say the Son not of the same substance with the Father, which homoousion signifies; but of similar substance, homoeousion, that is, should preach the Son similar to the Father, and not consubstantial. In praise of Athanasius. [But there was, says Gregory, ink at hand, and a calumniator behind. That thing drove very many of us, otherwise unconquered men, into fraud; who, although by no means lapsed in mind, were yet driven aside by subscription, and consented with those wicked by either name; but if not of the flame, at least certainly partakers of the smoke: which indeed I myself pursued with many tears].

[34] These things Gregory, who elsewhere also these of his Father: [When, he says, at that time by a more fervent part of the Church for that cause a sedition against us was stirred up, Gregory the father also deceived, because by certain letters and crafty words we had been stealthily drawn into an evil society; he alone was believed ^d to have his heart unhurt, nor to have defiled his soul together with the ink; although through simplicity of mind he had been carried away, and, being free of guile, had by no means avoided the guile. In the funeral of his father. Nay even alone, or at least first, he reconciled both to himself and to the rest those who dissented from us for zeal of piety, the last separated from us ^e and the first returned, both for reverence of him, and for the purity of doctrine ^f. Thus the grievous tossing and tempest of the Churches was calmed, and the storm reduced to a breeze, he reconciles the orthodox to himself and his son: broken and removed by his prayers and counsels (let it be permitted me boldly to say); we meanwhile both companions of piety and of action, who, when we aided him in every honorable business, and as it were ran following him, yet here also by the benefit of God expended much the greatest part of labor and zeal]. These things he, in the oration delivered at his father's funeral, where after many things these to the same effect. and he opposes himself to the heretics. [Of no disparate zeal was that correction of his, by which he opposed himself to the heretics, when, supported by the forces of the impious Emperor ^g, they undertook an expedition against us: that they might take us also into their power, joining us also to others, almost all being now reduced into servitude. For here also he was of no small aid to us, both through himself, and through us also perhaps, whom as not slothful and degenerate whelps he sent in against them, as against most savage beasts, exercising us namely to piety]. These things there.

[35] He labored very much, that the monks, whom we have said divided from communion, he might reintegrate. For in a wondrous manner he was troubled for their cause, whence he; Hence I went mourning and sad, [he also leads back the monks to communion, and for that cause likewise the other delights of life, discourse itself I cast away: since most illustrious men kicked, and against me turned now not their faces,

but their backs, and were made a sheepfold more free than the shepherd himself, not to say more audacious and more petulant ^h]. Or. 12. &c. The matter at length happened according to his wish, so that Gregory led back not only the monks, but also the Bishops to the unity of the Church: when for that cause he delivered an excellent oration ⁱ, of which the exordium is Alacrity has loosed my tongue, where, of the produce of his labors; When, he says, I had lost the grain, I received the ears: mourning the sheep [k, I gained besides the shepherds] &c. But all these things we think were done, when, Constantius the Emperor, the patron of the Arians, having been removed from human affairs, in the year 362 Julian had taken the Empire: who rescinding the edicts of Constantius issued against the Orthodox, the Western Bishops, exiles, were freed. These were among others the more celebrated, Eusebius of Vercelli and Lucifer of Cagliari, who by the laws of Constantius were in exile in the East: for these discharged a legation for restoring the lapsed Eastern Bishops: of whom Gregory also makes mention, when he says: [There were present indeed Bishops from the West, who drew all the Orthodox to their party]. &c. And these things were done in the first year of the Empire of Julian, Mamertinus and Nevitta being Consuls, in the year from Christ three hundred and sixty-second.

[36] At which time also when Julian reigned, a man apostate from the Christian Religion, he had Caesarius, Gregory's brother, among the first, and endeavored to conciliate him to himself for his most approved erudition and morals, and by blandishments to draw him over to the parts of his impiety, and entrusted to him the custody of the public Treasury. But when Gregory had learned these things, he calls away S. Caesarius the brother from the court of Julian the Apostate: and held the crafty arts of the apostate perceived, and that he thus by these enticements flattered his brother, that he might tear him with him into the abyss of impiety, forthwith he sent to Caesarius a most grave and objurgatory Epistle, which thus begins. Ep. 17. Greatly for thy cause have we blushed &c. These letters received, Caesarius, immediately complying with his holy brother, abdicates himself from the Magistracy, and prepares his return into the fatherland. The perfidious Emperor bore this most indignantly, and, the man being summoned, endeavored to remove him from his purpose, by blandishments first, then by doctrine, disputing with him about the Christian faith. And when in all these he saw himself overcome by him, he attacks the man with threats; and by Imperial authority endeavors to break him, who, with unconquered and constant mind superior to all these, a most illustrious victor by that confession, augmented by these trophies, returned into the fatherland, esteeming greater riches than the treasure of Egypt the reproach of Christ. Of whom these things Gregory: [He betook himself to us an exile blessed and a bloodless victor, and for his ignominy more illustrious than for his pristine glory and the splendor of his name. This victory I esteem to be far superior and more excellent than his great power, and lofty purple, and notable diadem] &c. in praise of Caesarius

[37] he is ordained Presbyter though unwilling. Among these things meanwhile Gregory, Caesarius being now restored to his parents, who should bear their care, and attend to domestic matters, thinks of the long-sought solitude. But his father endeavors to retain him by other bonds still, and that he might sit at his side, creates him Presbyter, though unwilling. But with how grievous a mind Gregory bore this, he declares in these verses:

[Of this mind I was, when a great crowd takes me up. For my father, although he knew plainly my opinion (which moved by what cause I know not, perhaps by the benevolence of paternal love: for to power is joined a vehement love) that he might bind me with the bonds of the spirit, and make me partaker of the greatest good, by force moving me places me on the second throne.]

For he subjoins that on that occasion he fled into solitude: which however was not at once permitted, as appears from those things which we shall say below. ^l At plainly the same time Basil, and he too unwilling, was ordained Presbyter: as also S. Basil. to whom Gregory, writing an epistle, says these things. [But thou too hast been captured, just as we too, who write these things, since into the order of Presbyters we have been unwillingly enrolled] and at the end: [but since it has been done, it seems to me to be borne; and especially on account of this tempest, bringing in upon us many tongues of heretics. Nor is the hope of those who had faith in us to be deceived, nor our superior life to be disgraced]. Ep. 11, on his own life These things Gregory to Basil. And so, ordained Presbyter in this manner, in that Sacerdotal function he so exhibited himself that nothing was to him more ancient than to offer the most sacred sacrifice to God with pure heart and sincere mind. Whence in the poem on his own affairs these things he himself:

[Nor do I first attempt to transmit with my hands the sacred spiritual thing to God, before the fault is loosed by tears: for it is not safe for the impure to touch the pure, no more than to turn bleary eyes to the sun.]

[38] for whose cause he labors with Eusebius of Caesarea. But in the same times of Julian, the Bishop of Caesarea, Metropolitan of the province of Cappadocia, having died, Eusebius, a noble citizen, still a catechumen, is created Bishop. He moreover, though illustrious for honesty of morals and remarkable for piety, yet by the zeal of certain depraved men, envying the glory of Basil, exercised grave quarrels against him, for which cause he stirred up against himself the hatred of all the best men and especially of the monks: and the matter grew so immensely that they resolved to break themselves off from the communion ^m of the Bishop. When Basil, the son of peace, not seeking the things that are his own, that he might heal these things, soon withdrawing himself secretly from these, withdrew into the Pontic solitude. Gregory bore indignantly such zeal of Eusebius against Basil, and although by him with obsequiousness and many blandishments he was invited to friendship, he despised it, and writing back to him, spoke these things freely: [But thou, while, despising him, thou pursuest us with honor, seemest to me to do just as if one should with one hand caress the head of one man, and with the other strike his cheek; or even, the foundations of a house being shaken, should paint the walls, and adorn the external parts.] ⁿ When Eusebius had borne this liberty of Gregory indignantly, again Gregory wrote to him an epistle ^o, and with greater confidence admonished him.

[39] But when for the same [p] causes Basil had sought the wilderness, Gregory, although he had preceded in mind, he comes to the aid of his sick mother: was yet in body still for a moderate space of time retained. For his mother's sickness was the cause why he did not so quickly fly to Basil. But when he was called by Basil, these things to him after many he wrote back. [We sit by our Lady mother, now long laboring under a grave disease. But unless we are about to desert her in a doubtful state of life, of thy presence, believe me, we shall not be deprived, only by thy prayers succor partly her health, partly our journey]. These things Gregory to Basil. The holy mother unexpectedly convalesced from that sickness by which she was held, and that by the merits of her most pious son, as a certain vision divinely shown to her taught. The deed Gregory thus narrates, and first of the disease. [This disease invades, an otherwise strong and generous woman, and in all the time of her life enjoying convenient health. But among many pains nothing so tortured her as the abstinence from food, by which now many days she was perilously afflicted, and of this evil she found no remedy].

[40] and seen in a dream to have conferred health upon her. [But how did God nourish her? It seemed to her that I, whom she held most dear (for she preferred no other of us, not even in dreams) suddenly coming upon her by night with a basket and the whitest loaves, after my custom [q] blessed and signed, nourished her, and that thus she convalesced, and collected her strength: and the truth answers to the nocturnal vision. For from that time she returned to herself, and conceived a better hope, as was declared by a clear and lucid argument. When on the next day, having entered to her in the morning, I had first seen her more cheerful than usual, then had inquired these accustomed things, how she had passed the night, and whether she had need of anything; then she answered without hesitation and with a tranquil countenance: Son, thou hast nourished me, and afterward dost thou ask whether I am well? And at the same time by a nod the maidservants signified to me that I should not contradict, thus also he made his sick father whole by prayers. but should promptly receive this answer, lest, the truth of the matter being disclosed, she be broken by grief]. These things Gregory assisting his mother, who at other times also was at hand to his father laboring under a most perilous disease: and restored him by prayers to safety, and it was attributed to a miracle, that on the day on which he was thought about to die, that day being a solemn one in church, the same rising up strong, he celebrated the public synaxis with the people. [r]

NOTES.

That he invited him by letters appears from Gregory's Ep. 5.

I did not stand by my promises, I confess: since indeed from Athens itself and the friendship of that place and the connection of souls (for no apter word occurs) I had undertaken that I would philosophize with thee. But I broke faith, not of my own accord and willingly: but because a law overcame a law, namely that law which commands parents to be cherished, the law of comradeship and familiarity. But how hard a law this was which he seemed so to obey, the Saint at length describes copiously in the poem on his own affairs, thus singing:

— A laudable office brought us harm, Cares of family affairs grievous to Gregory. and a most excellent thing had an unhappy end. For difficult cares, and rushing in a dense column, gnawing the mind and the relaxed limbs, roll me wholly into the earth, from which the mortal race is created, assiduously, and miserably fatigue me. For first to bind servants by command, what a snare of ruin? whom it is wont to hate fierce masters, but to trample the mild with insolent foot. Now follows another care of paternal goods, and that it is always necessary for me to bear on my shoulders the Caesarean weight, and the voice of one collecting tributes… Then to toss the mind about the forensic crowds, and to spend whole days on miserable lawsuits, and with opposed sayings to mix grievous tumults, and, entangled in the snares of the laws, to bear very many evils.

ordained Lector by the Bishop, as it seems, Dianius, he did not suffer himself to be further entangled; but aspiring to the solitude desired by him, he was wholly in this, that he might inaugurate the promised society of solitary life with Gregory. This his Epistle 19 testifies, thus beginning. That, my brother Gregory (afterward Bishop of Nyssa) writing to me, it had now long been among thy vows that thou shouldst enjoy my converse, nay he adding that this was now to thyself also certain; that indeed I scarcely believe, for the reason that I am so often deceived; but this, distracted by affairs, I could not expect. That I may sometime return into Pontus (where namely he had been educated at Neocaesarea under his aunt S. Macrina) present necessity also compels me, imposed by those who endeavored to draw me forth to higher grades in the church: to which place restored, God being willing, I shall cease to wander. He then describes the solitude, such as with all his vows he had always desired, most pleasant and most apt to his purpose, in many words, at length thus addressing Gregory: Now therefore thou understandest how great a peril I wished to call upon myself, who strove to exchange such a place with the Tiberine region, which is the abyss of the world? Whence it appears that it was Basil's purpose to persuade Gregory to withdraw at least into the Tiberine region, where Arianzus was: but since he did not obtain this, he counted it a felicity that he had departed into Pontus. Nor do I doubt but that in the beginning of his arrival at Caesarea, Basil at some time made an excursion to Arianzus to visit his friend: with whom how efficacious that laudation of the Pontic solitude was, not long after Gregory confirmed by his very withdrawal, of which more in the following chapter, following the order not of time but of the Baronian narration.

As if indeed after the Presbyterate only once Gregory betook himself to Basil: Certainly, that he immediately fled, the authority of Gregory himself compels us to say: for thus he complains of the force done to him:

What tyranny so grievous was to my mind The flight of the Nazianzene after he was ordained Presbyter (for I cannot call this thing otherwise: but let the holy mind, I pray, pardon me this) that, soon deserting comrades, fatherland and father, as oxen pricked by the savage sting of the gadfly, I should go into Pontus, that I might drive off grievous cares and griefs, enjoying the honeyed embrace of my friend, who dwelt there with the greatest God. t. 2 p. 6

In Greek "all at once," immediately, in haste: and this very precipitation of flight the similitude of oxen, driven by the gadfly, graphically explains. t. 1 p. 673 Wherefore nothing is here to be doubted about the withdrawal. But to this Nicetas applies the exordium of Oration 41 on Easter and his own tardiness; where first indicating that not light murmurings had therefore arisen against him, Let us say, he says, to these also who hate us, much more to these who for charity and benevolence have done or suffered something: let us forgive all things to the resurrection: let us give pardon one to another, both I who suffered a laudable force, and you who brought a laudable force, if there is anything for which you are angry with me on account of tardiness… The mystery anointed me; to the mystery a little while I yielded, that I might inspect myself; with the mystery also at the same time I enter in, taking to myself this day as an excellent helper of my timidity and weakness. t. 2 p. 1091 On which words Nicetas notes, and his excuse. that the Saint very often is wont to attribute the name of mystery to a feast; as if he should say, On a feast day I was made a Priest (perhaps the Nativity of Christ) and on a feast day I withdrew (of the Lights perhaps) and on a feast day I returned, namely of Easter. t. 1 p. 1 He then delivered a copious oration which is in order the first, and is called Apologetic, in which he renders the causes why he fled into Pontus, after he had been created Presbyter, and again returned to Nazianzus: and thus he ends. p. 45

What need is there of a longer oration? You have us, O pastors and fellow-pastors: thou hast, O holy flock, and worthy of Christ the Prince of pastors: thou hast, O father, in all things conquered, and more subject to the laws of Christ than the external ones to thy power: thou hast obedience, render the blessing.

p. Basil, in Ep. 141 inscribed to the Caesareans, confesses that he fled and that the

chief cause of fleeing was that, suddenly as it were struck by a blow, namely by the unexpected alienation of his Bishop, the flight of Basil on his account. he did not have his mind in his power, as those consternated by a sudden crash are wont. But now, he says, since by the grace of God we have become possessed of ourselves, having obtained the deep instrument and the blessed well Gregory, that mouth of Christ I mean; indulge this little delay for a little while. These therefore would be the third occasions, in which they lived together for some time in the Pontic solitude.

q. Therefore the son was now a Presbyter, and discharged the place of his father in ecclesiastical ministries, when this disease invaded the mother. Rightly therefore this epistle 4 is referred to this time of the later invitation into Pontus: whereas the following 5, making no mention of the maternal disease, seems rather to be referred to the earlier one before the Priesthood. Hermant thinks the earlier was written to Basil when he was already Bishop, and invited his friend not into Pontus, but to Caesarea: but since he admits that S. Nonna was sick only once, and that it is established this happened a little after her husband's disease, no cause appears for deferring it until the last triennium before their death.

r. The son Gregory confesses that he with his Mary, that is his sister Gorgonia, and the rest of the Clergy, poured forth prayers for his father, all but laid out on the day of Easter; and that the sick man, at the very time of offering the sacrifice, suddenly received so much strength that he could celebrate, then fully convalesced: yet he adds nothing whence we may know that health was obtained for the sick man chiefly by his prayers: yet he attributes the matter to a miracle, as also that which a little after happened in his mother, and has already been narrated. t. 1 p. 305

CHAPTER V.

Life passed in the wilderness with S. Basil. The strict institute of living of these and others.

[41] Loosed from these bonds, he withdrew as soon as possible into Pontus to Basil. But before we prosecute the matter further, let us weigh what others have written concerning Gregory's setting out into solitude. Book 2 c. 9 But first, as to what Rufinus writes, that Gregory led Basil, withdrawn from the Chair of teaching, with him into a monastery; He withdraws into the wilderness after S. Basil, that this indeed is alien from the truth, the letters of Basil calling Gregory into solitude, and others of Gregory returned to him, and excusing himself, declare. But if after Basil Gregory betook himself into the Pontic solitude; it now stands that he did not do this before the Empire of Julian; since indeed neither did Basil go thither earlier, except after the election of Eusebius his predecessor Bishop, whom that he was elected in the time of Julian appears from the same Gregory. By which indeed those are refuted, among whom Gregory the Presbyter seems to be, who thought that in the times of Constantius Gregory inhabited the Pontic Wilderness with Basil. ^a

[42] he abdicates secular studies, Gregory abdicates himself not only from all secular affairs, to which he had long ago sent his renunciation, but also from secular letters, gained at Athens with so many sweats; and gave himself wholly to the sacred volumes, those things which at some time he had foretasted in that solitude being about to enjoy most fully. Of these he himself. Or. 1 [All things, he says, I gave as a gift to Him who received me into His lot and preserved me, wealth, fame, and the splendor of my name, good health, letters themselves; from which I bore only this advantage, that I should despise them, and have something to which I might prefer Christ. But sweet to me were the oracles of God, no otherwise than honeycombs; and I addicted my voice to wisdom, and added other things also: namely to moderate anger, to bridle the tongue, and conveniences: to restrain the eye, to rule the belly, and to trample the glory remaining on the ground. Unwisely this, but yet I will say it. In these things I was by no means inferior to anyone of the common crowd] &c. and he unrolls only the divine oracles: Again of the divine letters these things in the same place. [I, in unrolling the divine oracles, gathered purity of mind; from the sacred letters namely expressing the spirit, the reading of which afforded me this, that I should spit out the bitter brine of profane books (which before, with a painted beauty and induced only by feigned colors, soothed my mind)]. These things he himself.

[43] dwelling not far from the cell of S. Basil, Although Gregory and Basil inhabited the same Pontic solitude together, they yet dwelt singly in single separate little cells, yet so distant from one another that not infrequently a convenient faculty of meeting was given. For this can easily be understood from Gregory's Epistle, which, then dwelling in the wilderness, he wrote to Amphilochius, philosophizing in the same solitude. For about to receive Basil at some time, he asks that vegetables be sent to him, and says: [Be not unwilling therefore to send to us vegetables very many and very beautiful, or at least as much as thou canst, for small things also are great to the poor: since indeed we receive even the great Basil at supper, whom beware lest, as thou hast experienced him philosophizing when full, thou experience him also indignant.] Ep. 12 These things in jest Gregory. But what his habitation and food was, from these things also we attain, which the same to Basil, after they had withdrawn thence, sportively writes in these words: [Since the things which we wrote to thee in jest thou bearest with an equable mind, he describes his most poor cell, those also which follow hereafter we will add, but the beginning shall be drawn from Homer; Come, advancing, sing, I pray, the inner adornment; a hut lacking either roof or doors, a hearth without fire and smoke, walls dried by fire, lest we be assailed by drops of mud. Ep. 17 Here we live like Tantalus and punished with the same penalty, namely thirsting in waters, those pitiable and meager banquets, to which from Cappadocia, not as to the poverty of the lotus-eaters, but as to the table of Alcinous, we new and toil-worn shipwrecked men were called. For I remember those loaves and broths, and the thin food, for so they were named, and shall always remember, the teeth crumbling about the fragments, and afterward set up again, as if drawn back from mire: which thou more sublimely, tragically, wilt amplify with great words, thy own calamities namely supplying thee the magnitude of speech. From which unless that great mother of thine, and truly studious of the poor, had freed us as quickly as possible, and had been to us, tossed by tempest, as a port; we should long ago have ceased to be among the living, by the name of the Pontic faith attaining no greater praise than we move compassion.]

[44] These things although in jest Gregory, yet he describes serious and true things. Carm. 47 For with how great austerity of life both he himself and the rest of the monks inhabiting the same solitude lived, and the austerity of the other monks: from these things which of the monks subject to himself he writes to Hellenius, sufficiently appears, when he says For they partly in caves and solitary places, [in their couch and on couches strewn on the ground and rude, delight: they shudder at houses, and embrace the quiet kindred to heavenly wisdom: partly with iron fetters they torture themselves, that they may finish vice together with the body: others again after the manner of wild beasts shut up in small and narrow houses, by fastings, do not even behold the countenance of any mortal, and often also abstain from food whole twenty days and as many nights, and by half imitate the fast of Christ, and that I myself may proclaim something glorious, a certain one of them was a sheep of my flock, having gone forth hence from a certain small town. There are besides those who bind their garrulous tongue as with certain chains, by silence, and press their lips with silence, and offer to that supreme Mind the sacrifice of praise with the mind alone. There is also one who, standing whole years in the temple, by vigils, has spread out pure hands to God, nor, what will scarcely make faith to anyone, has slept even the least, but like a living stone fixed to Christ has stood, and as it were grown stiff. To this one moreover a neighboring raven imparted the remnants of scanty food, and brought a whole loaf, if by chance there were two. Nay even at the time when Christ, having gone through that salutary punishment, left the mortal, also on the mountain under the open sky, there was found a certain one who hence ascended to the divine mountain, and there, immovable in speech, and mind, and limbs, standing, was tossed by winds and snows; nor, although otherwise several pious men stood around him, and earnestly contended with him, that he should have some regard of his body, was he moved by any prayers; but most strongly held Christ the King with hands clasped (as it is wont to be said)].

[45] These things Gregory to Hellenius the equalizer of tributes: to Julian also, discharging the same magistracy, he writes the same, on this occasion namely, that Julian the Apostate had reduced the monks under tribute; for he asks them that with those most poor monks they would act more mildly. Or. 9, Carm. 4 Elsewhere also of the Pontic monks he treats in these words: [Very many groan under iron chains, others again have ashes for food, and by other penances. there are those whose drink is tempered with tears; others, assailed by winter snows, forty days and as many nights, like certain trees, stand fast, namely migrating in heart from the earth, and having God alone in mind; nor is there lacking one who presses his lips with chains, and casts a bridle on his tongue, who however by no means has a tongue bound to all things and pressed by a bridle, since by the praises of God alone he looses it, not otherwise than a living cithara struck by the Holy Spirit. For what shall I say of those who have consecrated their head to Christ, and for the cause of a pious vow keep it unshorn? What shall I finally commemorate those who close their eyes, and stop their ears as with a certain bolt, lest some sting of death stealthily creep in? But these medicaments I quaff to the flesh my enemy]. These things Gregory, who also these elsewhere more fully: My flesh wantoning and seething with the flower [b of age I wore down with many and frequent labors, among which he indicates his own life also as most harsh. I removed the satiety of the belly and its neighboring rage, I fixed my eyes with the aid of temperance to the eyelids, I broke off anger, I bound my limbs, I deplored laughter, all things yielded to Christ, all former things fell. Carm. 54 The earth was my bed, a most harsh garment covered my limbs: vigils also and showers of tears I employed: by day I subjoined my shoulders to labor: by hymns to be sung the whole night I fixed my body like a statue: admitting no human pleasure at all, not even into my mind and thought, and this was once the institute of life to me]. These things he himself. ^c

[46] Of Gregory's and Basil's studies, when they were in Pontus, these things Rufinus writes: [Basil, going about the cities and country places of Pontus, the exercise of Gregory and Basil narrated by Rufinus, began by words and preaching to stimulate and kindle the slothful minds of that nation, little solicitous about future hope, and to abolish from them the callus of negligence; and subdued them, the cares of vain and secular things being cast off, to receive knowledge of themselves, to come together into one, to construct monasteries, taught them to be free for psalms and hymns and prayers, to bear the care of the poor, and to afford them honest dwellings and the things necessary for food; to instruct Virgins, to make a modest and chaste life desirable to almost all. Book 2 c. 9 Thus in a short time the face of the province was so changed that on an arid and squalid field there seemed to have grown up a fruitful crop

and glad vineyards. But Gregory did not suffer the good seed either to lie upon thorns, or to be scattered among rocks: but the good earth of his heart he cultivated by continual tillage and unceasing exercises, and far more profited here in himself than the other in the rest. The one bore the care of receiving the things which those renouncing the world brought to his feet, and of dividing them as each had need: the other, content with nothing of having and possessing all things by the sacrament, clung, toward the riches of wisdom alone, avaricious and much desirous. The one taught many to come together into one, and to have solicitude for one another in necessary things: the other by his own example, which was absolute, preached to all in the Apostolic discourse, But I wish you to be without solicitude. 1 Cor. 7, 32 The one to condole with mercy toward the delinquent, and to recall from sin: the other through the grace of the divine eloquence to forestall the incitements of delinquency, nor to suffer him to lapse who, dashed down, was with difficulty raised. The one pure in faith, the other freer in preaching. The one humble to God, the other was so to men also. The one conquered the arrogant by contempt, the other by reason. Thus in each a diverse grace fulfilled one work of perfection.]

[47] more accurately described by S. Gregory himself: These things although Rufinus says of the private studies of each, it is yet established that Gregory together with him collaborated in constituting the rules of the monks, and that he gave himself over in chains to the poor of an active life. For the same he himself, at some time drawn away thence, groaning that he had lost these things, says these: [Who will give me that it may be permitted to bear even one month of the affliction of former days, in which I lived with thee most pleasantly? since sad things which are borne of one's own accord are held preferable to compelled delights. Who will give me those psalmodies, and vigils, and the recesses for praying, and that life as it were spiritual and incorporeal? who the unanimity and concord of the Brothers, who by thee in piety are instituted and raised on high? who the contest and acumen of virtue, which by prescribed measures and canons we established? who the exercise of the divine oracles, and in them the light found with the moderation of the spirit? Or, to say lesser and lighter things, who will give those daily and manual works? who the labor of cleaving, carrying together, and composing wood, and the quarries? who the plantings, and the irrigations of plants? who that golden plane-tree, more excellent than the plane-tree of Xerxes, under which not a soft and enervated King, but an afflicted and debilitated monk? which I planted, Apollos watered, that is thy excellence, but God advanced unto our honor.] These things Gregory. When meanwhile by the frequent letters of his people Basil was recalled to Caesarea, see what excuse he pretexts. [Now, he says, since by the grace of God we have, according to our strength, become possessed of our vow, having obtained the blessed instrument and the deep well, Gregory, that mouth of Christ I mean; for a little while, I beseech you, for a little while indulge us this little delay, which we do not seek for this, that we may follow the delicacies of cities, both are recalled but that we may enjoy the company of the Saints.] These things Basil when he was importunately summoned by his people. But Gregory also is afterward recalled to Nazianzus by the frequent commands of his father.

[48] he writes 2 invectives against the dead Julian. Meanwhile the Emperor Julian dies, he himself being the fourth time and Salustius Promotus Consuls, in the year of Christ the Lord three hundred and sixty-third, and Jovian was substituted into his place; when our Gregory wrote those two most celebrated invective orations against him, as a most noble and eternal title of the Christian victory over prostrated impiety. Where the things which the patron of impiety was contriving against himself and Basil, he declares in these words at the end of the second invective: [These thou hast from Basil and Gregory, the adversaries and enemies of thy attempts, just as thou thyself didst think, and didst persuade others, adorning and celebrating us namely with thy threats, and more sharply whetting us to piety, whom, illustrious and noble both in life and doctrine and mutual concord of minds from Greece onward knowing, thou didst affect with Cyclopean honor, and didst keep last for persecution; and perhaps, as a certain triumphal gift, didst propose to offer to the demons, if they had received thee returning from Persia; or even didst hope to drag into thy abyss, much deceived in opinion; for we are not more cowardly than those young men, who in the flames were sprinkled with dew, and conquered beasts through faith. At last finally [This, he says, thou hast from us as a column of sempiternal ignominy, more sublime and more notable than those Herculean columns. For those fixed in one place only, are conspicuous only to those who have gone thither: but this cannot but, both living and movable, become known to all: which future time also, believe me, will take up, censuring thee and thy crimes, and instructing and admonishing all the rest, lest with the same audacity they be carried against God, lest otherwise, perpetrating the same crimes, they be punished with the same penalties also]. These things there Gregory, who elaborated those orations, when he was in the wilderness, together with Basil.

NOTES.

To these I add what, as familiar to him from the beginning, he narrates in the Poem on his own affairs, where, when he had declared how little he made of pleasures, riches &c. which commonly are wont to be made much of, he thus says.

--- To my heart is rigid bread: pure salt furnishes me grateful relishes; and a simple table furnished with no labor; then the waters pour me sober cups. These are my riches, and Christ bearing my lofty mind to the stars ---

CHAPTER VI.

Ecclesiastical affairs cared for. Eusebius of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nyssa stirred up against the Arians. The death of his brother and sister.

[49] But in the following year, Julian and Varronianus being Consuls, the Emperor Jovian having died, under the Emperors Valentinian and Valens, Valentinian took the Empire, who took to himself his brother Valens as colleague, and entrusted to him the reins of the Eastern Empire; who, favoring the Arian perfidy, stirred up tumults against the Catholics. This was a cause why Gregory's Father acted more vehemently, that he might recall his son from the wilderness: for he was now by long old age more dull, and as unequal to undergoing labors he urged him with prayers, as a father compelled him by commands, and finally as a Bishop by authority. But although for a long while he had (as they say) thrust the tale upon a deaf man, he at length bent, compelled, and extorted from the unwilling man, and recalls his son to Nazianzus. Returned to Nazianzus, Who, returned into the fatherland, delivered that excellent oration which is inscribed Apologetic: by which when he first renders the reason of his withdrawal into solitude, soon however, raised by certain wings, he philosophizes in a kind of sublime manner concerning the Priesthood and the Pastoral care. He delivered then also that excellent oration whose title is, On the holy lights, by which he inveighs against the rites and gods of the Gentiles. The reason of that matter we deduce from thence, since he testifies that he comes from solitude: ^a [I cannot hold the pleasure of my mind, I am rapt by divine fervor, almost like John, I bring forth the auspicious news, not indeed as that Forerunner, but coming from solitude]. &c. Or. 39

[50] he composes the quarrels between Basil and Eusebius of Caesarea. But when he saw the affairs of the Catholic Church placed in peril, the Arians claiming all things for themselves, by the favor and patronage of the Emperor Valens, Gregory meditates an excellent deed. For that the province of Cappadocia might be provided for, he chiefly desires, the quarrels being laid aside, to insinuate himself into the friendship of Eusebius the Metropolitan, that with him as leader he may more freely come forth into the field. There is extant concerning these of the same Gregory to him an ^b epistle. When he had excellently accomplished this, he endeavored to lead Basil also, a strenuous fellow-soldier, out of the leisure of solitude into the arena of the contest: and first used this art, that he might conciliate Eusebius to him, and might come as a mediator of the peace to be composed between them; acting first with Eusebius, that he should provide for the imminent disaster (for he was a Catholic, and most desirous of the Catholic faith, although for the fight invalid) and that he should summon Basil, a strong champion, from Pontus to Caesarea.

[51] Among these things he also acted with Basil by letters, asking him that he should comply with Eusebius calling him, and says. [It is now time that we enter upon a prudent counsel, and flourish with the praise of tolerance, and from his will he persuades him of return, first by epistle, and so dispose ourselves that neither may anyone appear more excellent than us in greatness of mind, nor may our many labors and sweats in a point of time collapse and vanish. Why I write these things thou askest? Our Bishop Eusebius, most dear to God (for so we must henceforth feel and write) is of a mind toward us very friendly, and inclined to lay aside quarrels, and by time as iron is softened by fire; and he is about to send to thee even deprecatory letters, as both he himself signified to us, and many having his mind clearly known make us faith. Whom let us anticipate, I pray, either coming to him; or, because it is more right, first writing, and then betaking ourselves to him; lest afterward we be ashamed, if we have been conquered, when it was permitted to conquer, namely by yielding excellently and philosophically, which most men require of us. To me therefore comply, and come both for this cause and on account of the time. Since indeed the heretics with conspired minds overrun the Church, and partly are now present and move tumults, partly (as fame is spread) will be present, and there is danger lest the doctrine of truth, convulsed, be torn asunder, unless at the first time the spirit of Bezeleel be stirred up, that is, of a wise architect of such disputations and dogmas. But if it seem to thee worth the labor that I be present, and minister these things, and join myself to thee as companion of the journey, not even this office shall we flee.

[52] then in person with happy success These things to Basil Gregory; who indeed not even content with these, going to him into Pontus, discharged that legation of peace. Whom when Basil saw coming to him, he soon yielded, and gave himself to him, and together they returned into the fatherland. For these things he himself relates in these words: [Nor indeed was a long oration to be prepared for this, that he should betake himself to us, and be an aid to us: but as soon as he beheld me discharging the legation (for this contest was common to both of us, as we who had been designated defenders and patrons of the faith) at once he yielded to the legation, and, distinguishing with himself by spiritual reasons most well and most wisely, that it was another time of quarrel (if indeed anything were to be indulged to such an affection)

namely of security and tranquillity; but another of longanimity and patience, namely the time of necessity and perils. in praise of Basil. This, I say, reckoning with himself, forthwith he departs out of Pontus with us, and burns with zeal for the imperilled truth, and of his own accord brings aid to us, and delivers himself wholly to the mother church.] He proceeds to narrate at length Basil's zeal toward Eusebius, and Eusebius's paternal charity and solicitude toward him, and the offices mutually conferred between them. ^c

[53] He leads back S. Gregory of Nyssa from profane studies to sacred: It was not only a care to Gregory to lead Basil out of the Pontic solitude to the arena of the contest, but also his brother Gregory of Nyssa the Bishop, still detained by external letters as by certain fetters, to recall to the sacred letters now intermitted. For he did not suffer a man of most noble genius to be longer detained among alien things, and to be rendered a soft and delicate soldier by the enticements of eloquence. So, paternally rebuking him by letters, he thus addresses him: [For what has happened to thee, most wise man, and how hast thou offended thyself, that, the sacred and sweet books which thou once didst read to the people (for thou shouldst not blush hearing this) being trampled and cast away, or even hung up to the smoke; just as the rudders and mattocks of ships in winter time, thou hast taken in hand false and bitter ones, and hast preferred to be called a Rhetor than a Christian? Ep. 43. We on the contrary this rather than that: and on that account I have the greatest thanks to God. By no means, I pray, O once most excellent, be thou any longer so poured out in mind. But later indeed, yet at length come to thy senses, and return to thyself: and purge thyself with pious men and those endowed with faith, and restore thyself to God and the altars and mysteries, from which thou hast far removed thyself]. and inflames him against the Arians: By these admonitions indeed he not only recalled him, an utter exile from sacred letters, but also rendered him a most brave soldier for stirring up battles against the fleets of the Arians and of other heretics, nay even the standard-bearer of the rest, as one who for the enemies of the faith subdued procured for himself exile as it were a triumph of glorious victory, who also afterward, from the Synod of Antioch, discharged a legation for raising up the collapsed Eastern Churches, and exhausted other innumerable labors: of all which whoever shall say that our Gregory was the author, will by no means have erred from the scope of truth.

[54] he withdraws from time to time into the Tiberine parts, Although once Gregory and Basil were drawn out of the Pontic wilderness into the cities, yet they could never forget or wholly intermit the custom of that most sweet life. Whence Gregory often betook himself to Arianzus, the paternal country place, situated in the Tiberine region, his natal place; and Basil, about to visit his monks, returned to the abandoned solitudes of Pontus. To these pertain those jocose epistles of Gregory and Basil given to and fro. Greg. Ep. 6, 7, 8 & 9; Basil 22, 23, 24 & 25. Namely, the one praising his Tiberine and postponing the woods of Pontus, the other inveighing against the Tiberine, and celebrating the Pontic solitudes, and inviting Gregory again to them. But neither of them was permitted to lead long delays in them, on account of urgent ecclesiastical affairs.

[55] under his father he profits the Nazianzene Church very much, But how much our Gregory, sitting by his Father the Bishop, profited the Nazianzene Church, scarcely will anyone easily attain in mind: although from a slender little field, yet he bore most abundant fruits. For he himself, writing to Hellenius, says these things: [Christ has heaped upon me the most excellent honor of all, inasmuch as by His gift this has been conceded to me, that I can glory in a crown of many men flourishing with the praise of piety. And certainly true is that old promise, which promises that He will bring it about that He should impart His grace to small and abject men: wherefore not undeservedly this small city of mine has been called Bethlehem. For as that more ancient one received the celebrity of its name from the nativity of Christ, instructing men and women unto sanctity, so ours has attained the greatest splendor from the friends of God]. &c. He enumerates certain men eminent for piety and sanctity, who seemed to be columns, and recounts their illustrious virtues, all which, lest we be carried by too great prolixity, we omit to recount. He adds moreover to speak of the sacred Virgins of the same Church in these words: [To me indeed, although the number of such women is small, yet by the heavenly and most beautiful stars of Christ I so exult and rejoice that for these few of mine I do not doubt to come into contention with many more concerning the excellence of virtue]. &c. He recounts also the swarms of the rest of the celibates, and that he himself is so rich from a slender little field that there is none who would envy the broad estates of others.

[56] There accrued to this also that, as a wise architect he was wholly bent on erecting and dedicating to God spiritual temples not made by hand; yet he did not neglect together with his Father to raise a most ample Basilica. Which, how august, how beautiful, and how artfully wrought it was, he himself describes in these words. In the funeral of his father. [A work assuredly to be remembered and proclaimed, he constructs a most ample basilica. in magnitude very great, in beauty excelling almost all: for it meets in itself in eight equilateral right angles, and by the elegance of columns and porticoes through the panelled ceiling rises on high, and indeed is adorned with such paintings that it yields only to nature itself. What? that it is illumined by the supernal splendor of heaven, and irradiates the eyes of beholders with most abundant fountains of light, as truly a domicile of light. To these things, with spaces of choice material placed on either side at equal angles, embracing very much of the intermediate place, it is girded; and besides shines forth with the beauty of gates and atria, and from afar invites those approaching. I do not yet speak of the external adornment, of the beauty and magnitude of the squared stones and those fitted into a triple conjunction, of which some are of marble, namely those which are placed in the bases and capitals by which the angles are intercepted; others are indeed those of the country, yet not inferior to the exotic ones. I do not yet speak of the various and manifold zones, extended and interwoven from the foundations even to the summit, of which the height is such that it hurts the beholder's sight by circumscribing it. In what way could I in so brief a discourse set before the eyes a work of so great a time, and of so great labor and industry?] &c. The same, writing to Olympius, professes that he built it, and applied all zeal to adorning it. Ep. 49.

[57] But in these times of the Emperor Valens his brother Caesarius, who discharged the most ample office of the Quaestorship, migrated from this life. Of whose death we by no means assent to Gregory the Presbyter, when Col. 390C he refers his death to the times of the Emperor Constantius. ^d For how can it be that he died then, whom we know to have served in the court of Julian, on account of the death of S. Caesarius the brother, and to have opposed him for the Christian Religion, and to have returned into the fatherland an excellent Confessor? It is established also that he was most acceptable to Valentinian and Valens, so far that, as Gregory writes, there was a contention between them which should claim Caesarius for himself, and bind him by gifts. in praise of Caesarius, That death of Caesarius seems to have happened in the sixth ^e year of the Emperor Valens, for in the fifth year, Valentinian and Valens being Consuls the second time, happened that most famous earthquake, by which, as Jerome writes in the Chronicle in that year, Nicaea in Bithynia was utterly overthrown, where Caesarius dwelling there, by divine help (as Gregory is the author) survived so great a disaster, when, writing an Epistle to him, he exhorts him to contempt of the world. Ep. 26. Not long after that disaster the same, seized by disease, departed from human affairs. Gregory praised him in a brilliant oration before his father and mother, in which he also testifies that his brother Caesarius was often shown to him through a vision, illustrious, notable, and sublime.

[58] he falls into various troubles. By his death Gregory, falling into various troubles, whereas he had hitherto cared only for ecclesiastical affairs, is compelled also to undergo the care of domestic, nay even of public ones. For since he at that time discharged the office of the Quaestorship, and had left his goods to be distributed to the poor; soon those curial harpies, having the hands of Briareus, plundering them, converted them to their own uses, as Gregory complains of these, writing to Sophronius the Prefect and in the Poem on his own life in these verses:

[Namely he was Quaestor, in the time of the Quaestorship he dies, at the same time a pack of dogs rouses itself against the goods left by the dead man. Servants, hosts, friends, tear all things ^f: for who, when an oak falls, does not gather wood?

Not much space of time intervened, and his sister Gorgonia ^g departed from this life, whose excellent deeds and most praiseworthy life the same praised before the congregation.

NOTES.

Indeed when in the poem on his own affairs he had explained those things which, as we indicated at chapter 4, fatigued him, the temporal cares incumbent on him from the regiment of the paternal family, from that time at which he had consented to remain with them out of regard for piety; thus he proceeds,

But these things can be borne; but those more sharply the anxiety of Gregory about his own salvation, on account of secular cares. hurt, and make a graver wound in the breast, which we have borne (after dire death destroyed my brother

Caesarius) and even after these things now we fear to bear.

Mourning him therefore, he sets forth with how great solicitude of losing eternal salvation he was anguished, deprived of the sweetness of internal converse with God, and recalling the past perils of life, in which once apprehended he shuddered, he professes that he never suffered anything of the kind, nor did he then suffer.

CHAPTER VII.

The Episcopate of S. Basil promoted, his fame defended. The exiles comforted.

[59] Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea having died in the year 369, In these times also dies Eusebius the Bishop of Caesarea, into whose place Basil was substituted. This was the sixth year of the Emperors Valentinian and Valens, Valentinian the boy and Aurelius Victor being Consuls, but from Christ, as the more recent compute, the year three hundred and sixty-ninth. But lest these things seem rashly placed without reason (since especially that author, whoever he was, of the life of Basil, which is borne under the name of Amphilochius, says that Basil departed life in the fifth year of the Emperor Valens) we render a certain account of all these things. Jerome, who lived in the same times, says that Basil died under the Emperor Gratian. Gregory of Nyssa his brother, in that Epistle which he wrote to Olympius on the life of his sister Macrina, says that he was removed from human affairs nine months before that ^a Council of Antioch which was celebrated after the death of Valens; and since both he himself and also our Gregory affirm that Basil sat eight years, nay that he began the ninth Gregory of Nyssa likewise writes, it will be necessary to affirm that in this year Eusebius died, but that Basil the following year was substituted Bishop. In the epitaph of Basil. These things therefore concerning the time of Basil's See it was fitting to discuss, that the deeds of Gregory, of whom we treat, may be held more certain and more explored by the reckoning of times.

[60] Eusebius having departed life, Basil, fearing for himself lest he be elected Bishop, withdrawing thence ^b consulted for himself by flight; but fearing lest the church, widowed of a pastor, lie open to the incursion of heretics, he asked Gregory by letters that he betake himself to Caesarea. But he, lest he give a handle of detracting to the rivals, abstained from that excursion, as the letters returned to him ^c signify. Absent however in the name of his Father ^d the Bishop he acted by letters with the Caesareans, that they should elect Basil Bishop, who easily went before all the rest in sanctity and erudition. Ep. 21. Gregory labors that S. Basil be elected But lest they object concerning Basil's ill-affected health, he added these things, [but if anyone pretexts his infirmity to his opinion, you create not an athlete, but a Doctor]. Ep. 23. These and other things Gregory, laboring for the election of Basil. What at length? The zeal of Gregory prevailed. Then also his father Gregory, Bishop of the same province, that he might give his suffrage to the election of Basil, with wonderful alacrity sets out for Caesarea, a man otherwise broken by old age and debilitated by sickness; who however by no means fearing the labors of the journey, placed in a vehicle as a dead man on a bier, cheerful and joyous arrived ^e there. Gregory then also gave letters to S. Eusebius Bishop of Samosata, who for the same cause had come ^f to Caesarea, to whom among other things: [Thou hast our father both in his own and in our name, about to impose an excellent end on all his life and venerable gray hairs, namely about to break off this present struggle for the Church] &c. in the funeral of his father: Basil is elected, is anointed by Gregory's father, and by that unction even he who anointed was made more vigorous and more robust, and restored to good health.

[61] Basil being elected of Caesarea, Gregory, consulting Christian modesty, repressed the impulses of mind by which he was driven to visit him, he defers so going to him: and gladdened only by letters, contained himself at Nazianzus: afterward at length he betook himself to him at Caesarea. All which the same himself relates very charmingly in these words. [When all dwelt in this opinion of mind, that I would immediately bring it about that with the greatest pleasure of mind I should run to him (which perhaps some other one would have done), and would rather share the command with him than have the nearest authority, and conjectured this from our friendship: I however, in all things fleeing the suspicion of arrogance, if anyone, and avoiding the envy of that time; at the same time also because I saw his affairs still swelling and being perturbed, cast a bridle on my desire, and contained myself at home, for which name indeed he expostulated with me, but afterward granted pardon. in praise of Basil. Afterward when I had come, and for the same cause had repudiated the honor of the Chair ^g and a more notable seat among the Presbyters, and he refuses the honor offered by him. not only did he not accuse this deed of mine; but vehemently also, as he ought, approved it, and preferred to be charged with pride by some, who were ignorant of the reason of it, than to do anything which should be adverse to his reason and counsels]. Remaining with him Gregory delivered that sublime oration on the love of the poor. he delivers an oration on the love of the poor. A certain storehouse of piety, a hospital of lepers, so Gregory calls it, Basil erected, on whose occasion, that he might excite the mind of each toward the poor and render it more inclined, he delivered that most adorned oration, by which as by a certain trumpet-call of piety he not only moved all the rich and noble to the love of those, that they should pour out their goods largely on that work; but also persuaded them to give themselves over into their service, following Basil as leader. For of Basil he himself testifies that he was wont to minister to the poor girded with a linen cloth, imitating Christ when He washed the feet of the Apostles, and to kiss and embrace the lepers. in praise of Basil.

[62] But in the following year, ^h Gratian Augustus the second time and Probus being Consuls, the Emperor Valens, the affairs of the Goths being composed, he consoles the exile S. Eusebius of Samosata, turned his forces to impugning the Catholic faith, and gave a rescript that the Bishops abdicated in the times of Constantius, and again restored, should anew be driven out from their Sees. By which rescript indeed when many holy Orthodox Bishops were driven from their Sees, among others also that most celebrated Eusebius Bishop of Samosata, led away from his See, is sent into Thrace; and is relegated among the barbarians, to whom a part of the province had fallen: whom our Gregory consoled in Ep. 28. The same Emperor Valens, that he might drive out Basil, departing from Nicomedia, about to set out for Antioch, passing through Cappadocia, turned aside to Caesarea. The excellent contest of Basil, the noble trophy which he bore off from the Emperor conquered and stormed, who had endeavored to drive him from his See, since Gregory himself and the rest of the Greek writers have left it testified in perpetual monuments, we think superfluous here to relate all, those things only we will bring forward which seem to pertain to our Gregory. in praise of Basil. Who treating of these things, these of Basil's counsel and his own effort: When we were pressed by the straits of time, [he resists Valens for Basil, he himself entered upon this plan, that he committed to himself the dispensation of the word, but to us, whom for the obscurity of our name no one would accuse or eject from the fatherland, the liberty of speaking; and so our Gospel was firm and strong, supported by the aid of both]. These things he himself.

[63] From these indeed it is permitted to behold who and what kind the labors of Gregory were, who in that contest underwent the more difficult and more perilous burdens, while joining hands at close quarters with the enemies, he more sharply stirred up their hatred against himself. The same was present also at these most difficult contests, stirred up both by the Prefect first, then thereafter by the Emperor Valens against Basil. Then, he says, we, prompt and alacritous, girded the victor's side when namely he entered in ⁱ to the Emperor or went out, a faithful companion always assisting. But afterward Gregory of Nyssa also is ejected from the Church by the same persecution of Valens, as he himself writes in the epistle to Olympius on the acts of S. Macrina, and Basil epistle 10. To this one also wandering outside his See our Gregory wrote epistle 34. he aids his aged father So however Gregory sat by Basil, that the care of the Nazianzene Church, over which his father, worn out by old age, presided, he did not dismiss. So now at Nazianzus, now at Caesarea, as the occasion of the matter demanded, he acted with one of them. By certain compacts Basil had agreed with Gregory that they should pass a good part of the year together ^k. But if ever Gregory were detained by delay, he provoked him by letters, and asked him forthwith to be present, and to bring aid against the threatening heretics, as the letters of the same Basil ^l declare.

[64] he refutes the calumny cast against him It happened at one time that Basil was assailed by certain false calumnies of the adversaries, against which with how vehement a mind Gregory opposed himself, the Epistle of the same then written to Basil indicates in these words: [A banquet was being celebrated, at which not a few illustrious men were present, and conjoined to us by friendship, and among them a man who bore before him the name and habit of piety. The drinking together had not yet begun, when, as is wont to happen in banquets, discourse about us is excited, like some adventitious thing set forth in the midst. But all magnificently proclaiming thy virtues, and joining us also as devoted to the same studies of life, and commemorating our friendship and Athens, this philosopher uttered a grave deed. What then is this, said he, exclaiming very furiously, O men! how notably lying and flatterers you are. Of the spirit indeed let those men be praised, if so it please: nor do I myself contradict it. But what is the greatest, I will not concede to them: in the name of Orthodoxy Basil is vainly praised, vainly Gregory. The one because he betrays the truth by his disputations: the other because by his tolerance he shows himself a partner of the betrayal. Here I. Whence

these things, O vain man, and of a novel madness Dathan and Abiron? Whence comest thou to us as a promulgator of dogmas? How dost thou make thyself a judge of so great matters? Then he. From the Euphycsian ^m Synod, he says, I come, with that matter as witness: for so indeed it was. There I heard Basil the Great disputing of the Father indeed and of the Son most excellently and most eminently, as though he had not rightly felt concerning the Holy Spirit, and as scarcely anyone else easily could; but tearing apart and disjoining the Holy Spirit, and he added a certain similitude drawn from rivers, which, swiftly passing by rocks, hollow out sandy places. But then, beholding me, But thou, said he, O excellent man, dost thou now teach in perspicuous words that the Holy Spirit is God? And when one of mine and from my monastery, as in a most frequented assembly, said that He was God, and then subjoined that this was commonly received concerning the Spirit; again he: How long, said he, shall we hide the lamp under a bushel? ⁿ but this man shows obscurely and as it were overshadows the doctrine of the faith, nor freely professes the truth, filling the ears politically rather than piously, and covering craftiness by the faculty of speaking.] &c. He then subjoins that, more solicitous about Basil than about himself, he strove with many words to excuse both himself and him, yet his excuse seemed to the bystanders frigid, nor worthy of Basil, as one who, for establishing the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, had used an ambiguous voice.

[65] These things there at length Gregory: who elsewhere also discloses that it had been the counsel of the adversaries, that by that art they should drive Basil from his throne, and occupy his See. in praise of Basil. [Whose snares that Basil might elude, certain other words from the Scriptures being set down, by testimonies by no means doubtful, having the same force, and by necessary arguments he so pressed the adversaries that they could in no way resist or strive to the contrary; who wrote such beautiful books about it. but, which is the greatest force of disputation and genius, were bound by their own words: as in the book which he edited on this he perspicuously shows: in writing which, the admirable man, suffused with the most abundant grace of the Holy Spirit, in a manner surpassed himself, and moved his pen as if from the quiver of the Spirit: &c.] These things Gregory. For this is that most copious commentary which he wrote on the Holy Spirit to Amphilochius. Basil ep. 33 And the same edited also other books against Eunomius on the Divinity of the Holy Spirit: by that persecution Basil being somewhat fatigued, asks Gregory that by agreement he betake himself to Caesarea ^o. But how much Basil deferred to Gregory is easily declared from the epistle then written; where also these words.

[66] and being called to Caesarea in aid before him [Thou, he says, if so it seems, let the sycophants prevail, and, induced by our prayers, aid us laboring in the present contest; and at the same time join hands with him who fights against us. For if thou shalt be only seen, thou wilt break his impetus, and those who are instructed for overturning the affairs of the fatherland thou wilt rout and disperse: making it perspicuous namely to themselves, that thou wilt be the leader of our assembly, and wilt obstruct every unjust mouth of men speaking iniquity. But if it shall happen the things themselves will declare; who he will be who will follow thee to illustrious affairs, who again limps, and by sloth betrays the doctrine of truth] &c. These letters received, Gregory betook himself to Caesarea, when Basil before him cleared himself also concerning that matter by an oath. And this Gregory himself, in that oration which he delivered in praise of Basil, testifies in these words. [That otherwise he knew the Holy Spirit to be God better than any others, both stands from this especially that he often preached this from a higher place, so far as was permitted by the time, and privately among those by whom he was questioned, confessed it without hesitation; but indeed in his discourses with me he showed it more openly (for he never had anything, under oath he asserted that He is consubstantial with the Father and the Son. when he spoke with me of these matters, right and hidden in mind) not simply affirming this, but, what before very rarely happened to him, imprecating upon himself the thing of all most horrible, namely that he should fall away from the Holy Spirit Himself, unless with the Father and the Son he should worship the Spirit also as consubstantial and equal,] These things Gregory.

NOTES.

the usage of that age had borne.

CHAPTER VIII.

Gregory ordained Bishop of Sasima after a sharp tergiversation.

[67] To these evils there acceded [a foul and very ignominious civil war, among the Catholic Bishops of the province of Cappadocia; Among the discords of the Bishops with Basil of whom several were of ill mind toward Basil: and that, as the same Gregory writes, for three causes; of which the first was, because, he says, in the business of the faith they by no means agreed with him, except so far as it was necessarily to be done by them, the multitude compelling. in praise of Basil. Another, because they had not yet wholly ejected from their minds the grief conceived from his election. The last, because they bore most bitterly that they were far and much surpassed by him in glory, although to confess this was most disgraceful. There arose also a certain other quarrel, which exasperated all these. For when our fatherland had been divided into two Provinces and Metropoles, and many things from the former were joined to the new Metropolis, for that cause a dissension was stirred up between them] &c. and the new Metropolitan Anthimus acting more insolently, But the head of the new Metropolis was Tyana, whose Bishop was called Anthimus; who, although he professed himself to be a Catholic, yet was a man of no worth, and a most excellent architect of inflicting troubles on the Catholics. For he was eager to usurp to himself the churches and the revenues of the churches situated outside his Metropolis, pertaining to Basil's parish; and the less he prevailed by right, by so much the more by the force of arms after the manner of a robber, with a brigand band, he assailed the goods of others. To this there acceded that he had made the Tyanene Church, over which he presided, of which Basil often complained, an asylum of heretics.

[68] But Basil, when he saw the pot kindled from the face of the North, about to provide for his Metropolis, thinking to set up a fortification against such war, and to strengthen a wall and an outwork, erected new Episcopal Sees in the borders of the Metropolis. Among which were Sasima, an ignoble place indeed ^b, passable only to the muleteers passing through there, he asks Gregory to be made Bishop at Sasima: over which he resolved in mind to set our Gregory as Bishop. Gregory praises such a counsel of Basil concerning new Sees to be erected, when he says. [Basil converted that dissension into the gain and emolument of the Church, and from that calamity drew a vast utility, namely fortifying the fatherland with several Sees, from which three most illustrious things followed: for both a greater care of souls was undertaken, and every city had its own revenues, and the war was by this means repressed and extinguished]. In praise of Basil. These things Gregory, who however most contentiously resisted he resists these contentiously, lest he be set over Sasima as Bishop, and suffered something human against Basil: whose counsel about that matter he never praised, nor by any longer space of time, as he himself confesses, could he evacuate the grief conceived about that matter: because thence as from a certain fountain of bitterness all the calamities which afterward followed were derived. Although the same at some time excuses Basil's mind, of a man namely referring all things to the spirit, and having no regard of friends, when he busied himself to fulfill what he thought grateful to God.

[69] When therefore Gregory resisted with solid firmness of mind, Basil with familiar confidence calls him a rustic, an insipid man, and one shuddering at friendship: to whom Gregory writing back, first setting forth what was the opinion of others about that matter, says these things: [Others object to thee neglect and contempt, that us, not so much because the place was humble, after thou hast used our service, thou hast cast away as most sordid vessels and instruments; or as those props which are put under arches, which, as soon as the structure is formed and compacted, are wont to be taken away and held for nothing.] These things of those which were spread by others: but what he himself pretexts, he declares in these words. Ep. 31. [I will explain what mind I have. Nor be thou therefore angry with me. For I will say the things which I uttered with burning ardor, neither so far either boiling with anger, or stricken and astonished by that which had happened, that reason should withdraw itself, or I should be ignorant of what I said. I will not procure arms, than because he did not wish war with Anthimus: nor learn the art of military matters, which I have not learned before, when there seemed to be a more convenient time for such a thing, all namely bringing in arms, and furiously engaging among themselves; nor will I receive the Martial Anthimus in contest, although otherwise an immature warrior; namely I myself ignorant of war and more exposed to wounds. Nay rather do thou wage war with him] &c. These things therefore Gregory, because (as we have said) Anthimus was eager to claim all things to himself by an armed band. But again to the same Basil, reproaching him with sloth, he writes back these things. Ep. 32. [Thou objectest to us slothfulness and ineptitude, because we refused thy Sasima, nor are incited by desire of the Episcopate, you with mutual minds raging among yourselves, just as bait cast into the midst for dogs: but to me in place of the greatest business is leisure] &c.

[70] These and other letters of the same argument received from Gregory, Basil, thinking himself despised by him, somewhat indignant wrote back to him. But Gregory shows how much he himself esteems him, which Basil referring to a contempt of himself and has always esteemed him: yet pretexts the leisure of philosophy, that he may not comply with him: there is such an Epistle, not however placed in its own place and order, among the others. Ep. 10. [How are thy things to us small, and to be despised, divine and most sacred man? What then has this word escaped the fence of the teeth? or how hast thou dared to say this? That I myself also may boldly say something: how either did the mind break through to that, or the ink write it, or the paper receive it? O studies! O Athens! and virtues and literary sweats!

For thou makest me almost tragic by thy letters. Dost thou not know either us or thyself? Thou, I say, the eye of the World, the great voice and trumpet, he shows how much he esteems him, and the royal hall of doctrine? Are thy things small to Gregory? What else then would anyone admire of those things which are on earth, except thee Gregory. One spring among the parts of the year, one sun among the stars, one heaven embracing all things in its compass, one thy voice triumphing over all; if only I am sufficiently fit to bear judgment of such things, nor does love impose a deception on me, which I do not think. But if for this name thou art angry, that we do not pursue thee with admiration worthy of thee, thou oughtest to be angry with all mortals also: for no one has sufficiently worthily praised thee or will praise thee, except thyself and thy sublimity in speaking, if indeed it could be that one should proclaim his own praises, and the law of orations bore it. But if thou objectest to us a contempt of thee, why should I not first go mad? But that tortures thee, that we philosophize. Let it be permitted me with thy good leave to say: this one thing is more sublime and more excellent than even thy doctrine and erudition]. These things Gregory to Basil.

[71] and how he refuted Anthimus soliciting him But when Anthimus had perceived Gregory in this manner opposed to Basil, thinking that a fit occasion by which he might tear Gregory from him, and lead him away to his own parts, forthwith he sets out for Nazianzus, that he might treat with him. But Gregory, as was fitting, so turned away from him coming, that he compelled him to depart with the matter unaccomplished, and this he wrote to Basil in this manner: [But that I may declare the matter briefly, the most brave Anthimus came to us with certain Bishops, whether to visit my father (for that also he pretended) or to do what he did. Ep. 33. And when in many ways he had tried my mind, commemorating the parishes, and the Sasiman marshes, and our ordination ^c, now blandly addressing us, now contending with prayers, now threatening, now expostulating, now praising, now vituperating, and using various circles, tropes, and ambages of speech, as though he alone were to be regarded by us and the new Metropolis, as being superior in magnitude and amplitude; Why, said I, dost thou circumscribe our city ^d, whereas we ourselves also make it a Church, as truly and as of old the Mother of Churches? At last, the business unaccomplished, he departed, with frequent breaths interrupted, objecting to us Basilism, as a kind of Philippism]. These things Gregory to Basil of the meeting with Anthimus; when he, indignant, had withdrawn, and had invaded the Sasiman marshes ^e, and had written to Gregory an Epistle replete with reproaches and contumelies, of all which he likewise made Basil more certain ^f.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IX.

The withdrawal into the wilderness. The return to his father. The death of him and his mother. The administration of the Church.

[72] Gregory ordained by force, Basil persisting in the opinion that he should set Gregory over Sasima, did not seem to himself to act the matter any longer absent by letters; but resolved to meet him in person, and so sets out for Nazianzus: and Gregory the father striving together with Basil; they create him, though unwilling, Bishop of Sasima, anoint him, clothe him with the long robe, and adorn his head with the tiara: when he himself delivered that apologetic oration, of which the exordium is: Upon me again unction and the spirit, and again I go mourning and sad: and many other things: calling that second unction with respect to the first, when he was initiated into the Presbyterate. He delivered besides also that excellent oration, of which the beginning is: [Nothing is stronger than old age, nothing more venerable than friendship. By these I have been led to you bound in Christ, not with iron chains, but constrained by the most tenacious bonds of the spirit]. And after many other things: Friendship subdued me, [he recalls the things said too harshly against Basil. and my father's gray hairs reduced me into their power] &c. and he sings a palinode about those things which he had said against Basil. There came also Gregory of Nyssa then to Nazianzus, at whose coming he delivered that oration, of which the title is, To Gregory of Nyssa: in which of Basil and Gregory he says these things: [Of these the one anointed us, the lurking one led into the midst; the other had this cause of coming hither, that he might console us].

[73] Sasima being occupied by Anthimus he withdraws into the wilderness, But although Gregory, complying with his father, and yielding to Basil bringing force, had been created Bishop of Sasima, yet he could never exhaust the grief conceived in his heart ^a. Nay since he saw no access lying open to him for taking up that See ^b (for all things, as we saw, Anthimus the Tyanene Bishop guarded with an armed soldiery) what does he do? He seeks again the beloved and long-desired solitude, and setting out wrote to Bosporius ^c, who had drawn the same rope with Basil, opening the counsel of his mind. Bosporius was Bishop of Colonia of Cappadocia, who was present at the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, and subscribed, to whom he has these things: [Now a second time I have been supplanted by you, and deceived. What I say thou knowest. And indeed if justly, let God smell from you an odor of sweetness; but if unjustly, may God forgive you this fault, since indeed we ought to bear injuries received. But as with you is the power of your will, so mine also is with me. No longer will the morose Gregory ^d be grievous to you: I will withdraw to God, who alone is pure, and alien from fraud; into myself ^e I gather myself. These things I have counseled myself. To strike twice against the same stone, a proverb attributes to the witless]. These things to Bosporius Gregory ^f, to whom however it was not permitted to enjoy the desired solitude any longer: for again by the importune prayers and commands of his father he is recalled to Nazianzus. For these things of his flight, of his father's efforts, and his return to Nazianzus, the same describes in these verses. On his own life.

[74] [This briefly was the state of my affairs;

My neck, not my mind, had submitted itself to the yoke: What shall I bring forth? The grief, which is with me to thee, I will indicate wholly. Again I feel the goads, again ^g by flight and at a run I betake me to the mountain ^h, and stealthily lead the sweet life, my delights. thence recalled by his father, But without gain: for I was not constant in this flight. Namely, tolerant in all things, in this part I am conquered: my father's anger I do not bear. He began first with great effort to fix ⁱ me at Sasima. When this did not succeed, he takes hold of another: that I should not remain in a lowest place, but collaborating (for greater age was burdening the old man) that I might lighten him of troubles. And stretching out his hands while he at the same time takes hold of my beard, with what voices he uses to me! by his endless prayers entreated by him, Thee, thee thy father asks, most dear son, an old man asks a young one, his own servant nature his master, and so by a double law. Gold, gems, silver I do not demand, nor fields, son; not the things which are delicate. I desire to make thee next to Aaron and Samuel: that thou mayest always stand before God. Thou art in the power of Him who gave thee. Do not deny it, that thy true Father may be propitious to thee. The prayers are honorable, or at least a father's. Thy age now passed is not so long; how much time of years has passed for me. Concede at length this, let even another bury me. This penalty of disobedience I appoint for thee, that he may remain at Nazianzus even until his death, give this short time to my remains: thence consult for thyself at thy pleasure. After I had heard these things, and my mind had now a little emerged from sadness, as the sun from a cloud, what happens? what was the issue of my evils? I exhorted myself: that there was nothing inconvenient, if in this part of my father's I should satisfy his vow: for that will not be able to bind me unwilling, whom now no promises here at all oblige. Thus fear, conquered, led me back to my own.]

[75] These things Gregory: who also to Bosporius, who had given to him objurgatory ^k letters about his flight, writing back among other things says these things: [I announce these things to thy piety, that we give our hands and yield, and that we, God giving, will according to our strength without delay undertake the care of the Church: a helper in governing the church: since indeed you contend for this; and especially this tempest urging, on account of the imminent, as thou thyself writest, incursion of the adversaries: and that we will lend this humble body to God so long as it shall last, and our turn shall be lest we burden ourselves, and be overwhelmed condemned by you, then assailed by the various complaints and lamentations and clamors of the whole Clergy oppressing us, and seeing the church neglected, and offending and wounding the mind of very many, as though we made nothing of the affairs of the Church: and finally lest you any longer labor in contempt of us, and this we do supported by the aid of your prayers, since indeed thou also (as thou sayest and the thing itself demonstrates) art grieved to preside over the Church: for it is better to die in these cares than in those]. These things Gregory. Who took up by that law the vicarious prefecture of the Nazianzene Church, his father compelling, that he should only be held bound by these bonds later to be his own master. while his father were surviving: but he being removed from human affairs, he wished it to be free for him to go where he would.

[76] Returned then to Nazianzus he delivered another apologetic oration, which thus begins: I opened my mouth, and drew in the spirit &c. oration to his people Where among other things these, calling his people to witness, he addresses them: [Now indeed with my illustrious parent I do not refuse to undertake this care, as the chick of a great eagle and one flying very high, not inconveniently flying from one near: but afterward I will give my feather to the Spirit, to be borne whither it will, how it will: nor will there be anyone who can compel me or transfer me elsewhere consulting with Him]. And at the end. [These things I have had of the Nazianzene man, which with a simple mind, full of benevolence, I should say to you. You have the hidden counsel of my mind.] It happened after these things, what is wont to happen in human affairs, and what the Evangelical Truth admonished, that no Prophet is without honor save in his own fatherland, that the Nazianzenes, who had so greatly longed for Gregory absent, now despised him present, and infrequently gathered to his sermons. By which matter he himself moved, somewhat expostulating, delivered that oration ^l of which the exordium is: [What then is this, brethren and friends, that so slowly and sluggishly you come to hearing our discourse; when especially in bringing force and dragging us from our citadel, that is, from solitude, you were so prompt and alacritous] and many other things of that kind. Apol. 2

[77] From this prefecture of Gregory, by which, his Father striving, he undertook the care of administering the Nazianzene church, hence wrongly believed to have been also some have judged that he was ordained Bishop of the Nazianzene Church: and so far was this divulged, and fame about that matter grew strong, that not only Gregory the Presbyter ^m in the encomium affirms it, but also his disciple S. Jerome says that he was ordained first Bishop of Sasima, Bishop of Nazianzus; then of Nazianzus; which also without any doubt the rest affirmed, as Socrates, Rufinus, Sozomen, ⁿ and all the others; nay even his adversaries gave it to him as a crime, who also for contumely called him Triepiscopus, when he had now been elected Bishop of the Constantinopolitan See. To oppose all these would seem rash, unless the matter itself were held most thoroughly explored by the most certain testimony of Gregory himself to be otherwise. But before these things we ought to know that the Nicene ^o Canons oppose anyone being substituted Bishop to a living one: which ecclesiastical sanction Augustine, who was substituted to the living Valerius, whereas he was only a vicar groaned that he had at one time been ignorant of. This sacred rule indeed our Gregory preserved inviolate, who, as we saw, only for a time, until his father should live, undertook that Church to be cared for, and so also testified publicly. Who also afterward, while he treated of substituting someone to his father, writes these things to Gregory of Nyssa. [Among all indeed it is established that I was created Prelate not of Nazianzus, but of Sasima; or administrator. although for reverence of my father, and of those who suppliantly contended with me, we accepted for a short time the prefecture as guests] &c. Ep. 42 These things Gregory after, having set out from Constantinople, he returned to his fatherland, as will appear below. The same things to Philagius [p] he afterward wrote.

[78] Meanwhile dies [q] Gregory the father, Bishop of Nazianzus, when he had sat forty-five years, but in age nearly a centenarian. S. Basil was present at his funeral, and in his presence Gregory delivered an excellent oration in praise of his father. There survived also the holy mother Nonna, whom present he consoled in the same oration with many words, yet she does not seem to have survived [r] much space of time after, from these things which he writes in the poem on his own life: where also what he did after the death of his parents, he teaches in these verses.

[After my parents had departed life … and I myself had now been made free, inconveniently, I no more touched the Church entrusted to me, [s] so that I neither offered even a single sacred thing to God, nor joined prayers to the people even once, nor laid hands on any of the Clergy. On his own life But because certain pious men with suppliant prayer much besought, he asks that another Bishop be set over Nazianzus. by God and by what damages my departure would bring, exercising (I will not deny) a very short care for the fatherland as an external one, I did not cease to announce to the Bishops, and to ask this very thing in place of a great office, that they should set a Bishop over the city; but indicating what was the case, that I was bound to no Church by public proclamation. Then because I had long ago resolved with myself to flee friends together with affairs … when they did not obey; partly for love of me detaining me, and not obtaining this. He flees to Seleucia. partly for insolence; first I betake myself by flight to Seleucia, the domicile of the praised Virgin Thecla. Perhaps, I said, thus they will obey; and at length, wearied, they will choose a Prelate. Nor indeed a small time [t] did we spend here. But after, returned to my disasters, I found not at all anything of the expected good: but, what I thought I had escaped, the force of a certain business [u] as if by agreement even the greatest

NOTES.

Hear the querulous verses of his, by which, after the inconveniences of place and time set forth, he thus addresses the reader.

What was it fitting to do, I pray by God, here? To retain the See? to bear such grievous assaults? to be struck by weapons? to be plunged into sordid mud? Nor to have an old age in which to lay up a place, always driven by force from my own shrine? Nor to have bread which to break to the poor, having myself, poorer, obtained needy sheep?

you add… these things indeed we leave to be known and judged by God… but to thy piety I announce, that we give our hands &c. That the objurgation was on account of the flight, I do not find; and since he mentions repeated contests several times, to which at length yielding he undertakes the Church to be governed, I doubt not but that, if these things regard the regimen of the Nazianzene Church, the Epistle was written after the death of his father: yet I rather judge that the care of the Constantinopolitan Church is regarded, of which undertaken we treat in the following chapter.

p. That is Epistle 65, but that it is to be referred to far other times, after the Saint had returned from Constantinople, the first part teaches, and Baronius himself below num. 136 acknowledges.

q. To the year of Christ 372 Baronius ascribes this death in the Annals num. 62. the death of his parents, Hermant more probably defers it to the year 373, that between the baptism and the ordination he may find a greater space of time. The same thinks that although the Saint is venerated in January, yet he died in the month of March or April: what foundation this opinion has I have not yet found.

r. The same Hermant thinks S. Nonna died, either in this very year in the month of August, in which she is venerated; or at least in the following year 374, when the Saint went to Seleucia.

s. The new interpretation of Billius names here the Sasimene Church, perhaps because in Gregory in the Life he so read: later than which the Saint abdicates the administration. But they relate that he performed neither oblation, nor ordination, nor anything else of those things which among Bishops are placed in custom and institution. But that the Nazianzene Church is treated of in the poem is too clear: for from its burden he thought himself loosed by the death of his father: by the Sasimene care he never believed himself obligated, because he had not been ordained at the accustomed petition of that Clergy and people.

t. Hermant judges that Gregory remained at Seleucia until the year 379: there is certainly nothing which compels us to bring him back earlier.

u. immovable to prayers. What those affairs were we could without doubt define from the Epistles, if at that time it had been the custom to mark familiar Epistles with the names of the Consuls or the years of the Emperors: now to divine is not pleasing. Gregory the Presbyter in the Life adds, that although the people with tears besought him, probably that he should be willing to become their Bishop, yet by no prayers is he bent: but remains firm and immovable, no otherwise than an oak receiving unshaken the assaults of the winds.

CHAPTER X.

After the death of S. Basil. Gregory called to Constantinople, by refuting heretics acquires the name of Theologian.

[79] To the heap of Gregory's afflictions there acceded sickness, and likewise the death of his most beloved Basil, of which here to Eudoxius he writes: Thou askest in what state our affairs are? [Ep. 40. In a very bitter one. Basil I have not; Caesarius I have not, my brother according to the flesh and the spirit; himself pressed by many evils, My Father and my Mother have forsaken me, that I may speak with David: the body labors with adverse health, old age presses the head, cares are interwoven one with another; affairs press in, faithless friends, the affairs of the Church lack a pastor and governor, the goods perish, the evils are naked and open, the navigation is in the night, a torch nowhere, Christ sleeps. What shall I do? One repelling of evils for me is death. But the things of the other life are formidable to me, drawing a conjecture from the things of this life]. Ep. 37. These things Gregory: who also concerning the death of Basil consoled Gregory of Nyssa his brother with these letters: [This also was remaining to this toilsome life, in the death of S. Basil he consoles S. Gregory of Nyssa, that I should hear of the death of Basil, and the peregrination of that holy soul: by which he has set out from us abroad, that he may be present with the Lord, as one who through the whole course of his life meditated this office. To me also, besides other things, this also has been snatched away, that I still labor with a grave and perilous disease, so as both to kiss the holy ash, and to be present to thee discharging the convenient offices, and to apply consolation to our common friends. For to behold the solitude of the Church, shorn and despoiled of such glory, and shaken from such a crown, is so grievous that it can neither be beheld with the eyes, nor conceived with the ears by men assuredly cordate and prudent. But thou, although both many friends and discourses are for thy consolation, yet from no one can I seem able to take comfort so much as from thyself and the recollection of him; inasmuch as you were also to all others an example of philosophy, and as it were a certain spiritual rule, both of moderation in prosperity, and of tolerance in adversity: since indeed philosophy knows these two things, namely both to use prosperity modestly, and to bear calamity honorably. And let these things be written by us to thy excellence. But me writing these things what time, what reason will console, except thy society and meeting: which that blessed man left to us in place of all things? that beholding his virtues in thee, as in a beautiful and perspicuous mirror, we may esteem that we have him also].

[80] he writes a panegyric on his life, These things Gregory to Gregory of Nyssa: and the same, when from the infirmity by which he was held he had been somewhat relieved, wrote that most noble panegyric in praise of Basil, by which he exactly consigned his life to perpetual monuments. He testifies the same of Basil often appearing to him through a vision and admonishing him, when he says, [Now also I am admonished by him, and chastised through nocturnal visions, if ever I have departed from my office]. These things he himself. ^a But as regards the time of Basil's death, we again say that that author of Basil's life, who is falsely inscribed Amphilochius, plainly hallucinates, when he says that Basil migrated from this life in the fifth year of the Emperor Valens. S. Jerome testifies that he departed life under the Empire of Gratian, dead after the death of Valens. when namely, Valens ^b being extinct, Gratian alone moderated the reins of the Empire both Western and Eastern, not yet having taken to himself Theodosius as Colleague, Valens being Consul the sixth time and Valentinian the younger the second, in the year from Christ three hundred and seventy-eighth, according to the truer computation of the more recent. With these agree those things which Gregory of Nyssa writes to Olympius the monk, that he migrated from life nine months before the Council of Antioch, which immediately ^c after the death of the Emperor Valens was celebrated. Mention is had of the same Antiochene one in the Synodical letter of the Council of Constantinople to Pope Damasus and the other Western Bishops.

[81] But when in the same Synod certain principal Orthodox Bishops were sent as legates for restoring the collapsed Eastern Churches; among them Gregory of Nyssa and Eusebius ^d of Samosata were chosen for discharging that office; and our Gregory, by the decree of the same Synod, is bidden to set out for the same cause to Constantinople. For he himself testifies that he was not of his own accord, but by a Synod of Bishops sent away thither; and besides summoned by the Orthodox who were at Constantinople, when he says. Carm. on Bishops. [To this discourse I myself am witness, who say these things. When I had been placed above visible things, and dwelt in mind with the intelligible alone, glory, possessions, hope, doctrine being cast away, taking delight from this very thing, that I sought no delights; and content with scanty bread, led a pleasant life, free from all petulance; beyond all hope someone led me far away, snatched from these good things. And who that was, I cannot say; whether the Divine ^e spirit, or my sins, that I might pay the penalties of elation. This indeed is manifest, that there impelled me hither an assembly of Pastors and a people rightly thinking, for the aid of the good, which however was not yet ample and copious]. On his own life. These things there Gregory, who also elsewhere; [Thus I betook myself hither not willing, but deceived by men compelling me, that I might be the patron of the Word of God]. And in the oration which he then delivered to the Arians, he has these things: [I that little one, born in an obscure and ignoble fatherland, came to you, and that not of my own accord nor offering myself, as is the custom today with most, who rashly leap forth to the helms of the Church; but called and compelled by force, and obedient to fear and the spirit. But if I speak falsely, this I imprecate on myself as a penalty of the crime, that I longer sustain here the troubles of war in vain, nor free anyone from error, but that they obtain their vow, who imprecate the sterility of my soul]. These things Gregory of the reason of his coming.

[82] But at what time especially (that a certain reckoning of all things may be had) he came to Constantinople, we judge it worth the labor diligently to investigate. There is indeed of that matter no slight difficulty, from the diverse opinions of diverse men. not in the year 369 Gregory the Presbyter in the encomium by which he wove the life of Gregory, writes that he tarried twelve years at Constantinople. Again moreover Nicephorus the Bishop in the Chronicle relates that he presided over the Constantinopolitan church for twelve years. By their opinion it would be necessary to say that Gregory came thither in the sixth ^f year of the Emperors Valentinian and Valens. For, the Ecumenical Synod of Constantinople being finished, in the third ^g year of the Emperor Theodosius, Syagrius and Eucharius being Consuls, that he withdrew thence is established ^h. To these indeed all things which we have said above are adverse; but Rufinus, who lived in the same times, openly professes that Gregory, peace being restored to the Church, came to Constantinople to teach the Church: but after the peace given to the Church which peace indeed no one is ignorant was not restored until the last year of the Emperor Valens, when, as Jerome says, Valens by late penitence recalled the orthodox from exile, or when he was very shortly removed from this life. in the history book 2 c. 9. To these there accedes the most certain testimony of Gregory himself about that matter, while in the poem on Bishops he says these things,

calling them to witness: [What that was wicked, what contrary to you, what hurtful did I either bring forth in words, or designate in deed, in this whole triennium? &c. From all which it is held certain and explored, that not before the death of Valens he set out for Constantinople, in the year 379 but in the following year, Antonius Gallus and Olybrius being Consuls, which is numbered by the more recent the year from Christ three hundred and seventy-ninth.

[83] That was then that pitiable state of the Constantinopolitan Church, that the Catholic faith, shaken by the fury of the Arians, and likewise shaken off, seemed gone. where, the Arians holding all things, Already before, under the Empire of Constantius, the Orthodox being dispersed and put to flight and slain, and Paul the Catholic Bishop fatigued by so many exiles and at last suffocated by a noose, the Arians had claimed all the Churches to themselves. Under the Emperor Valens at last, himself also an Arian and a patron of the Arians, Euagrius the Bishop is driven into exile, and the Clergy, who were Catholic, by the command of the same Prince are burned in the sea, the ship being set on fire. Scarcely at length some few, who secretly should worship the most holy Trinity, had remained; and these, although peace was restored to the Church, did not presume to raise their head; since the faction of the Arians had so prevailed that even in time of peace they stirred up tumults against the orthodox, and insolently exalted themselves against them; and scarcely at length, lest they molest the orthodox, could they be restrained by the Emperor's edicts and soldiers. Such was the face of that Church, when our Gregory, that he might bring aid to it, betook himself to it ⁱ. So coming to Constantinople he is received in hospitality by certain kinsmen of his. against Maximus. Of which he himself says these things: [A certain pious house, burning with the love of God, refreshed me, no otherwise than the house of the Sunamitess Elisha, he is received in hospitality by his kinsmen, of men conjoined to me by kinship of body and spirit, and endowed with singular piety: among whom this people was compacted, while it secretly drank in the orthodox faith, vexed and afflicted by persecutions, by no means freely and without peril. May the Lord render to it in the day of retribution]. These things Gregory.

[84] which, converted into an oratory, he calls Anastasia, This was that small place, which, for the Catholic faith restored in it, he called Anastasia. For we do not assent to Gregory the Presbyter, who thinks that Anastasia was before called a church; but, abandoned by the Arians, held in contempt for the narrowness of the place ^k. For that it was a private house, and from the effect, that the collapsed faith was raised up in it, was called Anastasia, Gregory himself often testifies: as among other things. [That, he says, first the word of God, which before remained in the roots, raised to the supreme summit of the mountain, and for that reason obtained the name of Anastasia; Anastasia, I say, that notable work of my laborious hand] ^l elsewhere. [Farewell, he says, Anastasia, having a name from piety: for thou didst raise up for us the faith still conceived]. to 150 Bishops, These things Gregory, who the same, for the narrow circuit of the place, was wont to call Bethlehem. That the same Church was enlarged and dedicated to the Mother of God, Sozomen relates in these words: But the followers of Arius still there held the churches, over which Demophilus presided: but Gregory the Nazianzene presided over those who professed the Consubstantial Trinity. book 7 c. 5. He gathered his assembly in a certain small cell, which had been constructed into a house of prayer through certain men of his faith, both for them and for those who embraced a similar Religion. But the same was afterward made a temple of the city illustrious beyond the rest: in whose place an ample Basilica afterward arose and it is conspicuous not only for the elegance and majesty of its structure, but also for the evident utility of the Divine apparition. For a divine power manifestly appearing here, both by itself and through a dream, often brought aid to many who were afflicted both by diseases and by various chances of things: and it was believed that this was the holy Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ, for thus it appears ^m. Moreover they called this church Anastasia, which name signifies Resurrection; for this reason, as I indeed think, with the memory of a woman raised up there, that the dogma of the Nicene Council, now collapsed at Constantinople through the power of those teaching diversely, and so to say dead, was through Gregory's preaching here resuscitated, and revived; or rather (as I have heard from certain men, who asserted that they related the true thing) that, the people being gathered to a sermon, a pregnant woman fallen from a lofty portico here expired, and the same, the common prayers of all being made over her, revived, and together with her foetus was saved. And so from a miracle divinely wrought, that place thenceforth obtained that appellation.] Thus far Sozomen.

[85] There were there once in Gregory's time, for the narrowness of the place, floors erected above, constructed like a portico, in which women standing might hear the word of God: whence the same elsewhere: [Holy Virgins together with grave matrons from the lofty roof inclined most chaste ears to my discourses:] &c. in the dream. for from that height we think that woman fell, of whom Sozomen makes mention. But Gregory prophesied of that little house, that it would once come to pass that it should grow into a most august basilica: which was fulfilled through a most opulent man Marcian ⁿ, by S. Marcian the Presbyter. who expended his patrimony on that work, ordained Presbyter and celebrated for sanctity, of whom wondrous things are related. But since there was of the same name an illustrious Martyr called Anastasia, whose relics, as Theodore Lector writes, were brought into the same Basilica, and on her natal day ^o that basilica was dedicated; the Relics of S. Anastasia being brought thither, it came to pass that there the same Martyr was especially venerated. in collection book 2

[86] These things now enough of Anastasia: now let us return to Gregory, there the Saint fighting against all heresies, who through so narrow an aperture, just as if in a most broad field, so contended against the enemies of the faith, that he erected most ample trophies of them. For there, as a most experienced soldier, with one whirl of the sword, the heretics placed round about, Arians, Macedonians, Photinians, Marcellians, Sabellians, Apollinarians, and Novatians, he pressed hard, and routed. For these legions being led out from the gates of hell, and as it were placed at Constantinople in standing quarters, the ancient enemy assailed the Catholic faith. His hands were against all, and the hands of all against him, and so the works of God were exalted, that one not only put a thousand to flight, but also ten thousand. There is still extant, hung in the church wrapped in a robe behind the Ephod, that sword by which our Coryphaeus, strong of hand, turned the troops of the Philistines to flight. There are extant, I say, those sublime orations of Gregory, and conquering like David, most precious furnishings of the Church of God, by which he assailed the aforesaid heresies, among which those are held more celebrated which are inscribed Of Theology; by which, as David armed with five mystic most limpid stones, the victory being won, merited by an auspicious acclamation that ten thousand should be given to him, so he himself, the enemy of the Catholic faith being prostrated, he merits the name of Theologian, procured for himself the name of Theologian: which although it be common to many, yet especially due to him, the Church of God was wont peculiarly to attribute to him, as a kind of triumphal name and excellent ornament.

[87] But now let us prosecute his deeds at Constantinople, and it will be most pleasant not only to recount his most noble acts, but also to bring forth into the midst his thoughts. For when he beheld the affairs of the Arians flourishing, but those of the Catholics wholly dejected and prostrated, he yet consoled himself with these thoughts. Or. to the Arians. [These, he says, thinking with myself I said: these have houses, we are tenants: these have temples, we God, and besides this, that we are temples of the living God, living victims, spiritual holocausts, perfect sacrifices, against the power of the adversaries; strong by the goodness of his cause. gods finally by the benefit of the adored Trinity. These have the crowd, we the Angels; these temerity and audacity, we faith; these threats, we prayers and orations: these the insolence of striking, we patience; these gold and silver, we the purged doctrine of the faith. Thou hast made for thyself, that I may speak with Scripture, double and triple stories, a house distinguished with windows, but these are not yet more sublime than my faith, or than the heavens, to which I am borne aloft. But my flock is small; yet it is not borne to precipices: but my fold is narrow; yet meanwhile inaccessible to wolves, and not admitting robbers, and of such a kind that it can be climbed over neither by thieves, nor by strangers. Nor do I doubt but that I shall also at some time see it broader. For many of these who are now in the number of the wolves, will be reckoned by me among the sheep, and perhaps also among the shepherds. These things specially that good Shepherd announces to me, for whom I lay down my soul for the sheep.] [p] These things Gregory revolving in mind and foreseeing the future, was found no false prophet.

NOTES.

Theodoret book 5 chapter 4: that he did this from authority given to him in the Synod of Antioch, is nowhere found, nor is it probable: much less from any source is it proved of Gregory of Nyssa: who only says that he was present at that assembly.

In the poem on his own life, he attributes the matter without hesitation to the divine Spirit:

To these — — namely the few faithful at Constantinople, the kindly spirit sent me, or the grace of the spirit.

g. The year 381.

p. Hermant adds also the power of signs, in that in Carm. 60 he confesses of himself, the power of miracles in S. Gregory. that, laying his hand on the heads of those inclining themselves, he was even called a physician of diseases: and again Carm. 61, that, the name of Christ being uttered, he often cast out demons: wherefore he ascribes to his humility that he says he would have used for eloquence a mute faith against the heretics, if, as one of the Apostles, he had had in place of fluency the grace of miracles. t. 2 p. 140, p. 142 But that the Saint understood the times of his sojourn at Constantinople, when he mentions the diseases cured and the demons expelled, is more easily presumed than proved.

CHAPTER XI.

The injuries of the Arians borne, their pertinacity overcome by Gregory, most modest in all things: his disciple S. Jerome.

[88] First by the jests of the heretics, Gregory, instant in the word of doctrine, when day by day he profited more and more, the more sharply stirred up against himself the hatred of the Arians; who first despising him and holding him in derision, with scoffs and jests mocked the holy man and reproached him that he was a stranger, that he was sprung from an unknown and small city, that he was clad in rougher garments. They added rusticity, the inelegance of his countenance ^a, a meretricious art of speaking; for thus they called and derided his admirable eloquence. Hence contempt and derision: then fury supplies arms. For as once the Jews against Stephen, so they, then also assailed with stones, when they could not resist the wisdom and the spirit which spoke, gnashing their teeth at him, took up stones, which they threw at him. All these things at length Gregory himself relates, either when before the congregation he addresses the Arians, or, about to withdraw from Constantinople, recalls to his people's memory, as when he says, Little children, I pray, keep the deposit, remember my stonings. And elsewhere: [Lord, lay not this sin to them, I said: for the opportune words of Stephen came to mind, and now we make the same vows; we are cursed, and we bless; we suffer persecution, and we endure it; we are blasphemed, and we beseech.] to 150 Bishops These things there. Again also in the poem on his own life in these verses:

[Into many inconveniences, when I had come, I fell. The city first boiled against me, as though I introduced several Gods for one.

& a little after.

I will not now recount the stones, my banquets, ^b which I complain only that I did not provoke rightly; nor that they reached me, that I might falsely be said to be struck.]

[89] But after these things by the calumnies of the heretics, as guilty of slaughter, he is called to judgment; and bound, to the tribunal of the Ethnic Praetor, to plead his cause, he is led, when he, innocent, thus speaks: For thy name, O Christ, [bound at last led to the tribunal. although I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, since thou art with me.] Standing by him, the calumnies of the adversaries being intrepidly detected, he is bidden to depart free. On his own life. These things Gregory himself in these verses:

[After, as guilty of slaughter, I am delivered to the Praetors, bearing before them something lofty in countenance, to whom one law was proposed, the favor of the people. To these I am delivered, no evil being perpetrated nor thought, as becomes a disciple of Christ. And there stood by me the best advocate, Christ, relieving me by his patronage: who among Lions can save his own, and make dew out of fire, that he may refresh young men, and turn a whetstone into a house of prayer; here he adorns me at the ethnic ^c tribunal with glory.]

[90] by a modest and evident confutation he at length comes off superior: Thus Gregory knew not to render curses for curses, but, repaying good for evil heaped up, by that art at length subjected very many to himself. When at some time it was to be treated of the Catholic faith with the enemies of the faith, that with placid mind, abstaining from brawls, with a certain wonderful urbanity and charm soothing them, he was wont to act. For of these, an opportune occasion offering itself, treating before the Fathers sitting in the Ecumenical Synod, to 150 Bishops. he thus says: [Will you that I add something loftier? Behold the adversary tongues, their fierceness laid aside, growing mild; and those who declared war on the Divinity, now making no tumults for us: this also is of the spirit, this also is of our agriculture. For we do not teach unskillfully and unlearnedly, nor do we assail the adversaries with reproaches and contumelies, as most do, contending not with the dogma, but with the assertors of the dogma, and the infirmities of reasons and arguments sometimes covering with curses; no otherwise than they say cuttlefish vomit ink before them, that they may escape the fishermen. But that we wage war for Christ we declare by a perspicuous argument, while according to that peaceful and clement Christ, and bearing our infirmities, we contend] &c. He delivered the same in that kind a notable oration, of which the inscription is, On the moderation to be preserved in disputation.

[91] Treating of these things in the Poem on his own life, he says these things, when he speaks of the converted heretics:

[No heretic was so pertinacious, as not to bend his own to our words

Ears? A great force of dogmas seized these, but the placidity of morals mitigated those. For teaching not with reproachful and hostile words, but as I was wont with fitting ones, and he bends the heretics themselves grieving rather than terrifying; not proud for transitory and vain things, as certain men are wont. Oration and command have nothing in common. I did not defend ignorance with audacity: but I spoke mildly and fittingly, as is fitting for a patron of the eternal Word, who, mild and clement, terrifies none among us. And so true is that which is said, that it is far best to be conquered rather than to conquer, if anyone is acquired to God by persuasion. Such things were written in my tablets.]

[92] These things in those things which regard dogmas: but in that kind of speaking which is conversant about the institution of morals, he was so composed that what would profit the hearers, he instilled into their ears; whence this he himself in the same place.

by a like mildness he instructs morals, [Again this other law of instruction I had brought with great wisdom of piety, that I should not know this one way alone, easy and bad, the itching of a garrulous tongue.] & below.

[But that I should admonish them to exercise themselves in the law of God, by feeding the poor and strangers, by healing diseases, by celebrating God in hymns, in prayers, in groans, tears, by lying on the ground, by restraining the senses, and the gullet, the laughter, and the anger, and by modesty of the lips; by compressing the flesh with the help of the spirit.]

And after other things of that kind he imparts a discipline of speaking in these golden verses.

[If thou art desirous of speaking, and if fervent, and fearest lest thy oration perish in vain; (that is human, I nonetheless favor thee) speak, but in fear; nor always indeed, nor all things, nor everywhere, nor before any whomsoever; but when, how much, to whom, where thou speakest, see. Thou hearest that there is a certain time of all things.] &c.

But from the aforesaid we are led by no slight conjecture, that Gregory wrote not only those dogmatic orations exalting themselves more sublimely, but also very many parenetic ones, which we grieve to have perished ^d. Of that kind is that whose title is, On the love of the poor: from which indeed it can easily be understood what his powers were in that kind of speaking.

[93] S. Jerome glories that he had him as a Master, Moreover the fame of his doctrine could not be contained within the limits of that, though most ample, city, but is diffused far and wide, and reached Jerome dwelling in the wilderness of Syria. Who, although he was so erudite in divine letters that both others and also Pope Damasus often consulted him; yet the praise of so great a man being heard, betook himself to Constantinople; nor did he, who taught the World, blush to profess himself among the disciples of Gregory of Nazianzus; nay for that name, as for certain royal insignia and a kind of most illustrious ornament, he was wont to glory. Once treating against Rufinus of our Gregory, he says, In him as Master I glory and exult. And elsewhere, the same he calls his preceptor, and catechist: and again treating of him, he affirms that he learned the Scriptures with him explaining them. To Pammachius Ep. 51, & on writers. Who indeed was not made a forgetful hearer, but what he once received from him, he kept with tenacious memory, so that not only grave and seriously said things, but also jocose ones sprinkled with urbane charm, never escaped him; as that which he relates in these words. to Nepotian. [My preceptor once Gregory of Nazianzus, asked by me to expound what it meant in Luke "the second-first" ^e elegantly jested; I will teach thee, said he, about this matter in the Church, in which, all the people acclaiming to me, thou wilt be compelled unwilling to know what thou knowest not; or if certainly thou alone shalt be silent, thou alone wilt be condemned of folly by all. So of jests. Moreover he demonstrates that his doctrine is borne with such sublimity that it not only excels the Greeks and Latins, but among these it is not easy to find one who can so attain it as to be able to render it into Latinity. For that cause the same inveighs against Rufinus in these words; [Why, he says, hast thou dared to write something, and to translate the most eloquent man Gregory with an equal splendor of eloquence? To Pammachius Whence to thee so great a copiousness of words, a light of sciences, a variety of translations?] &c. With so great a Master as leader Jerome attempted to expound that most obscure vision of Isaiah about the Seraphim, as in the Commentaries on Isaiah he testifies in these words: in interpreting obscure places of Scripture. [Of this vision about thirty years ago, when I was at Constantinople, and with the most eloquent man Gregory of Nazianzus, then the holy Bishop of that City, was being instructed in the studies of the Scriptures, I know that I dictated a brief and sudden tractate, that I might take an experiment of my poor little genius, and obey my friends commanding it.] These things he himself, who sent that tractate to Damasus.

[94] Jerome seems to have remained at Constantinople until the ecumenical Synod celebrated there in the third year of the Emperor Theodosius, Syagrius and Eucharius being Consuls, when Gregory of Nyssa, until the year 381 coming thither for that cause, read the books which he had written against Eunomius to Gregory and Jerome, as treating of the Nyssene in the Catalogue the same Jerome testifies. Ep. 142. But how much that man profited with so great a Master, this is the opinion of Ennodius of Pavia writing to Faustus, [Our Jerome, unless he called Gregory his preceptor, would be esteemed better than he: but to him the good things must be applied by name, from whom they seem to have taken their origin.] These things he. With what submission of mind also he interpreted the divine Scriptures, so that he gladly professed himself far inferior to them, that he could not attain all things, those things are an argument which of him the same S. Jerome writes in the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Ephesians, moderating his modesty. while, explaining those words, This sacrament is great, I say in Christ and in the Church, he says these things: [Gregory of Nazianzus a very eloquent man, and exceedingly erudite in the Scriptures, when he treated of this place with me, was wont to say: See how great the sacrament of this Chapter is, that the Apostle, interpreting it in Christ and in the Church, asserts that he did not express himself so as the dignity of the Testimony required, but said it in a certain manner; I know that this place is full of ineffable sacraments, and seeks the divine heart of an interpreter]. These things Jerome of Gregory.

[95] Evagrius of Pontus had the same Master, afterward lapsed into Origenism There was most praised among the disciples of Gregory ^f Evagrius of Pontus, his Deacon; most happy indeed, if he had always followed the footsteps of so great a Father: but withdrawing from him, and setting out into Egypt, too much addicted to Didymus, lapsed into Origenism, and became a most keen champion of that sect: whom Jerome always paints in his own colors, and notes with deserved titles. Palladius writes chapter 25 that this man, once Lector of S. Basil, followed after his death Gregory coming to Constantinople, and was ordained by him a Deacon, who withdrawing thence, commended him to Nectarius the Bishop his successor. But the cause why Evagrius withdrew from Constantinople, Sozomen and Nicephorus write. book 6 c. 30, book 11 c. 41, book 4 c. 18. Socrates however hallucinates, when he says that our Gregory together with him set out into Egypt. For that, having abdicated the Episcopate, returned into his fatherland, he there at length rendered his spirit to God, nor set out elsewhere, is clearer than light.

NOTES.

pardon for the deed, besought Gregory: whom he proves are to be forgiven. t. 1 p. 841 But fear perhaps after the deed he struck into them, that it was proved in the judgment that Gregory had come to Constantinople with a power by no means to be despised, namely with an Imperial mandate, procured through the orthodox, for whose consolation he came, as he himself indicates Or. 25. p. 439 Where he shows that he by that power (which perhaps another would have done by the example of the Arians themselves) nowhere used against the adversaries, for avenging the injuries done to himself or repelling them in the future. After this tempest Hermant thinks another was raised among the Orthodox themselves at Constantinople, after the discords of the Catholics for the doctrine of Apollinaris on the occasion of the Antiochene schism between SS. Meletius and Paulinus: which dissension the Arians, wont to make an elephant out of a fly, vehemently exaggerated, seeking in others' lapses an excuse for their own vices. p. 208 But this dissension being composed, he thinks oration 13 on peace was delivered. But in it so manifestly are set forth, the upright and candid father, and the obsequious son, sitting together, the C.P. oration 14 delivered. and proving their innocence and right faith to the people, that it cannot be doubted but that it regards the Nazianzene reconciliation of the monks with both Gregorys father and son, equally with the prior Or. 12. Yet Hermant did not wholly err: for truly the 14th oration which follows on a like argument, was delivered after the Episcopate undertaken at Constantinople: but the dissent which then set the Orthodox at variance among themselves, and exposed them to the laughter of the Arians, was on the occasion of the dogma proposed by Apollinaris, of which below chapter 18.

CHAPTER XII.

The election to the Constantinopolitan Episcopate. The frauds and ejection of the intruded Maximus.

[96] Theodosius being baptized, Among these things meanwhile the Emperor Theodosius, the enemies being now subdued, and the Empire stabilized, and baptized in the Catholic faith by Acholius the Catholic Bishop of Thessalonica, and favoring him, sanctioned that one faith was to be preserved by all, which Damasus at Rome and Peter at Alexandria should preach: for their faith was most approved, the one namely as the successor of Peter the Apostle; the other as one who had succeeded Athanasius and had suffered many things for the Catholic faith to be preserved. Such a Sanction was given Gratian the fifth time, and Theodosius being Augusti and Consuls, in the year of Christ the Lord, according to the computation of the aforesaid, three hundred and eightieth.

The affairs of the Catholics being changed for the better, Gregory is chosen by his people Bishop of Constantinople, elected Bishop of C.P. with the assent of Peter of Alexandria. but only in name, since the Arians still possessed all the churches, and the Emperor Theodosius was acting at Thessalonica. But he whose authority seemed chief, Peter the Bishop of Alexandria, by letters gave his assent, as the same Gregory in the poem on his own life testifies in these verses:

[Who Peter, the same arbiter of those Pastors, lately indeed set us in office by letters: (which that they were not supposititious, or stolen by fraud, they themselves can teach) and honored us with the symbols of institution]

But how grievously he at length acquiesced to his own election, he testifies in these words in that oration which he delivered against Maximus. [What, he says, was the compression of mind, what those imprecations which against ourselves we publicly conceived? unwilling he acquiesces. what those tears which we then poured forth many, that we might even seem to you worthy of mercy, although you almost turned away from us, on account of the constancy with which we refused the Prelacy. 1 p. 483] a

[97] But the Arians, by the long prosperity of affairs, were so increased in number and elated with pride that they despised the Emperor's law: and so far were they from receiving the Catholic faith by the law's establishment, that they even more and more insulted the Catholics professing it: and added crime to crime, that, a certain Catholic old man, once an exile for the Catholic faith, but lately restored, attacking with stones, they slew him; he frees the Arians, apprehended for the slaughter: but Gregory not only did not seek penalties of the slayers, but even, acting with the Praetor, by many prayers exempted them from being punished with death, and conferred other benefits on them, most modestly using the prosperity of this time, as he himself before the congregation the following day in this manner addresses the Arians themselves: [I demand my man, whom yesterday you slew, the old man, I say, that Abrahamic father, whom returning from exile and putting in here, at midday, in the middle of the city, you received with stones? to the Arians. But we (unless this saying is grievous and invidious, the very slayers also we freed from peril by our deprecation] & below. [And what from this insolence of the time did I emulate? And that when I had such examples set before my eyes, which even being removed, to abstain from vice is yet difficult and arduous and of rare example. About what churches do we contend with you? about what monies? especially since with both things you abound, and yet with the want of both we are pressed. Have we with burning zeal prosecuted the Emperor's edict, despised by you and held for nothing:] These things Gregory. Who while he busies himself to bind the enemies of the faith by offices, incurs the envy of the Catholics; because namely, whereas they had suffered many evils from the Arians for so long a space of time, with the envy of the Catholics. things being then changed for the better, no penalty now held those whom Gregory even pursued with benefits. Their complaints about that matter he recounts in that oration which he afterward delivered before a hundred and fifty Bishops gathered in Synod. But to these there was a single answer and worthy of so great a man. [To me, he says, against those who inflicted injury, a sufficiently grave penalty is the power of returning the injury.] These things our Gregory, who although he was held most perfect in all virtues, yet seems to have excelled all in meekness.

[98] These were certain sparks of dissension, which, an impostor putting under wood, grew into an immense conflagration. The matter was thus. A certain Maximus, an Alexandrian, an excellent architect of composing frauds, once a philosopher, by sect a Cynic and a sacrificer of Hercules, about to make a profit out of piety, as it were a mask composed for deceiving, having professed the Christian Religion, deceived by the lies of Maximus the Alexandrian, came to Constantinople, by the habit of his body, his staff, cloak, beard, and long hair displaying a philosopher, but in words professing himself a Christian, a son of Martyrs, and himself a Martyr; as one who lied that for the cause of the Catholic faith he had been beaten with stripes, and relegated to that vast solitude of the Oasis, when in truth for most foul crimes he had been sent into exile, as Gregory in these verses relates. on his own life,

This man therefore adorned with so many ornaments and lying titles, putting in at Constantinople, Gregory most humanely received; and venerated him as a Martyr in whom the stigmata of Christ shone forth; and, as was fitting, praised him before the congregation as a noble athlete augmented with crowns. received he praises him before the congregation: For he delivered in his praise that excellent oration, which afterward, as S. Jerome testifies, we have read inscribed by a false title in praise of Hero. This man then setting out elsewhere, as the same's peroration teaches, adorned with these offices Gregory asked that he should again betake himself to Constantinople. Maximus then came into Italy, and betook himself to Milan to the Emperor Gratian, to whom, as S. Jerome is the author, he delivered a notable book written against the Arians. Returned thence to Constantinople he is again most gratefully received by Gregory, most lovingly held, numbered among the intimates, and heaped with offices, yet not (as Gregory the Presbyter thinks) enrolled into the Clergy ^b, and initiated into the sacred orders. For he then first laid aside his long hair, when he was ordained Bishop by his own.

[99] he, Peter of Alexandria being seduced, Now the most wicked man busies himself to bring forth what he had long conceived in mind, that he might intrude himself into the Constantinopolitan See. He gradually turns away some from Gregory, whom he knew for the aforesaid cause somewhat alienated from him. He contrives zeals, composes frauds, prepares deceits; and soon finds, as they say, the lid for the dish. The deed he himself describes entire, copiously enough in the poem on his own life, which we here relate briefly. So crafty were the wily man's arts that he tore Peter the Alexandrian Bishop, a man indeed most praised, from Gregory, and led him a captive into his own opinion: so that he who before by letters given (as we saw) had consented to Gregory's election, soon, his opinion changed, ^c labored with all his powers to set Maximus over the Constantinopolitan See, through Bishops sent from Egypt, for that cause sending thither Egyptian Bishops, who should decree the Episcopate to him. Although they pretexted another cause of their coming, namely that the Alexandrian grain, wont every year to be paid

to the Emperor, they should render according to custom; yet in truth, that they might plead Maximus's cause, as the same Gregory teaches at length. These were Amon, Apamon, Arpocras, ^d Sirodon, and others, whom the same recounts. Putting in at Constantinople, because they were Catholics, avoiding the communion of the Arians, they came to Gregory; by whom benignly received, and dignified with Catholic communion after the manner of the elders. (whom Gregory himself had received and praised) Nay even the same Gregory praised them before the congregation, weaving the praises of Athanasius and Peter ^e the Alexandrian Bishops, and the eulogies of the whole Church of the Egyptians; and of their sincere faith, that they had avoided the Arians, he says these things: [You have not mingled yourselves with the promiscuous multitude, nor defined piety by the number of men, nor endured to be rather a miscellaneous crowd, than a people purged by the word of God. But after you have rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, as was fitting; you have also attributed to God the things that are God's; to the one namely tribute, to the other fear; and the people nourished with your food, you yourselves also for the cause of receiving food came to us: for we too distribute grain, and indeed far more excellent than your grain. Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mixed for you]. &c. These things Gregory, when he received to communion those whom, in place of brothers, he experienced most hostile enemies.

[100] All these, corrupted with gold, Maximus had joined to himself, whence Gregory treating of these elegantly jests in these verses.

[Someone said that wine surpasses all things, another women, a third truth, but I myself would have attributed the greatest power to gold, which easily changes all things. corrupted by stealthy gold, For a vast quantity of gold from a certain Presbyter, who had come from the island of Naxos to Constantinople, to buy slabs of Proconnesian marble for the use of his church, Maximus had procured for himself: as the same Gregory in these verses declares.

[Let us see whence the dog heaped that gold. There had come from Naxos hither a certain old man, bearing with him the gold of his church, with which to buy slabs of Proconnesian marble. This man, conquered by flattery, he joins to himself, and holding the wretch bound by great hopes (for the wicked are quickly coupled with the wicked) he obtains gold a minister to all things] &c.

although by the church occupied at night While he was beginning these things, Gregory fell into a disease. Maximus, having obtained this opportune occasion, by night together with his men occupies the church, that he might be ordained Bishop by them in it. The deed Gregory relates in these verses:

[It happened to be night, when, I being sick, as wolves, stealthily and suddenly entering the fold, very many being now hired for a fee ^f from the whole flock, who could easily set the Alexandrians on fire (they certainly joined themselves with the rest of the flock) they attempt to place the shorn ^g Dog on the throne] &c.

He calls Maximus a Dog, because he had been a Cynic philosopher, and with his long hair displayed the same habit hitherto.

[101] expelled by the people The so nefarious matter being discovered, not only all the best of the Orthodox, but also the Arian men detested the execrable deed; and in haste with a frequent concourse they hasten to the church: bent upon the work they catch the foreign Bishops: they cry out against them, and cast them down. Then they, yielding to the fury, withdraw themselves; and entering into a private house, there secretly finish the begun crime, and impose an end to the fable: and these things Gregory describes in these verses:

[Why should I say much? From us they snatch themselves at once, grieving that the matter had now not succeeded: and lest the wicked and shameless men should be in vain, they proceed to add an end to the begun fable. For in the sordid little house of a flute-player men grave and dear to God being gathered, soon with certain who had been ejected from the people, he takes care that elsewhere he be ordained Bishop of C.P., they invest the most wicked Dog as pastor, shorn not by compulsion, but of his own accord: for the dog was prepared for greater things. Then was made a cutting of the Cinni long nourished. &c.]

Thus ill ordained Maximus, but in schism, erecting a Chair against a Chair, exercised also Episcopal functions: for he ordained some, whom afterward the holy ecumenical synod, celebrated the following year, deposed.

[102] But after these things Gregory, free from sickness, when for restoring the strength of his body he had withdrawn into a certain villa placed by the sea ^h, having there philosophized a little, but overcome by the eloquence of Gregory seeks Constantinople again: where, beholding the burning zeal of the adversaries, he delivered against Maximus a brilliant invective. Jerome calls it a book, containing a vituperation of Maximus ⁱ. In that oration when he first inveighs against the schismatics, otherwise bearing the injury modestly, he then mourns the dismembered members of the Church; at last, with what mind he prepared himself to bear these troubles, he shows philosophizing thus. [So far, he says, is it from my esteeming anything of human and present things bitter and formidable, that, dismissing my very self, I mourn others, who exhibited trouble to me: members once of Christ, members dear to me, although now corrupted; members of this flock] & many other things. He mourns also the lapse of Peter. Nothing, he says, came nearer than that Peter [k should also abjure me; first to Thessalonica and perhaps he does not weep bitterly, that he may heal the sin]. These things he, who so broke the powers of the adversaries that Maximus was driven from the City. Who betook himself to Thessalonica to Theodosius, that by his authority he might be confirmed in the See: but ejected by him with vehement indignation and formidable threats, he returns to Alexandria, where he makes trouble for the said Peter the Bishop of that city, and attacks him with a band of exiles hired, and forces him into straits, then he flees to Alexandria. demanding that he either make him obtain the desired See, or yield his Throne. But forthwith the Praetor was at hand with a military band, who drives the rascal from Alexandria ^l. All these things Gregory sang in verse in his life. Theodoret adds that this Maximus was addicted to the heresy of Apollinaris.

[103] We do not pass over in these tumults stirred up against Gregory, S. Damasus approving his ejection. that S. Damasus the Roman Bishop favored Gregory by letters against Maximus, and this from the letters of the same Damasus Nicholas the First Roman Pontiff testifies, while writing to the Emperor Michael, he says these things: [Was not Maximus, after it was labored by Pope Damasus, as his Epistles to divers persons indicate, driven from Constantinople?] &c. ^m We are led by conjecture, that S. Jerome, who in these times dwelt at Constantinople with Gregory, labored with Damasus for Gregory, and stirred up against Maximus ⁿ him by whom he was wonderfully loved. book 1 c. 8. In these times dies Peter ^o the Alexandrian, little fair toward Gregory, into whose place is substituted Timothy; who the following year was present at the ecumenical Council of Constantinople. To him, and not to Peter, Theodoret attributes the ordination of Maximus, perversely made. book 5 c. 8 But the complaints of Gregory are had as said against Peter only.

NOTES.

Who of these was chief in the crime the Saint thus declared:

The first of these was Belial, once an Angel, but the second a Presbyter of our flock, himself more barbarous in mind than in body: who, despised by me, never injured before, holding the first place of honor and the throne, brought forth a wicked and perfidious hatred against me. t. 2 p. 13.

CHAPTER XIII.

Compelled to remain at Constantinople, he is led by the Catholic Emperor Theodosius into possession of the chief shrine: he is sought by the people for Bishop.

[104] But although Maximus had been ejected, nonetheless those who had followed his zeal raged the more bitterly against Gregory; ^a who himself then, lest for his cause the Catholics should be divided among themselves by a foul schism, Of leaving the See of C.P. desiring to abdicate, and to withdraw into solitude, delivered an oration ^b to the people about that matter, by which he moved mourning in all, stirred up a clamor: they ask, and bring force, that he remain. For these things Gregory in the Poem on his own life thus describes.

[All my friends were with us, at the same time a clandestine guard girded me, and was with me both going out and returning home. Meanwhile when our enemies discerned this fight; they esteemed that by our dissension the Word of God would perish. Seeing this, when I could not endure it (I am not unwilling to deny it) I commit something not worthy of a wise man, but of a simple one. I began, as they say, to push the ship backward: but unskillfully: for no one had perceived it, before the people he suffered a word to escape him, had not, from the breast of the departing-minded father, most grievous grief hammered out this voice. Preserve the whole Trinity, which to you my sons I, a generous father, have handed over as you desired. At the same time be mindful of the labors which I have borne. These words after the people heard, someone, impotent of mind, cries out: all at once they rise (as the force of smoke stirs up a swarm of bees) and all by crying out go mad; at their clamors men, and women, youths, virgins, boys, old men, the ignoble, and the noble, and the presidents, and certain emeritus soldiers. Each one boiled with anger and desire, angry at the enemy, desiring the pastor] &c.

[105] When Gregory was not bent even by clamors; they enter upon another plan with him. By urgent prayers, and mourning and lamentations they act, they protest that all things will perish if he withdraw, and all the labors exhausted be rendered void. They thrust Anastasia before his eyes, the precious treasure of the faith. and adjurations long unmoved, At all these things he, mute, stood in the midst of them, not knowing how he should repress these voices, nor yet was he bent, that he should promise what they asked. But when the day, consumed in these complaints, was now failing, how at length he was bent to remain, in these verses likewise he teaches.

[Now the heat pressed, and bodies sweated, women uttered voices for cause of fear, and those the greatest if any were mothers; boys wailed: the day was now failing. On his own life. Each one swore they would not yield, even if they must die in the holy shrine. Alas! what a word went out from the mouth of someone: Why were not my ears then stopped? Thou wilt cast out the Trinity itself with thee, he says. At length fearing lest some evil should arise hence, at length he assigns himself to remain. not by an oath (unsworn am I myself, that in God I may glory a little something, since I was washed by the grace of the Spirit) I promise (but with words to which my morals would make faith) until certain Bishops should come, what was reported, that I wished to remain.]

[106] These things Gregory, who meanwhile did not cease to teach the people by his accustomed orations. But when this was the state of affairs, the Emperor Theodosius came from Thessalonica to Constantinople, in the same year ^d in which he himself together with Gratian was enrolled Consul: and first of all he summons to himself Demophilus the Bishop of the Arians, and admonishes him with many words, that, his heresy being abdicated together with his men, he should profess the Catholic faith, Theodosius having entered the city, Demophilus the Arian Bishop being driven out otherwise all were to be driven from the churches which they had occupied: but he most obstinately resists, and withdrew himself from the city. So of him Socrates and Sozomen. But after these things he meets our Gregory, and gives him that chief temple in the city, which the Arians had now for forty years occupied. But this meeting of the Emperor Theodosius with Gregory the same himself in these verses most modestly describes.

[As therefore he came joyful to the most joyful; with what honor he first received me at that meeting, what was benignly said on both sides, what, I pray, shall I say? it would be base namely, that I, such a one, should be of an elated mind for such things, I ought to wonder at nothing except God. On his own life. At length, This temple, he says, through us God gives to thee, and to thy greatest labors. An incredible word, until the thing was effected! he gives Gregory and the orthodox the greater church, For thus both the City, and the boiling impetus of men were at that time really so disposed that they did not seem about to yield (if it should most unpleasantly happen) of their right: but if force were applied, that they would vomit a short anger against us, whom it would be easy to conquer. These things he: mixed in me with joy, with fear my heart palpitated within, &c.]

[107] But how the same Emperor Theodosius led Gregory into the temple, and leads him thither with an army, the same himself declares in these verses: more pleasantly will the reader receive these from himself, than from anyone else who treats them.

[Now the time was at hand; and great armies by force held the shrine, with swords drawn, and the whole people, swelling, was adverse, as the sand of the sea; or waves, or snows, amid prayers mixing anger, angry at me. But the full ways, the courses, the streets, all places supplicate the Emperor by prayer, the second floors, the third, with men, women, boys, old men beholding; amid groans, roarings, and tears. Namely it was the image of a city taken by force. But I, that very strenuous leader of the flock, and indeed in this loose and at the same time feeble and little-breathing little body, went amid the Emperor and the army, looking upward and trusting in good hope, until I come into the temple, in what way I know not].

[108] the sky, which before had been cloudy, But what prodigious thing then happened, which first brought the Arians some confidence, but afterward yielded to the joy of the Catholics, the same writes in verses.

[What then is the miracle? Do thou freely proclaim it, lest to posterity so great a grace be unknown. It was dawn, and a kind of night had invaded the City, a cloud covering the sun's circle: which thing did not befit that time. Public solemnities above all demand serene days. And this most of all to the enemies as if by a miracle made serene at his entrance: was pleasant, as though God were adverse to the business: a silent grief gnawed us. But after I, and the Majesty of the purple, together went within the sacred lattices, and a laudation of God was raised mingled by all, a clamor followed, an extension of hands: then the sun's radiance shone again so much, the cloud being now dissipated by the command of God, that the whole sacred shrine straightway gleamed, which before had seemed to be sadder: and all put on the image of the old scene, which once the splendor of God Himself covered, faces were made serene, and minds at the same time.

[109] And when by this spectacle confidence was now fortified, the people demanded by the clamor of all; who soon by common voice demanded for Bishop, as if this one thing were at present that the prince should obtain and this greatest office the city from the princely Majesty, that there should be given to us the throne of the chief city: this the chief men ask, this the subjects, all plainly desiring the same, this the women ask with great clamors, almost more than would befit their sex. This was a thunder beating a vast sound. At length, a certain Colleague of mine being bidden to rise (for I had not so much of voice, being at the same time struck with fear and plainly languid) I address them by an alien tongue as interpreter: he admonishes that now rather thanks must be given to God. Restrain the clamor, restrain it now I beseech: for this time demands that we give thanks: but those greater things must hereafter be executed. These said the people received with a great murmur: (for moderation is wont to please all) and the Emperor departed approving these very things. This was the issue of that assembly; which in this part only terrified us, that one sword drawn, was again sheathed and the audacity of the people broken.] f

[110] These things Gregory. But what he has of the drawn sword here somewhat obscurely ^g: there was here a certain assassin who had taken counsel of slaying Gregory; he attempted the deed; but impeded by a certain divine power, he could not accomplish what he had meditated. also an assassin who had come prepared for his slaying, But afterward, led by penitence, the same of his own accord a suppliant asked pardon from Gregory: but how the matter stood, the same in this manner describes.

[At one time I was at home, disease pressing me; (for it came concurring with my labors) these our delights, as it seems to the envious. Things being so disposed, certain of the people enter my house; and with these a certain youth, with long hair, sad in habit, pale. When I myself turned a little my feet from the couch, as the terrified are wont; they, thanks being given to God and the Prince as the mind bore them, the greatest, that they beheld this day by the gift of both, and having spoken something in my praise, from the house together

depart. But he, fixed to my feet, by being silent supplicated, struck with fear. And when I myself inquired who, or whence, or what he sought; he uttered only greater wailings, groaned, wept, and clasped his hands, and shook tears from me. from him he of his own accord asks pardon and easily obtains it. When he had been snatched thence by force (for he would not have heard words) someone of those present; Thy murderer, though God protected thee, presents himself of his own accord, driven hither by the conscience of his crime, and confessing himself guilty: behold he offers tears for the price of blood. These things he: I myself broken by such words emit a voice, by which I free him from the fault: May God preserve thee: that I, preserved, should commodiously act with thee, to esteem it great does not befit. My crime made thee this: do thou see that thou bear thyself henceforth worthily of thee and of God and of me]

[111] These things divulged through the city rendered the mind of many well-affected toward Gregory. on his own life. But again indeed by the detraction of the envious there was again kindled against him no slight hatred, of those reproving his slowness, that the sacred vessels, which were many and of vast price, long ago deposited with the Quaestors, he himself did not demand back ^h. But indeed he himself had found no reckoning of these in the Ecclesiastical monuments, nor with the aforesaid magistrates; and it was a work of the highest labor, and not of present leisure, which could easily be expedited; especially since for leading back the wanderers, for uniting the divided, and in those things which regard the rights of the temple, Gregory was wholly occupied.

NOTES.

This was done chiefly through the absence of Gregory, who had withdrawn into the country, the sickness of S. Gregory. and is commonly thought to have withdrawn for the cause of health, after some disease. Nay Hermant judges this is that against which he wrote Carm. 60, among other things thus complaining.

Was it not enough that sick old age presses me, which is said to be heavier than the Sicilian mountains; unless disease also tears me, and, returning every year, drives my weak body into miserable wasting?

Certainly in this disease he confesses that nothing is more grievous to him than the scandal of the little ones from the inconveniences of the pious, as though there were no reward of them with God, but all things were done by chance. But I judge it is wholly gratuitous that that disease is referred to these times, in which far graver damages, emerging thence to the Constantinopolitan church, would have deserved to be more distinctly touched and felt. t. 1 p. 474 Be that as it may, returning from the country he delivered Oration 28, of which above: in which when he had set forth his affection toward the flock loving him, reciprocally fervent, of the factious ones he thus speaks. Now also the dogs strike fear into me (he understands Maximus, set out for Thessalonica to claim the See for himself) bursting by force into the company of pastors, who invites the faction of Maximus to penitence, and that (which is very absurd) when to the administration of the pastoral office they have contributed nothing else at all, than that they shaved the hair which they had basely studied to adorn and nourish: who neither remained in the order of dogs, nor were made pastors, except to mangle and disperse, and to break the labors of others… And accordingly let them not now even more insolently exalt themselves, who stirred up dogs against the flock; nor can they bring forth even one little sheep which they have led in or preserved … and, imposing an end to their wickedness, let them adore and proclaim and weep before the Lord who made them, and let those whose salvation is not yet despaired of be joined to the flock. 1 p. 485 That he may persuade this he thus speaks near the end: O members, once of Christ; members dear to me, although now corrupted; members of this flock, which, almost even before you were gathered, you betrayed! How were you torn apart and tore yourselves like oxen loosed from tender bonds? how did you erect an altar against an altar? how were you suddenly made into desolation and waste? how were you both by this cutting affected with death and burned grief into us? how by the simplicity of pastors (I judge the Egyptian Bishops are noted) did you abuse to the dissolution of the flock? for I will not reprehend them for inexperience, but will accuse your wickedness… O holy Trinity… would that thou restore these to us, hitherto separated from us, that through the very disjunction they may be instructed unto concord and the zeal of peace.

CHAPTER XIV.

Gregory, placed unwilling on the throne, composes his Testament.

[112] When these things are done at Constantinople, those Bishops, whom rumor reported about to come to Constantinople, are present. There were Eastern Bishops, not few in number: of all whom the most celebrated was present, Meletius ^a the Bishop of Antioch, illustrious for Confession, who against the Arians, [by SS. Meletius, the Nyssene and others he suffers himself to be placed on the Throne,] in the time of the Emperor Constantius and thereafter of Valens, had strenuously contended for the Catholic faith, and for that cause had again been sent into exile, and had borne immense labors for the same cause. This Meletius, I say, came together with the rest of the Bishops to Constantinople, that he might place Gregory of Nazianzus on the Throne, and, to use the words of Gregory of Nyssa, join the spouse to the spouse. Nyssen. in the funeral of Meletius. Then also came Gregory of Nyssa himself, who (as we said) read the books which against Eunomius ^b he had elaborated, to Gregory of Nazianzus and Jerome, then dwelling with him at Constantinople. What at length? All these place Gregory, though unwilling, on the Throne, confirm his See, who, led by one hope only, namely that by that means he might be the best mediator for composing the affairs of the Churches, acquiesced to them, and suffered himself to be placed on the See. For all these things the same himself charmingly describes in this manner.

[113] For all the Eastern (except Egypt [c) Prelates, as far as that other Rome, from the inmost corners of land and sea, (by what commands of God impelled I know not)

come together, about to establish for me the sacred See, hoping that thereby he would be fitter for composing the dissensions Among whom was one Prince, most pious, simple, without evil fraud, full of the Godhead, beholding placidly, confident of mind, and at the same time prudent, even cultivating those who beheld in the spirit. On his own life, Who, I pray, would not know whom our voice notes, that Prelate of the Antiochene Church? Who was in fact what he was called by name; he had morals, and a honeyed name: who tolerated many things for the holy spirit, driven sometimes by an external power: who polished his grace by illustrious contests. These place me on the See crying out and groaning: but for one cause however the less resisting; Thou, O Word, art witness. What that? It is not lawful to hide the truth. I thought, by a stolid persuasion of the breast, if I could obtain the Empire of this throne, like a leader of Dances, who places the two Choirs themselves aptly in the midst on both sides, that one indeed here, the other there, as is wont to be done; that thus I should reconcile the adversaries].

These and other things Gregory, declaring the cause why at length, for the sake of composing the Ecclesiastical peace, he had acquiesced to them.

[114] Such a discord had arisen on the occasion of the schism of the Antiochene Church, the things pullulating from the Antiochene schism, in which (to pass over the heretical Prelates) two Bishops presided over the Catholics, of whom the one was Meletius, whom we have mentioned; but the other Paulinus: but Vitalis ruled the Apollinarists. For their cause S. Jerome, at one time doubtful with whom he ought to communicate, abstained from all, until he should consult Damasus the Roman Pontiff, to whom when he wrote, he had these things among others. [I know not Vitalis, Meletius I reject, I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoever does not gather with thee, scatters, that is: Who is not of Christ, is of Antichrist.] These things Jerome: who, acting with the same by repeated letters, testifies that all these professed to adhere to Damasus, when he says: [I meanwhile cry out, If anyone is joined to the Chair of Peter, he is mine. Ep. 58. Meletius, Vitalis, and Paulinus say they cling to thee.] Thus far of these he. Moreover, as he came, others following the zeal of others, on that occasion almost the whole Christian Catholic world was divided by schism. The Egyptians and Macedonians, and others, embracing the communion of Paulinus, rejected Meletius; but the rest of the Eastern men, communicating with Meletius, turned away from Paulinus. For the sake therefore of conciliating this schism Gregory, as he says, for this one cause suffered himself at length to be placed on the throne.

[115] Raised to the Throne, Gregory soon felt the stings of the adversaries striking: otherwise from desiring that throne, and those who were hostile to him, whether of the heretics or of the Catholics, whom the schism of Maximus had torn from him, whose minds the so great glory of Gregory had suffused and exacerbated with envy, do not cease to speak against him, to clamor, to declaim, and to spread among the crowd that he, desirous of glory, had coveted that Chair, and for the cause of attaining it had betaken himself to Constantinople, and by a long ambition had at length attained it. Then he himself, judging that he must treat of that matter before the congregation, delivered that excellent oration, of which the title is: Of himself and against those who said that he affected the Constantinopolitan Chair: ^d where, the zeal of the people toward himself being praised, wishing to show how far it was from him to have studied by flattery to merit their favor: [This, he says, has been made perspicuous from that new deed which concerning me you lately performed; against whom he had been by the people violently and beyond the laws imposed, when you, who are the people, burning with zeal and anger, placed me crying out and groaning on this See, which whether I ought to call tyrannical or Archiepiscopal, I hold uncertain: but you placed me nonetheless, for the force of your love toward me violating right and divine law. At which time indeed with some of those who more vehemently were bent on that matter, we were so grievously angry that, love being changed into hatred, they immediately withdrew their foot from us]. And after many things, he relates that he was called by them and came forced by force.

[116] most alien; as before With what mind also he was when he came, he has left testified in these words: [If, he says, thinking something human and abject and affecting this Chair, I had either come hither first with this gray old age and these limbs, wrinkled and contracted by the length of life and disease; or now bore these ignominies; assuredly heaven and earth (which it was the custom to attest as witnesses) I should blush at; I should blush also at this Chair, and this sacred assembly, and this holy and truly holy compacted people, against which so many troops of wicked men have drawn up their line of battle, that before it is joined it may be dissolved, and before it comes to light it may be extinguished, now beginning to be formed according to Christ. To these I should be ashamed of my labors and afflictions, and of this harsh garment, and of the withdrawal into solitude which we always held familiar; likewise of an easy and unencumbered life and a frugal and simple table, not much inferior to the life of birds. Let them also return into favor with the truth, who say that I burned with desire of another's wife, when not even my own ^f did I wish to have] &c. & in another oration, and afterward protested. which he delivered in Synod before a hundred and fifty Bishops; [If, he says, I burned with love of Principate or lofty Thrones, or longed to trample the courts of sinners, may never anything else of splendor and amplitude befall me; or if anything has befallen, may I immediately cast it away and lose it] ^g.

[117] By force not about to revisit Nazianzus These things Gregory, who, bound indissolubly, as he thought, to the Constantinopolitan Church, believing no hope was left him of returning to Nazianzus, and there of disposing his affairs for the last time, before some friendlier Bishops composed his Testament; which deservedly John, Lector and Notary of the most holy Nazianzene Church, called divine, who copied it out and edited it ^h [from the archetype copy preserved in the same Church, in which also are extant the subscriptions of his own hand, both his own and of the witnesses who subscribed]. It lay hidden hitherto among the Formulae of Brisson, a man assuredly very skilled, ⁱ edited in Greek: where, when Marcus Antonius Massa of Salerno, a jurisconsult, with whom for his doctrine and various erudition joined with piety I have domestic intercourse, had warned me that it was had there, having explored the corners of almost all books, but very faulty and mutilated; and that it was of my office, if perhaps it should be by no means approved, to confute it with cogent reasons; I conferred the matter with Jacobus Sirmondus ^k, most studious of me, Professor of the Society of Jesus, most cultivated in every kind of letters: who, with untiring zeal exploring all the recesses of the Vatican library, found at length in two ancient codices such a testament: which he collated, emended, and first of all delivered to Latinity, as here thou hast it described.

[118] [Flavius Eucherius and Flavius Euagrius, Most Illustrious Men, being Consuls, the day before the kalends ^l of June, I Gregory Bishop of the Catholic Church of Constantinople, he composes his testament in the year 380, 31 May. living and prudent, and of sound judgment and with the senses of my mind entire, composed this testament: which indeed I order and will to be ratified and firm in any court and in any manner whatsoever. For I have already declared my mind ^m and consecrated all my substance to the Catholic Church of Nazianzus, for the ministry of the poor who are under the same Church. For which cause also I instituted three Curators according to this my will, for nourishing the poor; Marcellus, Deacon and monk; according to the disposition before made at Nazianzus, Gregory, likewise a Deacon, who was of my household; and Eustathius a monk, who himself also was of my house. But now retaining the same mind toward the holy Church of Nazianzus, I persist in the same purpose. When therefore it shall have happened that I depart from life, let my heir be the aforesaid Gregory, Deacon and Monk, formerly my domestic, whom I long ago manumitted; of all my substance, movable and immovable, wherever it is situated for me. Let all the rest be disinherited by me. So indeed that he himself restore all my substance, movable and immovable, to the holy Catholic Church of Nazianzus, withdrawing nothing at all, except those things which by this testament I shall have left to certain persons privately, for the sake of legacy or trust: but let him diligently preserve all things as I have foresaid for the Church, in favor of the poor. having the fear of God before his eyes, and knowing that it has already been decreed by me, that all my things should fall to the ministry of the poor of that Church; and that for that matter he was instituted heir, that through him all the things of the Church may be preserved without fraud.

[119] bequeathing to the curators of his testament Whatever servants either by my will or by the command of my most blessed parents I manumitted, all these now also I wish to remain free, and their peculia to remain firm to them without any impediment. I wish besides, that my heir Gregory the Deacon, together with Eustathius the monk, both formerly of my house, possess the Arianzene estate, which from the goods of Rheginus came to us: the Arianzene estate. but the herd mares and sheep, as many as I have already ordered to be given them present, and of which I have delivered to them the property and dominion, these I wish to remain quiet to them by right of dominion. By way of precept likewise I wish Gregory, my Deacon and heir, who faithfully ministered to me, to have by private right of Dominion fifty gold coins in number. To Rusiana, a venerable Virgin ⁿ, my kinswoman, I ordered certain things to be given each year, whence she may live liberally: all which things to her, as I have prescribed, a house to the virgin Rusiana so long as she lives, I wish and order to be furnished yearly without delay. But concerning her habitation, I then indeed established nothing for this reason, that I knew not where she would prefer to dwell: but now also this I wish, that in whatever place she shall have chosen, there be prepared for her a house befitting a freeborn woman, for the honest habitation of a Virgin: which house indeed she shall have without interpellation in usufruct so long as she shall live, but afterward she shall restore it to the Church. I wish moreover that there be added to her two girls, whom she shall have chosen: on this condition namely that the girls dwell with her so long as she shall live: and if indeed it shall have so seemed to her, let it be lawful for her to present them with liberty; but if not, let them also pertain to the Church.

[120] to his niece Alypiana the spoils of the deceased Caesarius Theophilus the boy who remains with me, I have already manumitted: but I wish there to be given to him now also, by name of legacy, five coins. But Eupraxius his brother, I wish to be free, and to him by name of legacy let there be given five coins. I wish besides Theodosius, my notary, to be free, and to him by name of legacy let there be given five gold coins: Alypiana, my sweetest daughter (for of the rest, Eugenia and Nonna, small reckoning is to be had, as of those whose life is not void of reprehension) I wish to give me pardon that I can leave nothing to her: since indeed I have already destined all things to the poor; or rather I have obeyed my most blessed parents, who had so promised: whose will to render void I judge neither holy nor safe. Yet whatever from the blessed

things of my brother Caesarius, in silken or linen or woolen garment or ^o horse-trappings remain, these I wish to pertain to her children: and in no matter let her or her sisters be troublesome either to my heir or to the Church. he declares the injustice of his kinsman, Let Meletius, my son-in-law, know that he possesses the Apenzinsene estate, which is of the goods of Euphemius, in bad faith: about which indeed I have already before written often to Euphemius, condemning him of slothfulness unless he should recover his own. And now I attest all the Magistrates and those who are under the Magistrate, that injury is done to Euphemius: for the estate ought to be restored to Euphemius.

[121] and the cassation of a certain purchase. The purchase of the estate of the Canotali I wish to be reintegrated to the most reverend son Bishop Amphilochius. For it is established from our charters, and all know this, that both the contract was dissolved, and I received the price, and long ago rendered back the property and dominion of the possession. To Evagrius the Deacon, who, partaker with me of many labors and cares, in many things commended his benevolence to me, I have thanks before God and before men. And greater things indeed God will repay him: he gives a few things to his domestics but lest we omit even small tokens of love, I wish there to be given him [p] one camasus, one tunic, two cloaks, thirty gold coins. Similarly to our sweetest fellow-Deacon Theodulus I wish there to be given one camasus, two tunics of those which are in the fatherland, twenty gold coins from the fatherland's accounts likewise. To Elaphius the notary, who both is of good morals, and at the time he was in attendance refreshed us well, I wish there to be given one camasus, two tunics, three cloaks, a sigillion [q], in the fatherland twenty gold coins.

[122] and concluding the testament This my testament I wish to be ratified and firm in every judgment and in whatever manner. But if as a testament it shall not have force [r]; I wish it to be valid as a will or codicil [s]. But whoever shall attempt to overturn it, shall render account in the day of judgment and shall sustain a penalty. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I Gregory, Bishop of the Catholic Church of Constantinople, he himself signs below reread the testament; and approving all things subscribed with my hand, and I wish and order it to obtain force.

I Amphilochius [t], Bishop of the Catholic Church of Iconium, was present at the testament of the Most Reverend Bishop Gregory: and at his request subscribed with my hand.

I Optimus [v], Bishop of the Catholic Church of Antioch, was present, when the Most Reverend Bishop Gregory disposed his testament, as is written above, and after him 7 witnesses. and at his request subscribed with my hand.

I Theodosius, Bishop of the Catholic Church of Ida [x], present at the testament of the Most Reverend Bishop Gregory, and asked by him, subscribed with my hand.

I Theodulus, Bishop of the holy Catholic Church of Apamea [y, present &c.

I Hilarius, Bishop of the Catholic Church of Isauria, present &c.

I Themistius, Bishop of the holy Catholic Church of Hadrianopolis [z], present &c.

I Cledonius, Presbyter of the Catholic Church of Iconium, present &c.

I John, Lector and Notary of the most holy Church of Nazianzus, copied out and edited a copy of the divine testament, which is laid up in my most holy Church, of the holy and illustrious and Theologian Gregory.]

NOTES.

In the Poem on his own life the Saint does not mention this violence; and it is the harder to determine at what time precisely it was done to him. the violent placing on the throne by the people. Hermant judges that it was a few days after the restitution of the churches: which the Arians not bearing, could not be so coerced by reverence of the Emperor present in the city, but that they said and did many things bitterly and contumeliously against Gregory. But the citizens moved by these, not awaiting the arrival of the Bishops who were being convoked, anticipated to install him: which, because it was beside the Canons, the Saint seems in the said Poem to have passed over as of no moment. Let this thing therefore have been done in the month of February or March; but the oration delivered in the month of April, when the nearness of the Bishops coming to the city could more whet the tongues of the envious, fearing lest they should ratify that popular deed for him, and therefore they endeavored to defame Gregory of ambition. Certainly not before May does it seem Meletius could have been present from Syria, much less the others summoned even from more remote parts: approved by the Bishops in May. for the Indiction of the Council ought to have preceded, which can scarcely be thought to have been made before the end of January: because it is credible that the edict was first published, dictated on the 10th day of January, about the temples throughout the whole Empire being rendered into the power of the Orthodox. But if to the month of May thou add June and the beginning of July, of which on the 9th day is read the Synodical letter given to the Emperor, concluding the acts of the Council itself (which are not extant), thou wilt find a just space for transacting all things. But, thou wilt say, S. Meletius, who a little after Gregory was enthroned died during the Council, for S. Meletius did not die in February. is believed to have died on the XII day of February on which he is venerated. I answer, it is by no means wonderful, if for S. Meletius dying abroad a yearly feast was instituted at Antioch, not on the day on which, dying at Constantinople, the holy man,

Hence was rapt to the assembly of Angels: or on which, by the conducting of the whole city, then most of all grieving, as was fitting, he was carried down to his own Church, a vast treasure to those understanding:

nay not even on that on which he was received at Antioch (for as he was carried out from Constantinople immediately after death, as is gathered from the cited verses of the Nazianzene and the things afterward narrated, so it is credible that he was carried as hastily as possible along the journey, but then his exequies were celebrated by the Synod of Antioch, which, whether thou take it by land or by sea, was of one or another week only) but on the other on which the Bishops came together to Antioch for the Ordination of Flavian: who probably celebrated the exequies of the holy man, deferred until then, as most solemn, and established that he should here be commemorated with anniversary remembrance. The collector of the manuscript Florary reports the name of S. Meletius on 10 June; would that it were known on what authority? for this, if it were ancient, I should scarcely doubt to affirm that on that day he either died at Constantinople or at least was carried back to Antioch: then certainly it could, nor could it easily have happened much earlier or later. Nor does it obstruct that in the subscriptions after the Canons, offered to the Emperor by a letter given on 9 July as we said, Meletius of Antioch is found subscribed first of the Province of Coelesyria: for those subscriptions are not genuine nor in due form, but seem to be a bare nomenclature gathered from the Acts, at the beginning of which Meletius was present: or certainly some copyist added Meletius's name from his own judgment, thinking by an error it had been omitted.

he should subjoin it to the same, and accurately defend it: I, following this his judgment, believed I should do plainly according to his mind, if I inserted it in its proper place, together with the commentation looking to the same, which will constitute for us Chapter 15.

p. "Camasus" in Isidore in the Glosses is rendered "Amphimallus," and in the Greek for barbarians in Meursius is explained a Chlamys for winter or rain, "a winter mantle."

q. "Sigilion," better perhaps would be written "Singilion": in Latin they said "Singiliones," as it were "Singuliones," because they were garments made of a single, or simple, not of a doubled cloth, in Greek they would be called "simple ones."

r. Understand from the defect of some solemnity required by the law.

s. For writing codicils no solemnities are required: and yet these the law ordered to be valid, that the last will of men might be provided for in whatever case.

t. By right of friendship especially, and because he had a bishopric in Lycaonia neighboring Cappadocia, the witnesses all partly from Lycaonia partly from Pisidia. this one and three other chosen witnesses I judge: but seven witnesses are employed, for so many the law required, whence in the testament of Bertichramnus Bishop of Le Mans in Brisson page 683. As the law teaches, I believed it should be fortified with the subscriptions and seals of seven honest men.

v. In the subscriptions of the Council, "Optimius": but there is understood, as appears from the same subscriptions, Antioch the Metropolis of Pisidia, and therefore its Bishop is placed first among the Bishops of that Province.

x. In the subscriptions "of Hyda," in the Province of Lycaonia. So also in the Chalcedonian Synod Rufus is subscribed "of Hyda": and of the same province is the fifth witness Hilarius of Isauria or Isaurensis, in the subscriptions "Ilvarius" or "Illyrius."

y. I understand Apamea of Pisidia rather than of Bithynia, and in Themistius who follows similarly Hadrianopolis of Pisidia rather than of Thrace; that from only two provinces the witnesses employed may be understood, according as they perhaps had a common lodging and one near to the Constantinopolitan Bishopric.

z. This clause does not pertain to the testament, as neither does the title: whence neither was it found in Brisson's codex. But it is not easy to divine, how long after the writing of the testament this copy of it was transcribed.

CHAPTER XV.

The truth of this testament defended and illustrated.

[123] But now we know it to be our part, that we inquire by examination as exactly as possible whether these things in all points are found consonant with the truth, That this testament is genuine and that we elucidate the monument overlaid as it were with rust. That it is indeed the genuine testament of Gregory the Theologian there are many things which persuade. But since at its very first inspection the mind may far recoil from being willing to hear, much less to assert, that Gregory himself had daughters and a son-in-law, of this very thing first by right it will have to be treated. For there is nothing that should be brought even into slight peril, of the cultivation of virginity of Gregory, which he himself often professes in his writings, which it is fitting that, above all things most openly demonstrated and proved, we leave intact in all points. Nothing indeed can seem more certain and explored of all the deeds of Gregory, the most attested virginity of the Saint does not forbid it, than that he himself cultivated perpetual virginity, the same testifying as often as possible, when, worn out in old age by afflictions, consoling himself with the memory of it as of an illustrious thing, he often sang it in swan-like measures, as that especially rendered in prose: In body I am a virgin: but whether also in mind I hold not certain. He professes this also in the Poem where he complains of his calamities: and likewise in the Poem on Virginity, and in the Precepts to Virgins. Again in the Poem on his own life, and in that which is inscribed on his own affairs, where he has these verses:

& below,

Nor did my limbs grow moist with feminine liquor.

Besides when again he deplores the calamities of his soul, he recounts a vision divinely shown to him, by which he was moved from boyhood to preserve himself perpetually a virgin. The same also he affirms, when he inveighs against hypocrite monks, and also in the Epitaph on himself. So that plainly nothing in Gregory can be more firmly and safely affirmed without any doubt at all than the cultivation of perpetual virginity.

[124] Gregory's virginity therefore being preserved and in all points approved, because he often names sons and daughters, spiritual namely, now let us wholly remove that cloud which seems to be contracted about the daughters and son-in-law from the testament, from the writings of Gregory himself. As regards therefore the daughters named in the testament, this we thrust forward: If we should wish to assert that all whom Gregory himself in his writings names daughters or sons were begotten from a wife; it will assuredly be that we shall be compelled to affirm that more than five hundred, so to speak, children were begotten by Gregory. But that all these are to be referred to spiritual generation, that the example be not sought far, we have in the same Testament, Amphilochius the Bishop named his son by Gregory himself, as being younger in age. For in the Epistle to Caesarius written about him, [I myself, he says, with my own hand offer our dearest son, Amphilochius: a man so noble for the name of probity (even beyond what his age bears) that I myself, who am both old and a Priest and your friend, should think it dealt with me excellently, if I obtained that estimation of men]. These things he himself. So therefore there is nothing that should compel us to assert that those whom he names daughters were begotten by Gregory from a wife: but it must rather be said that they were his nieces. and so he calls Alypiana his niece a daughter For her whom especially he praises, the rest being despised, Alypiana, that both she herself and the other two sisters were joined to Gregory in that degree, from the Epistles of Gregory himself we can more certainly than certainly understand.

[125] That Alypiana is indeed found to have been to Gregory himself a niece by his sister Gorgonia, and married to a notable man Nicobulus, from whom sprang Nicobulus the younger, in whose name to his father there is extant a poem of Gregory, and also another rendered in the father's name to the son himself, and several other Epistles, as among the rest that which is signed in the newest Billian edition num. 155, of which this is the inscription rendered from the Greek copy, in which the argument of the Epistle itself is set in these words: To the same Nicobulus, [the wife of Nicobulus the elder reproaching Alypiana his wife, the daughter of Gorgonia Gregory's sister, with her bodily stature]. These things in the inscription of the Epistle. But what these things mean we may receive from the Epistle itself, which since it is very brief and very witty, we will here describe entire: for thus it stands: [Alypiana with us thou assailest with cavils, as small and unworthy of thy tallness, O great and vast and gigantic both in form and in strength. Now at length I understand, that the mind is subject to measure and virtue is weighed, and that rocks are more excellent than pearls, and crows more august than nightingales. But do thou enjoy thy magnitude and cubits, nor show thyself in any way inferior to those Aloidae ^b: for thou drivest a horse, and brandishest a spear, about which a jocose Epistle of the Saint to him and wild beasts are a care to thee: but she herself does no work, nor is it of great strength to bear the shuttle, to hold the distaff, and to sit at the loom:

--- for that is the glory of women.

But if thou shouldst add this also, that for the cause of prayer she is bowed to the ground, and through vast agitations of mind has perpetual intercourse with God; what wilt thou here boast of thy sublimity and bodily measure? See the timely silence, hear her speaking, mark how unadorned she is, how, as a woman, strong and strenuous, what utilities she brings to domestic matters, how loving of her husband she is. But then thou wilt say that of the Laconian: Certainly the mind by no means falls under measure: and the external man ought to have his eyes cast upon the internal. If thou consider these things in this manner, when I praise Alypiana with great praises, thou wilt cease to jest, and to deride her as small, and wilt judge thy marriage auspicious and happy]. Thus far Gregory to the husband of Alypiana, Nicobulus.

[126] Consonant with these are plainly the things which of the same Alypiana the same Gregory has in the testament, the reprehension of the sisters and her when he proclaims the woman thrifty and for that reason most dear to him, the two sisters of her being despised, Eugenia and Nonna, the latter bearing the name of the grandmother, yet endowed with far disparate morals. Some plain wickedness committed by them and publicly known and bruited about must have been, that Gregory himself in public records left them so branded with unseemly marks. Ep. 43. So also S. Jerome rendered known to posterity that his virgin sister had lapsed, but had been recalled to penitence, in the Epistle written to Chromatius and his colleagues. He who considers these things,

will not so much wonder about Gregory of Nazianzus, and much less if he should read those things which of the lapse of Gordiana the virgin, his own aunt, S. Gregory the Pope recounted to the people before the congregation. hom. 38 on the Gospel. So that thou mayest plainly see that holy men despised utterly even their kinsmen, whom they had known to be by no means dear to God; but were wont to praise only those acceptable to God, according to that said of the just man by David: The malignant is brought to nothing in his sight; but he glorifies those that fear the Lord. Psal. 14, 4 But that by the prescript of the parents' will all the goods were ordered to be distributed, not on the kindred, but on the poor, since there was nothing that Gregory could bequeath to his dear niece Alypiana: yet he commanded the sweet spoils of his brother Caesarius to be given to her children, to one of whom Meletius was joined, longer retained with himself, as dear pledges of a most beloved brother, who had long ago departed from this life.

[127] Now therefore, the scruple of all doubt being wholly removed concerning Gregory's daughters from wedlock, concerning Meletius who in the testament is named son-in-law, the knot must be loosed by which Gregory might seem bound to wedlock. That word indeed, which from the Greek rendered into Latin is "Son-in-law," in the Greek codex is read ^c "Gambros": of which name although the more frequent usage is to express a son-in-law; son-in-law that is kinsman is said. yet that it can sometimes signify any kinsman, those who elucidate the Greek glossemata profess without controversy. Nay among the Latins the same usage of speaking in the word "Son-in-law" obtained. And, to pass over others, thou hast in Justin the historian, the husband of a sister called by him a son-in-law. Wherefore by no means are we bound that Gregory named Meletius son-in-law by that word, but that he wished rather to signify a kinsman is rendered sufficiently most explored from his own repeated testifications, by which his perpetual virginity, without any even the slightest doubt, is shown.

[128] the objections from the subscription of Theodulus Bishop of Apamea are loosed. There could besides also of Theodulus Bishop of Apamea, who is subscribed a witness, this be objected, that there is found in that year, not Theodulus, but John Bishop of Apamea subscribed to the Ecumenical Synod, held at Constantinople in the same year. But it will be shown that such an objection is of no moment at all. For besides Apamea, which is in Syria, of which the said John was Prelate, there were three other cities of the same name, namely the first which was in Bithynia, on the maritime coast between the mouths of the Rhyndacus and the Ascanius, of which Stephanus and Ptolemy made mention: the second in ^d Phrygia, at the mouths of the river Marsyas, where it itself is joined to the Maeander, of which Pliny and from the Greeks Strabo made mention, which they proclaim after Ephesus the most illustrious of all the cities of Asia, in which there was wont to be a most celebrated emporium. But besides this they affirm there was another Apamea, a city of the Parthians. So therefore we are not constrained, that although it is established that at the time of the Constantinopolitan Council John presided over Apamea of Syria, Theodulus could not have been Bishop of some one of the remaining three ^e Apameas, whence that objection is found to be of no moment.

[129] from the month ill noted in one Ms. But as regards the month and day of that year, described in the same testament, someone could also object, that neither Gregory, nor the Bishops who subscribed, tarried so long at Constantinople, five or six months after the Synod, completed before, was absolved: nor after his abdication was Gregory any longer called Constantinopolitan Bishop, as it is placed in the testament. But to these first this seems can rightly be said; Who is so hard and severe a judge, who in a matter so ancient would not concede that the testament itself contracted some dust of errors, which must be shaken off? Wherefore if we should wish, that after the Council was absolved and after the abdication of the See that very testament was made by Gregory, then plainly it seems to have happened, that that John, who from the archive of the Nazianzene Church brought the testament to light, when he copied it out, and read Gregory simply named Bishop, added for honor's sake, "of Constantinople"; and indeed ^f in good faith, because he knew that in that year he himself presided over the same Constantinopolitan Church. But I rather adhere to that opinion, that near the time of the Council such a testament was composed by Gregory; and that it must be said that an error rather crept into the month. For neither in the codex which Brisson obtained, nor in the other of the two Vatican ones was the name of the month expressed: in which it could have happened that by the error of the copyists "of January" was written for "of June."

[130] But that I should think that a little before the Council such a testament was composed by Gregory, It is confirmed from the great charity of the Saint toward the poor. this persuades ^g, that in that oration which he then delivered at Constantinople against Maximus, among other things he shows that he had already deprived himself of all his goods in these words, [Will they object poverty? What do I hear? My wealth and abundance? And would that I could also strip off these rags, that I might run through the thorns of this life naked! Would that this heavy tunic also I might cast away as quickly as possible, that I might receive a lighter one!] & below: [But they will snatch monies? What at length? If mine: nay by the same effort let them also cut off the wings, with which I am not girded.] These things he himself: by which indeed he signifies that he had already abdicated all his goods. But there are still several other things, to be adduced from the writings of the same Gregory, by which it may happen to be demonstrated that that very testament is Gregory's. But first of all that the wondrous solicitude toward the poor which is shown in it, the same is seen expressed in all his writings. For that in the testament he postponed the kindred to the poor, since he had so received from his parents a fiduciary inheritance, he himself testifies of his mother in the oration delivered at his father's funeral, that she was so inclined with love toward the poor that she was wont to say, that she herself, if it had been permitted, and her children, would have been sold off for nourishing the poor. to whom also the prices of books. But he himself distributed to the poor not only estates and houses: but converted books also to their use. For when Adamantius the Rhetor, a friend, at one time asked Gregory that there be given to him books of the rhetorical faculty, Gregory himself indeed sent them, but demanded their price, an epistle being written to him, where at the end these things very facetiously; [But if it seem by no means Philosophic to demand the price of books; do thou pay me money, but thy objection the poor will resolve.]

[131] These things he himself, from which thou seest his immense care toward the poor. But it is also to be seen in the writings of Gregory himself of the same testament, by which he left all his things to the poor, that there is had at least a tacit mention. For to this very thing he seems to have alluded, when after his departure from Constantinople, writing to the Constantinopolitan Priests and people, he has these things at the end: [These are the words of Gregory, whom Cappadocia nourished; inasmuch as he deprived himself of all his means, and he professes that he expended all his substance, that he might offer them to Christ.] Besides in the Poem on himself, after his return from the city of Constantinople treating of the abdication of his affairs, he has this verse:

plainly insinuating a double abdication of things made by him at Constantinople: with unwilling mind the one, namely when he left the See; the other when he gave all his things to the poor by testament. ^h There is also a Poem to Julian the Equalizer of Tributes, by which he commends the Nazianzene Church, in which he testifies that he expended all his things for the use of the poor: which goods indeed, when they were being assessed by Julian himself for paying tributes, asking that he act more mildly, he has these things about the Nazianzene Church among others: [Let thy house move thee, he says, which has been wont to embrace wretched men with every kind of benignity. Carm. 48 Let also my wealth move thee, O friend, which I, for the cause of bearing the cross, distributed to the poor.] & a little after: [The wealth is mine, but thine is the assessment: take care therefore that toward nourishing the poor we both obtain the same reward. Behold thou seest, reader, from all these things not only is the testament of Gregory himself shown, but the same committed to execution is perspicuously declared; since the things which he himself had left to the Church, those it now possessed. He mentions also in other places the abdication made by him of all riches, reserving to himself, as he himself says, only a little garden with a fountain where he might dwell. This indeed he himself testifies, when he justly inveighs against certain hypocrite monks.

[132] There are also besides several other things which insinuate the genuineness of the same testament, it is confirmed also by the persons there named, as when in it he so commends Evagrius the Deacon, to whom also he left the legacies recounted above. Who does not see that this was Evagrius of Pontus, who lived with him at Constantinople, then indeed most praised, of whom in his place it is more fully treated? Besides Euphemius, who in this same testament is named, could be he of whom he makes mention in the Epistle to Alypius, of whose marriage also he treats in the Epistle to Theodosius. Epp. 149, 114. Nor do we pass over Rheginus, of whom he makes mention in the testament, that nothing forbids but that he could be he whom he numbers among his familiars in the Poem to Hellenius. But from the subscriptions of the Bishops also understand the sincerity of the same testament. For besides Amphilochius, who follows in order Optimus the Bishop of Antioch, he himself is he of whom mention is made in the law of Theodosius given in this year after the Council. And who is ignorant, that he who is had subscribed in the last place Cledonius the Presbyter, is he whom he so wondrously praises in the same Poem to Hellenius? ⁱ But also the prudent scrutator of ancient things, will understand the sincerity of this writing from the words of the garments there named, and ancient words, which for too great antiquity have passed among the exotic ones; as that Camosa and Singillion. But of the Singilion in Trebellius Pollio in Claudius mention is found made.

[133] Now thou hast, reader, the testament of Gregory, not only dug out from decay and the moth, but vindicated from objections and illustrated with scholia, and rendered, I think, in every part approved: an excellent monument plainly which thou mayest make much of, perhaps despised by others, and the deduction of the Gregorian family. if any saw it before, because, as in a coin overlaid with mold, the very image of Gregory in it was by no means discerned expressed, nay seemed to render the effigy of a man bound to wedlock: but it being diligently wiped off and thoroughly purged, thou beholdest there the very own struck image of Gregory. These things now enough: which if they seem less opportune, mayest thou impute to my dear admonisher and even exactor Massa; to whom that I may comply here also we add, as a kind of corollary, a very brief description of the kindred of the same Gregory.

These things indeed are rendered perspicuous enough from the writings of Gregory himself to anyone rightly beholding. For of Vitalianus, that he was the husband of his sister Gorgonia, and the children begotten by him named above, thou wilt find in the poem

of the children inscribed to Vitalianus himself, joined with those things which of Gorgonia ^k have in their places been said above. But of the wedlock of Alypiana with Nicobulus the Epistle lately recited, written to him, sufficiently declares: but that Nicobulus the younger was begotten of them the poems of the same Gregory, edited both in the name of the father and of the son, openly enough teach, and besides other Epistles written to Nicobulus, or in which mention is had of Nicobulus.

NOTES.

CHAPTER XVI.

Gregory, laboring in vain for the peace of the Antiochene Church, incurs the envy of the parties, and, some calling his institution into doubt, himself of his own accord abdicates.

[134] After the testament which we have related was composed, there came also the rest of the Bishops who had been summoned to the Synod: in which, the things which pertain to the Catholic faith being established and confirmed, and the heresies condemned and the symbol of the faith promulgated, by which the divinity of the Holy Spirit might be held certain and confirmed; soon of the things which regard the peace and discipline of the Catholic Church the Bishops treat among themselves; and first they declare that Maximus the Cynic, who had invaded the Constantinopolitan See, neither had been nor was a Bishop, and that the same were to be reckoned those who had been ordained by him. ^a While these and other such things were being treated, Meletius the Bishop of Antioch migrated from this life, after the death of S. Meletius, when he himself also had labored very much for peace to be conciliated. But when some, giving their effort to sedition, treated of substituting another into his place; Gregory, seeing that this was not the way of entering upon peace, but of stirring up greater discord, declaring his opinion of that matter before all, delivered a most grave oration; striving to persuade this, that all should provide for peace; and believe that this one way lay open for attaining it, if they abstained from the election of a successor of Meletius; and suffered Paulinus, now burdened with old age, to sit alone without another Colleague; by a grave oration he persuades that meanwhile it would come about that he departed from this life, and then according to the manner of the elders another Bishop was to be substituted, who should preside over the Antiochene Church. This was the opinion of Gregory of Nazianzus: which receive written in iambics.

[134] [Let him have the Throne, who has hitherto presided over it. What inconvenience would there be, if a little longer we should mourn this man by ancient custom? At length the matter itself will give an issue that Paulinus may be left alone in the Antiochene See: old age. To all and equally set forth, that necessary and best term: he will depart whither he had long ago desired, giving his spirit to God, who had given it before: and thence we, with the vows of the whole people consenting and the wise Prelates, will set another over by the help of the holy Spirit. This will be the one way of calming the evil. For either we shall unite to ourselves the alien ones, (since indeed the West is alien from us) or there remains the other, that the City be united and the People, so great, wearied by long time. Let there be, I beseech, an end of this tempest.]

These and other things of that kind Gregory to the same effect, which how just, how good, how finally necessary it was, the issue proved: for the grave schism, which then by that means would without doubt have been calmed, with grave loss of the whole Church endured to the times of Pope Innocent; who, acting with Alexander, then Bishop of Antioch, was the excellent author of that peace to be composed. When Gregory said this very useful opinion, and the more and more to insinuate and thrust a matter of so great weight into their minds; if this be not done he asks to be absolved from the Episcopate. he also openly testified that he was more prepared to yield the throne, than to behold the Catholic Church of God split without remedy, in these words:

But grant us a life destitute of the throne, immune from peril, although I pass an inglorious life in a place, where there be a solitude of evils. For rather this; than if, mingled with neighbors, I can neither bend others at my nod, nor be of use, my authority being lost] &c.

[135] When Gregory had said this opinion in the Synod, the factious young Bishops opposed him, of whom the number seemed to be not small. But their attempt the same thus aptly describes.

[And thus far we. From elsewhere others clamor, like a gathered nation of jackdaws the younger ones nonetheless resisting and a crowd of youths, still fresh from the workshop, like a whirlwind sweeping dust, like contrary winds, to which a perfect man would not be willing to render account for fear of the Godhead, prating inept things; as wasps are wont, suddenly flying into the face of others; and to these the venerable Council obeyed; so far was it from chastising the youths.] &c. Nay besides the friends ask Gregory to assent to the rest: which he shuddering at, took counsel with himself of abdicating, and accomplished as much as was permitted. Of these also he himself in this manner.

[Why is it necessary to say with what words and the friends soliciting Gregory himself, my best friends tempted these gray hairs, when they granted me the first things, and demanded them. What candidly, alas! from candid Gregory, and the consent of a candid man with the wicked? Namely in all things, that I should be a helper to them. In what way to all things? Who conceived this in mind, that the multitude should conquer one not Begotten of God? Sooner shall the nature of fountains flow upward, fire be borne to the contrary part, than I shall betray anything of my salvation. And hence I began to withdraw myself from the midst, soon also my dwelling being changed; drawing myself out of the affairs of the Church, far from evil discourses and assemblies.]

[136] When therefore from the Synod Gregory had so withdrawn, all those who were present, Flavian is substituted for Meletius, of electing a successor of Meletius the Bishop of Antioch lately deceased ask the opinions, and by the common suffrage of all elect Flavian Bishop of Antioch: of whose election and the rest of the deeds done in the Synod, afterward they gave letters to Pope Damasus and the other Bishops, which Theodoret recites. ^b When in the manner in which we have said Gregory had in a way abdicated himself; again he is agitated by the complaints of his people, more earnestly demanding that he should remain: and these things he himself describes in these verses:

[Although they groaned on my account, devoted to us, most of all from the people, not to say of all, the people adjures Gregory to remain by clamoring, supplicating, lifting to God their hands, and adjuring, deploring me now as dead; Alas the misery! alas the tears! How could I have borne these things! with what mind at length? Wilt thou desert thy crop (so we were called) once small, now a harvest abundant enough? But the stranger people, who now partly stands at thy doors, for whom the door is to be opened; partly is within, partly hunts also others, to whom wilt thou expose them? who will rear thy offspring? At least this I pray thou give to thy labors. Give the remainder of thy life to us and to God. Let this shrine give thy body to the sepulchre. These things moved me; yet I contained myself.]

These things Gregory of the People's zeal toward him: but there is superadded also a new occasion, by which indeed he is impelled wholly to abdicate.

[137] There came to compose the affairs of the Church the summoned Egyptian Bishops and the Macedonians. Bishops from Egypt and Macedonia having arrived. These first make trouble for Gregory's electors, that they had elected him less legitimately. Gregory treats of their arrival in these words.

[Not much after at length God frees me. There came suddenly those who had been called, that they might bring help in establishing peace, both the Egyptian and Macedonian Prelates, who handle the laws of God and the mysteries, breathing a western and harsh breeze].

And below

[Not that they should make trouble for me, or give my throne to others: by no means: but that they should make trouble for those who had designated me: as they were persuading by clandestine judgments, that their injuries were no longer to be borne, that they might make trouble for the Eastern ones both the former and likewise those lately produced.]

These things he.

[138] What these were, which these pretended against those who had placed Gregory of Nazianzus on the See, we judge it worth the labor to narrate. Since the Alexandrian See, first after the Roman, held also the first place in the East, it contended by right that the ordination of the Constantinopolitan Bishop pertained to itself, and argued that the Bishop of Antioch had undeservedly usurped it to himself. Indeed we see this done, as by right due, in the ordination of holy

John Chrysostom, Bishop of the same Church; when we see the consent of Theophilus the Bishop of Alexandria required and all but extorted, as Socrates, they carp at the ordination of Gregory made by them: Sozomen, and Palladius relate. These things they against the Ordainers, although also some, detracting from Gregory, falsely charged him to be Bishop of three Sees, and mocking him called him by this jest Triepiscopus, namely boasting that one man was Bishop of Sasima, Nazianzus, and Constantinople. But how mendaciously this is, all know: For the See of Sasima, newly instituted by Basil, Anthimus the Metropolitan of second Cappadocia, Bishop of the Church of Tyana, claimed to himself as his own, as we saw above. But of the Nazianzene Church he never had the title, which he always rejected, although he stood by his aged Father as a helper; which he himself, writing to Gregory of Nyssa, excellently professes; and so, as it appears, he who was unjustly called Triepiscopus, was Bishop of only one See, namely the Constantinopolitan. There also agitated the minds of the Egyptian and Macedonian Bishops (as Gregory says) a recent injury, the election of a new Bishop of Antioch into the place of Meletius; whom they despising, communicated with Paulinus: which very thing, as we saw, Gregory most vehemently disapproved as done, and had before resisted by a grave oration lest it be done. Ep. 42.

[139] These were the causes of the aforesaid Bishops, contending most keenly against the Eastern ones. who, studying for peace between them to be conciliated Gregory, hastening to meet these, delivered the oration on Peace placed third in order; ^c by which when he had recounted the vast disasters received on account of the dissensions, and had rebuked the zeal of those altercating; these things of himself and of the rest who would provide for peace: [But whoever study for peace, and profess themselves mediators, are by both parties ill punished: as being held in contempt, or even provoked by war. On which part since we ourselves also stand at this present day, who reprehend these things, and therefore have received a Chair full of contest and envy, it will be no wonder if by both we be torn and trampled, and after our many sweats and afflictions be removed from the midst, that, every obstacle and interval being taken away, at close quarters and with all the ardor of minds they may mutually wound one another. and therefore ungrateful to both,] These and many other things Gregory: who, affairs being despaired of, when he had now on that occasion all but abdicated himself, these troubles being now superadded, and dissensions stirred up on his account, lest the Church, once split on the occasion of the Antiochene schism, he should again afflict with a graver loss; entering the Council of Bishops, admonishes that they ought to be concordant among themselves, and that he himself was prepared to take away the cause of dissension with the loss of his See, and, no otherwise than Jonah, to undergo peril, provided the rest should cease to be tossed by the tempest. The deed he describes in these verses.

although most afflicted by evils and disease, always felt within an itching of my feet, and neighed bound in a servile manner, desiring pastures as much as solitude. But after the things which we just mentioned were moved, I break my chains, and the occasion offered I eagerly (for thou wilt never be able to bend the ambitious, I said within myself) snatch forthwith, so commodious to me. Having advanced hence into the midst, these things I speak forth: Men, whom God has gathered, he asks to be absolved from the Episcopate. that you may take some counsel grateful to God, let the care of my business be later. It matters little (if we regard this assembly) what becomes of me, even if he be carried out in vain. Do you now lift your minds to something greater. Be concordant, let your minds cohere. How long are we laughed at, as implacable, and as those who know this one thing, to breathe battles? Alacritously join your allied right hands. But I willingly wish to be Jonah the prophet. I give my very self for the safety of the ship, although I be not the origin of this storm. Plunge us perhaps lifted up into the sea: some whale will receive me out of these waves: let this be the beginning of your concord].

[141] These and other such things Gregory: who also delivered before those hundred and fifty Fathers a most adorned oration about all these things, ^d The oration delivered in the Council by which he said his last Farewell to them. It is assuredly of such a kind that it cannot be read with dry eyes, worthy indeed to be here woven in entire, did we not consult brevity. He used that argument of speaking, by which once Samuel called the people, and Paul the Ephesians, to witness. He renders an account of the things done by him. First, how lost and despaired the affairs of the Constantinopolitan Church were, he renders an account of the things done by him at Constantinople for the Church when he betook himself thither, what kind he now leaves them, he sets before the eyes: how much he suffered from the enemies of the faith he brings forth into the midst: recounting all his labors; but giving all the goods there acquired as a gift to the Fathers, these things among others, turned to the people, he spoke: [You are called holy, a peculiar and excellent people; a royal priesthood the strongest cord of the Lord, from a drop a river, from a spark a sublime flame and tending to heaven, from a grain of mustard a tree of such magnitude that the birds rest in it. These to you we bestow, dear Pastors and Colleagues, these to you we offer] &c. For how beautiful and how comely the face of that Church was then, he excellently represents as it were with certain colors; while he recounts the classes of the sacred ministers, the swarms of holy virgins, and the assemblies of the whole people, and narrates their virtues; and as regards the profession of the Catholic faith, of how great constancy and firmness all were, he adds these things: [One and that brief argument of our faith and doctrine, and as it were carved on a column and known to all, there is. This people is so true and sincere a worshipper of the Trinity, that it will rather suffer itself to be torn from this life, than disjoin any of these three from the Trinity] &c.

[What then? what do I say? For I am not a gratuitous cultivator of virtue, nor has it come to such a magnitude of virtue, give the reward of my labors. What at length? Not what some perhaps of those who are easily brought to supplicate for anything would have thought, but what it is lawful for me safely to demand. Relieve me from my long labors, and vindicate me to quiet. Let these gray hairs move you, let the reckoning of hospitality and peregrination bend you. Substitute another, who may be hostilely pressed for us, who is of pure hands, who of a voice not slow and unlearned, who is so disposed in mind that he can in all things obey you and bear the cares of the Church; since indeed such especially this time demands. But you see how this body of mine is; namely worn out both by time and by disease and by labor. What need have you of a timid and slothful old man, and one daily, so to speak, as one debilitated by age and diseases, dying, not in body only, but also by cares and afflictions, who scarcely also speak these things to you]. Afterward, the calumnies cast against him, setting them forth to be beheld by all, he says these things: [I can no longer bear that my facility of mind and clemency be objected to me in place of a crime. I can no longer fight with dogmas and with envy; with enemies and with allies].

[143] And after many such things narrated he adds. [Nay these things also perhaps they will reproach us with (for they have already reproached) that we use neither a sumptuous and splendid table; nor an august garment; nor go forth magnificently in public; nor receive those by whom we are visited haughtily. [and by his very institute of life inept for the manners of the court and the world.] I knew not, namely, that with us there is an emulation and contest with Consuls and Prefects and most illustrious Generals of war, who flow around with so many resources and abundances, and have not where to throw away their own; and that effort must be given, that we also, abusing the goods of the poor to luxury and delights, may have our belly compressed on all sides, and necessaries poured out on superfluous things, and the altars themselves contaminated with our belchings. I knew not that we ought to be borne on notable and wanton horses, and lifted up magnificently with chairs and chariots, and conducted with pomp and pageantry, and as it were soothed with smackings; and that all ought to make way for us as for beasts, and to be split and torn apart on either side of the road, or even that there should be so great a crowd of those going before, that our progress should be conspicuous from afar. If these things were grievous and bitter to you, they have passed; pardon us this injury: create another Prelate, who may please the multitude; but give me solitude, a rustic life and God, whom alone by frugality, a slender food and dress, we shall please. What say you? Have we by these words bent you, and obtained our cause? or rather, to move your minds, must a firmer oration be employed by us? I adjure you by the Trinity itself, which we profess and worship, by our common hope and the augmentation of this people. Give me this benefit, bind us with prayers. Let this be the proclamation of my dismissal. Give me the libel of discharge, as Emperors are wont to give to soldiers; and if indeed your will shall have borne it, with favor and an illustrious eulogy and testimony, that my honor be provided for; but if not, in whatever way it shall please you, I will not altercate, so long as God shall behold the state of our affairs].

[144] These and other things Gregory: but perorating and bidding farewell to all, He bids farewell to the Constantinopolitan churches, he thus says, turned first to his own Church: [Farewell Anastasia, having a name from piety: for thou didst raise up the faith hitherto despised. Farewell, I say, seat of the common victory, new Shiloh, in which we first fixed the ark, for forty years carried round in the desert and wandering. Thou too O this great and noble temple, new inheritance; which the magnitude which thou now hast didst receive from orthodox doctrine; and which we, when first thou wert Jebus, made Jerusalem. And you other sacred houses next in dignity to this, embracing each some other part of the city, as certain bonds and joinings, and claiming the neighboring places; which with this weakness of body, not we, but the grace of God with us, filled with those who were held for lost and despaired. Farewell Apostles ^e, illustrious colony, masters of my contest, although I less often celebrated your feasts, perhaps carrying about your Paul's satan in my body for my utility, on account of whom now I depart from you and withdraw. Farewell Chair, this invidious and perilous height, Council of Pontiffs, of Priests adorned no less by majesty than by age, to the Bishops and the sacred orders, and whoever else at length minister to God around the most sacred table, and approach the approaching God. Farewell choirs of the Nazaraeans, harmonies of psalmodies, nocturnal stations, the gravity and sanctity of virgins, the order and adornment of women, the assembly of widows and orphans, the eyes of the poor beholding God and us. Farewell hospitable houses, and lovers of Christ, and helpers of my infirmity].

[145] Farewell lovers of my discourses, and the running and concurrences, and the pens both perspicuous and

hidden, and the lattices of this pulpit pressed by the multitude, of men mutually thrusting themselves forward by zeal of hearing. Farewell Emperors, to his accustomed hearers, and Imperial courts, and all the servants and chamberlains of the Emperor, whether indeed faithful to the Emperor, I hold not certain; to God certainly for the most part ^f unfaithful, clap your hands, cry out with sharp voice, lift your Rhetor on high. The tongue, wicked and garrulous to you, has been silent; yet it will not be wholly silent: for it will fight with hand and ink: certainly at present we have consulted. Farewell great city, and to the whole city endowed with the love of Christ, for the true things I will testify, although this zeal is not according to knowledge: separation has rendered us more benign. Approach the truth: to better fruit at length some time convert yourselves: make that you worship God more studiously than is your manner. For it is not base to be changed and to come to one's senses, but to cling to evil is pernicious. Farewell East and West, for whom and by whom we are assailed. He is witness, who will render us pacified, if some imitate my secession: for they will not also make a loss of God, who shall have yielded their Thrones, but will have a supernal chair, much more sublime and more secure than these. Beyond all things, and before all things I will cry, commending to all the sound doctrine of the Trinity, Farewell Angels, presidents of this Church, and of my presence and peregrination. Farewell Trinity, my meditation and my glory: by these mayest thou be preserved, and these mayest thou preserve, this my people (for it is mine, even if we be governed otherwise) and may I hear thee daily extolled and increased, both as to the doctrine of the faith, and as to the integrity of life. Little children, I pray, keep the deposit: remember my stonings. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.] Thus far the last oration of Gregory to the Bishops and the people standing around.

[146] But the things which after these followed, the same in the poem on his own life has these written in meter.

with a certain grief mixed with joy, rejoicing that the grace of quiet had befallen, grieving for my solicitude about the people. Who would not grieve, if he be deprived of children? Thus I bore myself, they know and God, whether more clandestine things did not intervene, than the open corruptions of youths and the crags and snares. Let others narrate these, I will be silent.]

[147] But what afterward he did with the Emperor Theodosius the same also thus describes.

Thus these things were done. But what with the Prince? Did I, with bent body, touch his hand? Did I use a suppliant oration to him? Did I bind those whom of the number of friends I obligated, and especially the Magistrates dear to me? Or did I pour out gold, he goes to Theodosius, which can most, that, dejected, I might not lose such a Throne? Let these be of others, who are too crafty. But I myself running straight to the Purple, many being present and beholding these things; I myself also (I say) seek a certain benefit from thy, Emperor, large power. I demand not gold for me, I wish not painted tablets, nor certain coverings of the mystic table, nor that thou advance someone of my kindred, or that he be present to thee, most excellent of Kings: let these be of others, who seek small things for themselves, I indeed judge myself worthy of greater things. Let one thing be given me, that I may yield a little to envy. We desire to venerate the thrones, but far removed. Enough I have been hated by all and by friends, while I can behold nothing else than God: from these do thou demand back dear concord. he asks that peace be given to the Church, Let them at length lay down arms by thy command, if they will not for fear either of God or of punishment. Mayest thou set up this trophy of a bloodless battle, thou who hast crushed the audacity of the barbarians, this they demand (at the same time I show my gray hairs, and what labors I had expended for God) these who have borne so many evils for the cause of the world. Thou knowest, and obtains to be freed. that I was not of my own accord set over this place. These things the Emperor received with his men not without applause. What I wish is granted.]

For Theodosius was of a more inclined mind toward Gregory, for he was wont often to receive him at the Royal table: which at length to have lacked Gregory most exceedingly rejoiced. Carm. 10 Whence he says: [No longer will Gregory be, as before, a messmate to the Emperor, gratifying somewhat his own belly; and among the midst of the banqueters, sad and silent reclining, and with difficulty drawing breath, and eating in a servile manner. some bear his abdication grievously, and depart.]

[148] These things accomplished Gregory, before he departed, was wholly bent on consoling his mourning sons, lamenting that they were bereaved of a parent; finally those, as many as there were, the most holy Bishops, consternated by so unhoped-for an abdication of their Colleague. For there were gathered with the rest Gregory of Nyssa, Amphilochius of Iconium, Eulogius of Edessa, Helladius of Caesarea, Otreius of Melitene, and others, who were present at the aforesaid Synod and subscribed. But what these did, when they heard that the Emperor had ratified Gregory's abdication, the same relates in these verses.

[For very many, the counsel being perceived, immediately snatch themselves away by flight, as from a thunderbolt, with hands clasped, with ears stopped. That they might never with their own eyes behold another, who should be placed on my throne,]

These things Gregory. But the Bishops who remained, when they mutually dissented about substituting another into the place of Gregory, The rest ordain Nectarius Bishop. some favoring others; at length, since there was no hope of concord, that all should come into the same opinion; it pleased that, the names of many being written, it should be referred to the Emperor, whom he wished to elect of those noted. There was in the last place written in the schedule ^k Nectarius, still a Catechumen, an Ex-prefect, for he had lately discharged the Urban prefecture. This man, the rest being postponed, the Emperor Theodosius ^l elected. The Synod ratified this, ^m and both of these, and of the rest treated in the Council, they wrote Synodal letters to Damasus ⁿ and the other Catholic Bishops.

NOTES.

This order indeed of the things done in the Council is indicated from the Canons of that Council which are extant: but from the title prefixed to the same and to the Synodical letter to Theodosius it appears, The Acts in the Council of C.P. that first of the peace of the Churches, then of the faith it was treated: for from what time, the Bishops say to the Emperor, according to the letters of thy Piety we came together at Constantinople, first indeed we renewed mutual concord among ourselves: but then we pronounced also brief definitions, by which both the faith of the Fathers who were gathered at Nicaea we confirmed, and the perverse heresies and depraved opinions which arose against it we reprobated with extreme execration and detestation: besides also for rightly constituting and ordering the state and discipline of the Churches we established certain Canons. But who these? Those namely hundred and fifty, who came together on the 9th of July, from the 9th day of July by 150 Bishops as the title has; namely after the deposition of the Nazianzene and the ordination of Nectarius, and the secession of several of those who before had been present, the Macedonians especially, of whom not even one is found subscribed to the Canons. So that all the acts of the months of May and June, which had been wholly spent on contentions, seem to have been esteemed for nothing, as proceeding from headless men having as yet no head: and therefore both the ordination and the abdication of Gregory suppressed by deep silence. Moreover the Egyptians do not seem to have come more than two, for no more subscribed; nor, if they had come, does the cause appear, why, their Metropolitan being left at Constantinople, they should privately withdraw to their home before the end of the Synod: among whom why only two Egyptians, but that they came later does not seem congruously to be referred to a defect of the call (for neither in the space of one month or three weeks could they be called and be present, and if they could, why had so few come) but for some cause, as we have foretasted, they tarried longer at home or on the way. From Macedonia, Acholius from Macedonia called beyond order and awaited. pertaining to the West, that not only beyond order was called, but awaited Acholius of Thessalonica before anything was defined, the Italian Council sufficiently indicates, writing thus to the Emperor: Nor does it seem unworthy, Augustus, that those who sat at Constantinople in the Synod should undergo the examination of the Roman Church and of the neighboring and Italian Bishops, who thought the judgment of one Acholius the Bishop so to be awaited, that they thought he was to be called from the Western parts to Constantinople. The cause of his being called I should think was in Theodosius, attributing so much to him by whom he had been baptized, that he believed that by him the discords of the Eastern men daily more and more swelling could be composed. But Acholius, a Synod of his comprovincials being gathered, judging that the Apostolic See must be admonished and consulted about what had been done and further remained to be done, while he awaited the answer, could not be present on the appointed day: but he seems to have come not alone, but with some companions: and he came with this mind, that he should follow the instruction prescribed by Damasus through the Epistle, of which above at chapter 12 mention was made. with his men adverse to Gregory In this the Pontiff, when, the intrusion of Maximus being detested, he had praised his dejection; For the rest, he says, I admonish your Sanctity, that, since I have learned it has been disposed that a Council ought to be held at Constantinople, your sincerity give effort, in what manner the Bishop of the aforesaid city be elected, who may have no reprehension: that, God being propitious, when the entire peace of the Catholic Priests shall have been confirmed, no dissensions may thenceforth arise in the Church… This besides I admonish your Charity, that you suffer not anyone against the statutes of our elders to be transferred from one city to another, and to desert the people committed to him, and to pass to another people through ambition. as not rightly ordained. For then contentions arise, then graver schisms begin; when both those who shall have lost their Priest cannot be without grief of mind; and those who shall have received the Bishop of another city, although they rejoice, understand it will be invidious to them to act under an alien Priest. Whence it is gathered that Acholius and his companions, when they wrote about Maximus, also wrote about Gregory, whom, as Bishop of Nazianzus, as he was almost called, so they also believed him to be, and whom they heard was demanded for the Constantinopolitan Episcopate, asking what was to be done by them about him. This therefore is the Western breeze, which the Macedonians breathed, and which they also inspired into the Egyptians, already moved from elsewhere, grievous to Gregory and his ordainers, upon whom they seem to have come at the beginning of the month of June, when after Gregory's ordination perhaps one or another week had now elapsed. For neither do we need a longer space, who do not admit that Acholius was not called until after the beginning of the Council; but that, coming later, he came to the definitions

awaited: who however, when he saw that after the voluntary cession of Gregory in the election of another nothing less was done than what he knew was to be approved at Rome; and that Paulinus was not received to the Antiochene church, as he knew Damasus wished; departed with his companions, and therefore is not found subscribed to the Canons. But what shall we say of the other Bishops, through Achaia, Thessaly, Epirus and Dacia, and the other Western provinces? That they were not present: why few from the provinces neighboring C.P. were present. but neither was anyone called. The East certainly, which flowed together to his ordination, and so was alone called to the Council, Gregory terminates with the second Rome that is Constantinople, in the place cited above num. 113. But beyond Constantinople no one is read subscribed to the Canons except from the neighboring provinces attributed to the Constantinopolitan Primacy, namely Scythia and Mysia (more rightly Moesia) and Hemimontus: to which thou mayest add Europe of Thrace. For he who is noted of the Province of Spain, Agrius of Immontinum, seems wholly perversely written, and better elsewhere "of Ymimontis," which, as we said, seems to be the name not of a city, but of a province, pertaining to the right of the Constantinopolitan; and the name of Spain by I know not what chance or error intruded: unless perhaps Panium in Europe of Thrace at the Bosphorus, a city very near to Constantinople, gave occasion for two subscriptions of two Bishops to be conflated into one, when it was perhaps so written but worn away.

Of the Province of Europe N… … of Panium Of the Province of Hemimontus Agrius…,…

but that from the four provinces already mentioned only six Bishops are numbered, must be attributed to the secession made from Demophilus; to whom the rest of the same provinces adhered as to their head, pertinacious in heresy and schism. These things, as making much for the knowledge of the history of which we treat, it seemed good to deduce together in this place.

This joy Carmen 10 expresses, seeing that he must no longer litigate and squabble in Synods, where those of diverse opinions clamor like cranes and geese: and thus he concludes.

But if to leave the Christian people is a grave crime, let that cohort see to it which has driven me from the city… I wish those things may be a care to them which are grateful to the Thunderer: but if evil things, I wish my ears may be far from hence. t. 2 p. 81.

This affection produced Carmen 9 which is called A Dream about Anastasia: which when he had copiously described as seen by him in slumber, and his grief from the loss of it, he thus ends.

Here the mourning of Gregory, while with sad mind he seeks her, Anastasia, whom envy drove from him. P. 79.

These clandestine things he seems elsewhere more openly to deride. For not only in Carm. 12 does he say he therefore incurred the hatreds of those contending among themselves, because

--- I wished to join myself to neither party, nor to prefer anything to my Lord: and my sin is, that I hated alien sins. p. 85.

but in the Iambic Carm. 1 which is on himself against the envious, when he had asked whether anyone could bring forth even a feigned cause of his dejection, he subjoins:

O Christ, I will boldly utter something of the silent, perhaps the Spirit is aimed at; I will speak openly, and again I will say, the Spirit, as God.

whence it appears that there were several suspect to Gregory of an inclination to the Macedonian heresy, who indeed did not deny the divinity of the Spirit; yet could not bear that it should be so openly preached, as Gregory did. Certainly the greater part of them were those who under Valens the Arian were taken up, young courtiers and undisciplined, who had chosen to change for the favor of the new Catholic Emperor the faith which they held venal: whom excellently the Saint's Poem on Bishops describes and assails, which hitherto we have only rendered into Latin and prose.

of Clermont and the other Chiffletian one. But Flavian, except that the Roman Church never approved his ordination, was most praised in all things.

CHAPTER XVII.

Gregory, returned to Nazianzus, provides for that church, then withdraws to Arianzus: his various afflictions.

[149] After three years spent at Constantinople, How long Gregory sat at Constantinople (the opinion of Nicephorus the Bishop being disproved, which we mentioned, of twelve years, since we have shown above from his own words that he remained at Constantinople only a triennium) is not precisely known: it is sufficiently established that he presided over that See for a moderate space of time. Whence the same himself treating of his withdrawal, has these things.

[--- Let you be ashamed of these evils. Yesterday you created a Prelate, today you drive him out. Slipped away hence, what further? I will pass my life with the Angels: no one henceforth will hurt my life, nor profit it. To God wholly I will withdraw myself.]

The return of Gregory into his fatherland, about to enjoy the long-desired quiet, was very opportune and very profitable to him: whence writing to Sophronius the Prefect at Constantinople, he says these things: Ep. 59 & 60. Gregory returned to Nazianzus Our withdrawal has something joyful and convenient, namely leisure and quiet. &c. Again to the same: [Quietly, he says, and tranquilly we philosophize: this they inflicted on us as an injury who burned with hatred of us: and would that with some other such injury they might affect us ^a.]

[150] But indeed many and diverse things intervened, which interrupted Gregory's leisure ^b. As that which in these days befell his Nazianzenes, whom he so profited that he freed that city from imminent destruction. he frees the city from perdition, For when certain insolent young men had violated a certain edict of the Emperor, and for that cause had slain a man; they stirred up the President of the Cappadocian province, judge of the matter of Majesty (this was Olympius), into so great anger that he resolved in mind that that city should be destroyed and leveled to the ground. Ep. 49 & 172. Hearing these things Gregory, when, being sick, he could not present meet the evils, with the same President he acted by letters. Whom, a man assuredly most pious, that he might move to compassion, he shows that this was not the crime of the whole city in public, but of certain young men only; and both thrusts forward his gray hair afflicted by so many troubles, and also commemorates the temple which he had built there, unworthy that it should be destroyed. These and many other things for Diocaesarea, namely Nazianzus itself, as we said above, Gregory wrote to Olympius ^c. But when Olympius ^d had betaken himself to Nazianzus, the citizens to obedience together with the rest of the Magistrates of Cappadocia, Gregory before them delivered that most noble oration XVII, which is inscribed, to the citizens of Nazianzus consternated and the President angry, and the exordium of it is, I grieve for my belly. &c. By which when with many words he deplored the imminent disaster, how much it avails to be subject to the Emperor and to obey his edicts, he admonishes the citizens with many words.

[151] Soon, with a certain wonderful liberty of speaking, turned to Olympius and the rest of the Magistrates, he says these things: [Will you bear me speaking freely with an equable mind? For has the law of Christ subjected you also to my power, he exhorts the President to clemency: and to my benches? We too bear command, I add a more excellent and more perfect one, unless it is just that the spirit submit its fasces to the flesh, and the heavenly yield to the earthly. But I doubt not but that thou wilt take this liberty of speaking in the best part, as truly a sacred sheep of my sacred flock, and a nursling of the great Pastor, from the very first years rightly led and instituted in the spirit, and by the light of the holy and blessed Trinity equally with us illustrated. Accordingly brief will my oration with thee be. With Christ thou bearest command, with Christ thou administerest the Province]. These and other things of that kind Gregory to Olympius the President, and not to the Emperor, as others have thought. For who does not see that Gregory addresses the President of the Province, and not the Emperor, both from the aforesaid, and from those which follow, when he says: [Let nothing exclude commiseration and mildness of mind, not the bitterness of the time, not the Prince, not fear, not the hope of a greater Prefecture] &c. That he may persuade him, adjuring by his gray hairs and old age, among other things he very charmingly thrusts forward concerning his gray hair, and his Priesthood longer borne uncontaminated, when he says: [Must besides, in place of a certain suppliant's libel, this gray hair be offered to thee, and the number of our years, and a long and uncontaminated priesthood, which even the Angels themselves, pure worshippers of the most pure God, perhaps revere?] &c. From all these it sufficiently appears that all these things were done, not in the times of the Emperor Valens, when the fautors of the Arian heresy administered the province of Cappadocia; but in the times of Theodosius, when, the Arians being proscribed by his edict, the Prefectures of the provinces were entrusted to cultivators of the Catholic faith. By Gregory's patronage therefore the city of Nazianzus was freed.

[152] Gregory remained there so long, until firm security was rendered to it, and some excellent Prelate was set over it there. For he acted with Helladius the Metropolitan Bishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia, he takes care that Eulalius be created Bishop of Nazianzus: the successor of the great Basil, that he should set Eulalius, a most approved man, as Bishop over the Nazianzene Church. He meanwhile meditates a withdrawal into solitude, when Philagrius his intimate friendlily admonishes him, lest he forsake that Church, whose care he had once undertaken ^e. To whom Gregory, rendering an account of his coming and his affairs, these things about that matter: [But if to leave a Church is perilous (as thou writest) what then? If our own: rightly you say, and the same I myself say. But if one in no way pertaining to us, nor assigned and decreed to us, we are void of fault. But if for this we are held, because we bore its care for a little while, many others certainly would be held by the same reasoning, as many namely as had the care of guests] &c. He treated also of these things with Theodore the Bishop of Tyana, to whom about that matter there is extant an Epistle. ^f Eulalius at length being ordained Bishop of the Nazianzene Church, a false rumor grew strong, that Gregory had been deprived of the Nazianzene See by Helladius the Bishop of Caesarea. Then Gregory, that he might free Helladius and the other Bishops who had ordained Eulalius from that calumny; soon to Gregory of Nyssa wrote an Epistle ^g, by which indeed he both excuses them, and also ingenuously professes, the murmurings of the crowd being despised. that he was never ordained Bishop of the Nazianzene Church. But although Gregory had thus provided for the fame of the Bishops, yet the murmur of the crowd about himself, that he had held the slender Church in contempt, since he could not avoid it, he judged it must be borne with a patient mind, whence he himself at one time:

[A part of men, wholly incredulous of our diseases, so far with murmur tore my silent name: on his own affairs, and judged that I, with too great pride, despised the pious people, if not boasted it in open words. But he beholds our griefs, who beholds all things.] &c.

[153] These offices being performed and the duties discharged, Gregory betook himself to the paternal country place, dwelling in the paternal country which from the ample inheritance was alone left to him, the rest of the goods being distributed to the poor. There clung to him Nicobulus, near in consanguinity. This, I say, that Nicobulus, who, begotten of a most illustrious parent of the same name, had now for a long time held it among his desires, that he might thoroughly learn the sacred letters with Gregory as master: which since hitherto it had been less permitted, at length, having obtained him loosed from the rest of his affairs, he was made partaker of his vow. There acting Gregory, not even thus could he restrain the tongues of those barking. For certain hypocrite ^h monks, seeing that by the excellent splendor of Gregory the fame which they had procured for themselves there was obscured, soon began to speak against him and detract: that in a pleasant place, in delights, and not as became a monk, he led his life. Of him he complains that delights are objected: who said these things, these are Gregory's words: [For he says that I am copious and rich, as one who has a garden and leisure and a moderate fountain], & a little after. [If a fountain and a little garden or a scanty breeze, or a certain shady little grove, things assuredly very light, we possess, you straightway interpret it into delights ⁱ. What? Is it not lawful for a Christian even to breathe, and for this one name do you contend that injury is done to you?] These things he. But these were lighter contests. For just as if anyone, fatigued by a storm of the sea, descend from the great ship in which he was sailing, for love of quiet into a little boat; although he changes place, yet he is compelled to experience the same waves, and to be tossed by the same storm; so he himself, although from that great ship of the Constantinopolitan Church tossed by so many whirlwinds, he had betaken himself into a slender skiff, into the very solitude; he labors with gout, yet he is compelled to be fatigued by innumerable and the same most grievous straits and afflictions. Behold he is daily more sharply vexed by the pains of gout: for that his peculiar disease, of which he very often complains, was the pain of the joints, is held explored from his letters ^k. Moreover that he labored with that sickness not only in his feet, but also in the other limbs, sufficiently appears from his poem which he wrote in the disease [l].

[154] There acceded to these that worst thing, which scarcely finds faith, that to a man broken by old age ^m and disease there was given a sting of the flesh; an angel of satan, that wicked spirit of fornication: which buffeted the emeritus old man, like some unbridled youth, with obscene impurities. suffering the stings of the flesh For unless he himself again and again mourning professed these things, who would give faith to anyone saying such things? At one time the same himself, when he inveighs against his flesh, says these things. [Wilt thou not at length put an end to thy wickedness? Wilt thou not submit thyself, foolish and wretched, to the spirit and to old age now gray? Wherefore revere me at length, and that lust

and petulance restrain, nor with perpetual fury rage to the ruin of my soul. Otherwise I attest it will come to pass, he afflicts himself: that I most keenly assail thee, and with every kind of pains break thee, and render thee weaker than a corpse. Come now, and indeed in great abundance, tears the expiatresses of crimes, come laborious watching as much of mind as of body, that you may diminish the ardor of my flame, and wipe off the foul rottenness of vices. Let the belly banish satiety: let the knees fixed on the ground grow stiff, and let ashes be in place of food: let the harshest sack cover the soft limbs on every side, and bring aid to the vexed soul. Come sad care, the subduer of the flesh, ever setting future punishments before my eyes. And these indeed I myself will apply as medicaments to my stolidity and madness]. &c. These things Gregory but not poetically sporting.

[155] But in truth that he applied these and other remedies, for driving away those evils, elsewhere ⁿ he testifies in these words: [I indeed in this gray hair mangle my body, press my eyes, by diurnal and nocturnal cares consume my thrice wretched soul, that I may draw it from the flame: nor even so, except very grievously, do I hold the body in my power]. And elsewhere ^o. [With furious strength the flesh rages, nor ever rests from war. Doubtful is the hazard of this war]. And after other things: [Wherefore in mourning and squalor I dwell, and that heavenly King, who holds all things by his command, suppliant I adjure, that he benignly decide the controversy of body and soul, and repress the war]. And again below. [These prayers I pour forth, and offer very many medicaments to the flesh, he is intent on prayer: that I may drive away this grievous disease from me; and its strength, no otherwise than of a most perilous and most faithless beast, restrain with the firmest chains. Fearing the pernicious waves, I impose barriers on the belly, consume my mind with grief, pour forth a force of tears, to the eternal King bend my broken and debilitated knees, and walk squalid.] And after some things. I am dead to this life, [he follows solitude, and draw a very scanty breath; cities, the assemblies of men I flee; and dwelling among wild beasts and crags, removed from all frequency of men, I dwell on a certain harsh and unpolished rock; having only one garment, and lacking shoes and a hearth, and reduced to this, that I lie open to the reproaches of all mortals]. At the end finally turned to God he adds these things. [My old age, I pray, best God, and this gray head preserve, and grant the desired end of life.] These and other such are the lamentations of Gregory, dwelling in such afflictions. What do we say to these? Except what Paul proclaims of himself saying: [Lest the magnitude of the revelations exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of satan, who should buffet me: and thrice I asked the Lord that he depart from me, and he said to me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for virtue is perfected in infirmity]. This temptation rendered him more illustrious and more secure, lest by so many and so great things excellently done he should be puffed up; but it will make the rest more cautious. Who should assume to himself anything of the subdued concupiscence of the flesh, if one placed in old age, laboring with disease, dwelling in the wilderness, applying such and so great remedies, yet still fighting in a doubtful battle fears to succumb [p], and rather consults for himself by a glorious flight [q], than by the more frequent blows of the adversary be wounded at close quarters.

[156] This also in him seems most worthy of admiration, For the cause of bridling the tongue that a man burdened with old age, just as if he were beginning the apprenticeship of monastic discipline, with so vehement an ardor of mind exhausts so many labors, and coerces his very senses with so strict a discipline, that he took care not to wander even a finger's breadth from that most perfect and in all numbers absolute life of the monks. Whence at one time, when with watchful investigation he scrutinized into what he more easily delinquished, he seemed to himself more than enough, which is the peculiar vice of old men, at one time to speak. Which indeed, for 40 days he is silent as an execrable deed, a most severe penalty being enjoined on himself, he mourned; while for forty days with continual silence he pressed his tongue. For of these things he himself treating, when he had said that in robust and vigorous age he ought to have contended with the petulance of the flesh, the gluttony of the belly, the impetus of irascibility, the propensity to laughter; [And these things indeed before, he says, for the flesh boiled which is a great impediment to the heavenly ascent. But now both affected by disease, and broken and debilitated by old age I have fallen into another calamity, having an untamed tongue and voluble with a precipitate velocity of speaking, which always delivered me into the hands of the envious enemy, and affected me with innumerable inconveniences [r]] & at the end, after the expiation of the fault by silence of forty days, loosing his tongue, these things to Christ first he spoke. [To thee I bound my tongue, and now I loose it: which both, that I may do piously, suppliant I ask and beseech thee. May I speak what is fitting, but what it is unlawful to speak, may I not even with the thought of mind comprehend.] These things Gregory, in those things which regard silence. The same also affected by assiduous afflictions, when he had declared perpetual war on the joys of the world, if ever any glad and pleasant things occurred, fearing for himself, that he might drive them away as a suspect thing, soon fleeing to the Threnodies of Jeremiah, he reads the threnodies of Jeremiah by that means conciliated for himself that sadness which begets salvation. For he himself of those Threnodies at one time making words, says these things. [I indeed, to speak of myself, as often as I take this little book in hand (and that I do as often as I wish by such reading to coerce the insolence of prosperity) my voice is intercepted, and I am overwhelmed with tears.] These things he himself. Or. 4 on peace

[157] What also vehemently tortured the mind of Gregory, was the love of his sons, he mourns his sons and the church left at Constantinople. whom he had begotten in the Catholic faith: as once those Bethlehemite cows bound to the wagon, although they declined neither to the right nor to the left, yet for the calves left in the stalls lowed assiduously: so also Gregory mourned his offspring, and the more, because, the occasion of his departure being seized, the Arians and the other heretics more freely rose against the Church of God. Hence those tears of Gregory, hence those repeated sighs about his Anastasia, when he had returned into his fatherland. Whence at times, and now, he says [s, my Trinity again in the forum and in the choirs, by impure and nefarious tongues is rent, and meretricious discourses are superior;] & all his other poems of that kind resounded with such things. The Anastasia all his discourses, thoughts, and finally his very dreams represented. There is extant also a poem by which he described a dream about the Anastasia; where among other things these are read:

[O sweetest Anastasia, if ever forgetfulness of thee shall seize me, or if ever I shall have anything earlier in my mouth, I would that Christ forget me. Very often also the people of the Anastasia, although in body far removed, I have surveyed, fashioning to myself an incorporeal temple in mind, and with tears divinely meeting me making sacrifice. O Virgins, O sacred Cantors, O pleasant and amiable choirs both of strangers and of our own! O Widows, Orphans, beggars, hanging from my hands as from the hands of God! O sweet houses the nurses of old age, never of you shall I, if I would, forget.] &c.

NOTES.

having adjured, on account of my effete and dead body, and at the same time because I had laid aside the burden of the neglected Church, I asked this favor from them, not adverse to the ecclesiastical laws and refreshing us, that that Pastor should be given, who also by thy prayers was given.

p. even decrepit he shudders at the vicinity of women, Hence that in Carm. 58 on human virtue. In body I am a virgin, but whether also in mind I know not for certain.

q. Hence to Vitalianus the husband of Gorgonia Epistle 196, From Carbala by the utmost wickedness we are ejected, and (that I may use the words of the tragedy somewhat changed) we are ejected not indeed by word, but in fact. For it was much better, a public tablet being set up, to declare to us a withdrawal, than through women, whom thou hast placed opposite us, to interpose the gravity and sanctity of life; and to give a daily occasion of cursing to me, to others, who gladly follow such an institute of life. I will say plainly, although this perhaps seem bold, prepared also for that cause to dismiss his little garden. thou hast also driven us out of paradise through Eve, as much namely as was in thee. You, when you come to this place, we both receive and embrace; but from the female household we will so snatch ourselves away, as from the assaults of beasts… both the labors of our hands being left, and those things by hope of which we were led, and a long oration being delivered to the holy Martyrs for the cause of excusing ourselves. That matter moved Vitalianus, I believe, that he should remove the scandal from the eyes and vicinity of the Saint, long bound by his great benefits. But hence arises a doubt, whether Carbala is the same as Arianzus. I should so distinguish, that Arianzus was the name of the village itself, within which both their church the holy Martyrs had, of whom here and in the Epistle of Theodore of Mopsuestia mention is made; and near the church Gregory had his little estate, by its proper name called Carbala, as houses and gardens severally are wont to have their own name in villages.

r. Not because he ever grievously delinquished by word (for from detraction, contumely, and other similar things which the Christian law forbids, he professes himself far to have been removed) but because the glory of an always ready eloquence struck the eyes of the envious, as in several places he often insinuates, when he says his fluency at Constantinople and elsewhere turned to a crime against him, as though a mute faith ought to do all things.

s. Carm. 17 On himself after his return from Constantinople, where through the slothfulness of Nectarius he heard and groaned that heresies grew strong again. With Nectarius himself however he always cultivated friendship, nor writes except with the greatest reverence and expression of the great estimation conceived of his virtue and prudence, even where he exhorts him to repress the heretics, as he does in that Epistle which is among the Orations the 46th.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Generous deeds against the Apollinarist heretics: solicitude for ecclesiastical peace.

[158] To the heap of all evils there was also superadded to him, that the followers of the heresy of Apollinaris ^a, having set out to Rome to Damasus the Roman Pontiff, the Apollinarists glorying in his communion at Nazianzus, there acting by guile, lied that they were Catholics, a confession of the Catholic faith being produced: for which cause also by that art having filched communicatory letters from him, returned into the East, glorying in the communion of Damasus, as Catholics among Catholics they mingled themselves; and so also had insinuated themselves into Gregory's friendship. Whence it came to pass that, boasting that they had Gregory also a partner in their depraved dogma, they also spread among the crowd that he was a fautor of their party. Of these the chief was Vitalis of Antioch; who, as we saw with Jerome as author, as he impudently gloried of the Communion of Damasus, so he insolently exalted himself of the society of Gregory. Jerome ep. 82 But when from the letters of Cledonius ^b a chief man Gregory had perceived this, he vehemently was inflamed: and forthwith to him about the same matter he sent back letters ^c, by which he might purge himself of the suspicion of the Apollinarian heresy, and by the same execrating and condemning both Apollinaris and Vitalis, he refutes them by Epistles written to Cledonius, by skillful arguments confuted and disapproved their dogma.

[159] But of the communion of Vitalis he brings such a cause and reason: [Lest, he says, they accuse us [rendering a reason why he had before received Vitalis, whom he now condemns to Cledonius about Vitalis.] as having embraced the faith of Vitalis, which, B. Damasus the Bishop of Rome so demanding, he published signed at Rome, but now disapproving it.] &c. To the same about Vitalis again: [Nor indeed is it to be esteemed unworthy (although it be grievous and unworthy) that those men infuse their pernicious dogmas into simpler minds through others more crafty and more wicked; but that they lie that we are of the same opinion and sentence, covering their hook with this bait, and by this disguise and pretext nefariously fulfilling their desire, and seizing our simplicity (by which it came to pass that we did not hold them in the place of aliens, but embraced them with fraternal love) into an occasion of a covenant. This also of unworthiness happened, [prepared to receive them also if they shall have shown the Roman communicatory letters, as he did.] that they affirm themselves (as I hear) received by the Western Synod, by which it is obscure to no one that they were before condemned. But if either now or before they have been received who feel with Apollinaris, let them show this, and we will acquiesce. For it will be perspicuous that they assent to right doctrine: nor can the matter be otherwise, if they have obtained this. That will altogether be clear, if either the Synodal Codex, or the Epistles by which they are bidden to be admitted to communion, they shall have brought: for so is the manner of Synods. But if these are mere words and figments of a certain specious color, devised by them for the cause of obtaining faith for the gravity and authority of persons and the inexperienced multitude; teach them to be quiet, and refute them]. These things Gregory, who how much to the Western judgment, to the Roman Pontiff (I say) himself he deferred, from the aforesaid appears.

[160] for abolishing the vulgar Psalms of Apollinaris, Gregory conceived for that cause a most bitter hatred against the heresy of Apollinaris, so that he never ceased to confute it by words and writings. Nay when he, for alluring the common people, wrote certain new psalms in verses, by that means that he might interrupt the sacred psalmody of the Church; Gregory, lest the Catholics should seem inferior in this part, set his mind, that he should dictate very many things in verses, yet so that he gave the first place in the Church to the psalms of David. Of these in the same place treating, he says these things of the invention of Apollinaris. [But if prolix books, and new psalters resounding against David, and the charm of verses are held for a kind of third testament; we too will elaborate psalms, he promises that he too will write verses. and write many things and modulate, since indeed we ourselves also seem to have the spirit of God; if however this is the grace of the spirit, and not rather a human innovation. These

things we wish thee to protest before the people.] &c. These things Gregory to Cledonius. S. Jerome testifies that Gregory wrote very many things in elegant meter ^d: but the Catholic Church forbade such vulgar psalms of Apollinaris to be sung in church. But what after these things Gregory did against the Apollinarists, in its place we shall say below.

[161] The following year from the Constantinopolitan Synod, Syagrius likewise and Antonius being Consuls, urgent ecclesiastical causes pressing, In the year 383 called to the 2nd Synod of C.P., again a Synod of Bishops was gathered at Constantinople: to which Gregory by the letters of Procopius the prefect in the name of the Emperor was again and again called. Who although he had conceived in mind never any more to be present at the assemblies of Bishops, lest he should hear their mutual altercations; yet pretexting the cause of ill health, in this manner wrote back to him: [I, if I must write true things, am so disposed in mind, that I flee all Councils of Bishops: since I have seen the end of no Council glad and auspicious, nor which had a repelling of evils rather than an accession and increment:] & after other things, [But now to this my judgment there accedes as patron disease, as one which so distorts me, that almost daily I breathe out my last breaths, nor can I use myself in any matter. Ep. 55 And for this cause let thy Magnitude pardon me, he excuses his sickness and give effort that the most pious Emperor condemn me not of slothfulness, but give pardon to infirmity]. These and other things Gregory excusing himself. And when still the command of the Emperor pressed, and Icarius brought to him the Emperor's edict: What he wrote back to the Emperor, does not appear. Ep. 76 But to Olympius the President of Cappadocia writing he says these things: [This is graver to me than disease, that not even to the sick is faith given, but I am bidden to undertake so long a peregrination, and to thrust myself into the midst of tumults: whose secession I so loved, that for this name I almost have gratitude even to the affliction of the body.

[162] These things Gregory, who in truth had before resolved never to be present at the Councils of Bishops. otherwise of himself alien from Synods: Whence these things he says at times. [For me indeed it is certain and deliberated never hereafter to be present at the Synods of geese or cranes fighting among themselves, in which all things blaze with contention and war, and crimes before obscure and unknown, gathered into one by enemies, are brought into light: for the cause of these I sit among the humble and plebeian]. on the different ways of life And to almost the same effect he wrote to Theodore the Bishop of Tyana ^e. These things Gregory: who however was so disposed in mind that although he avoided Synods, yet those things which he saw to regard the Catholic faith he diligently fulfilled; nay no otherwise than if he presided over the World, so the care of all the Churches seized him, that he was bent upon nothing except those things which he beheld to regard the destruction of heresies and the propagation of the Catholic faith: as the things which we shall say a little below will excellently declare.

[163] But still the following year, Merobaudes the second time and Saturninus being Consuls, the Bishops again came together to Constantinople to a Synod. nonetheless no less caring for the peace of the Church. Gregory, solicitous about those things which regard the faith, to Postumianus, that year administering the Prefecture of the Praetorium, gave letters in these words: Ep. 71. [Esteem nothing so to befit thy command (since again a Synod of Bishops is celebrated, I know not for what cause, or in what manner of those coming together) as that, thou being Prefect and by thy effort, the Churches be led back to peace, even if those who contend with discords and factions must be more openly rebuked. But if to anyone I seem too curious, that, although I have withdrawn from affairs, yet I have not cast away care and solicitude, remember this: which in the 3rd Synod of C.P. he commends to chief men, that not as from the throne and a haughty brow, so also from piety we have withdrawn. Nay rather the greater faith and authority with thee I seem to myself about to have, as one who care not my private matter, but the public utility]. These things he to Postumianus, and on the same argument gave letters to Saturninus the Consular, and among other things. Ep. 72. [All things (he says) with us by the benefit of God are well, this one thing excepted, that about the Churches so foully disturbed we are anxious and solicitous. To these whatever of work thou canst bring toward common concord, both by deed and by discourse diligently establish. Since again the Bishops come together, it is to be feared again, lest now also we be suffused with shame, if this Synod also have a little illustrious end, just as also the prior one]. These things Gregory.

[164] We omit here to treat what was done in that Synod: let it suffice to know that Postumianus diligently according to Gregory's opinion procured the affairs of the Catholic Church, both with the Bishops, not without fruit, the heretics being proscribed by edict: and also with the Emperor, who in this very year and the same Consuls being is found to have given two rescripts to Postumianus himself, against all the heresies which then raged: for he sanctioned that the heretics were to be driven from city and country, and took away from them all power of coming together, and prohibited the ordination of ministers. Those who are struck by these laws are these; Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, Apollinarians, Encratites, Apostatics, Saccophori, and Hydroparastatae. But all these things rescribed by the Emperor to Postumianus, by right we impute to our Gregory, who commended the state of the Church of God to him according to his strength. The green observance of these laws flourished for some time, almost up to a quinquennium: but (as it happens) when they began now to grow lukewarm, the aforesaid heretics [f] presumed again to thrust themselves into the Churches, the Apollinarists nonetheless doing their own things, to make assembly, and to ordain Bishops through the places. Hearing these things Gregory, stirred by zeal of the Catholic faith, addressing the sleeping in these matters Nectarius the Constantinopolitan Bishop, letters being written to him ^g with vehement admiration, when he recounts such most wicked deeds, he incites Nectarius against them, he subjoins these things at the end: [If to those who feel such things it is permitted to hold assemblies, this I would that thy in Christ illustrious prudence consider and weigh, that, since with us their dogmas do not agree, that power of holding assemblies has been made to them, is nothing else than to esteem their doctrine truer than ours. For if to them, as pious and orthodox, it is permitted to teach and freely promulgate the things they feel; who does not see that the doctrine of the Church is condemned, just as if the truth stood on their parts? For neither does the nature of things bear that there be two true doctrines about the same thing. How then has thy lofty and most excellent mind endured not to use its accustomed liberty for the repelling and correction of so great an evil? But if this has not yet been done, let thy inimitable and in all numbers absolute virtue be excited; and teach the most pious Emperor, that nothing of utility will return from his remaining zeal toward the Churches, if such an evil prevail unto the subversion of the sound faith through their liberty and license.] These things Gregory to Nectarius.

[165] But how much the aforesaid admonition of Gregory written to him profited, who by a new edict are again driven out. the edict of Theodosius against the Apollinarians sufficiently signifies, by which, his second Consulate being entered upon with Cynegius ^h, he edicted in these words: [The Apollinarians, and the rest of the followers of the diverse heresies, we order to be inhibited from all places, from the walls of cities, from the meeting of honest men, from the communion of the holy. Of instituting Clerics let them have no power. Of gathering congregations either in public or in private Churches let them lack the faculty. Let no authority of making Bishops be granted them. The Bishops themselves also, destitute of the name, let them lose the appellation of this dignity. Let them go to places which especially seclude these as it were by a kind of rampart from human communion. To these we also annex this, that to all the aforementioned the access of approaching and interpellating our Serenity be denied. Given the 6th of the Ides of March. At Thessalonica, Theodosius the second time and Cynegius being Consuls.] Let the reader confer these things with those which to Nectarius Gregory wrote, the same when sick also pursues them in Cappadocia. and he will find our Gregory to have been the author of this law to be composed: and this he will more perspicuously understand, if he read the letters of the same Gregory to Olympius the President of Cappadocia, by which he complains that they had come to such audacity, that the Bishops deposed by the Synods, the same the Presidents set over their flocks. Ep. 77. In the same Epistle he indicates that he himself had set out to the baths by the counsel of physicians, when he says: But since disease has carried me farther away, and I must by the counsel of physicians use the Xanxarian baths, I substitute a vicar for myself].

NOTES.

Hermant judges probably enough, that the Saint treats of this Carm. 47 to Hellenius about the year 382, asking aid, Cledonius Gregory's Vicar at Nazianzus.

For Cledonius first the mild, who lives for the needy, and to Christ with prompt breast gave all things: himself first: after, whatever of wealth and revenue he held, that he might leave nothing to his humble life: who, when he once flourished in earthly courts, now has a greater honor among our people:

read and numbered 51 and 52. They were moreover written by the Saint when he was still acting at Constantinople, Cledonius being left as vicar for him at Nazianzus, as it seems to us: because he as it were from office admonished Gregory how evil a fame was being spread about him; and to him, demanding that remedy of public profession, the Saint promptly sending it, the first Epistle on this argument he thus ends: These things we wish thee to attest before the multitude, that we be not burdened, as dissembling such an evil, and through our slothfulness committing that a depraved dogma creep more widely and take strength. But that this is the same Cledonius who with the title of Iconian Presbyter at Constantinople subscribed to the testament of S. Gregory himself, we shall not easily be persuaded.

CHAPTER XIX.

The pious death. The miracle of a mute man healed at his statue.

[166] These things he: who although in those things which regard the Catholic faith he was much occupied, did not neglect to care in others for those things which he beheld to pertain to composing the morals of Christian discipline. In which kind, with how free a mind he was, that he feared no person of any powerful man, that very brief Epistle which he wrote to Celeusius the Prefect, may be for an example, he convicts a Prefect not keeping the fasts. worthy assuredly to be recounted. Ep. 74. [I will speak the things which befit both our friendship, and a time of this kind. Thou doest injury to the laws, O Judge, who dost not fast; and how wilt thou keep human laws, who despisest the Divine, and holdest for nothing? Purge thy tribunal, lest one of two things befall thee, lest either thou become bad, or be esteemed so. To set forth foul spectacles, is to disgrace oneself. In sum, O Judge, know that thou wilt be judged, and thou wilt sin in nothing. Than these I had nothing better to offer thee]. These things Gregory.

[167] the sick man flees to Christ, But when, as we saw, Gregory by the counsel of Physicians had set out to the Baths, having obtained thence no utility, these things he sang in verses. [I am here present to thee Sick, O Christ, coming from the Physicians, having obtained no other fruit, in the Swan-songs than that I have learned to make nothing of more value than thee, from whom as all other things proceed, so also the powers of remedies.] And again. [Behold for thee the baths, a washing here I now have. But where is for me some Angel, and render this water apt for me to heal. Or at least do thou, my Savior, say some word, and I shall be consolidated]. These things Gregory. Who when daily he was more grievously burdened by disease, and of his members there was almost no use, this only of solace was left to him, that he should sport in verses and compose Swan-songs ^a, by which the state of past and present things, without any insolence or arrogance (which is of a most pure and most candid mind only) he very charmingly might sing as another Job, and composes Swan-songs. when comparing the present with the past he said, Who would grant me, that I might be according to the former months, according to the days, in which God kept me: Job 29. when his lamp shone above my head &c. for repeating the past goods by memory, these things he said: Where for me is the station of nocturnal songs, [he commemorates former deeds in which either having commerce only with Christ, or in an assembly of men by alternately chanting hymns delighting my mind, I sustained my feet, and like a certain living stone grew stiff? Carm. 60 Where the sweet labor of bent knees, by which pouring forth warm tears first, I gathered my caliginous mind? Where the hands the nurses of the poor, fomenting disease? Whither at length did the maceration of weak members go? No longer to the holy sacrifices do I lift my hand, mingling myself with the great passions of Christ. No longer do I set up a dance grateful to the Martyrs, nor, an oration being instituted in their praises, do I venerate the illustrious blood. With mold and decay my books are overspread. My lucubrations, still rude and begun, to which at length of my friends will put the last hand? for all things now to me living are dead.] &c. These and many other things of that kind.

[168] He added also a mournful poem on penitence, which rendered in Latin in loose prose, as also some others, and he institutes penitence: thus begins: [The contest of extreme life is at hand, an evil navigation I have completed, now also the penalty of crimes I discern, tartarus horrendous with darkness, the flame of fire, deepest night, and the foulness of those things which, now covered and unknown, will afterward be brought into light] &c. Carm. 31. He wrote also a poem of himself migrating from this life, in this manner.

[Lofty I stretch suppliant my palms to the stars, receive me O blessed throng of the holy choir. Filled with the grave troubles of the world, farewell, the flock which dying after me I leave, spare.]

But again of his soul conversing with the body these words. in the Swan-songs 106. [Why dost thou hold me bound by the injection of chains, who am free? Christ calls me: do thou lie there whither thou shalt be cast. Receive me O Savior, although I confess I am not sufficiently purged]. last he aspires to God, And when he was tempted by the Devil, these things he himself. [Again the Dragon approached. Thee I take hold of. Hold, hold me: thy image desert and cast away thou wilt not, lest that my adversary snatch me like a bird from the nest]. But now approaching death to Christ calling him, these things he says. [Dost thou call me, dost thou call? but I myself run up. But both the fire, and that chasm, and the burning, and the flame of the rich man I fear. Who will carry me borne to the bosom of Abraham?] These and other things. About to die very shortly with a Swan-song the Most Holy Old man singing to the Lord, rendered his most pure spirit to God, and attained the desired quiet with the throngs of the Blessed.

[169] He departed from this life Timasius and Promotus being Consuls, in the eleventh year of the Empire of Theodosius the Elder, and dies holily in the year 389 which by the more recent is numbered the year from Christ the Lord three hundred and eighty-ninth. But these things of the time of his death from S. Jerome we thus deduce, while he in the book on Ecclesiastical Writers treating of our Gregory, says these things: He died about three years before this under Theodosius the Prince. These things Jerome, who since both in the preface and at the end of that little work he testifies that he wrote it in the fourteenth year of the same Theodosius the Emperor, it is necessarily inferred that Gregory in the eleventh year of the same Emperor departed from human affairs. From these indeed first the Chronicle of Prosper is convicted of erring, where the death of Gregory is placed in the third year of the Emperor Theodosius, Syagrius and Eucharius being Consuls: for in that year was held the ecumenical Synod of Constantinople, in which he himself (as has been said) abdicating himself from the Episcopate, not 381, nor 391. returned into his fatherland. Nor do those things stand which Suidas writes, that Gregory departed life in the thirteenth year of the same Emperor: as neither are those approved by us which the same author writes of his age saying, that he died at the age of ninety. For according to such a number of years it would have to be said that Gregory, when he was at Athens, at the time, as he himself says, in which Julian was there after the death of his brother Gallus, had completed the fifty-fifth year of his age, whereas the same writes of himself that he was then acting the thirtieth year of his age ^b, when after the departure of Basil, he himself is compelled publicly to profess Rhetoric, when not after a great space of time he also departed from Athens, returning into his fatherland: which (as we saw) happened a little before the Conciliabula of Seleucia and Ariminum, which were celebrated, Eusebius and Hypatius being Consuls. From all which it seems can be inferred, that Gregory did not exceed the sixty-second year of his age, and was born in the second year from the Nicene Council.

[170] Gregory was of a strong and robust body, but, of what bodily condition, as he says, by assiduous diseases and the troubles of life dulled, broken, and almost corrupted, and for that cause an old age hastened for him he himself testifies in the poem on his own affairs. But as regards the effigy of his countenance, an Anonymous Greek author, who is had in the Vatican Library among the orations of Hierotanus likewise a Greek writer, and of what stature he was writes these things. cod. 549 in the Vatican. [He was of middle stature, somewhat pale, yet not without comeliness: of a depressed nose, with eyebrows extended into a straight line, of a bland and sweet aspect, with one eye namely the right somewhat sad, which a certain scar contracted, with a beard not long, but yet dense. In that part where he was not bald, for he was somewhat bald, he had white hairs, and the topmost parts likewise of his beard he showed as if overspread with smoke.] These the Greek author, with which indeed those things are consonant which he himself writes of himself, namely paleness, and leanness, the scar of the eye, and baldness. Almost innumerable are the eulogies of the Fathers about the most holy and most eloquent man, how praised by posterity, by the Fathers, which not anyone could easily gather. Let it suffice for his praise, that all the Fathers both Latin and Greek, in establishing dogmas, in assailing heresies, and also in interpreting the divine Scriptures, mention Gregory, followed him, and acquiesced in him: and Gregory from the pulpit, from the chair, celebrated by the mouth of all; the same finally in the very sacred Councils as if revived speaking from the Throne, inveighing against the heretics, defending the Catholic faith, giving suffrages, and subscribing, always beheld, revered, and followed all the Fathers. Why should I mention strangers? Indeed Eustorgius ^c the Arian, who lived in the same times with him, when he recounts the chief men, the defenders of the consubstantiality of the Son of God with the Father, both of them and of all who lived before, gives to Gregory, as the chief of all, the first place: so that he contends he was in speaking graver than Basil and more copious than Apollinaris.

[171] His natal day, as most sacred, both the Western and the Eastern Church, in his memory has been wont to celebrate with a celebrated solemnity, and even now perseveres to celebrate, and his sacred Image, either to paint with colors, or to sculpt in marble,

after the manner of the elders in the Basilicas it has been the custom. images placed in churches, Which not only should represent his effigy, but also in the working of miracles render it living, as it is established to have been done in succeeding times, when Michael Balbus the Iconoclast had invaded the Eastern Empire, and had removed the Emperor Leo the Armenian of equal impiety, and had relegated Constantine his son, deprived of his manhood, to an island; to whom indeed when the use of voice for that cause was wholly intercepted, and he was rendered wholly mute; when he, desiring the restitution of speech from God, demanded it through S. Gregory the Theologian, whose sacred statue was there, that one heard him, whose image appeared through a vision, bidding him read the wax, at one of which a mute man recovers speech. which written he had in his hand. But he, giving faith to the vision, in the morning enters the Church, and there, the statue of Gregory being beheld, bearing before it the image of him whom he had seen by night, and holding the same little schedule in its hand, where the exordium of the oration on the holy lights was inscribed in these words, Again my Jesus; he approached, that, as he had been bidden, he might read. Which words indeed, when he had first recited them with a most clear voice, he thereafter always rightly spoke. These things the annals of the Greeks ^d relate.

[172] Now we have reached the end. And in these things indeed which regard the ornament of speech, as it seems to me, too meagerly (for if after the manner of rhetoricians these things had to be done, it was a most broad field, in which speech could have exulted) but in those things which pertain to the most sincere truth, which alone we profess, I doubt not that they are such that I would scarcely yield to anyone in it. But whatever of labor, whatever of industry and skill, loving only the true, we have expended, a scanty gift, but the first-fruits of our lucubrations, we offer to thee thyself, O Father, who with the heavenly spirits art illumined by that uncircumscribed light of the most holy Trinity now revealed face to face. Repay grace to thy Caesar, asking his patronage. and the name most pleasant to thee in a brother, despise not in a Client. Impart a manifold and copious blessing, that I may be found worthy here to affect those sublime footsteps of thine, and with thee at length to enjoy Christ, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the everlasting ages. Amen.

EPITAPH ^e.

[173] Why, Father, hast thou entangled me in the snares of the flesh? Why am I subject to this force, which moves wars against me? By a divine Father I was begotten, and a holy parent: For by her praying this light of life was given me. She prayed, and vowed me to the highest God, and there arose For me through sleep the love of virginity. These things indeed of Christ: but afterward storms came upon me, My goods were snatched from me, my flesh broken by grief. I felt pastors, such as scarcely anyone would believe: And bereaved I departed of offspring, and heavy with evils. This is the life of Gregory; but the rest is a care to Christ, Who is the giver of life. Let the stone express these things.

NOTES.

It is among the Poems the thirtieth, and contains an epitome of his life.

Hermant concludes his work, which on the history of S. Gregory of Nazianzus and S. Basil he wrote in common, parallels of Gregory and Basil. with two books of parallels: of which the first compares their most perfect virtues, the other their doctrine and sentiments among themselves; which indeed is not of our institute, yet is most worthy of note and reading, for completing the perfect laudation of both. It is pleasing therefore to subjoin here even the titles of the chapters, rendered from the French into Latin. as regards virtues and their perfection;

Book XI Chapter I. Comparison of these two Saints as regards fatherland, which namely they knew none except the heavenly.

II The sanctity of the family, in which each was born, compared among themselves.

III Of the doctrine and eloquence of each.

IV Each commends the study of the sacred Scriptures with praiseworthy emulation.

V With how conformable a sentiment among themselves they venerated the sacred traditions.

VI Of their faith, and what victories over idolatry it brought them.

VII How through the same they triumphed over heresies.

VIII How the same rendered them contemners and conquerors of this world.

IX How similar a love of solitude the same inspired in them.

X The firm hope of each, and perfect confidence in God.

XI Of the ardent charity of each toward God.

XII Of their love toward the Church.

XII Of the equal zeal in each for ecclesiastical peace.

XIII Of the charity of each toward his neighbor, and the will inclined to almsgiving.

XIV Of their prudence.

XV Of the justice of the same.

XVI Of temperance and chastity.

XVII Of fortitude and magnanimity.

XVIII Of the profound humility of each.

XIX Of the perfect friendship between them, set forth to all as a most absolute exemplar.

as regards doctrine and moral sentiments. Book XII Chapter I. Their axioms about the necessity of a vocation to the Ecclesiastical state.

II How gravely each reprehended the precipitation of those who, not called, elevate themselves to the same.

III What conditions each required in Bishops and Masters of the people.

IV How sublime an opinion of Christian virginity they had.

V What endowments they desired in Christian and Religious Virgins.

VI Instructions for the use of the married collected from the writings of each.

VII The reprehension of womanly luxury and secular vanity received from the same.

XIII The excellent sentiments of each, regarding the depression of human pride.

IX Similar invectives of each against avarice.

X Equal zeal for eliminating impurity and lust.

XI Equal severity against the vice of the gullet.

XII What kind of envy each left described.

XIII What invectives against irascibility each felt.

XIV What of sadness and acedia each felt.

S. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS

The Poem on his own Life.

Turned into loose prose by Daniel Cardo.

Gregory of Nazianzus, Archbishop of Constantinople (S.)

INTERP. D.C.

PROLOGUE.

[1] Gregory about to write his own Life, My mind is to comprehend in this writing the whole course of my life, notable both for prosperous and for adverse things. For about me others and others not all perhaps in the same manner can it be that they feel and speak, according namely as each one's impulse has borne him into this or that part: but it cannot be just, that judgment which is borne by will alone. But if there be any tedium, if any trouble from the narration, this all the pleasantness of the poem wipes away. to the Constantinopolitan Citizens Nor will there be lacking what hence youthful age may learn, or wherewith it may be recreated, and moved with pleasure to all the most beautiful things. Meanwhile this our discourse especially regards you, who, when I presided over you as Bishop, pertained to my care; but now are subject to another's power. I address you both who are joined with me in the same religion, and who feel differently. For to me, worn out by old age and labors and now prostrated, all, I think, still wish well. You therefore, men, whom, as so many most illustrious lights, this world looks up to, who inhabit that city, which for its magnitude and celebrity I see can be called another kind of world; whom we behold to abound in all the delights of land and sea, Citizens of new Rome, which is wont to be the seat and dwelling of illustrious men, notable by Constantine its founder, and the head and most beautiful firmament of the whole empire; you, I say, men of Constantinople, since you are so great, hear a man most far removed from all falsehood, and in the various changes of things and times having suffered not few or moderate things, whence a great knowledge of all things must necessarily arise, speaking most true things.

[2] and how much he was agitated by the wicked, All the honors with which I once shone, by the long course of time are obscured and collapsed: of the former celebrity also of my fame nothing or very little now remains. In which that befell me which we see to happen, when by the vehemence of poured-out showers all the earth is carried off from the soil, and only a heap of flints and pebbles is seen to remain. Nor is there cause why anyone should greatly wonder, if I impute this to the wickedness of those who never before were not only not in the number of the good; but are convicted to have passed their life even after the manner of cattle, with minds bent to the earth and earthly things. But of that impetuous rain we ourselves also bear some image (indeed not without tears and groaning I so pronounce of our sacred and most chaste Order) we, also the Bishops. I say, are no small part of those evils; whoever, carried above the rest of mortals, do not as we ought sustain our place and dignity; who preside over the people with power, and profess ourselves masters of the right and the good; to whom it has befallen by lot that we feed the souls of men with the divine fodder of sacred doctrine, when meanwhile we ourselves are pressed by no moderate hunger; who, when we ourselves are subject to very many diseases, yet strive to cure the infirmities of others. and the heralds of depraved doctrine, But to these thou mayest add those who undertake to lead the people through those ways which either perhaps will end in precipices; or of what kind they are, is unknown to the very leaders, since they never trod or entered them before: against whom this very brief precept can be given, and the best rule, lest thou fall from salvation, that thou by no means follow where they go before; whose morals indeed that very place of honor which they occupy not a little accuses; lattices rather and a haughty brow, than an excellent manner of living, distinguish them from the common crowd of men.

[3] But what is the cause why I have brought such things into discourse (for I am not one who is wont to pour forth many words rashly) let both the mortals who are now living, he begins the narration higher. and those who shall be at some time, hear. Yet before the reason of my words stands clear, I must repeat the series of my life a little higher (be it that hence a more prolix matter of speaking arise for me) lest the vociferations of the wicked against me avail anything. For it is placed in custom for those men, that they cast the causes of things ill done by them upon those very ones whom they have hurt; and so by lies wickedly feigned they inflict a greater harm upon their adversaries, but exhibit themselves pure as of all crime. And let this be a kind of preface as it were to the narration to be hereafter instituted.

CHAPTER I.

Piously educated by the best parents, he sails from Alexandria to Athens not without peril: and there the Saint is joined to Basil.

[4] He had most pious and most upright parents I had therefore a father excellently upright and good, a man of very advanced age, and as to morals incorrupt, who could be set up for others as a most beautiful rule of living. He was, to say what the thing is, that other patriarch Abraham, who, contrary to what is now wont to be done, not by the opinion of men, but in fact, both desired to be and to be held good. He, first led away by the errors of the Gentiles, then a notable worshipper of Christ, and not only this, but a Bishop also, and the glory and a certain chief ornament of that sacred Order. But a mother befell me who, to say it briefly, was most worthy to be joined to such a husband, nor was womanly fickle or unstable. Although she was sprung from most pious parents, yet by her own religion and piety she surpassed them. By sex and habit she was a woman, but by her institute of living more admirable than all men. One and the same was the estimation and the discourse of all about the life of either parent. But whence do you think I shall build faith for these my words? Her, her who bore me, I will bring forth into the midst as witness, whom while I call, I call truth itself. She certainly had this singular zeal, that even those things which were set before the eyes of all, she strove to have hidden from all rather than, for the cause of catching some vain estimation among men, proudly to boast some hidden glory of her mind, namely the fear of God, which as a master she was wont to employ in all her actions.

[5] By the vow of his mother, even before he was born, he is dedicated to God, Since therefore she greatly desired to see male offspring (which is wont to be the vow of very many parents) in her family, she suppliantly prayed God, that he would not be willing to frustrate her in her vows. And when she could no longer conceal the magnitude of her desire, the very gift which she asked from God she vowed she would dedicate to His most holy worship; by that religious alacrity of her mind consecrating her son to God even before she had received him from heaven. and he is obtained divinely. Nor indeed were her vows and supplications in vain, but a most happy presage of the thing which she had asked, and which she was about to obtain, was offered her. A vision namely was set before her mind, bearing a certain image of the maternal desire soon to be fulfilled. For behold in the nocturnal quiet a most true effigy of me offers itself to my mother, to whom also the name by which I was to be called is wonderfully indicated. This grace that night afforded my parents: for I was then divinely granted to them, to whose vows if in any way I exhibited myself worthy that I should be obtained, let us refer it all as received from God: but if not, let us confess it must be ascribed to my sins. In this manner therefore brought forth into this light, formed and composed of clay, alas wretched me! by which accordingly I am often depressed to those lower things, and from whose grosser matter rarely and with difficulty I extricate myself. Yet since the beginning of this life I have received as a kind of pledge of the goods which are expected, it is by no means lawful for me to be ungrateful.

[6] But scarcely had I begun to live, when I pass into another's affair and right, by a beautiful reckoning indeed; for I am addicted to God, no otherwise than a lamb or a calf religiously destined for the altars of the same God; From his tender years addicted to the divine worship a noble victim indeed, nor void of reason and discourse: for I do not dare to say I was offered to God as a certain new Samuel, except only by esteeming the pious will of my parents in that consecration. From very infancy moreover excellently and most honorably educated (for at home I beheld no other than the examples of the most beautiful virtues) I already bore before me something of maturity and senile gravity. he is piously educated. But then the study of the right and the honest so grew in me by degrees, just as we see clouds repeatedly aggregated to clouds. Meanwhile I profited equally in age and in the use of reason, and avidly read those books by which the cause of God and of religion was defended. With all the best men also I dealt familiarly. And these things indeed thus far. his modesty in describing his own affairs. But now, in what manner I am to act about the things which remain, I doubt not a little. Shall I involve in silence those admirable things, by which God set spurs to me toward all the best things, when he deigned to admit this my alacrity of mind as it were the most beautiful beginning of a future life? (For He namely holds this manner in conferring beatitude on men) or rather shall I confidently bring forth all things into the midst? The one namely will by no means escape the mark of ingratitude, the other of pride. Yet it is better to be silent, and it can suffice that those things be not unknown by me; lest, if I bring them forth, the manner of living which I now hold seem to fight with my discourse; as one which has lost very much of that former fervor and alacrity of my mind. Those things therefore which must necessarily be said, I will speak only.

[7] with what mind he learned the profane disciplines, When I was still beardless, I was borne with a vast love and desire toward letters, intending this only that I should add the human and profane disciplines as associates and helpers to the true and more solid sciences, lest by vain pride those could be exalted who learned nothing else than I know not what empty eloquence, set in the mere noise of words and the contention of voice, nor that the sophists by the fallacies of their arguments should easily circumvent me: for I never came into that thought that I should esteem any other science preferable to the sacred letters, which I always held as my own and proper. What therefore is wont to happen to the younger ones glowing with age (by an inconsiderate impulse of mind they are for the most part easily snatched away, in that manner in which a colt, especially a horse's, fierce and full of spirit, darts forth into a course) the same also befell me. For in a season altogether adverse, the fierceness of the sea not yet mitigated, the tail of the Bull star rising, sailing from Alexandria to Athens. which those skilled in such things pronounce most hostile to navigators, and when no one, except who is little wise, dares to commit himself to the sea; at such a time, I say, leaving the Alexandrian city (for in it on acquiring the sciences I had expended some labor not in vain), I entered a ship into the sea by which one tends straight to Greece. And now we were sailing past the shores of Cyprus, when a vast force of winds blowing from diverse parts began vehemently to afflict our ship.

[8] He is tossed by a most savage tempest. Then suddenly a deep night enveloped the heaven, the sea, the earth and all things, and snatched them from our eyes. Among frequent lightnings thunders were heard with a horrendous crash. And when by the vehemence of the winds the sails were most strongly distended, beyond measure creaked the ropes by which these are wont to be bound. The mast too began to nod, and no use of the helm thereafter remained, which namely by no force or art could the sailors any longer rule. The waters filled the ship up to the topmost sides, when a vast clamor of the sailors, rowers, officers, and the other chief passengers, with one voice calling Christ to aid, was heard, mingled with wailing and lamentations. Whoever a little before had acknowledged no God, the same now with the others invoked Him: for fear is a far best and most opportune master. But what was the gravest of all evils, all our fresh water was plainly failing us: for suddenly a certain more vehement whirlwind, bearing down on the ship, dashed into the sea the vessels in which the abundance of fresh water was contained. With hunger therefore and thirst and the winds we had a contest for our life; but God soon opened to those imperilled a way of unhoped salvation. Certain merchants from Phoenicia were borne on the same sea: He escapes shipwreck. who when they had suddenly given themselves into our sight, although they themselves also were struck with the gravest fear, when nevertheless they knew the magnitude of the peril in which we were from our implorations; by the firmness of the poles which they used and the strength of their youthful hands undertaking (for they were all youths of robust strength) they take us from peril, little or nothing different from corpses drowned in the deep; or like fishes, which the receding sea, needing the salt waters, leaves naked and destitute on the shore; or finally not unlike those lamps, whose light, the oil failing, is seen gradually to die.

[9] Meanwhile the sea remitted nothing of its fury against us, raging against the wretched even for several days; The storm however lasting, who on account of the frequent tossings hither and thither, into what part the ship's course was directed, we could not discern, and had almost no hope of escaping death. And while all the rest feared only the common death, the image of a far graver and more hidden death filled my mind with vast horror. For from the lustral waters of salvation, he is greatly anguished that he was not yet baptized. by which we are in a manner made godlike, the waves of the tempestuous sea, often fatal to navigators, debarred me. This was for me the greatest cause of weeping, this I esteemed to be the supreme calamity. For that cause I uttered miserable voices, lifted my upturned hands to heaven, by whose striking together even the sound of the very waves was overcome. Then my garments being rent, I cast myself prone on my face. And, what thou wilt with difficulty believe, although it is most true; whoever were borne with me in the same ship, the thought of their own peril as it were laid aside, joined their prayers and their vows to mine. So great was the piety and religion of those men in the common evils; so great a compassion of my inconveniences had seized them. At that time indeed thou, O Christ, didst afford me a great hope of salvation, who from the waves of this life now also preparest to snatch me. For when, of what we hoped, nothing now remained any longer, when neither from islands, nor from the continent, nor from the summits of mountains, nor from the torches wont to be kindled along the shores, nor from the stars which mark their way to sailors, could any help be expected; nor of all the things which fall under sight, did any promise anything of aid; what at length do you think was devised by me, or what issue of so great evils was found?

[10] All help being despaired of from these lower things, to thee, my God, I turn my eyes and my mind, who art my life, the aid of God being implored, spirit, light, strength, and salvation; who now bringest threats and stripes, now again caressest and healest, and so art wont to mingle pleasant things with adverse. All the prodigies from which we have known the power of thy great right hand, I commemorate before thee. By what reckoning namely the Red Sea was divided by thee, and the Israelite people without harm passed through it: in what manner while Moses stretched his hands to heaven, the conquered enemies succumbed: with how great plagues thou didst wear down the Egyptians, and their chief leaders in war; and how at the commands of thy servants the creatures created by thee obeyed; how finally prodigiously at the clangor of the trumpets and the circuit instituted by thy people the walls of Jericho fell, and the whole city rose for a prey. But adding to these miracles once narrated by thee more recent ones also

and shown for my sake; I was, I said, and I wish to serve thee anew, already before thine, and now again for a new cause I am thine. By a double title therefore into thy affair thou wilt enroll me if it please, namely the offspring of those parents who for their singular religion are in price with thee, and as it were a gift consecrated to thee by land and by sea; by land indeed for my mother's vow, but by sea for the vehemently pressing fears. Indeed if a twofold peril of body and mind be granted me to escape through thee, I wish all my life dedicated to thy obedience. If I perish, a religious worshipper of thine is about to perish. Behold, by the tempest now thy disciple is tossed. Wherefore from sleep as quickly as possible, I pray, awake; the tempest is calmed. or, walking upon the waters, repress the raging waves of the sea. These things I had scarcely suppliantly prayed, when suddenly as it were the winds lay down, the tempest of the deep is calmed, and to the destined port the course of the ship is directed. This besides from my prayers and vows I merited to obtain a singular fruit; that all whom it had befallen to be borne with me in the same ship turned their mind with great piety to the faith of Christ, and divinely obtained a double salvation. Carried thence past Rhodes, not long after, to the port of Aegina (for we were borne in an Aeginetan ship) with a prosperous and happy course we arrived.

[11] Having put in at Athens he is called to studies. Hence followed the Athenian sojourn, and the studies of letters. But what manner of living we held there, let us leave to the narration of others; namely how, always educated in the fear of God, and among the best and chief we were first; how, when others through the fervor and audacity of adolescence, with their like rashly did all things and precipitately, we instituted a most placid life. So we then lived, that we could be said not unlike that river, of which there is a tradition that, although it holds its course through the waters of the sea, yet contracts nothing of brine therefrom. So far namely was it that we suffered ourselves to be snatched away by adolescents prone to evil, that we ourselves rather drew all those who were joined to us in friendship to all illustrious and honest things by words and examples. he contracts a friendship with Basil. For this for my great good God had provided, that with a most wise man I should contract an intimate friendship, who by an excellent institute of living and by the knowledge of all the disciplines alone surpassed all the rest. But whom do you think this was? He assuredly was he who cannot but be most known to you. Basil namely, a man, if any other, most necessary in these our times. Him I had a partner of all my discourses, him of my roof, him of my thoughts: and, if one ought to glory, we were a pair of friends the most celebrated in all Greece. All things were common to us; we lived by one spirit, which two bodies only divided: but the chief bond of so great a friendship was God himself to us, and a certain ardent desire of all good and beautiful things. For after it was come among us to such confidence, that the one held not from the other the secrets of his heart, by a greater bond of love we were mutually conjoined. For of those whose will is found the same in all things, the minds are seen not with difficulty to be conjoined.

[12] Desiring to accompany him departing from Athens, What then could remain, except that with him I should return into my fatherland, and choose for myself some certain kind of life? For now very much of time had been consumed by me in acquiring letters, in the perception of which I was then acting nearly the thirtieth year. At that time and place it was given me to behold with what desire, and with what opinion my most loving comrades were toward me. For now that time was at hand which brought us no little trouble. For a sad farewell had to be said, embraces to be joined, by which signs of benevolence the minds of those loving are the more kindled. Scarcely at length, and unwilling though, did I render to Basil the due offices at the parting, when he brought very many reasons of his departure: nor even now can I refrain from tears, while I reckon with myself what perturbation of mind I suffered at that time. he is retained by the prayers of his comrades, Forthwith the whole cohort of my comrades stood around me, strangers, equals, familiars, masters of the arts, mingling something of compulsion with adjurations and prayers (which that they did the magnitude of the love with which they were toward me incited them) and tooth and nail, lest I should depart with him, they strove to retain me; denying that, whatever at length should come of that matter, with their good leave I should ever depart thence. about to depart a little after. For they said it must not be committed, that their Athens should make that loss of their chief ornament; and they added, that by the common voice of all I was to be proclaimed prince of eloquence. All these things they urged with so great contention, that I had at length necessarily to yield to them: for no one, except who had a mind harder than every oak, could have resisted so many and so great adjurations and voices of theirs. Nor yet did I suffer myself to be wholly persuaded. For my native soil not a little invited me, with which I know not whether any region, if we regard piety and religion, can be compared, and in which according to the laws of true wisdom to institute my life I thought beautiful: my parents also recalled me, almost worn out by years and age.

CHAPTER II.

Gregory, returned into his fatherland, first created Presbyter by his father, then by Basil Bishop of Sasima, withdraws himself once and again, even declining the Nazianzene administration.

[13] After I had stayed at Athens still a little time, thence as it were stealthily I undertake my setting-out into my fatherland. A specimen of eloquence being given in the fatherland, Into which when I returned, soon it pleased me to give a specimen of eloquence, with the lust of which thing we see not a few labor; yet in this I complied with those who, as it were a certain debt, exacted of me that I should do it. For as acclamations or applauses in speaking are by no means sought by me, so neither, if any despise or hiss my diction, do I greatly care: be it that even the more learned, especially in a multitude of the younger, sometimes exult over those former ones. But hence I judged the beginning of a better life must be taken, that both all my other things, and the very study of eloquence I should subject to the one God, by imitation of those who of their own accord yielded their possessions, or cast their wealth into the sea. deliberating about the life to be instituted, But, as I said before, something had to be given to my friends exacting it. And these were as it were certain previous skirmishes of greater contests, and the first approaches into the higher mysteries: for now manly age demanded back from me counsels and desires worthy of a man.

[14] Within my mind therefore my thoughts, which I am wont to employ as the best monitors toward those things which must be done by me, I call into counsel. A grave tempest then began to agitate my mind, while I inquire what at length among all good things is the best. Long it was since I had decreed that all the things which regard the flesh must be cast very far from me, which counsel was even more approved by me at that time. But to me considering the several and diverse ways of serving God, which among them was the best and most secure, I did not easily determine. For of some, some and other commodities and incommodities, goods and evils, were proposed, as in all daily actions is wont to be. So I was then constituted in mind (that I may by a similitude set the thing before the eyes) like one who, when he meditates a very long setting-out, and has happily escaped the tedium of navigating and the nausea of the deep, then looks round for the best way by which he may prosecute his journey. Elias the Tishbite, [he weighs the commodities and incommodities both of the contemplative and of the active life,] and the most famous Carmel, and the unusual reckoning of food and the solitude, the at once and most pleasant possession of the great Forerunner, finally the innocent simplicity in living of the sons of Jonadab, presented themselves to my mind. On the contrary, again a certain vast desire of the sacred books snatched me away, and the incredible light of mind which is perceived from the contemplation of the divine discourses: but for this study solitude and silence was not apt. After therefore I had long been tossed in mind, now into this, now into that part, by this reckoning at length among the diverse thoughts to determine something, and the too great wandering of the mind into various things to recall within its own limits, I undertook.

[14] For when I saw that those who are most delighted with that kind of life which consists in acting, are of most use indeed to others, but to themselves little or nothing, and are subject to not few perturbations of mind, by which the quiet of the mind, like the sea, is exceedingly agitated: but on the contrary, that those who far from the frequency of men live alone, act in greater peace and tranquillity, and with a peaceful mind contemplate the Divinity; but by too narrow a charity profit themselves, not others, and lead a life more than enough abhorrent from the common and harsh. and prefers one mixed of both. All these things when I more attentively reckoned with myself, I resolved to hold a middle way between the solitary and those given to actions; that the utility which these take from contemplation, and those from action, I myself also might obtain. There was also another cause, and that graver, for taking this counsel, namely that I should render to my parents the due honor and aid. Their old age (for it is an argument of a most pious mind, if one exhibit to his progenitors the honor and worship next to God, by whose work it was done that he himself came into the knowledge of God) I relieved with all the aid and solace I could. I was to them a prop and a staff, that I myself also might obtain from God a placid and fortunate old age, while I am present with all duty and piety to my parents grave in age. For whatever we sow, this also we reap. Moreover in the manner of life which I had embraced I especially regarded this, that not so much by the institute of living I should seem to eminence above others, as that in fact, and not by mere ostentation, I should exist acceptable to God. But although I esteemed that they must be held in no small veneration, yet more a lover of solitude than of frequency, who, given to the active life, and through the sacred initiations having obtained some honor from God among men, by the administration of divine things lead the same to God; yet I was more delighted with the life and custom of the monks, although I myself for the most part should be beheld mingled in the frequency of men. For there is a certain reckoning of making solitude for oneself even in the midst of a multitude of men, if we regard the mind and morals, and not the bodies. The throne also and the sacred dignity seemed to me something august, most alien from honors. but to one still standing far off; as those who with weaker eyes cannot admit the light of the sun, are wont to receive it only from remote and obscure places. But I thought anything else rather would come to pass, than that I should ever receive that grade of honor with so great a variety of life and affairs.

[15] Man, whoever thou art, mindful of thy mortality, never boast proudly something great of thyself:

for envy is wont to render a vain glorying about one's affairs weaker. An example of the truth uttered by me is not far for thee to seek: attend only to me and my affairs. For when I was of that opinion of mind which I have said, a grave tempest assuredly takes me. For my father, although he had my mind excellently known and perceived, I know not by what reasons moved, led perhaps by paternal benevolence toward a son (and indeed love has very great force, then especially when it is supported by the protection of power and authority) that he might bind me with the stronger bonds of a holier life, and confer on me the highest honors which he could, force being applied, first transfers from himself a grade of dignity upon me. So grievous moreover and so troublesome that tyranny befell me (for I cannot call that deed by another name: let the most holy shades of my deceased Father pardon, I pray, one so speaking) that, all things being immediately left, friends, parents, fatherland, and family, like an ox driven by the gadfly, I snatched a flight into Pontus, about to have as a remedy of so great an evil and grief the best friend and a man plainly divine. he snatches a flight into Pontus to Basil. For there in great familiarity with God he led his life, covered by a cloud, like some one of those ancient sages. Basil I mean, who like the Angels rejoices in their society. The sickness of my mind therefore with soft discourses he set himself to cure. But when, languishing with years and the desire of seeing his son, my best parent asked me with many words, that I should not deny him the due offices of honor and piety hastening to the end of life, and when the very length of time had diminished much of my grief (which I ought never to have done) into a great sea again I cast myself, driven by fear of incurring my father's indignation; lest namely, despising his love and benevolence, I should call a dire execration upon my head; which easily happens, when benignity held in contempt is converted into aversion and anger.

[16] whence recalled by his Father's prayers Not much time intervened, when a decuman storm again takes me, of which it cannot be said, how much it surpassed that former one in immensity. This if I set before your eyes my friends, I think I shall do not amiss. The office of a certain public and secular Magistracy my brother discharged (O how much of authority and power thou hast among mortals, worst enemy of our race!) the Quaestorship, I say, on account of his brother's death he is involved in many affairs. he exercised; when behold in the most beautiful time of his age and office he meets his last day. Then a not small number of those curial dogs makes an attack with great avidity on the monies and other means left by the deceased. All his goods the servants, hosts, friends, plunder. For who, when a vast oak is prostrated to the ground, does not run up to gather wood? As regards me and my affairs, I never suffered myself to be terrified by the mass even of the most difficult affairs: for I am not unlike those birds which without difficulty fly up into the higher and freer air of heaven. Nonetheless with my best parent all prosperous and adverse things had to be undergone by me, although I was joined to him as a companion, rather of perils and affairs, than of commodities or utilities. And, as those who first have fixed firm steps, if they once begin to waver in their gait, most easily fall to the bottom of a precipice, no longer masters of their body and feet; in just the same manner it befell me: who after I once began to be exercised by adverse fortune, other calamities from others seemed to me perpetually to arise.

[17] At a certain time there came to us (for the things which meanwhile happened I will press with silence, He complains most grievously of Basil lest I seem to criminate that man, whose praises it is not long since I described) there came, I say, to us Basil, of all my friends by far the most friendly to me; but (alas! what do I prepare to bring forth into the midst! yet I will bring it forth) whom I experienced a father more troublesome than my elder father. For the commands of that man had to be borne, his violences to be borne, not so those of my aged father. These, I say, had to be borne, for the cause of preserving the friendship between us, from which however no alleviation of my evils, but rather a not moderate damage came to me. I know not indeed whether the cause of this evil, by which other misfortunes from others without interval as it were pullulate, I ought to refer to my sins, which afflicted my mind gravely indeed and frequently; before, best of men, to accuse the too great pride and haughtiness which thou hast taken from the sacred dignity. For of all other things, of whatever kind at length, for the cause, not even thyself, I think, wouldst wish me to be held greater than thee (as before this thou never, best of men, didst wish it) but if thou wouldst, perhaps some other not unskilled judge, who had the condition of both of us excellently perceived, would in this matter show himself contrary to thee. What then new befell thee? In what manner didst thou suddenly begin to hold me so as a vile little man? Would that indeed from our life all that law of friendship were taken away, which prescribes such a measure in cherishing friends. What among brute animals lions are, this among illustrious men very lately we were; but now, since thou holdest me like an ape, thyself thou all but lookest round as a lion. Yet if thou wert despising thy other friends with that haughtiness (I will now use a graver manner of speaking) yet I ought not by that reasoning to be despised by thee; whom thou heldest before all thy friends, before thou wert carried up as it were to the very clouds, and didst begin to see all things below thee. But why dost thou so flare up, O mind? thyself, like an untamed colt of a horse, running beyond its limits, force being applied, restrain: then let our discourse return to the thing set before itself in speaking.

[18] That man, in all other things indeed most truthful, was to me alone little truthful, because, although he had often approved my counsel about the quiet life, who heard this very discourse often had by me; That with an equable mind now indeed all things must be borne by me; but if it should befall that my parents departed from life, it would be that I should shake off from me all the mass and trouble of affairs, that the commodities of a wandering and freer life might at some time be given me to experience, to whom every soil would easily be in place of a fatherland. These things when he himself had frequently heard from me, nay even had with praise approved, into the Episcopal throne yet violently he compels me to ascend, he whom I held in place of a father, and who, that now a second time in this affair he might deceive me, thought it must be committed to himself. Be not, I pray, moved in mind, before thou hast well known the whole series of the matter. If whoever are not best affected toward me had long and much considered with themselves, by what reasoning especially they could be a hindrance to my praise, I do not indeed think they would have found another manner of effecting this. Is it pleasing to hear the matter? No one of those to whom the unworthiness of this business was abundantly known, would not set it before thy eyes. For with what observance I was always toward my friend, the whole region of Pontus, and Caesarea especially, and all who had any part in our friendship, by no means are ignorant. Nor indeed is it fitting that, as it were by reproaching, this be brought forth by me into the midst: it is rather fitting that he preserve the memory of the benefit who received it, than he who conferred it on another. But what kind that man showed himself to me, from the things themselves I wish you to know.

[19] There is a village situated in the middle of the royal road which leads into Cappadocia; and which is split altogether into three roads, yet he was compelled by him to be made Bishop of Sasima; devoid of water, of obscure name, distinguished by no mark of liberty; an utterly unhappy and exceedingly sad little town. Only barren dust in it, and a vast noise from the chariots passing by; besides laments, groans, torturers, questionings, fetters, and no city, except that which is conflated of men coming from abroad or wandering. Over this then I was set as Bishop of the Church of Sasima. Over this namely he sets me, who had under his power fifty Chorepiscopi. O man chiefly generous! And this place indeed he took care to be erected into a title of an Episcopate, on account of the contentions with a rival Bishop. and me to be set over it, lest he should seem to yield to another, who busied himself to make it violently of his own right. He numbered me namely among his friends, who would dare something for him, not the last (and there was a time when not undeservedly I could be joined to the strong) nor indeed is there cause why we should dread those wounds which are received with praise and approbation: for besides all the other inconveniences which I just now enumerated, that chair I could not obtain without fight and blood. For it was a village midway between the confines of two Bishops, mutually adverse to each other, and mutually attacking each other with grave war. The origin of this evil is to be sought from the division of my fatherland into various parts, by which it was done that of the greater cities to two the right and power of the smaller was delivered into one. The salvation of souls served for a pretext, although the mere lust of dominating could truly be said the cause of the dissensions, lest I ascribe so great evils to the avidity of monies and tributes, on account of which this whole world is agitated in a wretched manner.

[20] What, by the immortal God, was it just for me to do? Should I endure and receive into me alone the assaults of so grave an evil? should I offer myself to be struck by the weapons of the adversaries? He renews the complaints about the Episcopate imposed on him by force. should I suffer myself to be plunged into so sordid mud and suffocated? should I not choose some place, in which it might be lawful for me an old man to be without inconvenience? should I always suffer myself to be violently driven out from my own house? should I not have bread which I might bestow on those coming from abroad, being the ruler of a poor people poorer? should I be perpetually beyond the occasion of doing something illustrious? should I undergo the same labors as in the great cities, and experience only the bitterness of thorns, not also the fragrance and delights of roses, reckoning into my lot only inconveniences void of all pleasure and fruit? Demand of me, if it please, another kind of magnanimity, to others preferable in doctrine and wisdom assign that my province. These things namely Athens bore us, and those common studies of eloquence; this time of life passed under the same roof and hearth, and one table to both, and (which all Greece was astonished at) one and the same mind in two bodies, and one sense. These namely are the right hands given to each other, about the things of this world to be cast far from us, that we should thenceforth equally dedicate all our life to God alone, and that, what alone is truly wise, we should extol the Word of God by our discourses. Into smoke go all these things, or lie prostrate on the ground, and our old

hopes a light breeze carries off with it. Whither now shall anyone, a wanderer, betake himself? will you receive me, ferocious beasts, in whom, as I think, there is more faith to be found than in men themselves?

[21] He snatches again a flight into solitude; Moreover in that manner which I have briefly narrated, the whole matter was. But after, not by mind and will, but compelled by violence, I took upon me the burden and trouble of that office (in what manner shall I utter what I feel, or by what oration shall I set forth the vehement grief of my mind?) I experienced other spurs again set under me. Wherefore by flight escaping anew, into the mountain with hasty course I get out, and the delights of the solitary life as it were stealthily I pluck. But what did this profit me? I was not he who in a flight well begun could constantly persist: and who was wont to bear all other things bravely, here I could not escape the mark of slothfulness, and sustain the indignation of one father. Then this above all my father studied to effect, that I should fix a stable seat at Sasima. Which when I altogether denied I would do, he enters upon another reckoning in ordering my life. He asks therefore, that I should not resolve in mind always to stick in the lowest things, but that rather, sharing the labor with him (for he was very advanced in age) I should render his trouble and burden lighter and easier to sustain. That old man, stretching out his hands to me, but again entreated by his father and blandly caressing my cheeks, made such an oration: Thy father, O most beloved of sons, beseeches thee, an old man grave in age asks thee a young one, his master with suppliant voice addresses thee his servant, to whom that thou shouldst be subject by not one law, God willed. Not gold, not precious stones, not silver, not the possessions of fields, not finally whatever can make for delights and pleasure do I demand of thee, son. I long to render thee not unlike Aaron and Samuel, that thou mayest never not be found worthy, who with praise mayest dwell before God. In the power of Him who gave thee to us thou art, my son; do not, I pray, despise thy father's words, that Him who truly and alone is thy father thou mayest be able to have propitious to thee: honorable, I think, are the things which I demand of thee; but if not, yet do not doubt that they proceed from paternal benevolence at least. Thou hast not yet measured out so great an age as the time of years has been spent for me. Give therefore assent to my petition, or let some other deliver me to the sepulchre: for this penalty of thy pertinacity I define. The small space of time which I ask, do not refuse to a father failing in age; then those counsels which shall more please thee, by me it is permitted, mayest thou follow. Such things when I heard from my father, and my mind had wiped off somewhat of its grief, he relieves him in administering the Episcopate as that sun is wont sometimes to disperse the clouds from the sky, what do you think was done? or what issue of my evils do you judge there was? Indeed I endeavored to persuade myself, that no damage would arise thence, if I should satisfy my father's desire, provided it were certain to abstain from the honor of the Episcopate: For, I said, that administration cannot bind me, unwilling, more strictly, if I suffer my faith to be made obnoxious by no public renunciation or promise.

[22] So therefore overcome by too great fear and reverence, I composed myself to my father's nod: but as soon as my parents migrated from life, and obtained that inheritance to which they had now long hastened, and I also, although conflicted by not small inconveniences, began to be of my own right; of the Sasimene Church, once committed to me, I had no care any more, not even the least; so that I neither offered there a single sacrifice from that time, nor conceived any public prayers with the people, nor laid hands on any of the Clergy. But of the paternal Church (for no end of beseeching me did some of the most religious men make, His father being dead, he demands to be freed from the administration. who also did not cease repeatedly to inculcate the eruptions of many profane men into public) for a plainly small space of time, as a guest of an alien one, I bore some care, I will not indeed deny. But then this very thing with the Bishops, to urge, and as a great benefit to demand I never ceased, that they should at length provide for that little city about a man and some Bishop. To whom this also I rather often and most truly affirmed, that the regimen of no Church had ever been undertaken by me by public proclamation. Nay this also again and again I added, that I had long come into this opinion, that, all friends and occupations being bidden farewell, I should betake myself into solitary places. When I could by no means persuade them what I wished, (because of them some, best affected toward me, desired to retain me there, others perhaps with proud haughtiness despised me asking) by flight I first betook myself to Seleucia, where the venerable virgin Thecla once had a domicile; which being denied, by flight he withdraws himself. so perhaps (I said) those men will at length be persuaded, wearied and overcome by a longer delay of time, to commit the reins of that Episcopate to someone. I meanwhile for a not moderate interval of time tarried at Seleucia. And a little after, again fallen into those calamities of mine to which I was accustomed, of that good which I had conceived in my mind I could not perceive even a vestige: but, when I thought myself constituted beyond all tumult of affairs, the greatest mass of them as it were by agreement bore down on me.

CHAPTER III.

Gregory called to Constantinople there resuscitates orthodoxy not without labor.

[23] I must now use a more vehement kind of speaking, and say to you indeed those things which you by no means are ignorant of, that, since it is not lawful for me to be present there, yet my discourses may not be lacking to you, from which you may be able to obtain some alleviation of troubles, and through which to my enemies may come infamy, but to my friends a testimony, how many and how unjust things I suffered, when I myself inflicted on no one trouble or any injury. Two suns indeed nature did not grant to the world, He describes the state of old and new Rome in his time. which however a twin Rome to it, as it were two most beautiful torches of this world, judged by no means must be denied; the old namely, the seat of the ancient; and the new, of the more recent Empire; with this only difference between the two, that the one excellently adorns the West with its splendor, but the other the East, and each with its light equally illustrates each Empire. Moreover the faith and religion of that more ancient Rome has from a long time been true and firm, such as to this our age it stands unshaken, binding all the West, as far as it extends, most closely to God the Word by a blessed and unanimous doctrine; as it befits that Church to do, which is the head of all the other Churches throughout the world, and which adores and venerates as is fitting the whole economy of the whole Divinity. the latter miserably infected by the Arian heresy, But that other (I mean mine, although now no longer mine) once indeed itself also rightly believed, but now by no means, plunged as it were into the deep of all perdition and destruction, from the time the Alexandrian city, laboring with the vice of too great mobility and with every kind of evils, and boiling in an insane manner, sent forth Arius into the light, the execrable author of a most mournful solitude and desolation: who first dared to utter that nefarious voice: By no means is the Trinity henceforth to be adored by us; and who did not fear to establish for God of one and the same substance limits within which He should be worshipped, unequally dividing a nature by no means to be divided; whereby it was done that into various opinions and ways diverse and divided we ourselves also went.

[24] In this state assuredly most calamitous when that noble city dwelt, and impiety confirmed by the use of long time, obtained in place of a law (for custom, when a multitude of years has acceded, is wont to pass into a law) and by such an unhappy fate through unbelief had as it were utterly perished, yet still some small seed of vital spirit remained in it; I mean souls endowed with the strength and ornament of the true faith; a small crowd, I confess, but which to God was not as a small one or held as such, who regards not the multitude of men, but of those believing from heart and spirit: plants I mean, notable for the beauty of pure religion, he goes, sought by all the Orthodox, and precious relics from so great a shipwreck. To these (for I was esteemed to be able to do somewhat in the things pertaining to divine worship, both for the reckoning of the life instituted by me, and for the discourses of my friends about me, although a rustic and rough kind of living I had always embraced) to these, I say, the divine spirit leading, I came, both the Pastors and the whole flock of the faithful calling me, that I should not decline to give myself a helper to the people and a defender to the divine Word; and that with the waters of pure and pious doctrine the parched souls of many, and as it were still constituted in the first blade, I should bedew and excite; nor, the nourishment of oil failing, should the lamp lose its light: that finally the incontinent tongues of very many and the manifold and crafty argutations in speaking, by which that amiable simplicity of our faith wholly perishes, and all the arguments of the adversaries, not unlike the webs of spiders, namely thin and weak bonds, by which the light common crowd of men easily suffers itself to be bound, since they are a laughingstock to the more robust, by a strong voice and solid doctrine should be dissolved and broken, and not a few from the snares into which they had fallen should assert themselves into liberty. In this manner therefore I set out, not of my own accord, but by a certain violent authority of grave men, that I might act the patron of the Word of God, craftily led.

[25] [a rumor especially being spread about the future conventicle of the Apollinarists;] A rumor also was borne, that it would come about that several Bishops should come together into one, through whom into the much beloved Churches a heresy very lately devised was to be brought in, by which it was taught that the conjunction of the divine Word with our flesh (which without any change of itself He underwent, taking a human soul and mind, and a body truly passible, finally making His own the whole Adam, sin only excepted) was so perfected, that all human mind was to be wholly excluded from it: by which heresy indeed I know not what a senseless God was thrust upon us, by that fear namely, lest perhaps a fight should arise between the divine Word and the human mind. But a greater fear assuredly from the very flesh ought to have been struck into those men, as being one whose nature is known without doubt to recede from the nature of divinity farther indeed than the human mind. Or as if God had altogether decreed this, that, whereas all other things in man are to be aided by the remedies of salvation, the mind itself should be condemned to a destruction never to be repaired, which yet of all things most needs the help and aid of my God, since through the sin of the first man it suffered a chief loss. For with his mind the first of men willingly admitted the first law, with his mind he transgressed the same. But there is no doubt that what

had first delinquished, was first also to be assumed by the Savior. Let it not, I pray, befall unhappy me, that I be restored to health only in part by the divine Word, who am wholly, as great as I am, oppressed by sickness: nor let this injury be inflicted on God, that He be thought to have assumed not the whole of me, but only flesh made of clay, and a soul void of mind and similar to the brutes, and so only a certain clay mass, as thou indeed the author of this heresy esteemest, to have called to salvation. Far be it, that whoever has anything of true piety, should feel and speak such things.

[26] but others establishing two Sons, Into an error not unlike fall those who on the contrary incautiously bring forth into the midst two Sons, of whom the one is begotten of God, the other of the Virgin; for those who feel this, most ill cutting the most beautiful consent of God and man, draw it into diverse parts. And those former ones indeed, what they impiously cut off from the God-man, this the latter no less impiously double. For if we establish two Sons, I fear assuredly one of two things, lest either, in place of one God, we be said to adore twin Gods; or, if we religiously endeavor to avoid that, lest we plainly remove from the Word-God every composite nature: for by no reasoning can it be said, that whatever things befall the flesh, the same befall divinity. The human nature therefore must be said to have been partaker of the whole divinity; not in that manner in which either a Prophet, or any other of men, once most holy, who merited to receive not the divinity itself, but only certain singular gifts proceeding from God; and in whom the human nature was no otherwise conjoined to the divine, than that sun is beheld to be conjoined with its rays. Let them depart hence therefore as quickly as possible, whom above I called impious men, unless they are prepared to venerate as one and the same person the God-man: God namely, as one who assumed man; but man, as one who was assumed by God; the same eternal and subject to the vicissitude of time; the same begotten of the Father alone, and finally of a Mother alone; and two natures conjoined in one Christ.

[27] But in what state do you think my affairs then were? As soon as I entered that city, Hated by the Constantinopolitans I began at once to be tossed by not few troubles. For the minds of all the citizens were first inflamed with a vehement anger against me, as by one who, the single Divinity being rejected, was thought to introduce several Gods. Nor indeed is it greatly to be wondered that this happened; for so they had been instituted by their doctors, that what the true faith teaches us of God, they were wholly ignorant: by what reasoning namely it comes about, that the Unity which is in God, is also threefold; and the Trinity, one; if, as it ought, those two things be rightly expounded and understood. adhering to the Arian Bishop, But we see it for the most part to happen, that toward the afflicted and already prostrate the people shows compassion and favor; just as at that very time also, the Constantinopolitan people, having pity on its Prelate and Pastor, had undertaken his cause most strongly to be defended: a people, I say, so numerous and full of so great spirits, and which holds it for the greatest reproach to itself, if it cannot bring to issue all the things which it has destined in mind. he is assailed with stones, I will not here recount the stones with which they assailed me, and to whose tempest no otherwise than at a most furnished banquet I offered myself in the way. Of which one thing however there is which I complain; for they did not fly straight enough against me, and broke their assault only on those parts which are not capable of receiving death. Then like an assassin they set me before the judges, he is dragged into judgment: men to be feared for their grim and lofty brow, and having only one law, the favor and grace of the people, set before themselves. To these they delivered me to be judged, who had perpetrated nothing of crime, nay had not even thought it, as became a disciple of Christ. But the herald of the divine Word Christ, the best patron of the same Word, by no means deserted; who knows admirably to preserve His own safe from the rage of lions; who could turn the assault of flames, to refresh the Babylonian champions, into a most grateful dew; who finally brought it about that the belly of a marine beast should be in place of an oratory for the Prophet: this same gave me glory rather than ignominy, from that strange and unusual judgment, to be reported.

[28] Then he is vexed by the schism of the orthodox themselves, After these things I was oppressed by the grave envy of my own very men, by whom I am dragged to a certain Paul and Apollos, who had never for my cause come into the flesh, or shed the liquor of their precious blood for me in torments. By these however we are called to judgment, not also by my savior Christ: by these all things are perturbed and all things convulsed, no otherwise than if the Church were otherwise acting in the highest peace and tranquillity. But how can it be, that a ship, a city, an army, a choir, finally any house should firmly stand, in which more things are found which bring damage, than which bring commodity? Such a thing therefore the Church of Christ then suffered. For before it was plainly confirmed in true doctrine, before also it was loosed from the swaddling-bands of its infancy, or could walk with well-firm steps, in the eyes of its very parent the most noble offspring is struck, tossed, torn by wolves, most desirous of our sole bereavement. They did not think it must be borne by them, that a man conflicted with the greatest want, deformed with wrinkles, with countenance bent to the earth, ragged, with tears, hunger, fear of future things, and other not few inconveniences exhausted, nor to be beheld with an elegant appearance of countenance, a guest, wandering in uncertain seats, on account of the morals of some too diverse from his own: and as it were hidden in the very caverns of the earth, should act and sustain more than strong, more than chief men. But these almost perpetually were heard their voices against me: We by blandishments do all things, but thou by no means: we make much of the first chairs, thou of religion and sanctity: we feed on precious and well-seasoned foods, thou on vile and insipid ones; thou while thou eatest thy salt not without pleasure, spittest out the luxury and salt of proud pleasure: we know to serve the time and the lust of men, and thither always direct the ship, whither we are called by favorable winds: like chameleons and polyps we paint our discourses with various colors, but thou, like an untamed anvil (O haughtiness!) as if always one and the same rule of faith were to be preserved, coercest the doctrine of truth with too strict precepts, and walkest always by the harsher path of our religion. But whence comes it, most loquacious of mortals, that that thy so garrulous tongue draws so many of the people into thy parts? and that thou so happily attackest with thy weapons those whom manifold errors most ill hold entangled? With great art also another thou showest thyself toward thine own, another toward strangers. Enemies as it were from a David's sling thou strikest always with a sure blow; friends by a certain magnetic force thou turnest into love of thee.

[29] whom he refutes But if all these things, as certainly they are not, are not to be called evils, why on that account, thou who objectest these things, as if thou wert suffering I know not what unworthy things, art thou so greatly afflicted? But if thou judgest these things must be disapproved, as thou indeed alone judgest, discern by a just judgment, as it is just for a Prelate constituted by God to do, whether it befits that I be punished for some one error; but suffer the harmless people to depart, which is guilty of no other crime, than that it pursues me with the greatest love, and that it suffered itself to be conquered by the truth and authority of my doctrine. and tolerates them. But all those things with a chiefly strong mind I judged must be tolerated; although by the very novelty of things I was somewhat moved; as when an unexpected sound suddenly falls into our ears, or the splendor of lightning into eyes by no means accustomed: and against the weapons cast at me I was as it were impervious, as being prepared to bear anything. The hope also which remained to me, that I should at some time lead my life in greater liberty, nor ever fall into such adverse chances any more, wholly persuaded me to bear those inconveniences with a more equable mind.

CHAPTER IV.

The schism stirred up by Maximus the Cynic invading the Episcopate, repressed by his ejection.

[30] But by what oration shall I be able worthily enough to utter all the adverse things which afterward took me, Maximus the Egyptian Cynic, and to set forth to you my so great labors? But thou, envious cacodaemon, most crafty artificer of all evils, whence to thee for accomplishing so many and so great crimes the strength and power? Not water turned into blood, not the innumerable multitude of frogs, not the vast force of gnats, not the dog-flies, not the mortality of the herds, not the bursting pustules, not the unusual hail, not the locusts, not the dense darkness, not finally the highest and last evil, the slaughter of all the firstborn (these namely were the plagues of the wicked Egyptians, sung throughout the whole world) or the waves of the Red Sea, by which the enemies of Israel were swallowed up, oppressed me. What then drove me into ruin? Egyptian levity. But by what reasoning it is worth the labor to set forth: for thus perhaps a certain column will be erected by me, on which, about to pass to the knowledge of all posterity, the deeds of the worst men will be inscribed. An effeminate person therefore had a seat in your city, womanly with long hair, a monster sprung from Egypt, a rabid pestilence, a dog of the Cynic sect, a slave proceeding from the crossroads, ferocious like Mars, an unforeseen destruction, a prodigious whale, yellow of skin, black of hair, with curled and simple locks, wont to ostentate partly the insignia of antiquity, partly new and devised ones. For there is said to be a certain art, by which nothing cannot be effected, by which women very much, and no less men, are detained, that like Philosophers they may exhibit themselves to be beheld with golden hair. It befits namely learned men also, that those things with which women take care of their face, they themselves also should use. For why should the wise alone enjoy that uncomely and wicked comeliness, which, although it be void of voice, yet sufficiently manifestly declares the morals of each? As though therefore Maximus were henceforth by no means to be numbered among men, so him, although not yet known, the use of his hair at once betrayed. These namely are the miracles which our Philosophers of this time ostentate, that, content with not one nature, not one appearance of countenance and habit, but as it were midway between either sex they exhibit themselves, and, O wretched and lamentable thing! men by a staff, women by their hair represent. With these he boasted himself to the crowd, as one who among the citizens was of a not ignoble place and opinion, with hair notably combed shadowing his shoulders proudly. He acted the Philosopher, his locks lightly tossed, carrying about all his erudition in his body alone.

[31] There is a report that that man entered upon various and by no means to be approved ways (but what those were or of what kind

they were, having put in at Constantinople, let some other one investigate; for it is not lawful for us to be so much at leisure, that we should inquire into absolutely all things, although it is certain that many of them are contained in the books of the Magistrates) and that at length in this city he fixed his seat and domicile, because of the foods to which he was most accustomed, no abundance was any longer given him elsewhere. And since he saw through all things keenly indeed, and was endowed with wonderful sagacity (let that industry certainly be called by this name, by which the wicked man prepared a bitter misfortune for me, set in this that he should drive me from my See, who enjoyed no other commodity or honor, than that I was the guardian and moderator of the people) he acted the more ingeniously, that not through external men, but through my very self he began the whole fable which he had conceived. As one namely a very skilled artificer and machinator of all crimes, and ferocious especially against us, who, wholly ignorant of such frauds and fallacies, cultivated plainly another kind of skill, most craftily and fraudulently through which we both ourselves are wont to say something wisely, and to admire others speaking wisely, and also to draw that true doctrine which is hidden in the sacred codices. I wish to use a certain new kind of speaking in so great evils. It ought indeed that the whole multitude of men were endowed with the same morals and genius, and that either it should never think or do anything of evil, or should wholly consist of frauds and fallacies. For so it would come about that with less damage among themselves men should live, if all were of the same or of fighting morals. But now every best man falls into a prey to the worst of mortals. What is this so great confusion of our race? With how disparate a reckoning of life and morals God willed men to dwell among themselves! What good and continent man will detect the deceits, frauds, machinations of the wicked, and the thousand crafts by which they know to cover their genius and ingenuity? For this all do who easily descend to acting wickedly, that first they cautiously look round at all things, and then designate an opportune occasion of inflicting harm. But those who have the one good and honest before their eyes, they are not only not prone to judging ill of the wicked, but even by nature are as it were inept at it. So assuredly it comes about that the upright are most easily caught by the snares of the wicked.

[32] See therefore, with how great craftiness he undertakes the whole matter; thou wilt think thou seest another Proteus from Egypt. he insinuates himself into Gregory's friendship; With me especially the man is conjoined with so great familiarity, that I should think faith must be put in no one more. For who was ever with me in that place in which Maximus was? Of my house namely, my table, my doctrine, and of all my counsels he was partaker; and he himself, like a great mastiff, did not cease to bark against those men whom he saw addicted to too perverse opinions; while meanwhile, whatever was said by me, he extolled with the highest praises to heaven. While he so acted, he began to be tempted by the desire of a more sublime Chair, still retaining the remnants of his pristine evil, which was a certain perpetual envy, an evil implanted in the man as it were by nature itself. For only with great difficulty can wickedness, especially confirmed, be amended. then a Presbyter being taken as a companion of the deceit, To this his lust therefore, as he never not rejoiced to do, complying, he takes to himself two companions in a most foul deed, both homicides, by whose help scarcely at length that brood of an asp was brought into light. Of these the first was Belial, once numbered among the Angels; the second a Presbyter in our Church, in mind even more than in body and habit a barbarian; whom by no contempt, by no injury had I ever affected, but always in the first place of honor, always in the first place of dignity had I held. (These things thou, my Christ, the most pure light of all justice and judgment, if however it is not iniquitous that thy name be here invoked by me, benignly, I pray, mayest thou hear) he, I say, did not fear to vomit forth the venom of his hatred, wholly nefarious and perfidious, against me. Alas me! with what tears shall I pursue that crime? Too great light and serenity assuredly brought me darkness and tempest.

[33] Moreover from places very far distant from us that evil which I have said, namely from Egypt itself, like a foul cloud, bore down on us. There were spies first of all, through spies sent from Alexandria, whom namely from that beautiful land of his promise that famous man, but not a Joshua or a Caleb, both most known by the fame of wisdom, had sent in to observe us. Among these therefore were, if any, either among the young or the old, found bolder for making reproaches, Ammon, Apammon, Harpocras, Stippas, Rhodon, Anubis, Hermanubis, the divinities of the Egyptians, or more truly demons, ostentating themselves in the assumed form of dogs and apes, wretched hucksters, and venal for any price, the basest of men, who even by the hope of very small gain would easily have brought several Gods into the midst, even if they themselves had been of a greater number. Nor a long time after, those who sent these forward followed; leaders assuredly most worthy to preside over such soldiers, or (that I may bring forth something more befitting the nature of dogs) pastors; for I will say nothing more; although by the abundance of things to be said I am no otherwise pressed in mind, than either a wineskin with must boiling within, diligently closed on every side, or a brazen bellows, the air pressing very much, and the Bishops supervening upon them hissing. For his cause especially I shall spare those men, by whom they were destined to us, although he himself in this matter does not at all escape the mark of levity: I shall spare also for their own cause, to whom perhaps pardon was therefore to be given, because, since in transacting affairs they were very little exercised, by an easy business by the wicked, whom in this city envy stirred up against us, they suffered themselves to be impelled whithersoever at length. Now, learned men, this problem, I pray, expound, which, unless someone more learned shall have explained it, it will not easily be given me to understand: how it came about, that Peter himself, the prince and moderator of those Prelates whom I have said, before indeed by letters manifestly set us over that Chair (as the very letters sent to us declare abundantly enough) and adorned us with all the marks of that office and dignity; and Peter of Alexandria himself but now in place of a Virgin there was substituted to us a fawn? Obscure, I confess, are the things which I have proposed, and they need a learned interpretation. What ever has seemed to have happened more worthy of a theater, when yet in human life are stirred up tragedies of so many and so great evils? Yet something more sportive there will be to see.

[34] Of the banqueters once someone asserted that wine was the strongest of all things; another said that woman was stronger than wine; a third, and he truly wise, attributed the palm of strength to truth. But I would have attributed the greatest of all strengths to gold, by which all other things are most easily changed into other things. Nor indeed is it difficult to grasp, in what manner those mundane and secular things are wont to move us more than spiritual ones. reconciled by abundant gold. But whence that dog heaped so much gold, let us now see. A certain Presbyter from Thasos had put in at Constantinople, carrying with him the public gold and silver of that Church, with which he might buy some slabs of Proconnesian marble for the use of the same Church. This man Maximus, with many blandishments soothing, joins to himself: and the same, bound by the promise and hope of great things, he easily induces (for not with difficulty are the friendships of the wicked conjoined among themselves) to grant him that gold without reluctance; whom then as a minister, as a most faithful helper, and a perpetual companion to all flagitious deeds he abused. Let what I subjoin be an indication. For those who before held me in great veneration, then, as a man useful for nothing more and a friend pressed by want, soon begin to hold me in contempt; and with no business into all the worst counsels, as the one scale often in a balance, they are bent and pass over.

[35] It was nocturnal time, and I was vexed by sickness; when they, He violently occupies the Episcopal throne, like wolves, stealthily and suddenly entering my domicile, as a fold, with not few Alexandrian seamen hired for a fee, by whose work they could have set on fire the very city of Alexander, attempt first to lift that dog, shorn as was the custom, into the Chair, before they had set forth to the rest of the people, to the chief heads of that Church, to me, as to a dog at least most vile, any reckoning of their counsel. Those also uttering these and similar voices, to whom this had been commanded: Thus Alexandria adorns the labors of brave men with rewards and honors. It had begun to grow light, when the Clergy, who dwelt not far from our house, awaking from sleep, are not a little moved: the one sets forth to the other the matter, as it had been done: a great running together arises, and the ardor of minds flashes forth like a most brilliant flame, there flowing together, O how many! even strangers, even those alien from the true faith. For no one was found, to whom it did not happen most grievous to behold such rewards of my labors repaid to me. What more? from our defense at length to desist, and, affected with grief for their attempts eluded, to return to their own things they are compelled. Those nefarious ones meanwhile, lest they should have begun to be wicked in vain, and at length now shorn proceed to fulfill what was still wanting to the fable. In a sordid little house therefore near the choir gathered, illustrious indeed and to God acceptable men, having taken with them also certain offscourings of the people, set the worst pastor over the worst dogs, and cut off the man's hair, no chains and no force being applied, after the manner of Prelates: since indeed for daring also greater things he was prompt and alacritous.

[36] Then namely that dense hair was cut off, and the labor of many hands without difficulty taken away: from which thing this only of commodity Maximus obtained, that the secrets which were set in his hair should no longer be unknown to us. For in it all the man's strength and powers consisted, as of Samson once the Judge of the Israelites we can read, who, his hair being shorn, came into the hands of the adversaries, when at a time not at all opportune a woman I know not who did not hesitate to mow off his locks with a razor in favor of his enemies. From a dog therefore constituted a pastor, not long after from a pastor he again showed himself a dog, O unworthy thing! and a dog only: he lays down his hair to be again basely nourished, as one who, no longer able to ostentate his beautiful hair, nor to rule the people committed to him, was seen repeatedly to hasten to gnaw the bones wont to be cast to dogs in the markets. But what at length do we think will become of those thy beautiful locks? Dost thou again think to nourish them with so great labor? or rather by so remaining wilt thou continue to be ridiculous to all? Either lacks not turpitude: nor indeed will it be easy to find anything midway between these two, except that thou close thy throat with a noose. Yet say, where wilt thou lay down those thy curls? whither wilt thou destine them? To the theaters? to the virgins?

But to which at length? To those thy Corinthian women, among whom once exercising thy sacred rites, with the sun, very wisely namely, thou wert not unwont to act alone? for which continence indeed I scarcely contain myself but that I call thee rather a heavenly dog.

[37] the city being indignant at the turpitude of the matter, So great moreover a grief then invaded the whole city, on account of the deeds which had been perpetrated; that there was no one who did not gnash his teeth at Maximus, and bring forth into the midst those discourses which were nothing else than a certain perpetual and most base accusation of his life; anger namely and indignation betraying all the things which in their minds and thoughts they had conceived against him. One brought one thing, another another, that the consummated malice of one man might from every side be set better and more conformably before the eyes. For just as in human bodies it is wont to happen, that the infirmities which seem to be of less moment, mingle themselves with the graver evils of the same bodies, although otherwise by themselves they bring no harm greatly, while the man's health stands still entire; so also all the deeds of that man into public light that last tempest and sedition drew forth. But far be it that the same be ever made manifest by me: those who bring them forth without doubt know how to render an account of their sayings. I however, and Gregory confessing himself deceived. by the recollection of the old custom between us, lest I divulge anything more bitter about him, bite my lips, although affected with the gravest injury. What then, didst thou not very lately number him among thy friends? didst thou not adorn him with the greatest proclamations of praises? So perhaps someone will say, who is not ignorant of the things which were done between us before, and who perhaps could not without reason accuse me of too great facility, which I then used in cultivating even the worst men. I confess indeed, this my ignorance is not wholly void of all fault; but by a noxious and fallacious taste, like Adam in paradise, I myself also was deceived. He bore a tree, in aspect indeed most pleasant, but of which the most bitter fruits were found by me. The mask of true faith and discourses, which covered only his countenance, led me into fraud. For thou wilt persuade no one more easily, than a man of most upright faith, who, whether truly, or in appearance only, the pious and religious is wont easily to receive into friendship; not without fault indeed, I confess; yet by praising: for what kind he desires others to be, such he is wont not with difficulty to persuade himself they are.

[38] but by an excusable error, What, I pray, ought I then to have done? say you, the wisest of men; or what else for me to do could any of you have suggested? especially since the state of our Church was still in so narrow a place, that I thought even the very stubble must not negligently be gathered. Difficult times namely do not afford that faculty which more prosperous ones do. I assuredly esteemed it of great value, if even some one of the Cynics should resolve to transfer himself to our sacred things, and to worship religiously not now Hercules, but Christ. There acceded something of even greater moment, when, ejected into exile for most base crimes, he made faith that he suffered it for Christ's cause. So he who sustained the deserved penalties of his crimes, found with me the name of a most brave athlete. In this matter if anything was sinned by me, it must indeed be confessed, that very often I have delinquished in this manner. But you, O most just judges, grant pardon to a fault worthy of no penitence. He was indeed the worst of all mortals, but I embraced him as the best. Some things even more juvenile I will bring forth into the midst. prepared however to suffer punishment for having praised him. Behold I put forth that importune and too garrulous tongue of mine: this without any mercy toward me let any of you cut out. But why do I not rather say it has already now been cut out? has it not for a long time seemed to you to have been silent? But it has been resolved to be silent still longer, that in this manner it may bear the punishment of its importunity, and may learn this, that not to any man whatsoever soft and friendly words are to be said. But why? (for it pleases to add this one thing to the rest) Because a wicked man is in truth void of all reason? For what other thing will bend him to humanity, whom no benignity could soften? he therefore who exhibits this to such men, calls a vituperation upon himself, whence otherwise he would merit not a little praise. What then, thou wilt say, were the morals of that man? The worst assuredly and most pernicious. If that is so, seek nothing more: but if otherwise; add no faith to the things already said. Can I say anything more efficacious?

[39] He being expelled from the city, to Theodosius, So therefore was the evil man ill expelled from the city (when I, that this might not be done, had with prayers much contended) or, to speak more truly, well was the evil man expelled from the city. But when the Emperor of the East, about to bring an atrocious war on the barbarian nations, had chosen Thessalonica as it were the best seat for preparing the war, see, I pray, again, what the most wicked of all mortals there anew contrived. He takes with him a band of the basest heads set out from Egypt (those I mean who, against right and decorum, with hair cut, had bidden him be Prelate) and, that by the very Emperor's edict he might hold confirmed the Chair which he had occupied, he quickly brings himself into the very camp. From which, like the basest dog, and not without great indignation of all and vast threats, again ejected (for not up to that time had any calumnies about me occupied the ears of anyone, thence he betakes himself to Alexandria, but I was still of a most upright opinion with all) he betook himself again to Alexandria, doing this one thing wisely and rightly: for Peter (who once, using a double and ambiguous kind of writing, had not hesitated to commit contradictory things to paper) with a band of vagrant men gathered he attacks, and brings the man grave in age into great straits. and at length is quiet, rejected on both sides, For it is bold of him to demand this, that in the Chair which he had already devoured in hope, he should be confirmed by his authority; adding threateningly, that unless what he sought were granted him, the See of Peter himself would be invaded by him. Nor did he desist from the unworthy demand earlier, than when the Prefect of the city, rising up, foreseeing the gradually rising conflagration, and greatly fearing, as was fitting, lest to the old calamities new tumults be added, expelled him also from Alexandria. And now indeed that wicked and nefarious man seems to act in quiet; but I have fear, lest that foul cloud filled with much hail, stirred up by some vehement wind, pour itself out upon the incautious and those expecting nothing of the kind. For such is the condition and nature of wicked men, that they can never be quiet, nor care if their depraved machinations be for a little while repressed. This namely is the reckoning in Philosophizing which the Cynics of our times hold; dogs I mean, who only know to bark, and only on that account are surnamed from dogs. What, I pray, did great Diogenes, what Antisthenes furnish? but only for a time. What is Crates to us? Despise, if it please, the porch of Plato; let the Stoa be no longer in any price; thus far let Socrates have borne the first praise of wisdom; More truly than the Pythia herself I will utter an oracle: The wisest of all mortals is Maximus.

CHAPTER V.

Gregory is forbidden to depart from Constantinople, where he had labored most usefully among the faithful and the unfaithful.

[40] Meanwhile Gregory not bearing these things, Indeed, if any other, patient of labors and troubles, I was in no part of my life, but more so now, having exhausted not few perils by land and sea, from all which I came forth safe and unharmed: but I render this gratitude to those terrors as received, that on their occasion I wisely turned my mind to pursuing all higher things, lifting my head high above the fallacious things of this world. Yet although I am such, the ignominy with which I was then affected I thought must not be tolerated; but the offered occasion I judged must by no means be lost. And seeing that worst man shorn to my indignity, and that all my familiars perpetually girded my sides, by a silent guard everywhere observed me, and to one going out and returning home were present at every time and place: considering also with how glad eyes the adversaries beheld that contest, esteeming that by that our dissension the sound doctrine also of the truth would perish: these things, I say, seeing all, and feeling myself not equal to bearing them, I suffered and admitted something (for I will not deny it) worthier of a simpler man, than of a wise one. The ship, as they say, as if about to depart he exhorts his people: I began to push to the shore, nor that indeed very skillfully; since the counsel which I had taken ought rather to have been held hidden from all. But on the contrary it came about, that a word about deserting the See imprudently escaped me, while thus with a certain paternal affection I address the people: Preserve all that doctrine about the most holy Trinity incorrupt, which to you, my dearest sons, a not unfruitful father I have delivered: But also do not lay aside the memory of the labors borne by me for your cause.

[41] This voice as the whole multitude which was present perceived, immediately one of the more impatient burst into a high clamor. Then the whole assembly rising, no otherwise than a swarm of bees moved by the violence of smoke, began to run about, and with confused clamors to roar. Men, women, virgins, youths, old men, nobles, ignobles, presidents, monks, and some of the soldiers were kindled equally with anger and desire; anger against the enemies, desire toward their Prelate. But I am not of such morals, that I should think one ought easily to yield to any violence; These cry out against it, about to place him by force in the Chair, or that a Chair must be occupied, not duly and as it ought conferred, who by no reasoning suffered myself to be placed in it, which by the most just right I could obtain. Another way therefore, that they may obtain their desire, they enter upon: with very many adjurations and the highest prayers they contend, that I should not decline to remain, and to exhibit at least my effort to them, nor be willing to expose my flock to the incursions of wolves. and from every side they run together to the Anastasia, In what manner could I then have refrained from tears? O Anastasia, the most beautiful of all churches, who didst again raise up and erect the faith cast down on the ground and creeping! O ark of Noah, who alone didst escape the mournful deluge in the whole world, and, in few men though, as in a most beautiful seed, embracest another world of sound and orthodox faith! To thee a vast multitude of men from every side then flowed together, as if some supreme matter of theirs were transacted in this, whether I should persist unmoved in my opinion, or should yield to their desire. Constituted therefore in the midst of the multitude, fixed in silence and stupor, discourse and authority failed me, by which I might repress their clamors; nor was it entire for me to give assent to the things which were demanded. For the tumultuous I could by no means repress; but to their petition, that I should not assent, fear made.

without a choice of places; but thou shouldst know when, and how much, and in what place, and before whom especially it is fitting to speak. Eccl. 3, 1 For all things, as is to be heard from Scripture, have their own time. Of the wise men also someone rightly admonishes, that to preserve measure in all things is the best of all things. There differ between themselves, as you know, the limits of the Phrygians and the Mysians; nor is the distance less between the profane and my reckoning of teaching and speaking. The eloquence of profane men is compared only to ostentation and to catching applause in the little assemblies of the younger; it teems with fables and fictions, nor esteems it of great value whether it attains its scope, or whether it happen otherwise: for nothing is more vain than a shadow, nothing do we know to be weaker than a shadow. But in our doctrine (to which the sole and naked truth ought to be set forth) it matters very much, whether in this or another manner something be delivered. For one walks by a precipitous way, of which if anyone fall from the path, there is no doubt but that to the very gates of hell he is borne by a calamitous lapse. Wherefore all the apices of words must be cautiously here, if anywhere, observed, both by those who speak and by those who hear those speaking. It happens namely sometimes that both from speaking and from hearing it is more fitting to abstain; and in this matter we must necessarily employ a salutary fear, as it were a most just balance. Less peril assuredly is there from the ears than from the tongue; but far less also will peril from the ears threaten, if thou flee the multitude and the assembly. What need is there that, the torpedo being handled, thou fall into a stupor of mind? or that thou expose thyself to the venomous barking of a rabid dog?

[48] whence great and various fruit arose. Instructed by this method of teaching from the sacred oracles; in which even before I had the full use of reason, I had been nourished; and by that reckoning instructing both the orthodox and those still alien from the true faith, I could even then be reckoned among the richer husbandmen, although to full maturity my harvest had not yet grown. For some I had only very recently purged from thorns and thistles: others were being prepared for the sowing: into others I had now begun to cast some seeds: a part of them was in the milk, a part had raised its topmost heads from the soil: others were sprouting into blade, others were being bound by their own ears: these were receiving strength and increment, these were already white for the harvest: these the threshing-floor still held, those I had gathered into a beautiful heap: some were being winnowed, some occupied a place among the grains in the granaries: finally some were already baked into loaves (which assuredly is the most pleasant end of agriculture) yet of those loaves the husbandman worn out by old age and labors is forbidden to eat, and those now enjoy them, who expended on them nothing of sweat, nothing of labor. At this place of my oration I wished to check its course, and to add nothing now to the things said, which to say perhaps someone could judge to be not worthy. But that I should do this, the series of things which followed by no means permits: in which some things fell out happily for me, about some what I ought to say, or into the order of what successes to refer them, or what men I ought to undertake to praise, I indeed know not.

CHAPTER VI.

Gregory, set over the Constantinopolitan Church to be administered by Theodosius, modestly and usefully discharges his office.

[49] This therefore, which I have said, was the state of my affairs, Theodosius the Orthodox Emperor. when beyond expectation, the irruption of the barbarians, presiding by number and audacity, being happily repressed, the Emperor came from Macedonia. This man was, as regards religion, by no means to be despised; as being one who could easily retain the simple crowd in the right faith, and who venerated the Holy Triad with his whole soul (in which manner assuredly all those ought to be affected, who wish their salvation to rest on a firm foundation) yet not endowed with that fervor of the Spirit and alacrity of mind which was to be desired, that he could recall the present things to the old state, and restore to their pristine splendor the things which by the iniquity of the times had been hurt and collapsed; or if in zeal he conceded nothing or little to the other Emperors, it was not certainly that—shall I say confidence of mind or audacity? and more rightly perhaps that affection of his mind one would call by the name of prudence. For I judge it much more equitable, to lead the minds of men by soft persuasion, than by force applied to compel them into one's opinion; and that this both to those whom we desire to lead to the right worship of divinity, and to ourselves also is more expedient I judge. but mild toward the heterodox. For what we see obtained not of anyone's own accord and will, but by force and coercion, I shall not ineptly pronounce that like to an arrow, which is held back by a string strongly stretched and a firm hand; or to a wave, which is impelled into a certain part by the tide; which things, the obstacles being at some time removed, will no longer be able to be held back, but that they be borne whither their impulse is. But what is done of one's own accord and will, has perpetuity and firmness, for the reason that it can be said in a manner bound to the will by the insoluble bonds of pleasure and love. These things, as I at least judge, weighing with himself the Emperor, thought he ought wholly to refrain from inflicting fear, and resolved rather by mildness to allure the minds of his people to what he desired, as by the law of persuasion this is prescribed to us.

[50] After therefore with his supreme good will he came to his citizens and subjects most desirous of him, Coming to C.P. Gregory being honorifically received. what need is there that I say, that he deigned even at the first meeting to receive me with a signification of honor, with how and how benevolent a discourse toward me he used, how finally with how benign an ear he received my words? Base even could it be held, that I, a man of so great age, for things of this kind should be of a more elated mind, to whom namely the one and sole God is in price by love. With this oration therefore at the last he addresses me: The chief Temple in this city, for thy merits and the labors exhausted by thee, through me God delivers to thee to be held. That was a voice which all would have thought would be vain, unless the event which followed afterward had sufficiently approved it. For such then was the ferocious power of that city, he promises the chief temple. such the minds and gravely-to-be-feared assaults of the citizens, that, although the gravest inconveniences would arise hence, yet they would remit nothing of their right, but in the place in which they were, would rather go to claim all things. But if it should befall that by greater force and power they be driven, then all their anger seemed must be turned upon me, whom they knew could not with difficulty be overcome. That, therefore, which a little before I said, oration the Emperor had to me: but my mind a certain gladness mixed with fear invaded. Thou, my Christ, who through the labors borne by thee dost excellently excite us to acting and suffering bravely; as thou then wert the arbiter and rewarder of all the troubles which at that time I sustained; be, I pray, even now, to me constituted in so many and so great evils, all hope and all solace.

[51] And now had come the time appointed by the Emperor, and the people in vain resisting he leads him thither. and a great and formidable multitude of armed men had occupied the temple; against whom the people almost whole brought itself, kindled with vehement anger, in so great a number, that it seemed to equal the sands of the sea, and the flakes of the snows, and the multitude of waves breaking themselves on the shores. This employed at once ferocity and prayers; ferocity indeed against me, but using prayers with the Emperor. Full were all the ways, full the hippodromes and the streets, no place finally not full; the second and third stories of the houses also were full of those looking down to the ground, both men and women, boys also and old men. Griefs from every side and groans, tears and sad lamentations were heard; thou wouldst think thou wert seeing the image of a city intercepted by enemies. But I, that strenuous and brave leader of the militia, though with a body now weak and plainly broken, walked between the Emperor and the army in the middle, with eyes lifted on high, and supported by the hope and confidence of better things, until I felt myself in the very sacred shrine I know not how placed. It is assuredly a thing most worthy to be narrated. For to very many of those who think that nothing, especially in the greatest changes of times, happens by chance in the things which fall under sense, this seemed a prodigy greater than all discourse. To whom I have not cause why I should deny faith, who however prodigious portents, if any other, am not wont easily to admit. For it is better and more praiseworthy, to believe everything with a prompt will, than to deny faith without any exception to any matter; although the one labors with the vice of levity, the other of audacity. But what wonderful thing then happened let the narration not be silent, lest by the ignorance of so great a grace posterity labor.

[52] which being done, serenity restored to the Heaven, Dawn had arisen, but nonetheless a sad night continued to oppress the city, a very dense cloud covering the circle of the sun. Which thing assuredly seemed by no means to befit that time: for public solemnities in a manner demand for themselves pleasant days. Hence to our adversaries no moderate joy was arising, as though by that prodigy God should show, that the things which were being done by no means pleased Him: but a certain silent grief had invaded us. After therefore together with the Emperor I had occupied a place within the lattices, and as many as were present had begun to sing the merited praises to God, and to call Him to aid with voice and hands stretched on high; so suddenly the radiance of the sun shone again, that dark cloud being broken and dissipated by the divine nod, that the whole temple exulted with the clearest light, which a little before had seemed to grow horrid with darkness and grief: nay it exhibited to us the image of that old tabernacle, which once the splendor and glory of God Himself openly filled. There arose then for all a certain new serenity of mind and countenance. And when by that prodigious spectacle the confidence of the people and all ferocity had been as it were repressed, it moves all to demand him for Bishop, with one clamor all demand me for Prelate; no otherwise than as if to the felicity of that time this one thing had been lacking, which in place of the highest and chief office from the supreme Prince the city expected, and which it showed not obscurely it preferred to all honors itself, that to me the Constantinopolitan Chair without delay be decreed. This men of chief dignity, this the lowest crowd busied themselves to demand from the Emperor: this was the vow and desire of all, no one absolutely excepted: this the very women demanded with almost so great a clamor, that they all but exceeded the laws of womanly modesty. This was an unhoped thunder, whose ardor he modestly represses. which seemed to be uttered against another vast sound. At length therefore I bid one of my colleagues rise (for me, struck and snatched away by too great fear, voice and speech had failed) by whose mouth this oration to the crowd around

people I deliver: The clamor, men, the clamor, I pray, repress: for this time demands, that we give to the supreme Godhead the due thanksgivings: there will then be a place for the matter which you ask to be accomplished. With a favorable murmur all the people received these words: for to all please modesty and moderation of mind. Then the Emperor, having greatly praised our manner of proceeding in this matter, betook himself to his palace.

[53] And this was the issue of that day and assembly; at which time this only thing terrified us, that one drawn sword, and soon hidden again in the sheath, and at the same time the audacity of the raging people, was repressed. then the alienated minds of the citizens The things which followed thereafter, I know not indeed with what words I shall narrate, since they drag with themselves a vast mass of things and affairs. What Historian, this part of my work being undertaken, could bring it about that I might now arrive at the desired end of the narration? for it is a shame to divulge one's own praises to posterity. Nay I am of such morals, that although by an alien mouth or pen I receive praise, yet I am suffused with blush. I will nonetheless say it, and will say it as modestly as I can. In the city therefore and the temple, as I had been bidden, I dwelt. But the city, although, the sacred shrine being occupied by me, it seemed to have laid aside its pristine ferocity; yet groaned, like that Giant who, as they say, struck by a thunderbolt, and pressed by Mount Etna, belches forth perpetual smoke and fire from his breast. What then, by the immortal God, of counsel, what way of safety could I take? do you teach me; he strives rather to conciliate them to himself than to break them, do you suggest, who now are constituted Prelates in dignity, you, I say, unhappily indeed gathered together into one, you young men, among whom unity of morals and mildness obtains the name of pusillanimity, and on the contrary fury and every worst zeal of vengeance is held in place of a certain manly strength and fortitude; Did it befit that the enemies, of their own accord rushing on, should be by me further driven to destruction, pressed, made ferocious? that I should burn more vehemently against them? or that I should turn the offered opportunity of time into a commodity and occasion of vengeance? or rather should use remedies making by no means little for the safety of my very adversaries? For by this reckoning a twofold good was offered me; the one that by my modesty I should make them more modest, the other that I should conciliate to myself fame and love with all. So assuredly to act then befitted me, and I will give effort that I never hold another manner of acting, than at that time especially I held it: and this especially that it may stand manifest to all, that no more of confidence is placed by me in the prosperous successes of things and affairs, than in the help and providence of the Godhead. For whom else admonishing should I wish to hear, when the leading of reason itself, as a most certain counselor, I can follow?

[54] rare in the court so greatly frequented by others, There was no one who did not venerate the haughtiness of the Nobles and Courtiers, and especially cultivated the intimate ministers of Princes, who in no other thing and occasion show themselves men, than in heaping up an immense abundance of gold and silver: nor for the unworthiness of the thing could anyone sufficiently explain, in what manner and by what arts those men strove to penetrate into the chambers of the Imperial palace, how prompt they were in adorning accusations, how indecorously they snatched all things to themselves; how ill they used the pretext of piety and religion: how finally they bore themselves immoderately. I meanwhile, to say it in a word, was alone who preferred that I be missed in the court, than that I should give to anyone a cause of hatred or envy. Hence however this came about, that, since I rarely went forth in public, I procured for myself a greater worship and veneration with all; for, intent uniquely for the most part on divine things, and on amending the depraved affections of the mind, the thresholds of the more powerful I left to others to wear. When then I beheld some indeed not a little anxious by the conscience of things ill done against me; but some indeed needy of my aid, which they assuredly merited, and of benefits; those indeed, as I could, and mild and beneficent, I exempted from fear; these, as each one's condition demanded, I strove to aid according to my strength. One thing, which can be in place of an example, out of many I will bring forth into the midst.

[55] I was resting at home, detained by disease, which, as it were a perpetual companion of the labors which I undertook, never deserted me, which namely I, if there be any faith to my enviers, reckoned in the part of delights. When I was so affected, to his assassin asking pardon of his own accord. my house suddenly some I know not who of the people ferociously enter: and among them a youth, with pale countenance, long hair, and squalid garb to be known, was present. But me from the bed putting forth my feet a little, they, no otherwise than those who are suddenly struck with fear, to God equally and to the Emperor, by whose gift namely they beheld the light of that day, such thanks as each one's mind and will dictated, pay and depart. But he, that youth whom I have said, suppliantly cast at my feet, with silent prayers besought me, astonished with vehement fear. And when, who, or whence he was, or what he sought, I asked of him; bursting also into greater wailings, he added laments and groans, and his hands most closely joined, drew tears from me also myself. After however at last, by force he was compelled to withdraw (for he seemed not to be drawn away thence by words) some I know not who of the bystanders thus addressed me: This is thy parricide, who by the sole providence and aid of the Godhead beholdest still the common light. Behold the torturer and avenger of his own conscience presents himself to thee, an impious homicide, made an ingenuous accuser of himself: he offers his tears and weepings as the price of the blood which he had impiously resolved to drink. These things he. By which words I, moved to commiseration, such, benignly he indulges him. by which I bid him be free from his crime, a voice I emit; God, O man, preserve thee: for I think I furnish nothing greatly, if, when I myself have divinely obtained safety, I show myself easy and benign toward an assassin. My too great facility and confidence has restored thee to thyself: this therefore see, that thou never make thyself unworthy of my and the supreme Godhead's favor. That was my oration. But indeed the whole city (for nothing worthy of praise can be done, that it be long hidden) received toward me a mind and a more benign sentiment, by my words, as iron which has experienced the force of fire, softened.

[56] He refuses to set a lay quaestor over the ecclesiastical accounts. But of the wealth and riches what shall I say, than which nothing in the whole world is more celebrated, which men the most powerful of all the earth from all past times had conferred into the treasuries of the Churches? What of the sacred vessels? what of the annual revenues from every part? of all which when neither in the codices of the Prelates who had preceded me, nor in those of the quaestors, into which they are wont to be referred, any accounts were exhibited, I acquiesced nonetheless; and although many persuaded the contrary, nay even vehemently impelled me, yet I did not suffer myself to be led, that I should set some external man, to the reproach of our mystery, over the accounts of the Church. But how much do you think this ought to be esteemed? For not the riches which anyone ought to have had, but which in fact he had, are wont to render one obnoxious to rendering accounts. I know indeed that this my manner of acting will by no means be approved by those men, who suffer themselves to be overcome by too great love of monies: but those who are not such, will wholly approve the deed. For whereas in all things indeed a certain insatiable desire of having must deservedly be disapproved, lest he importunely incur the mark of cupidity. then most of all in those things which regard the spirit and divine matters. Assuredly if this were the opinion of all about wealth, not so many and so great stains would be discerned to have been brought into our churches. But these things, I approving, never were or shall be done. Of the administrators of sacred things is my discourse, who from the reckoning of their office are wont to approach the supreme God more than the rest.

[57] This also our wicked adversaries boasted, that the people gathered by me would not be sufficient, and, and although the flock was still small. since our affairs were still in a slenderer place, was divided into parts and factions, which should fill the first and front atria of the Church granted to us by the Emperor: so far vile and contemptible we seemed to all those, who at that time alone held almost all the temples and the treasures of the temples. These therefore were my studies, these my exercises; that of the curators of the poor, of the monks, of the virgins dwelling in the temples, of those coming from abroad and of guests, and finally of the bound, constituted by me I should add nothing: that I should be silent of the singing of hymns, of the nocturnal vigils, of the men and women laudably occupied in the consideration of God and divine things; yet very many things in it he rightly orders. and of all the other things, which, if duly and as they ought be performed, cannot but be most grateful to God.

CHAPTER VII.

Gregory, created Constantinopolitan Bishop, labors in vain for retaining Paulinus of Antioch after the death of Meletius, for the cause of common peace.

[58] The Eastern Bishops coming together at C.P. Among these things envy could by no means be quiet, which either secretly or openly attacks all things: and the beginning indeed of my evils was being prepared for me from the very dignity in which I was constituted. For it happened, that, by I know not what divine nod called forth, all the Prelates of the East, except the Egyptians, from the inmost corners of land and sea, were gathered in new Rome, that they might establish the sacred See for me by their suffrages. The chief of these and the prince was a man greatest in piety, amiable in simplicity, void of all fraud and deceit, full of God, Meletius of Antioch being the author, of placid countenance, endowed with a strong mind and great modesty, who even by his look alone knew to lead men to piety and divine worship. Who, I beseech, has not known that man, whom our discourse designates, the Prelate of the Antiochene Church, in whom the name of his thing, and the thing to the name, excellently agreed? Honeyed were the man's morals, his name honeyed: very many evils also for the divinity of the most holy Spirit bravely defended he suffered (by external men though somewhat fraudulently deceived) and the grace divinely granted to him by most beautiful contests he rendered exceedingly illustrious. These therefore set me, against it striving with clamors and groans, on the lofty throne of that Church; They place Gregory on the throne, resisting less, yet for one cause not plainly unwilling; thou, eternal Word, be witness.

[59] But what was that? For it is not lawful to press the truth any longer. I esteemed, deluded by I know not what vain confidence and persuasion of mind (for what each one most desires, that he is most easily led to hope; he also who measures all things by the great fervor of his Spirit, thinks nothing so arduous, that, that he will obtain it, he dare not hope. Of me to confess ingenuously, since I am of an elevated and generous mind in such things and occasions, if I should at some time obtain the dignity and power of that chair: for that public splendor and apparatus has much weight with men)—I esteemed, I say, that it would be that no otherwise than he who holds a middle place between two choirs,

59 continued measures all things, thinks nothing so arduous, that, that he will obtain it, he dare not hope. Of me to confess ingenuously, since I am of an elevated and generous mind in such things and occasions, if I should at some time obtain the dignity and power of that chair: for that public splendor and apparatus has much weight with men) I esteemed, I say, that it would be that, no otherwise than he who holds the middle place between two choirs, because he hoped that thus the dissensions of the Bishops would be composed, closely embraces with his hands each one near to him and couples them to himself, hence one and thence the other, as the laws of the choir prescribe; so by a friendly covenant I should join to myself, and conciliate among themselves, the Bishops dissenting altogether ill. What did I say, ill? nay rather most ill, and in such a manner indeed, that neither by the most abundant tears, nor by the most bitter laments could the unworthiness of the matter ever be sufficiently deplored: by those tears, I say, and by those laments, which no chance of adverse fortune was observed to have wrung from any of men, whether those who were, or those who even now are: although we know that several misfortunes befell not a few: not if we consider that dispersion of the Israelite people, which, on account of the death inflicted on the Messiah, the most just anger of the supreme Godhead willed to happen. For those who are constituted leaders and masters of the remaining people unto salvation, who distribute the graces and gifts of the divine Spirit, who from their lofty thrones call men by their discourses to the blessed life, by whom the whole Church was foully torn, who announce to all peace and perpetual felicity, in the midst of those, for shame! churches, with great voices, were seen to be snatched into so great a fury against one another, that by their unkempt vociferations, by the gatherings of confederate men, by mutual accusations and defenses, by indecorous and insane runnings together, by the plunderings of the things which each one first occupied, on account of the insane lust of commanding the rest (by what reckoning, by what words shall I utter so unworthy a thing?) the whole world, as far as it extends, into parts and factions they tore asunder; as I remember I said at the beginning of this narration. There was separated from the East the West, not so much by the intervals of places and climates, as by the brawls and quarrels of the Prelates adverse to one another. For places distant among themselves, although by their extreme limits they be not joined, yet by other places interposed can be said in a manner to retain a mutual conjunction; but those men, when once they have receded from mutual concord, no bond any longer can conjoin.

[60] The cause of so great a dissension, not piety or religion (although fury and irascibility, ever prone to lying, know speciously enough to pretend it) but only the contention about occupying the first Sees, must be said. By what name I should call a thing so execrable I know not. on account of the Antiochene Schism. Shall I say Prelates, or not Prelates? for both kinds of men I have so well known, that in both I am not ignorant that there are wanting the ambitious, who, like the wind, perpetually exciting a kindled pyre into greater flames, so, the friendship of certain men being seized according to the thing and the time, excellently provide for their things and commodities, if indeed that must be said to be done excellently, and not rather ill and perversely. Into those evils and inconveniences then it befell me also to fall. For after he, whom a little before not without the due titles of honor I named, the best Prelate of the Antiochene Church, full of years, both those which are defined by time and those which are not defined by time, after many, as I hear, and those most grave admonitions about entering on peace, which, even before, in the assemblies of friends he had frequently had, migrated from this life to the consortium of the Angels; and with great solemnity and unusual frequency of the citizens, for the death of so great a man not a little (as was just) or moderately grieving, was carried to his own See and Church, a most beautiful treasure assuredly to those who are not ignorant how to set their price on things; and when many counsels, by no means to be approved, were brought forth into the midst, to which men strong in sedition and malice by no means hesitated to give assent, intent on this one thing, because, Meletius being dead, it might not become incurable. that to him who then alone held that Chair a new Prelate should be opposed; very many opinions on both sides were then said, of which some to peace, some to tumults to look, was not obscurely known. Which thing being noticed, this oration to them I thought must be had by me, which both for averting the evils perhaps impending, and for those times I judged would be most apt.

[61] You seem, Friends, in minds and opinions to dissent very much among yourselves, and those things Gregory dissuades for whose cause especially we came together to deliberate, not only not to admit to your discourse and counsel, but to go very far also from the path of the right and the honest. Of one city is your care: that meanwhile I see being done, that into a greater war and sedition than before it should befall it to be involved. Hither assuredly all your studies tend; to which that I also exhibit my hand and favor you ask. But on me a mass and care of greater things presses. The eyes of the mind, I pray, carry round through the whole circuit of this earth, which, when God, the form of man being assumed, suffered in the flesh, and offered Himself into a most beautiful pledge of human salvation, by the streams of the most precious blood shed by Him, and by many other marks of admirable things, was marked. This, if it please, let us feign for a little while to be disturbed by two Angels with tumult and sedition: which Angels indeed (I will bring forth something most worthy of grief) are found by no means worthy of the honor to which they were elevated: nay on the contrary, for the reason that they rejoice in the appellation of Angels, this rather befitted them, that from battles and contentions and other evils to be stirred up they should be as far as possible alien. For by how much greater prerogatives anyone obtains either from nature or from dignity, by so much also better ought all his counsels and actions to be. So long therefore as that plainly divine Prelate dwelt among the living, nor could it stand, in what manner by the Western Bishops, then not a little moved with anger and indignation, he was to be received, For if it was, while Meletius lived, excusable and tolerable, not unworthy of pardon could he be held, that some trouble be created for those who name themselves vindicators of the laws. For a man mild and a lover of peace, is the best remedy against anger and fury; nor is there anything else which makes men more confident, than ignorance of things and perils.

[62] But now (for no tumults or tempests now agitate us, it is not now, when peace is had and can be preserved, but by the gift of the supreme Godhead all things are pacified and tranquil) I will say what ought to be done. Do you meanwhile receive my opinion with benign ears, which prudent indeed, and far to be preferred to the opinions of the younger men, I think you are about to judge. For neither shall we men grave in years ever easily persuade those more fervid in age, who suffer themselves for the most part to be snatched by zeal of vain glory. Let the Episcopal throne retain him, whom hitherto it had set over it. What hence, I pray, will there be of inconvenience, if, after the pristine manner, by a somewhat ampler space of time we mourn the death of that man? So at length it will come about that by the very delay of times and affairs the issue of the chief matter is arrived at, and the suit decides which inevitably impends over all mortals, and the not to be despised term of this transitory life. There will be a time; by awaiting the death of Paulinus the old man, when into that place he is about to migrate, to which it is long since he aspired, rendering to God, from whom he had received it, his spirit. Then we, with the unanimous voice and consent of all, both of the whole people and of the wisest Prelates, aided by the help of the divine Spirit, will set some other one over that chair. And this one way, I think, of calming every evil is left to us. For either that best of all will come about, that whoever are now alien from us (and alien from us wholly now, as I see, is the West) should pass into our parts: or that certainly will be given to behold, that the Antiochene city and so great a people, by the long interval of turbulent time now exhausted and wearied, should conjoin itself with us.

[63] Let there be, I pray, at length at some time a desired end of the storms raging in the whole world. and he shows it for the cause of the public good. Let some compassion seize us of those who by the deplorable schism have already receded from us, and who from the same evil, unless we prevent it, are not far off; finally let us provide for the memory of posterity, lest perhaps some one arise, who, if these things be protracted into a longer time, would more avidly wish to know, to what at length all these things were about to come out. Into that peril namely our most beautiful and most holy religion has now slipped, that either it wholly remains firm and vigorous, or through these intestine discords utterly perishes. For just as the vices of colors are wont to be imputed to painters (not assuredly equitably and justly) and the evil morals of disciples to the masters themselves; so any wicked Christian, how much more if he be a Priest? sprinkles a most foul stain on our faith. Let us not grievously suffer to be conquered for a little while, and without great loss, that, a fuller victory at length being obtained, God may vindicate us to Himself, and that something of the supreme right be prudently remitted. and we ourselves the world, perishing by the worst dissensions, to God. Nor assuredly has it praise, if anyone in every place and occasion wish to be superior to his perils or enemies. Far indeed it is better to undergo the loss of one's own things, than to possess basely things acquired against all right and divine law. This very Trinity knows; and my most free preaching, which not without stones heard exposed me to the hatred of the wicked, will testify it.

[64] if they will not this, he desires to be absolved from the Episcopate, But the things which I thought would be most useful for the present matter, simply and most justly I have brought forth into the midst. But if anyone should judge either that these things were said by me for the favor of the wicked, when he himself is corrupted by money (for there are, there are assuredly, who know how to make even the judges themselves their own by price, men abounding no less in gold than in depraved desires) or that only my own commodities, which we know has befallen not a few, were set before me in this business (when he himself studies to have his depraved machinations most hidden, and aims hence at some higher grade of dignity for himself) on the supreme day of the world to the most just Judge that, I pray, let him leave to be judged. But you suffer that I embrace a life void of all dignity and of the Episcopal throne, inglorious indeed that, yet void of all fear and peril. In that place I will choose a seat and domicile, where of all evils there will be the highest solitude. That namely I judge far more befits me, than that, permitted to the rest of men leading my life, I should be able neither to draw them into my opinion, nor to descend into their counsels and wills, my authority being saved. Let him therefore quickly be present, whoever can call himself

worthy of the throne, who may be hostilely pressed for us, who may be of pure hands, who of a voice not slow and unlearned, who is so disposed in mind, that in all things he can obey you and bear the cares of the Church; since indeed such especially this time demands. But me, you see how this body has itself; namely worn out both by time and by disease and by labor. What need have you of a timid and slothful old man, and one daily, so to speak, dying, not in body only, but also by cares and afflictions, who scarcely also speak these things to you. These and other things Gregory: who, perorating and bidding farewell to all, thus says, turned first to his own Church:

Farewell, Anastasia, having a name from piety: for thou didst raise up the faith hitherto despised. Farewell, I say, seat of the common victory, new Shiloh, in which we first fixed the ark, for forty years carried round in the desert and wandering. Thou too, O this great and noble temple, new inheritance; which the magnitude which thou now hast didst receive from orthodox doctrine; and which we, when first thou wert Jebus, made Jerusalem. And you other sacred houses next in dignity to this, embracing each some other part of the city, as certain bonds and joinings, and claiming the neighboring places; which with this weakness of body, not we, but the grace of God with us, filled with those who were held for lost and despaired. Farewell Apostles, illustrious colony, masters of my contest, although I less often celebrated your feasts, perhaps carrying about your Paul's satan in my body for my utility, on account of whom now I depart from you and withdraw. Farewell Chair, this invidious and perilous height, Council of Pontiffs, of Priests adorned no less by majesty than by age, and whoever else at length minister to God around the most sacred table, and approach the approaching God. Farewell choirs of the Nazaraeans, harmonies of psalmodies, nocturnal stations, the gravity and sanctity of virgins, the order and adornment of women, the assembly of widows and orphans, the eyes of the poor beholding God and us. Farewell hospitable houses, and lovers of Christ, and helpers of my infirmity. Farewell lovers of my discourses, and the running and concurrences, and the pens both perspicuous and hidden, and the lattices of this pulpit pressed by the multitude, of men mutually thrusting themselves forward by zeal of hearing. Farewell Emperors, and Imperial courts, and all the servants and chamberlains of the Emperor, whether indeed faithful to the Emperor, I hold not certain; to God certainly for the most part unfaithful, clap your hands, cry out with sharp voice, lift your Rhetor on high. The tongue, wicked and garrulous to you, has been silent; yet it will not be wholly silent: for it will fight with hand and ink: certainly at present we have consulted. Farewell great city, endowed with the love of Christ, for the true things I will testify, although this zeal is not according to knowledge: separation has rendered us more benign. Approach the truth: to better fruit at length some time convert yourselves: make that you worship God more studiously than is your manner. For it is not base to be changed and to come to one's senses, but to cling to evil is pernicious. Farewell East and West, for whom and by whom we are assailed. He is witness, who will render us pacified, if some imitate my secession: for they will not also make a loss of God, who shall have yielded their Thrones, but will have a supernal chair, much more sublime and more secure than these. Beyond all things, and before all things I will cry, Farewell Angels, presidents of this Church, and of my presence and peregrination. Farewell Trinity, my meditation and my glory: by these mayest thou be preserved, and these mayest thou preserve, this my people (for it is mine, even if we be governed otherwise) and may I hear thee daily extolled and increased, both as to the doctrine of the faith, and as to the integrity of life. Little children, I pray, keep the deposit: remember my stonings. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

not untried: let him know that he will succeed to the place of very many men, deserving partly praise, partly blame. Concerning the matters brought forward by me, do you, as it shall please you, decide.

[65] On the contrary the younger men rose up. Here I had set an end to my speech, when a murmur began to be raised by some from elsewhere, so that you would believe a crowded multitude of jackdaws gathered into one was heard by you. There was a certain wedge of young men, as though lingering in a tavern newly built; it was a whirlwind, suddenly raising dust everywhere from the ground, or a tempest of winds mutually opposing one another arisen on a sudden: by which, while they rashly blurted out whatever was foolish, or even, after the manner of wasps, flew unexpectedly into the face and countenance of those with whom they were dealing, no one who excels in the fear of God and in any greater dignity deigned to give an answer. To these, moreover, that venerable assembly of the Fathers did not hesitate to give way; so far was it from daring to chastise the ferocious youths with words or to repress them with deeds. they deny that account should be taken of the Westerners siding with Paulinus; And see, please, how skillfully, how laudably they reasoned. In all things and affairs they said account was to be taken of the sun alone, and accordingly that the beginning of the faith was to be taken from the East, whence God, clothed in the veil of our flesh, first deigned to shine forth to us. But what now? Let us learn that the vicissitudes of times and things are by no means to be cared for, and that the flesh of Christ is the first-fruits of the whole human race: but as for what began in the East, where there was greater wickedness, someone might say He rather did this, as though about to receive death more easily there, from which resurrection and salvation should proceed. But to those holding such opinions, ought the better-instructed to defer, as I said above? Surely even from this it is clear what lofty spirits these men bear. those, namely, who, although they had before wavered concerning the faith.

[66] But what? That I saw the sweetest and likewise most beautiful ancient fountain of our faith, whence we received that the most holy Trinity is to be contracted into one and the same substance, and which the Nicene Synod so greatly strove to preserve uncorrupted, troubled by the admixture of the brine of those who are convicted of holding only ambiguous opinions in matters of faith: who have always the same religion as the Prince: who wish to bear themselves midway between the parties (and would that indeed they walked by the middle way, as they profess, and were not seen to stand too openly with our adversaries!) Bishops, who now for the first time begin to know the divinity, yesterday masters, today disciples; who, after they have conferred the sacred mysteries on others, are themselves again to be initiated into the same: then they thought it fair to adapt themselves to the time, who presume to correct the morals of the people, while they have their own crimes, I know not indeed in what manner, but nevertheless openly here and there, and that without any weeping or tears. O thing wonderful and unusual, that men are found who do not blush to declare their diseases and vices with dry eyes! But this is the principle which they themselves hold in acting: They opine and say that all things are to be adapted to the time. For what greater pleasure than to pass life in the manner of a stage? This indeed that play and variation of persons has of advantage, that it often obtains what otherwise you could attain neither by huge labor nor by a great force of money. But we, how humanely, how kindly do we conduct the matter? We do not cease to cry with the voice of a herald to all at the very threshold of the sanctuary: Whoever has the wish, let him enter without fear; though he change his faith twice, or even oftener as occasion serves. and to make a gain of religion. Now is the time of the fair: let no one depart hence without profit. When again the die shall be reversed (since nothing is more changeable than time) you already know the art, with a course remove yourself again from thence. It is not the part of a rightly instructed man to be tenaciously addicted always to the rules of one faith: another and ever another, according to the variety of things and times, is the mode of life to be held. Hence, moreover, what do we think happens? There rises again that specter once offered in sleep to a certain King, composed of manifold material: a head of gold, then limbs of silver, next of bronze, again of iron, and finally in the lowest parts all of clay. How vehemently I fear, lest a stone sent from somewhere should one day shatter the multiform statue! To the Moabites now and the Ammonites is permitted, once forbidden, entrance into the Church. But who then presided over the assemblies? But the assemblies themselves, of what sort were they and whose? It irks me to say again what I ought to blush at. They were of all, that is, of no one: for true anarchy is the rule of the many.

CHAPTER VIII.

The voluntary abdication and withdrawal of Gregory.

[67] Dissenting from the crowd, Gregory, Meanwhile opportunely sickness commanded me, and detained me at home much and often, intent only on preparing my withdrawal, in which one thing alone I now had the hope of escaping evils reposed: for what anyone intends, that is for him a law. And some indeed, though by constraint and with difficulty, met with me; in whom there was indeed somewhat of liberty, but also ignorance was for an excuse, deceived by the ambiguous sense of the doctrines (for what was openly preached seemed pious, an offspring unlike its parents) but I shall not sooner approve the crowd of those making a gain of Christ, than anyone would think mud is to be mixed with the fragrance of sincere ointment: for the evil more easily come together than the good. But as the wise man did not please them with novelty (for by this name those bold men called provident men) so neither did they please him. It happened therefore as is read of Lot and the Patriarch Abraham, of whom one went this way, the other that, because the place was narrow for their possessions. But what does it avail to relate, by what and how great reasonings those most beloved ones tempted this gray hair of mine? since he would not consort with the wicked. indeed deferring to me the first places and, but asking something in a friendly way, a friend (for shame!) Gregory: as if friends would have me as a helper in all things for the society of evil. But in what manner in all things? Will anyone think that this is to be committed by me, that I should set the multitude before the Word of God? Sooner truly will the nature of waters and fountains by an inborn impulse burst forth into higher places, and fire be borne into the wholly contrary part, than that, concerning things pertaining to religion and my salvation, I should perfidiously betray even the least thing.

[68] From that time therefore I began little by little and stealthily to withdraw myself from the multitude, with great grief of the people, he abstains from the public. having indeed changed the very place of my dwelling; and the most troublesome and most arduous affairs of the Church to be cared for, as well as the conversations and meetings of wicked men, being bidden a long farewell, although those who wished me well, from the common people chiefly, that I may say nothing of the rest, followed me with groaning and tears. These with great clamor supplicated us, raised their hands to God, lamented me at last as already dead. O those bitter laments! O grievous tears! With what mind, with what heart could I bear all these things, nor be moved? Will you desert, they said, your crop (as we have heard), once indeed small, but now a copious harvest? But the people newly gathered, who partly now standing at your doors only need that the gate be opened, partly already admitted hunt the outsiders, and the rest to whom will you cast them? Who will henceforth feed your offspring in Christ? Let the magnitude of the labors you have undertaken move you: and the remaining time of your life, spend on God and us, and in this temple render your last Spirit. These things, I confess, could not but move me; nevertheless with a strong and generous mind I strove against them.

[69] Then a little time elapsed, when God commanded me to be free from all evils and inconveniences. There were present, suddenly called together into one, Then, the Bishops quarreling among themselves over his ordination, that in establishing peace they might join all their forces, the Egyptian and Macedonian Prelates, diligent heralds and ministers of the laws and divine mysteries, breathing something grievous against our men and Western, whom the Eastern praisers contradicted. They therefore, after the manner of boars, with teeth sharpened for biting (that I may imitate something from Tragedy) with grim countenance, and sparkling eyes, join hands. Among many things, moreover, which were brought forward more from anger than from a tranquil and settled mind, they brought forth certain things indeed bitter against me also; certain laws, I know not which, long since antiquated, and no longer binding me by any reason, being recalled to memory. Nor were these things done because either they held me in hatred, or that they might transfer my dignity to some other; by no means: but that they might create trouble for those who had raised me to the throne, which they themselves abundantly signified to me from time to time by hidden indications: For they thought that the injuries received from those men, as well old as more recent, were no longer to be borne by them. But I, after the likeness of a horse bound by chains, although I was grievously affected by many evils and by perpetual sickness, yet did not lack the will of going forth into the public light, and miserably as it were neighed because of the too narrow bonds by which I was held, longing solely for my pastures and my solitude.

[70] After therefore I perceived such things being moved by the Bishops, the bonds being immediately burst, bringing himself into the midst, I eagerly and without delay seize the occasion offered (which I know is hardly to be persuaded ambitious men to believe, although nothing is truer than that): and having obtained that opportune time, bringing myself into the midst of the Prelates, I speak thus: Men, whom God wished to come together into one, that you may take and execute the counsels which you shall have known to be pleasing to His supreme Deity; but let care of me be your last: for it matters not much, if we behold this most beautiful assembly, what at length shall become of me, though it sometimes happens that I exult vainly in mind. Raise your spirits and minds to greater things: consult for the common good: be joined by the bond of love and unity, later though it be than was fitting. How long, like inhuman and savage men, shall we be received with the cackles and reproaches of all? how long shall we be said to breathe nothing but fights and contentions? Right hands, I pray, indices of friendship and fidelity, join at length briskly. I meanwhile will follow the example of the Prophet Jonah not unwillingly. for the very pacifying of these among themselves he renounces the Episcopate. For the safety and security of our ship I willingly devote my head, although I can in no way be said to be the cause of the storm raised. Me therefore, by lots tempered by divine will, destined for this, plunge into the deep: some hospitable whale will snatch me from the depth. Let this be the beginning of your concord; and then proceed further to establish other things. Let this place yield into the most ample field of your liberty: whence to me also no slight glory shall arise. It will be most base for you, if for the cause of me alone you should wish to desist from deliberating. This law I fix for you: strive even beyond what the laws command. If you are of such a mind as is fitting; nothing too arduous can ever be offered to you. This throne I was compelled unwillingly to occupy; now willingly

and gladly I depart from the seat and dignity. That I may not defer this very thing longer, the infirm health of an aged body plainly persuades. Finally I know well enough that I am bound by the debt of death once to be undergone, which with most ready will I will pay to God. Thou alone, O most holy Trinity, dost cast upon me care and solicitude. Of what man at last, learned and religious, wilt Thou have the tongue, a most keen vindicator of Thy deity and glory, free from all fear, and full of zeal? Farewell, and preserve a perpetual memory of the labors borne by me.

[71] When I had spoken these things, all seemed to waver in their minds. But I tore myself from their assembly, affected partly with joy, partly with grief: with joy indeed, because I discerned that at length some end of labors and troubles was not far off; with grief, because of the solicitude with which I was still anxious concerning the salvation and state of my people. though not ignorant that not all was being done rightly. Who, I pray, a parent will not be moved, if he suddenly suffer the loss of his sweetest offspring? So indeed did I bear myself. But they know, and God knows, whether or not something more was carried on by hidden than by open warfare; whether or not the corruptions of youths were applied, rocks and most grievous snares set in the way. There are not lacking those who assert all these things, but I willingly will wrap them in silence. Nor have I leisure or will to know more deeply the depraved and hidden machinations of men, who never had anything more at heart than to cherish everywhere sincerity and simplicity of mind, no otherwise than the sweetest mother of all salvation and felicity. Upon that one thing I have always conferred all my studies, all my endeavor. Yet do not think me so ignorant of the things which are carried on, that I do not understand more things to have been done than can rightly be done. Suddenly therefore I am received with the praise and approbation of the whole assembly. This forsooth is that reward which the fatherland confers on excellent men. So therefore did these things stand. But what with the Emperor? Did I bend my neck? did I, my knees set on the ground, fall down as a suppliant? did I seize his right hand? did I make a suppliant oration to him? did I send away any one of the number of my friends, and of the nobles especially, whom I knew to be most zealous for my affairs, to the Prince, that he might undertake the patronage of my cause? Was I beheld to pour out gold (than which nothing is more powerful), to this end, that I might not fall from so lofty and exalted a throne?

[72] and that he asks of Theodosius that this be first granted him, Let those arts be of others, who are wholly made for cunning. I, betaking myself to the Prince with hastened step, very many being present and looking on; A benefit, said I, O most powerful Emperor, I demand some from thy liberal hand. I do not ask gold, nor tablets overlaid with gold, nor precious veils with which I might cover the sacred table, nor that thou shouldst make some one of my kinsmen distinguished with many titles of honors, and that he should always hold a place in thy retinue, O best Prince. These things I wish may befall those whose desires are humbler: I judge that mind and soul are to be applied to greater goods. This one thing I beg to be granted me, that by thy good leave it may be permitted me for a while to withdraw myself from the excessive envy of certain men. I am pleased to look up to and venerate the majesty of the throne, provided I be removed farther from it. Too long already have I begun to be hated by all, even friends, who cannot at all be ignorant that I, all care of human things laid aside, am intent on God alone. From these by thy authority demand, that they cultivate mutual friendship among themselves holily; that they lay down their arms, and that he lead back the Bishops to concord. if not for the fear of God and of punishments, yet at least for reverence and favor of thee, at length sometime. Erect for thyself that noble trophy of bloodless battle, thou who hast by thy virtue compressed the monstrous audacity of the barbarians. This matter therefore, O Emperor, demand of them (saying this, I show likewise my gray hair and the labors exhausted in God's cause) which they may not at all hesitate to perform even for the favor of this fallacious world. Thou thyself knowest that I unwilling and reluctant was placed by thee on that throne.

[73] Which obtained, he consoles his own, To this oration of mine the Emperor gave applause, and as many men of every condition as were then present with the Emperor. Nor that only; but he assented also to my petition, with difficulty indeed, as they say, but nevertheless he assented. But what then was accomplished by me toward extinguishing the remnants of such great evils? I admonish all that with an even and pacified mind they bear whatever should come to pass; nor from zeal of me or of taking vengeance establish anything harsher in their mind. The wicked themselves also I extol with my blandishments, praises, approbation. To the Presidents, to the outsiders, to the leaders of the whole flock, to the old associates in faith, to the recently admitted, who seemed about to bear the father's solitude more grievously, to those Bishops finally whom greater grief for my cause had invaded, I make a speech. For very many indeed, as they received the report of my counsel, so as if from a thunderbolt fearing ill for themselves, with ears stopped and hands clapped together, took to flight, lest they be compelled unwilling to be present at so sad a spectacle, and to behold another raised to my Seat.

[74] yielding this victory over himself to his rivals. And here at length let there be for me an end of speaking. I survive moreover, after the likeness of a living corpse, conquered (O thing worthy of admiration!) and at the same time conqueror, having God chiefly; and the best of friends instead of throne and all vain pomp with me. Cast reproaches, leap with joy, take courage, you wisest of men; announce my adverse fortunes with full cheeks in assemblies, in workshops, in tribunals, after the manner of conquerors, imitate the crowing of cocks: strike your sides with elbows: in the assemblies of stolid men raise your necks and brows. By me alone spontaneously yielding, you have obtained the victory. By me, I say, alone yielding, for the cause of declining envy alone (although you strive to snatch from me even this praise, while you wickedly boast that I was violently cast down from the throne.) But if I did not yield spontaneously, let you at length be ashamed of such great crimes. Yesterday you created me your Prelate, today you drive me out. But after I have now escaped those tempests, what further am I to do? I will dwell with the Angels; and as no one will greatly profit my life's reckonings hereafter, so neither will he bring any loss. I will show myself familiar to God alone as much as I shall be able: the voices of men, as the lightest and of no moment breezes, I will hold in contempt. Of these forsooth I am sated, often by them affected with injuries, often signally adorned with praises. I am pleased in remote solitude, far from the consort of the impious, to pass what remains of life, where, intent solely on holy thoughts of God, with hope of future blessedness I may sweetly feed my old age. But what for the good and advantage of the Churches? I will give tears and sighs: for to that very thing God Himself has at length led me, while He willed the course of my life to be subject to so many and so various vicissitudes of things and times. But where at length will the goal of all these be appointed for me? This may it be permitted me to seek from Thee, O divine Word. To the entrance, I hope, of that dwelling, which by no tempest can be shaken or troubled: where is my Trinity, illustrious with one and the same splendor, by whose even most slender light only, or rather shadow, we so greatly exult.

APPENDIX

On the threefold Translation of the body of S. Gregory Nazianzen.

Gregory Nazianzen, Archbishop of Constantinople (S.)

PART I.

The Translation from Cappadocia to Constantinople.

[1] It was made into the temple of the Apostles. That notable Synaxarium, which transcribed at least five hundred years ago for the use of some Constantinopolitan church, our Jacobus Sirmondus happily found, and dying left to the Collegium of Clermont at Paris, and which lent for the use of our work we have often praised, and shall oftener praise; on the XXV day of January, thus ends the eulogy of S. Gregory Nazianzen: His sacred relics were translated from Cappadocia to Constantinople, in the time of Constantine the most Christian Emperor Porphyrogenitus, and deposited in the church of the most famous Holy Apostles. With these consonant are nearly all the rest of the Menaea, both printed and Mss., concluding the more prolix eulogy thus: His Synaxis is celebrated in the most holy great church and in the martyrium of S. Anastasia, and in the church of the great Apostles, where his sacred body was deposited by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, our most pious and most Christ-loving Emperor, translated from Nazianzus out of the region of the Cappadocians. In the same Menaea on the XIX of the aforesaid month is noted the Relation of the body of our holy Father Gregory the Theologian into the church of the Holy Apostles, with this distich added,

The fair Colony holds thy dead body. For I call, as thou dost, the Apostles, Father.

Where allusion is made to that Oration, in which before a hundred and fifty Bishops, bidding farewell also to this church, after the great one of the first, he says, χαίρετε, Ἀπόστολοι, ἡ καλὴ μετοικία, Farewell, Apostles, fair Colony. The distich therefore itself I render thus into Latin:

Thy corpse the fair Colony holds, The Apostles, I say, for so thou callest them, Father.

[2] under Constantine Porphyrogenitus Πορφυρογεννέτης in Greek, which Liutprand and others Greco-barbarously render Porphyrogenitus, he is called, who is born while his father holds the Empire, as it were in the purple. Such, among the Constantines, the first indeed was the son of the impious Copronymus by his most pious mother Irene, of the same name as his father: but writers commonly name him Constantine of Irene; as they call his brother and predecessor Leo, from the maternal nation of the Chazars, Leo Chazares. Besides, this one held the Empire commonly almost with his mother, whence also the times of Constantine and Irene are wont to be commonly named. The next therefore and the only one of whom you could believe this to be treated, is Constantine, son of Leo the Wise, who succeeded his uncle Alexander, dead within the twelfth month of his reign, distinguished by such a prerogative of birth, in the year 912, and reigned until 960: an Oration about it from a Greek Ms. so that the said translation was made first in the X century, and indeed after the 44th year of that century, in which Constantine, his father-in-law and likewise consort of the Empire Romanus Lecapenus being relegated into exile, began to reign alone: for of him and his Caesar sons, similarly cast out after the father, no mention is made in the Panegyric of the said Translation, in which the solemnity of this is described, recited perhaps for the first time at its first anniversary. This was exhibited to us as we passed through Turin in the year 1661; a Greek Codex inscribed βίοι διαφόρων Ἁγίων, found at fol. 327 in the Library of the Most Serene Duke of Savoy. That Codex was probably consumed by the fire by which in the year 1667 the Gallery of the Duke, which contained the Library, was burned: a spoil therefore snatched as it were from the flame we shall give in its place; here receive its Latin interpretation prepared by our Daniel Cardonus.

ENCOMIUM

on the first translation of the body.

From a Greek Ms. of the Duke of Savoy.

FROM THE GR. MS.

[3] The excellence of this feast, The Translation of Gregory is plainly admirable, a holy and illustrious festivity, and more excellent than the rest which we yearly celebrate for him: but the end of the festivity

is to remember God, through whom it befalls its author to be thus honored and celebrated, but for us to know thence with inexplicable gladness how venerable she is. The Translation, I say, of that Gregory, whom, begetting him uncontaminated before any others whatsoever, nature, an example of the first creation, immune from the mixture of passions, represented in him. But this we celebrate: because from him we receive the greatest (for no one could say what and how great) emoluments of graces and benefits; through which he, unfolding mysteries far surpassing human grasp, exists as leader and author of the most beautiful ascension unto God and of a more divine conversation. But we assume that his festivity is to be celebrated not only for this, that he was worthy to comprehend all the highest things, on account of the excellence of the Saint himself, that he merited to be a receptacle of all divine and human wisdom, that he merited to be obtained from God by his parents' prayers, whereby it came about that, both before and after his mother's childbirth, he was formed and perfected by the holy Spirit, which we know to have befallen surely few and so few: but because he himself is the leader of today's solemnity, by which he migrated happily to the household of the faith, and as if a most glorious victory carried off, ascended into the higher regions, trophies erected, which long since he himself set up to the disgrace of the heretics, and for whose cause with unanimous voice we say this panegyric oration to him. Yet because he is convicted of being superior to all force of praise and oration; there is no one who would dare to advance even to the first approaches of his panegyrics, however much he himself be and be held more excellent than others. For no one, most truly I say, no one is there who suffices to celebrate the praises of this Saint, except the Saint himself, just as those creatures which persist in the simplicity of their nature remove far from communion with themselves all things composite and easily to perish. But if anyone has dared even a little in this part to advance in speaking, he will be held worthy of much honor, if from his labor and diligence even so much be kindly admitted: but he will behold himself so removed and disjoined by so great an interval from that which ought to be said, by how great an interval all our earthly things are discerned to be distant from those celestial and superior ones.

[4] And would that even so it be given me to profit somewhat by speaking, that I be not compelled, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the things to be produced, to sustain a ruin not at all doubtful. But if to others it has been granted to be strong in this stadium by their course, it would deter the orator, and to equal beautiful deeds with praises, it will be much to me and not unpleasant if my discourses be so received, that I be judged not indeed unworthy who should have some place among the middling ones, but that I do not approach nearer to the best masters in speaking. The human mind is surely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the deeds illustriously performed by this man, and all the force of eloquence confesses itself inferior to and not sufficiently explained in narrating them: and there happens to it in this place something similar to what happens to eyes not sufficiently strong, when a solar ray has been cast into them; or a vast ocean is set before them, whose extreme bounds through men's inexperience hitherto remain unknown. Nevertheless neither thus is it my purpose to desert the arena into which I have descended: but rather let me refer myself to the goodness of the holy Father. For even in this his compassion so greatly differs from that of others, that he not only spares those offending against him, but even easily grants pardon to those striving for something great, but on account of the magnitude of the thing failing from the endeavor. Therefore after we have shown, unless trusting in his humanity how difficult it is to approach his praising, that yet no danger thence threatens us acting to the best of our ability; come, let us approach even to the small effluence of his graces, as to a temple illumined with divine light, on account of the things which hereafter are to be said.

[5] For divine, if any other, and sacrosanct, and holier and more divine than all that is dedicated to the worship of the supreme Deity, is he whom we have undertaken to praise. For he, to whom the supernatural and incomprehensible light of the most holy Trinity clearly shone, or rather, into whose mind the Triad itself wondrously gliding, opened the secrets of ineffable things: how shall he not be said to have been the dwelling-place of all sanctity, he would presume to speak of a man truly divine: and the lodging of the secret science concerning God, most like to God Himself? For just as when the solar light falls upon transparent bodies, it makes them much more lucid than they were before, because the rays of the sun are mingled with the natural splendor and purity of those bodies; so also the most resplendent light of the most holy Triad, after it penetrated into the most pure soul of this man, and willed it claimed for itself, made it far more splendid than that solar light and more beautiful. From which time surely after the manner of a star he shone in this world, having words of eternal life: indeed even after the reception of that first and chief light, he himself by his own brightness dispelled the darkness of others also dwelling in too great ignorance of the Trinity. Thus indeed I judged, although I should seem to incur altogether the mark of audacity, and I do not deny that I tend beyond the bounds appointed to me. But you, as many as excel in Magistracy or Priesthood, in contemplation or action, descend into this my stadium, and relieve with your help one laboring not a little from poverty of speech; nay come into a part of the laudation, and let one bring forth one thing, another another, which may make for the dignity of this celebration. For not even if it should befall the tongues of all of us to be purged by that Seraphic coal, or sharpened for speaking by the fire of the Paraclete Spirit, and all to conspire into one and the same; would they avail to express even a small part of the praises of so great a man. We must therefore attempt and undertake something concerning the proposed matter of this panegyric oration, about which we have now fully enough and abundantly prefaced.

[6] whose body into the temple of the Apostles The temple dedicated to the Apostles and most worthy of all honor, holds in its bosom and guards this herald of our faith, to be held in no less veneration than the Apostles themselves, and who embraced with mind and soul the secrets of that celestial Thunder. A temple altogether magnificent and likewise most glorious, keeps that rich and most holy treasure of all divine science brought into the Holy of Holies. The temple (nor is there cause why anyone should accuse me of excessive loquacity, since I am carried away by a zeal in that matter not at all to be reprehended.) The temple, I say, most worthy of the admiration of all and of eternal memory, received that Prelate, as it were a kind of living shrine of the most divine Trinity, to be placed in its inmost recesses. This temple (that I may bring forth something also for the delight of those present) because in magnitude, if it please anyone so to speak, it seems able to vie with the very firmament of the heavens, and its splendor with the splendor of the stars; exhibits thence to those who love them a certain likeness of that brightness descending to us in the annual celebrations. most august in structure and ornament, Hence the industry of the artificers who built it ought to be of no small admiration, by which we see most accurately observed the harmony of magnitude and of proportion due to so great a work, and finally all the laws of architecture. Moreover some of the tablets, both of those which are notable chiefly for white, and those which are notable for several colors, exhibit forms of various kinds beautifully fashioned to the imitation of nature itself; others, with little crusts artfully inserted aptly disposed into diverse images of animals or other things, are altogether conformed to the things they represent. But their most apt conjunction among themselves, deceiving even the keenest sight, is such, that as it were certain golden garments clothe the walls of the temple, and make you think you behold in that most beautiful temple I know not what region, distinguished with various flowers and trees. For the sight of the columns disposed round about, and the porticoes built upon the columns, on account of their native variety of colors exhibit the appearance of plants, growing surely into beautiful trees. Now indeed the arches notable for magnitude and airy color, all leaning on the strongest columns, as if on props, and joined among themselves by artful composition, mutually afford one another strength, and prop up the roof of the whole temple conspicuous with golden panels: in whose summit the image of the Lord fashioned with gold-colored ^a stones signally shines forth; fashioned with so great and so inimitable art, that it fills with a certain sacred horror and admiration those who more accurately gaze on it. But other [b] arches, somewhat lower than the middle and chief dome of the temple, and running out into the four diverse sides, exhibit that appearance of the temple, which you might say not unlike to this great world and its four parts.

[7] But if in describing the admirable things of that church our oration has dwelt for a while, now it is fitting that it turn itself to the proposed matter, and to the studious hearers of this solemnity endeavor to propose certain things making more for the utility of life and spirit. Today's solemnity therefore and assembly celebrates and sets before the eyes the coming of the most excellent Pastor and most acceptable to Christ Theologian into this our city; related on this day, which I indeed know and openly say to be more admirable even than the migration of the most illustrious man from this life to God. For through this we learn by what reckoning, snatched from the consort of mortals, he set out to those above; but through that we behold with joy the most longed-for return to us of the most holy man, after the interjection of a long time. I seem to see the Heavens exult with a certain serener light at the unusual splendors of great Gregory; nay even all those who are borne with any love toward him vehemently to rejoice, exult, and applaud for the cause of their most beloved Pastor and Master. Today truly the Orient from on high visited us, when it made him emerge from the parts of the dawn, that most splendid sun of Theology, and happily drove away whatever his absence had brought us of horror and sadness. Today the divine Triad, openly and into the theater producing its strongest champion, undertook to overturn all the bulwarks of the heretics, and to place the decrees of the Orthodox in most beautiful light. Today the strongest column of the orthodox religion, and the excellent leader of the Christian people, having traversed the space of the longest times, as if a certain deserted solitude, did not fail as that old and nebulous one, but revisiting this city by right of postliminy, by the splendor inborn to him wondrously roused the souls of all the Orthodox.

[8] with the greatest joy of that city, Now as if from a very long pilgrimage the best parent having returned, all his sons gathered into one, from a certain too great abundance of joys, bear before them I know not what more than human sense. The pastor now having returned to his flock, with great alacrity the rational sheep gather to him, no longer subject to any snares or perils. Now all the sacred places, keeping festival in common with this divine and truly celestial sanctuary, take their Angel-presidents as companions of gladness, and with great congratulation concelebrate the memory of this most holy Hierarch and Theologian. Now he who once

once spread widely, in no long space of time, the small and despised flock of Christians in this city, and brought it to the beauty and condition in which it now is, revisiting the same, greatly congratulates himself and applauds, since no less at this time than when he was among the living he most happily perceives his labors to result in the increase of the faithful. Now the Priest, having something like to divinity, receives the Seat proper and once possessed by him, and the Triad itself in a certain manner more clearly shines forth, and the word of faith is enunciated with greater liberty: but all the lovers of his wisdom flock in troops to this temple and these enclosures, that from that Theological tabernacle they may seek solace and delights for their souls. Now in a manner altogether evident, in which once, dismissed by men from a life remote, after a longer use coming from the field, he receives our vows and desires, extinguishes the flame of contention, and exhorts that we be willing to be made partakers of all those prerogatives, which coming hither he brought with him.

[9] Before he was cast down from the throne, and the multitude of heretics was elated with joy, as though all virtue and strength had been taken away from us: but now into the same throne the most holy Prelate is led back, and with great fear all the princes of iniquity are struck, although a great and pernicious number of demons undertook their parts to be defended. Before he was compelled to depart from his own house, which once he had been compelled to dismiss: and to betake himself to other seats, he heard from the more fervent in faith, that the glory of the holy Trinity was likewise driven out together with himself from the city of Constantinople; but now, having forgotten both his own house and his fatherland, with great alacrity he returns to us, and bringing back with him by postliminy the true worship of the Trinity, kindly instructs those desirous of sound doctrine concerning the same, raising with no moderate joy the souls of those, who on account of the absence of their incomparable Bishop had been plainly cast down and prostrate. Before, the fair colony of the Apostles being bidden farewell, he betook himself to the solitude most desired by him: but now he returns to them, as to the best wrestlers, and keeps better festivals with them in a certain manner than before, hindered as he was by the scandal and impediment cast in his way through his adversaries.

[10] He was born in Cappadocia, But I think I shall do not amiss, if I recall my oration for a while to things a little earlier, and briefly touch something small concerning the life of so great a Father, that, the things which befell him being brought into the midst in compendium, the distinct discourse may better stand in all its numbers and order. He therefore, as the Life written about him makes manifest to those desiring to learn, having obtained Cappadocia as his native soil, had parents adorned with piety, but for the most part, or that I may better say always, intent on God; so that they merited to receive that offspring as the most beautiful fruit of their prayer, nor were they frustrated of the hopes which they had conceived of him. and together with Basil cultivated in letters and virtue at Athens, But after Gregory had thoroughly learned the first elements of studies at Caesarea, he betook himself first into Palestine, and thence to Alexandria, for the cause of hearing in both places illustrious teachers. Thence sailing to Athens, when he suffered shipwreck, by the grace of his parents with God he was saved from the danger, to whom the peril of their dearest son had been disclosed through a vision. In that city he contracts familiarity with Basil the great, and each diligently intent on the study of virtue and on intimate conjunction with God and the summit of all perfection, was and was held a most religious pair of friends, and notable for the same morals. And Basil indeed thence first went away to Caesarea; but Gregory not long after, revisiting his parents, showed himself safe to them, that those by whose prayers he had before escaped death, he might cherish with all the duty and piety that was fitting. Then, the laver ^c of regeneration being received, together with Basil he chose for himself the long-desired sojourn in Pontus. Thence returned again to his father, with the same Bishop he contended against the heretics, and by him consecrated into a Priest, he set out to Seleucia ^d, for zeal of taking up a solitary and quiet life. Nor long after, again coming forth into public, he had very many contests with the heretics: and joined himself to Basil, now distinguished with the honor of Bishop: and through labors by no means ignoble prepared for himself an ascent to a yet more sublime Chair, by the same distinguished with the honor of the Episcopate.

[11] Hence followed those illustrious things: namely the coming of the most holy man, the divine Spirit acting, to Byzantium especially at Constantinople now a Bishop,; the never interrupted contests with the heterodox; his victory, and their defeat; the daily reduction of very many to the way of salvation; the overthrow of those who assailed the holy Spirit, the signal casting down of the Eunomians, the ruin of the Apollinarists, the stoning by the same attempted against that most upright man, and the wonderful evasion of that peril, and the safety of so great a man. That I may not touch on that veneration which he obtained among all; and that I may pass over in silence the fraudulent simulation of that Cynic [f] Philosopher, the fatherly humanity and love of Gregory toward him, and his rebellion against his most loving Father, the restitution of Gregory into the Episcopal Seat by the Emperor himself commanding it, and the Chair confirmed to him by the suffrages of the universal Synod, and finally the departure and return of the most valiant man into his fatherland, and by what reckoning by more and greater battles he routed some heresies, signally weakened others. These, I say, all being passed over on account of their too great abundance, let us approach nearer to the proposed matter. For after the most blessed man, and finally an old man in his fatherland, discharged of so many labors and contests for religion, had withered as to the body indeed worn out, and had entered grievous old age, yet still youthfully vigorous in mind, did not cease to contend with the heretics, to oppose himself everywhere to them; but with his tongue (that I may use his words) he prostrated and cut down, until he rescued and freed his fatherland from their impiety.

[12] Meanwhile it was in his vows and desires to be dissolved and to be with Christ, and more attentively to behold the divine Triad in himself, where, having holily died and, the enigmas and shadows removed, to contemplate the very Truth face to face. He therefore, by the studies of wisdom and silence purified from all stain, and retaining nothing of human dregs, migrated to the life ignorant of all old age and everlasting, honorably added to the consort of the holy Fathers, an inhabitant of the same tabernacle with the Patriarchs, a tent-fellow of the Confessors, a partaker with the heralds of the faith, inserted into the order of those whose doctrine he had held; with all those he more expressly contemplates the inamissible light of the sacrosanct Triad, and eternally rejoices and exults. But his most pure body is enclosed in the same sepulcher as his father, and was buried. leaving us his life and deeds illustriously performed unto an altogether venerable memory, and a pledge of salvation, for the instruction of our souls, and an ascent from earthly things to higher ones. Which indeed the land of the Cappadocians had as of a citizen and inhabitant, but for a long time despised and destitute of due honor; until that Saint approved our faith, and provided that we should not longer remain unhappily bereft of so great a good, and through his much discretion, despising the times of ignorance [g] and foreseeing the years of fidelity, willed to reveal to these very ones the most hidden secrets of his mysteries.

[13] But the rudders of the Roman Empire being recently delivered into the hands of a Christian and most religious Emperor, Constantine the Emperor who had obtained the same name and zeal as the Founder, and who followed this Saint with a certain especial honor, since he bore before him no moderate affection and solicitude toward the doctrine of this most holy Prelate; he began vehemently to marvel, that a man, who had exhausted so many contests and labors for the public good of the chief city, and had purged the same from the foulest filth of heresy, should have his place of burial under the open sky and far placed from it and despised; nor was led back to those peoples, for whose salvation he had not hesitated to undergo so much trouble. about to translate the body to Constantinople. Thinking these things with himself, and as if impelled by a certain divine spirit, he was kindled not a little for the search of the most holy body: and to men, eminent in the science of divine things and in piety, he declared his counsel and will. To whom after they all with one will gave assent, and supplicated that the Emperor should execute his counsel by the very deed; persuaded by their exhortations, he destines another place for the great Forerunner ^h, himself preparing the way for the great Theologian and supreme Pastor, just as once that one prepared it for the Savior Jesus journeying on our account in the flesh. Then with as great swiftness as could be done he took care that the sacred body be brought into the more secret recesses of the temple, and placed in a most beautiful coffin, conspicuous more by imperial faith than by silver ornaments.

[14] But what? Did he presumptuously and by royal authority dare to translate hither the venerable relics of the holy man? He supplicates the Saint by a Letter nor did he keep the submission befitting his state? Or, by no means neglecting these things, did he yet not attend to the distinction of Empire and Priesthood? Or, beautifully caring also for these, as was fitting, did he yet not congruously accompany the sacred remains with hymns and praises? By no means: but observing and doing all the things I have said and each toward the holy man, by a written supplication he entreated his return to this end: and it was such: ⁱ Thee indeed, inexhaustible fountain of the sacred doctrine concerning God, and most valiant adorer and herald of the Holy Triad, it was fitting to walk surrounded by all angelic virtues and choirs of the blessed; for it is not lawful, that men who consist of grosser matter should worship with a base appearance of religion and piety him who now most happily dwells above all the heavens, who, distinguished with the prerogative of divine familiarity, is now most clearly illuminated by the splendors issuing thence. Nevertheless since thou also wast once a partaker of this corporeal flesh, and didst obey the inviolate laws of nature, although by a most holy institute of living thou didst almost transcend the bounds of that same nature, thou didst attain the goal of desire and faith, the true doctrine concerning the consubstantiality of the divine Persons ^k being preferred to the perverse and contrary dogma; measure now, we pray, our desires and vows; that he allow himself to be led back thither. and considering the ardor of our faith penetrate into the inmost recesses of our souls, and search even our very thoughts; and mayest thou know that in the manner of due subjection, not however in a spirit of pride, we suppliantly beseech thee not to be loath to come to us. Take for an example that great and first of all Priests Christ, who, won by the prayers of the Saints, by no means deferred His coming into our land: emulate His insuperable humility, who did not even disdain to come to the sepulcher of His deceased friend, that He might be for salvation to others. So also do not thou hesitate to approach to us, from whom mayest thou never be absent by thy spirit and favor, who didst plainly not suffer us to be orphans, but illustrating our minds with thy Theological book, didst bring it about that through this we might seem to have thee thyself. Now therefore make thy worshippers and lovers, through the constant renovation of the mind, in a certain manner unchangeable. For behold, however far thou be still absent from us, nevertheless with our whole body prone to the earth before thee we prostrate ourselves,

and we unfold the very insignia of the Empire before thy most holy feet. Assent therefore to our pious vows, incline thyself to us, return to that flock which is held by so great a desire of thee, kindly revisit thy people, enter into that city, in which once thou didst excellently confirm the imperiled cause of the orthodox religion, in which thou didst teach our forefathers to understand and worship by right reason the most holy Triad, assailed by the blasphemous voices of the impious: bestow also whatever things make for the help of our souls, about to have thus more even than before bound to thee by the religion due to thee.

[15] The body dug up again, When the most religious Emperor had written these things, he delivered them to those to whom had been committed the care of conveying the sacred treasure to us. These however, the journey being swiftly accomplished, came into Cappadocia to the sepulcher of the great Father: where soon their minds began to be smitten by a certain doubtful fluctuation. For since, while Gregory was still living, two monuments had been erected, destined for the burying of all who out of his family should meet death; it was doubtful, in which of these together with his parent [l] the Saint had been laid. While they were anxiously occupied in this doubt, they turn themselves to prayers, raise their hands on high, pour out tears, praying for the wished-for issue of their vows. But behold (O the incredible benevolence of heaven toward us!) to those suppliantly beseeching God that which they sought is mercifully revealed; the bones of the Blessed man being found plainly entire and in their natural disposition, and recognized by a sweet odor, but also breathing from themselves a certain unusual and inexplicable fragrance of odor, and finally affording a certain wonderful and not customary spectacle of themselves. These therefore with due veneration were placed in a coffin prepared for it. Then truly a great joy arose, and tears were shed, both by those who were about to carry away with them the venerable relics, and by those who were about to lose them; since these well understood of how great a treasure they were to be deprived, although they were not ignorant that he was to be held in greater veneration elsewhere (For who is willingly torn away from that which he loves?) but those knew, that not only had they been made partakers of their vow, but had also obtained for the Emperor himself and the whole Commonwealth a patron and leader far most desired. Soon therefore, as they could, they undertook to retrace their journey into their fatherland, with continual songs of praise, and torches kindled, religiously venerating the sacred body.

[16] Then surely I think the very gates of the heavens were opened to the unusual appearance of the spectacle, and along the way by which it was carried and some indeed of the Angels gathered, that they might surround that body, the dwelling of the most holy Trinity, and accompany the sacred bier; but others from the heavens themselves considered that admirable ceremony and pomp of the translation: nay even with amazement doubted, whether a man, who carried about a corruptible body, could so surpass the things which pertain to the body, that what is by its nature mortal, even before it revives at the last, making it a partaker of a certain immortality, he should render the earth and ashes as if void of matter, and assimilate whatever it possessed of the corporeal to the nature of those. But by what oration could anyone according to its dignity set forth whatever prodigiously happened during the journey? A great multitude of men from every quarter flocked to the spectacle, while one exhorted another not to be willing to be absent, and all were snatched from everywhere to the sacred bier by a certain secret impulse. These indeed accompanying the order of those setting out, received with great veneration by all, rendered to the angelic body the honor due: others received it with hymns and canticles. There were those who used torches, and unguents, and all those signs of veneration with which divine things are honored. Others ran together only for the sake of beholding, hoping to be sanctified by the very sight. The Priests received their Hierarch and Pastor with the dignity that was fitting; the Monks venerated and embraced their Master in the ascetic life. But what of the townsmen and the rustics? for they were not present as idle spectators at so great a celebration; but each one, as far indeed as the means of individuals bore, was eager to bring forth into the midst what should go to the cult of so great a man, this one for what he had, that one even because he had nothing, gave thanks, so that one pleased by the promptness of bestowing, another by the firmness of faith: one joined himself to those chanting hymns, another kindly received those who accompanied the supplication, all were borne to the veneration of the holy man with one and the same zeal, all showed their zeal and fervor to emulation.

[17] In this manner having accomplished the long and most troublesome journey, they approached nearer to the royal city. But although they had neither cloud nor pillar of fire for a guide of the journey, the Emperor having gone forth to meet it nor did the sun stand still while they set out, nor did any bright star appear (for all these things happened in the times of Moses and Joshua the son of Nun, and of Christ my God, through whom also those admirable things were done for the advantage and grace of those Saints) yet they were strengthened by a certain inconspicuous power and led along the way, namely by the care and solicitude of him whose sacred relics they reverently bore. Then the Emperor himself also with the Priests and all the inhabitants of the great city honorably went forth to meet them, and one strove to outdo another in alacrity and faith. And no otherwise than when once the citizens of Jerusalem received Jesus coming not without notable songs of praise, so also now they received this illustrious imitator of Christ about to enter into this new Jerusalem, with not dissimilar hymns and canticles. it is received into the ship: But when they committed themselves to the sea, a spectacle was offered them, altogether pleasant and most full of amazement; for whatever the deep showed of horrid and monstrous was converted into a sweet tranquillity, although the season [m] of the year seemed to oppose it. The waves therefore gently bearing the ship, the journey was rendered most easy; and not otherwise than as if the Ocean placidly spread its back for the most holy imitator of Christ, it afforded an expeditious navigation free from all peril. Moreover the Emperor himself sat lofty in the stern: and since he held in his bosom those sacred and admirable relics, he thought he proceeded safely through the sea, and trod the deep with a certain greater power. But the splendor which issued from the torches and lamps, when it fell upon the lightest surface of the waters, and there beautifully glittered, and again was reflected back to the air, made the same more pleasing with a certain more agreeable light.

[18] After these things they put in at the royal house, and in the admirable temple which is there ⁿ, they place it in the palace of the great King. And since the Emperor set no measure to his embraces of and invocation to the sacred body, and after some delay in the temple of the palace, again and again to clasp it, by no means to recede from the coffin, to pour out tears abundantly, and not to desist from admiration, partly indeed for joy, that he had at length at some time obtained the desired thing, partly from his inborn probity, and singular faith in God: nay even for this reason that he might render to the royal house the sanctity and reverence of which it had formerly been deprived. But after the sacred body had stood there sufficiently; thence brought forth it is transferred to the great temple of the Apostles. But do you think it was a simple translation and notable for no variety, and not rather a most pleasant and illustrious one and most worthy of that great Theologian? Notable surely and altogether exceptional, and of all solemnities the most glorious it was.

[19] The sacred body was borne forth from the house of the Emperor, placed in a coffin which the royal purple had covered on every side, the whole city running together to the spectacle, the Bishops bearing it on their shoulders; since it was not lawful for the profane and unworthy to touch that most pure treasure, as that ancient Oza proves, who, touching the Ark of the Lord contrary to what was fitting, perished by fire sent from heaven. But the Emperor, as he who obtained the greatest honor among men, and bore a magistracy equal to the whole world, together with the supreme Bishop of the sacred things ^o, a man of notable faith and piety, accompanied the procession. But after the supplication came forth from the royal house, immediately as many as were of the Senatorial order, and enrolled among the Fathers by the Emperors, and those who were next to these and inferior in dignity, received that great ornament of Theology, not only exulting in their minds, but showing their inner gladness also by external indications and by the splendor of their garments. But as soon as it began to proceed, so great a multitude of men flowed together from the whole city, that the Emperor himself also and the Priests were not a little pressed by the crowd, and scarcely found the way by which they should further proceed. For some gathered in the open places of the public ways, accompanied the holy man and the supplication with hymns; others, getting out onto the roofs of houses, strove even from afar to behold the sacred bier; others, the colonnaded balconies and lofty porticoes and the substructures rising with threefold gable being occupied, were taken with no satiety of beholding: nay even some, surmounting the highest summits of the houses, looked forth from afar at him for whom so great a solemnity was kept; nor was there any corner of the public ways so narrow, which men, women, old men, young men and boys had not filled. One and the same unshaken faith had called forth all and each to behold the mysteries of the great Theologian, so that even those virgins who hitherto had not shown themselves openly, deserted their chambers, and gave themselves into the sight of men, that they might behold the secret of so great a celebration.

[20] That sacred coffin therefore was borne forth, no otherwise than once that mystical Ark, carried on the shoulders of the Priests of grace, or as a certain celestial treasure, in which were contained all the highest and most hidden things of the incomprehensible mysteries of God. it is carried to the temple of the Apostles, It was borne through the midst of the city's ways, at midday, through the midst of the multitude of citizens, not without difficulty. But a great abundance of lights added not a little to the splendor of the solemnity, and with their light almost surpassed the rays of the very sun. Then truly the winter season and the great mass of snows which had fallen exhibited as it were another sun on the earth. And thus that sacred supplication had at length its end, with so great signs of gladness conducted to the most excellent temple of the Apostles, of the chief name in the city. For it was fitting that that man, who had shown himself not unlike to the Apostles, and by his own preaching had everywhere diffused the light of the most holy Trinity; should not only in the assembly of the Blessed be adorned with the same prerogative of honors as they, but also rejoice in the same dwelling and monument on earth. It was fitting that he be laid not far from the sepulcher of our Father Chrysologus [p], illustriously illuminating the world by his doctrine, to be laid beside the body of S. John Chrysostom: he who not much before this time had excellently cultivated our royal city, involved in not dissimilar tempests and affairs; for it was fitting that he obtain a monument nearer to him, and have a common burial, from whose zeal and fervor in maintaining piety he is known not to have been far distant: it was fitting that he be buried beside that great and eloquent and indefatigable teacher of penitence and best and most kind herald of mercy, he who was a priest and worshipper of the supernal and blessed Trinity, and who most beautifully discerned its secret, the announcer of so great a mystery

and master: it was fitting that into the holy of holies be brought a tabernacle sanctified by the divine Spirit Himself, and after death not to be separated thence where living he had most fruitfully performed the sacred mysteries: it was fitting that the Priests of the most pure and incorruptible Lamb slain for us should be present at the sacrifices, and performing them should procure from heaven for their worshippers the coming of the divine Spirit: it was fitting that bodies free from all stain and foulness and notable for a certain Angelic brightness, as the express effigies of the Seraphic nature, should cover the oracles of so great mysteries, full of awe and unintelligible.

[21] where he is at hand to those who invoke him, But when they approached nearer to the doors of the temple of the Apostles, and entered into that other heaven upon earth, and brought the sacred coffin with the same kind of honor everywhere into the inmost recesses of the temple, no otherwise than as a certain celestial and divine treasure in the holy of holies, the most blessed man being laid up, obtained the everlasting seat of his rest: and to all who are held by his love and desire being present in a certain invisible manner, he kindly regards their zeal and fervor, and the grace which abundantly emanates from his spirit he liberally bestows. But what things in the solemnity of this translation were accomplished by the most fervent zealots of our faith and the genuine worshippers of the holy man, and by what reckoning the whole people coming together into one accompanied the same solemnity with as great a religious cult as it could, I could neither pass over in silence if I would, nor yet set forth according to its dignity however much I should strive.

[22] and preserves his flock in sound doctrine concerning the Trinity. Now therefore he, returned into his proper fold, has gathered his flock into one; and revisiting the same, increased either by himself once or by others afterward, and casting his eyes everywhere around, beholds his people, no longer as before captiously exploring his words, but most ardently panting after his discourses, perfect in spirit, instructed in true doctrine, cultivated in sanctity, nor unmindful of the stonings, labors, sweats, and daily deaths, borne for his cause and advantage; which he received bravely for the defense of the Trinity, refusing no inconvenience or peril of it, lest anything of those three should be separated either from one another, or lest that which was held most beautiful and most worthy of all honor should suffer any loss of itself; or rather, lest he should harm the salvation of others, either by an evil conjunction taking away the difference of persons with me as a middle term, or by a worse disjunction tearing apart that same worship of one essence. For it knows, that most holy mind, most full of divine light, knows which of mortals approach him constantly, which with doubting, who turn the seeds of Theology delivered to us by him into manifold fruits, who through the sterility of their heart extinguish the same. It knows who notably increases the talent granted to him, who buries it in the earth. It is not ignorant who make the most cultivated seeds of dogmas sprout into tares, and who have preserved the rich fruits of Christ, supported by a firm root.

[23] who while living had attained perfect wisdom, Surely no one of those who either were once, or now are, or shall be hereafter, so either put off himself and the world, or flew into the supernal regions, or attained to so great a purity of life, that he should be held worthy of a nearer beholding of the infinite beauty. Who, I beseech, else followed celestial philosophy with so great a love, and gave himself wholly to it, subjecting to it all human wisdom, so that what is artful in it, and excellent in divine philosophy, he knit together with a lovely bond among themselves, and fashioned one image of beauty composed of various ideas? But whether it befell any of those who beheld this light so to surpass all human sense, and in a certain manner to migrate into the very heavens, and so to look more nearly into the holy of holies, hidden from men existing in the flesh, I would not indeed define; but this I know best and expound to those who know not, that this illustrious servant of God is esteemed greater than all the rest, whether as to practical or as to speculative wisdom; and that there is no dogma of Theology so abstruse, which has not been revealed to him by the very Trinity, by which it was granted to him inspired to teach such things and commit them to letters. For what of higher and celestial speculation, conciliating to God and leading him who uses it to better things, will he not obtain, in every kind of his writings most useful to the reader. whosoever shall have approached to his Theological book? Does not he who has lent his ears and mind to his panegyric orations, is compelled with amazement to admire the great secret of divine providence and whatever things follow it? Does not he who studiously turns the lucubrations of this Father concerning the Priesthood, attend to the dignity of the Priesthood and the vileness of human nature, and understand how great he ought to be who merits to be raised to so great a summit of honor? Does not he who more attentively scrutinizes his Theological works, immediately turning himself away from carnal things, withdraw into a lofty mountain, enter into the dark cloud, and contemplate the hinder parts of God? Does not he who shall have surveyed his Epitaphs and Encomia, burn with desire of a better life, and through these indeed receive documents toward every species of virtue and innocence of life, but through those toward bravely enduring everything? Surely he who shall have heard those raging and clamoring against him, will immediately embrace the meekness of Christ and the manner of His conversation. But he who shall have perceived with his ear his dogmatic discourses, will easily prostrate the contrary opinion. If anyone shall have made trial of his Epistles, he will at once feel himself snatched away with an incredible sweetness; if his metrical works, he will wipe away the unpleasant brine of heathen speech; if his nocturnal supplications, he will seem in a certain manner to be carried up into heaven itself.

[24] I therefore, when I wish to fit my tongue to proposing these things, suddenly certain thunders and lightnings of thoughts as it were from the mountain of Sinai drive me away, and trumpets clanging horribly, and smoke and mist surround me and forbid me to advance: but I am made wholly anxious and full of fear, feeling all these things greater than his powers, the orator, when I behold the Lord Himself also descending in fire. But who, with his mind intent on so great things, would not think either of the fire of Elijah, bursting forth from the heavens; or of the fiery chariot, lifting him on high; or of the fiery pillar of Israel, the guide of the way; or of the jawbone of Samson, slaying so many phalanxes of the foreigners; or rather of the vehement wind of the holy Spirit coming with a sound upon the Apostles, and the grace appearing in the form of fiery tongues? But these require an altogether other time and the tongue of such men, who solely and alone have studied to grow famous by treating such arguments.

[25] Be present therefore in mind, whosoever you have come hither to hear me, he turns himself to him as if present, with the Apostles be present, inheritance of Christ and part chosen by God, be present, genuine inhabitants of this great city, and zealous for the friendship to be cultivated with me, you who have the Theological things explained by his voice: retrace the way, psalming with attention, modulating with continuation of hymns, considering your very selves with the tranquillity of your heart in his presence. Let us behold Gregory the Theologian, eager to salute this fair colony of the Apostolic temple, to which he so often delivered orations. For thus I have it persuaded, that not only he himself, the dwellings of the heavens being deserted, keeps this festal light with us and exults, but also the whole choir of the Apostles has come together hither, as our most vigilant leaders and most faithful guardians of the whole world, and with them that pleasant and altogether golden mouth, our Pactolus flowing with gold, the most limpid and altogether honeyed river of ecclesiastical eloquence, and Chrysostom and other Saints. the most valiant herald of penitence, the most glorious organ of all doctrine, and whatsoever other souls of the Blessed; since the spirits of the just in the splendors of the Saints bless the Lord. And let these be from me to thee, most holy and most divine man, those small and conspicuous by no ornament, and as it were the words of stammering children: but do thou, aiding us by thy intercessions, direct us by the rod of thy discourses to better things, show us the way to the mansions of blessed salvation, and by thy prayers obtain for us there the perfect knowledge of the most splendid Trinity, thou who, on account of that sanctity and purity by which thou didst shine in this life, hast as helpers in petitioning the duodenary choir of the Apostles, and all those who from the ages have pleased God, and have glorified the Lord, as thou. To Him be glory and dominion, both now and always, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

f. He means Maximus.

in the year of Christ 944, and surviving in that dignity until the year of his age 43, the year of Christ 957. Unless someone should think this translation was made altogether in the last years of Constantine; for then the Patriarch after Theophylact was Polyeuctus the monk, and held the see until after the death of Nicephorus Phocas and the year 969.

p. It is certain that S. John Chrysostom is meant, who, ordained in the year 398, and this S. Gregory, the Episcopate of Nectarius alone intervened: and that he was laid in the same temple of the Apostles beside the altar, Nicephorus narrates.

PART II.

The Translation from Constantinople to Rome.

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[25] The latest, ascribed to the Gregorian chapel, noted in the Martyrology. On occasion of the latest and most solemn translation, of which more must be treated in part 3, the Roman Martyrology also makes mention of this second one, on the XI day of June, thus speaking: At Rome the translation of S. Gregory Nazianzen: whose sacred body, brought before to the city from Constantinople, and long preserved in the Church of the Mother of God at the Campus Martius, Gregory XIII Supreme Pontiff transferred with the greatest celebration into a chapel, most magnificently adorned by him in the Basilica of S. Peter, and on the next day laid under the altar with worthy honor. Where in his Annotations Baronius writes these things. The first translation of him, the middle one, from Constantinople to Rome, obscure. made from Constantinople to Rome, we have learned by firm and certain tradition, for this cause, that, the barbarians ravaging those regions, the consecrated women, in whose church so great a treasure was laid, consulting by flight for their chastity, having received the venerable body, and placed it in a ship, fleeing to Rome, the safe asylum of piety, brought it; and laid it in the temple of S. Mary in the Campus Martius, granted to them by the Apostolic See: and there in an adjacent house, in which they dwelt, after their ancestral manner they rendered the divine praises through each day. These now being dead, the place yielded to Roman Virgins, who there hitherto persevere not under the rule of S. Basil, as those of old, but under the institutes of S. Benedict. Thus Baronius, who adds, that that first translation on account of the swift flight was somewhat obscure, chiefly because the knowledge of the time fails, in which it had happened.

[26] Meanwhile Friar Hyacinthus de Nobilibus, of the Order of Preachers, wrote in Italian and published a Chronicon of the monastery of S. Mary in the Campus Martius, more obscured by the figments of more recent writers. of the Order of S. Benedict of the Cassinese Congregation, which word for word Floravantes Martinellus inserted into his Roma Sacra printed in the year 1653. There the origin of that monastery is repeated from a certain Nazianzene nunnery, which S. Gregory, most devoted to the said Saint, instituted under the rule of S. Basil and the appellation of S. Thecla; who also was buried in it and rested, until those sacred Virgins, pressed by the calamities of the times, with the deposit of their dear founder, transferred themselves to Constantinople to the temple of S. Anastasia. Here that author says they served God, until the year 718, when, the city being besieged by Sulemon the Amir of the Saracens, they were compelled to betake themselves elsewhere, lest they should be of the number of those three hundred thousand, whom in the time of the siege pestilence and famine consumed. But the siege being raised and they returned, they were not permitted to be quiet long. For Leo III persecuting the orthodox worshippers of images, and his successor Constantine V no whit more mildly raging against the same after the year 741, especially against the professors of the monastic order; the Virgin keepers of the Gregorian body at S. Anastasia could not longer subsist there; and judged nothing more advisable than to flee to Rome, together with the sacred deposit and the head of S. Quirinus and other sacred Relics in the year 750: which while they were being carried through the Campus Martius, the beasts of burden standing immovably before the church of S. Mary, they were compelled to leave there; although they themselves passed to the habitation granted them in the church of S. Mary above Minerva; as if the Saint signified beforehand that they would pass through this within a short time: which also was done.

[27] [it is only certain that Greek nuns were transferred from S. Mary in Minerva to the Campus Martius,] Nevertheless the author says the former title was preserved, so that they were called the nuns of S. Mary in Minerva and the Campus Martius; and he asserts this to be clear from ancient writings, both several others, and especially from a sentence of a certain Guidiccio, a Roman Judge, given in their favor in the year 1268 on the XXVIII day of May, in that they continued to possess the little church situated in Minerva until the times of Clement IV; who, seeing it neglected through the absence of the consecrated women, delivered it to the Order of Preachers, having even now their chief Convent there. He adds, that from almost infinite instruments it is clear, that until the year 1580 the same were called the nuns of S. Mary in the Campus Martius and of S. Gregory Nazianzen: for this reason that they jointly possessed those two oratories: which being finally enclosed within the circuit of the monastery, the body indeed of S. Gregory was retained in its place, but the miraculous image of the B. Virgin was translated to a new church; which, open to the access of the common people, was erected from the foundations, under the most Reverend Lady Catharina Colonna, and dedicated on the VII day of December, of the year 1564. But that the holy body had been brought hither also before, in the year 1505, is learned from the title, which was carved on the altar there. that in the year 1194 they became Benedictines, This is the sum of that Chronicle, to which is added a Bull of Pope Celestine III, given in the IV year of his Pontificate, the year of Christ 1194, on the VII day of May, by which it is established that the Rule of S. Benedict be henceforth inviolably observed in the monastery of S. Mary in the Campus Martius; and that the place itself, with all its appurtenances and possessions, individually expressed in the bull, be confirmed to the same monastery in perpetuity. To this Bull, if it please, add what we have transcribed for ourselves from the book of Memorabilia of the Vatican Basilica fol. 23, where it is said that the body of S. Gregory Nazianzen was translated from a most ancient church, dedicated to his name in the region of the Campus Martius, of which ancient edifice mention is made in the Life of Leo III in Anastasius, and in Instruments written in the III year of Nicholas II, Indiction XIV on the VII day of April, of the lease of Massa-tarsi, Mons-spinetum, Cerisola and other estates named in them in the territory of the parish of S. Cassianus, that from the year 1061 the oratory of S. Gregory was possessed, made by Constantia, a religious Handmaid and Abbess of the venerable monastery of the holy Mother of God and of S. Gregory, who is called Nazianzen, which is placed in the Campus Martius, before the illustrious men, Henry and Waldo brothers, sons of Ugo, and in other monuments of the Archive of the said monastery.

[28] known from the very age of Leo III, As for what pertains to Leo III, of him it is read in Anastasius: In the oratory of S. Gregory, which is placed in the Campus Martius, he made baskets of silver weighing three pounds. Leo sat from the year 795 to 816: before whose times since it appeared there was at Rome an oratory of S. Gregory, nor was it doubted but that it was Nazianzen's, occasion was given to the scrutineers of Roman antiquities, knowing nothing better, of asserting, that the body of that Saint had been there even then, brought from Constantinople. Leaning therefore on this foundation Pancirolus, in his Hidden Treasures of the city of Rome, region 5 church 2, wrote that in the time of Leo the Isaurian, who reigned from the year 717 to 741, the sacred body was translated from Constantinople to Rome. Upon the same foundation the author of the aforesaid Chronicle built his dreams concerning the Nazianzene Nunnery of S. Thecla, [whence occasion was taken of anticipating the true time of the translation made by several centuries.] translated to the Anastasia of Constantinople. Dreams, I say: because what was read concerning the Seleucian monastery of S. Thecla in the Life of S. Gregory, he applied to the Nazianzene city, as though such a thing had been there also: and to this he connected the Anastasia of Constantinople, of which to Gregory thinking even in dreams there occurred those, whom he there once had held dear,

Single ones, and hymn-singers, and lovely chorus-stands, From strangers of our own kind, by a voice opposed, And hands, and wandering orphans, feeble, Looking toward us as toward the palms of God.

where in the first place are named Ἄζυγες, that is the Continent or Celibate, whom Billius interprets as virginal choirs. and of contriving certain absurd things. But as hence it is not held that the Anastasia was proper to them more than to other pilgrims, widows, orphans, etc.; so it is altogether gratuitously feigned that it once passed into the right of the consecrated women, translated from Cappadocia. But although it were established that such were translated together with the body to Constantinople, yet still from the very monuments of the Constantinopolitan church it would be convicted false, that this was done in the VIII century, or even much earlier; and that the body of the Saint was placed in the said Anastasia. Nor less absurd is the figment concerning the flight of the consecrated women from the besieged city. It was indeed besieged by Umar the Saracen, in the year 718: not (as it is ill said) by Soliman, who, conquered at sea, had perished the preceding year, but so closely was the city then girt that it would have been most inconsiderate for the Virgins to seek safety for themselves outside it during the siege.

[29] These things being thus rejected, there remains concerning the aforesaid Oratory the question, whether it be probable, yet that Oratory seems to have been dedicated to Nazianzen, that it was from the beginning dedicated to S. Gregory Nazianzen. That it is probable the peculiar cult of S. Gregory on this day persuades, and that diverse from those days, on which he is now worshipped among the Greeks about the end of January: of which days none seems to me his Birthday: but on occasion of the body translated to Constantinople, his anniversary itself or some neighboring one assumed. This ninth of May therefore, to be truly the Birthday of Gregory in celestial glory, I easily persuade myself; and its rite immediately conveyed from Cappadocia to the Roman church: for this could have given cause to Ado and Usuard of placing his name in their Martyrology, by an example afterward imitable by others. But you could opine such a cult to have been introduced about the end of the VII century or the beginning of the VIII, under some Syrian or Greek Pope. when the Roman Chair, from the year 685 to 752, was held by ten Pontiffs, all except two Syrians or Greeks; of whom one was Gregory III, by nation a Syrian, whom his piety toward his namesake and almost fellow-countryman Saint could have moved, to erect that Oratory in the city of Rome under his name, whose eloquence efficacious in defending the faith and persuading virtue, such as he had recognized in reading his works, he himself also studied to express. For he was, as Anastasius teaches, sufficiently instructed in the divine scriptures, why not, under Gregory III, imitators of Nazianzen erudite in the Greek and Latin tongue, retaining all the Psalms by heart in order, and polished in their senses by most subtle exercitation: with a tongue also refined in reading, an exhorter of all good works, and to the people most flourishingly preaching salutary things… an emulator of the orthodox faith and most valiant defender, solicitous for the provision of the needy not only by the piety of mind but by the labor of his own zeal, etc., which things in S. Gregory Nazianzen and his writings all so singularly shine forth, that although throughout the whole East most celebrated

was also that elder Gregory than he, surnamed Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus, and that one not unknown to the West (as the genuine Martyrology of Bede teaches on his Birthday the XVII of November), yet that one rather, whose alone the writings were extant, Pope Gregory III seems to have proposed to himself to be worshipped.

[30] As for what pertains to the consecrated women themselves, that they had their beginning from the city of Constantinople, it is uncertain when the nuns were brought to Rome the persecution of the Iconoclast Emperors affording cause of their migration, I would easily believe: although also many other occasions and causes can be thought of, by which as various Greek monks of old, so also nuns may have fixed their seat at Rome, in various centuries. But that the body of S. Gregory Nazianzen was in their power, so that they could carry it away with them, no one will believe, who understands that the temple of the Apostles at Constantinople, they do not seem to have brought the body of the Saint: after the great church of S. Sophia was the chief; furnished accordingly with its own and that copious Clergy, and so comparable to one of the Roman Basilicas, after the Lateran or the Vatican. But whatever those nuns of Greek rite and Basilian Order were, who first placed at Minerva, then in the Campus Martius, possessed in both places the edifice called from S. Mary; and in that same Campus Martius around their church (besides others elsewhere in the city and suburbs) seventy-four houses; that they yet had any right in the old little church of S. Gregory, or worshipped Nazianzen as Patron by another peculiar title, is proved by no document. Since therefore in their instruments the first mention of S. Gregory, and indeed expressly Nazianzen, with the title taken thence, is found in the III year of Nicholas II, which was the year of Christ 1060; it will not be an absurd conjecture, that not so very long before the little edifice of S. Gregory was committed to them, and this indeed much more venerable than before, nay neither did they possess his oratory before the 11th century: if there was already had in it the body of S. Gregory Nazianzen, not long before brought from Constantinople, and (if faith is given to a tradition involved in so many errors) deposited there by divine will, declared through the miraculous immobility of the beasts of burden carrying it.

[31] Surely that this sacred treasure should be entrusted to the Greek Virgins, not only the prerogative of nation and rite could persuade: but they then received this, but chiefly the very neighborhood and situation of the place altogether adjoining the monastery itself. But it could equally easily happen that the same Virgins, having obtained the old little edifice of S. Gregory in the century as I said the XI, wished to restrict that denomination indifferent toward various Gregories, according to their peculiar devotion toward Nazianzen, to him by name, whom the Constantinopolitan city especially venerates; so that it be not necessary, to verify the title used under Nicholas II, that the body of the Saint was already then there. [that they received it afterward, the city being taken by the Latins or the Turks.] For when it was brought from Cappadocia to Constantinople, the Greek Church dissented from the Latins, by the pernicious schism which Photius had introduced; nor before Constantine Monomachus, that is before the year 1042, did any of the Emperors greatly labor to extinguish the same: but this one was frustrated of his endeavor. Wherefore I am vehemently impelled, to believe that the holy body brought to Constantinople, the schism being now confirmed, rested there, until either the City came into the power of the Latins, in the year 1204; or at last yielded to the Turkish tyranny, in the year 1453. For on these two occasions, we know many Relics of the Saints were translated from Constantinople into Europe: and no vestige of more ancient possession, as to the body of which we treat, has hitherto been shown by the Romans.

PART III

The Translation to the Gregorian chapel from the Campus Martius into the Vatican Basilica.

[32] Baronius in his Annotations to the said XI of June says, Let us return to the translation of our Gregory the Theologian. As that first one on account of the swift flight was somewhat obscure; so the second, of which on this day a solemn memory is kept, was plainly most glorious and most celebrated. I merited, though unworthy, to behold close at hand with these eyes the triumph of so great a Father, Under Gregory XIII whom I especially venerate, when revolving in mind the cause of his most ample glory, Behold for thee (I said with myself) the sun of the East, knowing no setting, once overspread by the clouds and dense darkness of the envious, with what rays of brightness it now glitters! Lo the sacred summit of the Eastern Church, the most valiant champion and propagator of the faith, who restored, increased, and placed in safety the Catholic faith utterly fallen at Constantinople: and the troops of heretics being conquered and routed by the sword of the word, a vehement tempest stirred up from the envy of the Catholics pressing, that he might consult for the universal peace of the Church, not seeking the things which are his own, he yielded the Seat and withdrew inglorious. But what at length? it is itself translated into the Vatican Behold for Byzantium God repays Rome, for the new the ancient, for that small Anastasia the most august Vatican Basilica, the ornament of the City, the miracle of the World: for a slender sepulcher finally a triumphal arch, a most ample chapel, I say, which in honor of his Gregory our Pontiff Gregory constructed, and most magnificently adorned and illustrated. The history of the translation R. D. Franciscus Mocantius, Master of ceremonies, has left attested by a noble commentary. Thus Baronius. This history we found in the Archive of the Vatican Church of S. Peter transcribed from the book of Memorable Things of the Vatican Basilica page 24 and inserted into the Catalogue of Relics of the same Basilica, just as we presently give it.

[33] But there is extant a description of the Gregorian Chapel, by the author Ascanio Valentino the Roman, printed at Florence in the year 1583, and dedicated to Gregory XIII. There on page 22 are described four arches, in which are the Latin Fathers Gregory the Great and Jerome, the Greek Basil and Gregory Nazianzen. He, as is said on page 26, clothed in hyacinthine vestments for performing the sacred rite after the manner of Bishops, has in his left a mitre and a staff, at the Gregorian chapel. behind his back several codices: out of whose number one is open, in which these things are contained, Πάλιν Ἰησοῦς ὁ ἐμὸς καὶ πάλιν μυστήριον. He sits with head uncovered, and with his whitening hair drawn together in a circle, and poured out in the manner of a crown. His brow is broad, his face drawn together: he is not free from writing, and seems to be commenting on many things, while he twists his head and contracts his mouth. On the high altar among several Angels is indicated to be seen this Inscription on page 33: To Mary the Virgin Mother of God and to S. Gregory Nazianzen. and placed under the altar. But the body of D. Gregory Nazianzen is laid under the high altar, which balustrades of whitish marble hedge round, with blue veins cutting into it. Finally with these words the said description is concluded: To those approaching on the anniversary solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, on the stated feasts of the holy Gregory Nazianzen and of his translation into the Vatican Basilica III Ides of June, of Jerome and of Basil, Gregory XIII remits and abolishes all most ample offenses by a singular Indulgence unto everlasting memory. Thus there. On the very anniversary day also of the said Translation an Ecclesiastical Office under a double rite is hitherto celebrated in the Vatican Church.

[34] Antonius Vasconcellus, Theologian of the Society of Jesus, in his Description of the kingdom of Lusitania, edited together with its Anacephalaeoses, page 558 number 25, has these few things: Among the Nabantines in the royal monastery, A hand into Lusitania there is an entire hand of D. Gregory Nazianzen enclosed in silver. But Nabantium, commonly Tomar, is an ample town of Lusitania on the river Nabão, distant three leagues from the river Tagus to the North, and eight from Santarém to the Northeast: George Cardoso in the Lusitanian Hagiology asserts that the said Relic was brought by Guldinus Paez, Master of the Temple, in the year 1168 from Palestine into Lusitania, and afterward deposited in the said monastery; but that it might be preserved, the Bull being given Pope Innocent X in the year 1648 published this decree: in the year 1168 brought from Palestine. That henceforth no one, shining with whatsoever authority, dare or presume to lend the arm or hand of S. Gregory Nazianzen, which, as is piously believed, is preserved in the said church with great veneration, to other churches, monasteries or pious places, or under any sought color, device, cause, reason or occasion, to extract and carry away it from the said church, or to promise or consent that it be lent or extracted and carried away, under the penalties of excommunication and of privation of active and passive voice, to be incurred ipso facto by those acting contrariwise, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents we interdict and prohibit, etc.

HISTORY OF THE THIRD TRANSLATION.

From the MS. book of the Vatican Basilica.

FROM THE MS.

[35] Gregory XIII the most holy Pontiff, that he might imitate with the greatest diligence, divine grace favoring, the examples also of all virtues, and especially the zeal of religion, of that most vigilant Pastor The Gregorian Chapel being completed whose name he had taken; since among other sacred edifices, erected to God for exciting and amplifying religion, he beheld the Gregorian chapel in the Vatican Basilica, dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God and to B. Gregory Nazianzen, built at royal expense, equal to the magnitude of the most ample Basilica, but in workmanship and ornaments far more splendid, most magnificently finished, and after many years saw it brought to an end; that he might render it much more illustrious, and more to be contemplated by the minds of the faithful, if he should adorn it with a most precious treasure of relics, than that he had adorned it gleaming with purple, vermilion, and gold, and with exceptional pictures; to lay in it the holy body; he determined to transfer the venerable body of that exceptional Doctor of the Eastern Church both in science and in sanctity, Gregory Nazianzen, by whose name the chapel was consecrated, which for many years almost unknown, had lain in a narrow church among the consecrated women of the Campus Martius of the order of S. Benedict, into the aforesaid most august chapel of the whole world; and to lay it up in the altar, where it might be more honorably guarded: that each Gregory, the most glorious lights of both the Latin and the Greek Church, like two most resplendent stars, might shine in the Vatican Basilica.

[36] The day of the translation therefore being appointed by the Supreme Pontiff, the most Illustrious Cardinal Moronus, Protector of that monastery, sent to the Campus Martius on the 25th of March 1578 by command of the same most Holy one, as in the letters in the form of a Brief to be described below, three Canons being present, deputed by the Chapter itself to recognize the sacred body, namely Ludovicus Blanchetus Prefect of the Pontifical chamber, Alexander Musotus, and Vincentius Casalius, on the XXV day of March 1578, at the first hour of the night, many lights being kindled, censers and other things to be employed being prepared, in the stone of the altar they find a title, prayer being first made before the altar of S. Gregory himself, in the chapel situated within the cloister of the monastery, he commanded the upper marble stone of the altar to be removed by the workmen: in which the following inscription was read. Situated under this divine altar is the body of the divine Gregory Bishop of Nazianzus, and Patriarch in Constantinople, under Theodosius the elder. In the year of the Lord 390 ^a he died. The body thence translated to Constantinople, then into the city of Rome: and in this church it was laid recently [b], under Julius the second, in 1505 last, in the same year in the month of July the XXIV, under the Abbess Martia Palotia ^c…

[37] The altar being removed there was found a bronze casket, in which all the bones ^d of the sacred body, of the most glorious Doctor

Gregory Nazianzen were preserved. The Canons, they carry the body to the high altar clothed in rochet and surplice, with the greatest reverence and devotion, placed the same casket in a chest, covered with a white silken cloth, upon the altar of the church, and exposed the sacred body to the people to be adored, that on the following day, with the solemn pomp of a procession, it might be carried to the Vatican Basilica. The day arriving, which was Passion Sunday the XVI of March, 1578, the sky being changed the South wind brought new rains, which held the whole night, until midday: and so great showers fell, that no hope remained of carrying forth the sacred body on that day: then they deposit it in the sanctuary. and so great a solemnity, to the common grief of all both the religious and the laity who had come together, was hindered, and translated until the month of June. Meanwhile the sacred body in the said casket, sealed with the ring of the fisherman, was placed in a certain sanctuary of the same church, and the little door of the sanctuary closed with a wall, a small window being left, with an iron grate, from which it could be seen and adored.

[38] In the month of June 1580, on Sunday, the fifth [e] of the same, a sermon was held concerning the praises of the same doctor Gregory, by the excellent preacher of the word of God Friar Franciscus Panicarola, a citizen of Milan, in the year 1580. of the Order of the observance of S. Francis. But on the XI day, the celebrated festivity of S. Barnabas the Apostle, on the II of June, all things being splendidly prepared, when all things necessary for the translation had been prepared as desired; the ways through which the procession was to pass being signally decorated with tapestries and silken hangings, strewn with foliage, and sprinkled with flowers, altars in some places gleaming with gold and silver and gems erected, musical concerts distributed in their places, referring the glory which this most glorious Saint enjoys in the heavens; the hour pressing, the pomp of the procession began to advance, innumerable lights preceding the sacred body, the order being kept which will presently be added. Before all the most Reverend Lord Bartholomew Farratinus, Bishop of Amelia [g], Canon, clothed in amice, alb, cincture, stole, white cope, and a precious mitre, in the midst between the Deacon and Subdeacon Canons, approached before the altar, and the mitre being laid aside pronounced the prayer, Take from us, etc. Afterward he ascended the altar, and continued, We beseech thee O Lord, etc. And the Deacon and Subdeacon aiding, and some other Canons prepared, The Body is placed in a bier, the casket was carried upon the bier placed before the altar; and there was heard the great lamentation of the nuns of the monastery, who were deprived of so great a treasure, although the arm of the same Saint remained with them, and by our most Holy Lord an alms of one thousand three hundred gold pieces had been bestowed on them.

[39] The Procession is instituted, Then when the Canons had raised the bier, the choir of singers began to sing the Responsory, Arise, Saint of God, etc., the scholars of the Greek college beside the sacred body, in their common habit, accompanying on this side and that with wax candles. Two acolytes preceded the bier, thurifers with censers, diligently offering incense along the way; which had been blessed by the Bishop, before the body was removed. The body was carried under a canopy, which the Senators of the city and the Conservators and Magistrates, from the church of the Campus Martius, as far as S. Tryphon, sustained. Thence for the remaining space of the journey by distinct turns, by various Nobles and Roman Patricians and other nobles it was carried. The procession was led from the Church of S. Mary of the Campus Martius by a direct way to the basilica of S. Peter. Everywhere a crowd of men had beset the way, very many had come from distant places, that they might be present at the pious action, and obtain the Indulgences: with the greatest concourse. and scarcely was an approach open in so great a frequency of people. All showed great gladness and devotion; each contending in turn how one should surpass another in honor of the holy Doctor of the Church, and praying they beheld the passage of the pomp, and venerated the sacred body; and to ward off the most fervent heats of the sun great veils were spread, and suspended in the windows or on high beams fixed there, almost overshadowing all those same ways. But especially from S. Celsus and the Bridge, as far as the portico of the basilica, with banners erected adorned with myrtle and ivy, and with apparatus, and images of Saint Gregory, and the insignia of the Pontiff, the Senate, the Apostolic Chamber, and the most Illustrious nephew Cardinals suspended everywhere on this side and that; and over them white cloths superposed, the ornament was rendered exceedingly delightful to all beholding.

[40] In the first place advanced the Confraternities of the laity, and the pious places of orphans and neophytes: and in the best order. and they were in number XXXIII. Then immediately followed the religious Friars and Monks from diverse monasteries of the city, who rose to the number XXIV. After these succeeded the officials of the Chancery, holding lights. After whom was carried the banner of the Cross of the Clergy, which the Clerics of the Seminary followed, the parish priests Canons of the collegiate churches of the city; thence the three Patriarchal Basilicas with their accustomed banners and lights, this order being kept. Before the Patriarchal Lateran was the cross of the Vatican basilica, with the canopy which they call Sinnichium ^h; then the singers, clerics and beneficiaries, clothed in surplices with kindled torches. Then the Patriarchal Lateran, which immediately followed another Cross of the Vatican Basilica, carried by a beneficed Subdeacon with a Dalmatic. After this advanced the Canons of that Vatican temple, namely Curtius Francus, Octavianus Cittadinus, Arnulphus Rainaldus Rutilius Ventonus, Horatius Capisuccus, Aurelius Saccignanus, Philippus Magnascus, Matthaeus Cantarellus, Aurelius Coperchius, Paulus Pallellus, Theodosius Florentius, Alexander Crescentius, Antonius Victorius, Paulus Bitonus, Franciscus Celsus, Michael Cacciaguerra, Paulus Ghisellus, Ludovicus Blanchetus, Mutius Ceulus, Petrus Millinus, Alvius Sabellus, Andreas Victorius, Martius de Rubeis, having chasubles or planets, superposed over the amice and rochet, even the Deacons and Subdeacons by Apostolic dispensation; who, by turns six bearing the bier of the sacred body, covered with cloth of gold, with images of the same Saint excellently painted on the four sides, were changed at distinct spaces. Last the same most Reverend Lord Bishop Farratinus, with a precious mitre and Pontifical garments, in the midst between the Deacon and Subdeacon Canons, concluded the procession, which the most Illustrious Senator of the City, the Duke of Sora, the Magistrate of the Roman people and an innumerable multitude of men accompanied.

[41] Gregory meets it with the Cardinals Then at the XXII hour, when the sacred body had now passed the mole of Hadrian, brass cannon being discharged for joy after the custom, our most Holy Lord, several Cardinals accompanying, descended to the hall of vestments; and there, clothed in white cope, stole, cincture, alb, amice, and a precious Mitre, in the gestatorial chair, carried under the baldachin by the Orators of Kings and other most noble men, came to the lowest steps of the Basilica, the Squires, Chamberlains, Secretaries, and other familiars preceding, the Apostolic Subdeacon carrying the Cross between two candle-bearers: thence the Penitentiaries of the Pope clothed in priestly vestments, several Abbots, Bishops and Archbishops, with mitres and copes; then the most Reverend Lord Cardinals, and on foot accompanies the adored bier, with tunicles and planets, copes and mitres. And the bier of the sacred body approaching, which by the assisting Prelates, received from the hands of the Canons to the middle of the square, was carried on their own shoulders under a canopy, which other assisting Prelates sustained; His Holiness went forth to meet the same sacred body; and the bier being set down, falling on his knees upon cushions, he together with the Cardinals, and the rest of the Prelates adored it, and embracing the chest kissed it. Then as it could be done, on account of the great crowd of people, the Pontifical Cross going before, the procession of Prelates and Cardinals proceeded to the basilica itself, our most Holy Lord on foot accompanying the bier, the orator of the Imperial Majesty lifting from behind the fringe of the cope; And before the altar of the most Holy Sacrament the bier was placed on a certain small platform; and at the left part of it the supreme Pontiff adored. Thence he came into the Gregorian chapel, the body deposited on the altar he incenses, where that chest being lifted from the bier, by the same most Holy one, the same assisting Prelates aiding, it was deposited upon the altar: and the censer being received, the most Reverend Gesualdo ministering, then the first Presbyter Cardinal, he offered incense. These things being performed, the most Holy one sat in his throne in the same chapel: and when all things were now disposed and prepared after the custom of the Papal Chapel; the Lord Cardinals rendered the accustomed obedience. and begins Vespers, Then the most Holy one began for the Office of the Translation vespers of a Confessor Pontiff, as on the feast of the same S. Gregory; and these being finished, in the solemn manner the Cardinals accompanied the supreme Pontiff to the Hall of vestments: and at the XXIV hour they withdrew, weary and fatigued on account of the excessive summer heat.

[42] On the 12th of June he sings Mass. On the XII day of the same month of June, the third Sunday after Pentecost, for the Office of the Translation of S. Gregory Nazianzen, as is to be done on his feast, the Chapel of our most Holy Lord the Pope was in the Gregorian chapel; in which His Holiness celebrated, with the greatest frequency of people, of the same Translation: and at the end of the Mass, the assisting Prelates aiding (among whom were Joannes Antonius Fachinettus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, afterward Innocent the ninth, and Joannes Baptista Castaneus Archbishop of Rossano, then he places the body in the chest afterward Urban VII) His Holiness laid the leaden chest in the rear part of the altar not consecrated, and this inscription, carved on a silver plate, was placed upon the same leaden chest, namely: In the year of salvation 1580, with this Inscription. on the third of the Ides of June, our Lord Gregory XIII Supreme Pontiff in the year of his Pontificate IX, transferred the body of Blessed Gregory Nazianzen Bishop and Confessor, surnamed the Theologian, from the church of the monastery of the nuns of Saint Mary of the Campus Martius of the city, where it had been placed anciently; the Clergy of the whole city accompanying processionally with the Senate and People of Rome and the rest of the orders of the Roman Curia, with an incredible concourse and frequency of men besides, into this place, a silver casket with relics being placed at the seal of the altar, with relics of the veil of the Blessed Mary Virgin, of the head of S. John Pope and Martyr, of the shoulder of S. Gregory Nazianzen himself, of the chin of S. Jerome Presbyter and Confessor, of the head of S. Hippolytus Martyr, of the arm of S. Gregory the first Pope, of the arm of S. Basil Bishop and Confessor, of the sign of the most Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the relics of S. Bartholomew the Apostle, of the bones of S. Justin Martyr and S. Christopher Martyr, of the relics of S. Lucy Virgin and Martyr, of S. Sabina Martyr, of S. Sebastian Martyr, then after an Antiphon he sings the Prayer. and of S. Mennas Martyr. While the sacred body was being placed in the chest, the singers sang the Antiphon, O best Doctor, etc., and the body being placed, the Pope sang the Prayer of the Saint. The sacred body being placed, and the leaden chest well closed, a stone was superposed by the workmen, and sealed with lime, and the supreme Pontiff with the most Reverend Cardinals accompanying returned to the hall of vestments.

[45] the arm separately enclosed in silver. In this solemnity, as is written in the Catalogue of Relics, one of the arms of the holy body of Gregory Nazianzen himself, to be perpetually preserved in the same Basilica by the authority of D. Gregory XIII, by which also it has the body, was received: which in a silver

arm (in whose thumb is a silver gilded ring, with a glass Sapphire) in which the venerable relic, one of the arms of the exceptional Doctor of the Church and Archbishop S. Gregory Nazianzen, is most decently preserved. Likewise on a silver base, engraved with wonderful art, these words are read, The Arm of S. Gregory Nazianzen. There are the family arms of Octavius Estensis Taxonus, a Ferrarese Patrician, Preceptor of the Holy Spirit in Saxia, Canon of the said Basilica, with his name in these words: Octavius Estensis Taxonus Canon of this Vatican basilica In the year of the Lord 1602. Thus that book of Relics which I have mentioned.

[46] The tenor of the Indulgence granted by our Holy Lord, both in the present translation and in the anniversary of the same and other festivities, to those visiting the same chapel, is here described in the same book of Relics: Gregory Pope XIII to the perpetual memory of the matter. While we scrutinize by the inquiry of devout consideration the lofty marks of merits, Indulgences are granted, by which the Queen of the Heavens the Virgin Mary Mother of God, set before the starry seats, gleams as it were a morning star; because she, as the mother of mercy, and friend of piety, consolatrix of the human race, a diligent intercessor for the salvation of the faithful who are burdened by the weight of sins, intercedes with the King whom she bore; we reckon it worthy, nay rather due, that places, especially dedicated to the praise of her name and also to the honor of the Saints of God, we should adorn with spiritual gifts, namely indulgences and remissions of sins. Desiring therefore that in our Gregorian chapel, which we have taken care to adorn in the Basilica of divine Peter Prince of the Apostles with the greatest zeal and affection of devotion, and to place in it that most devout image of blessed Mary ever Virgin called of succor, and to lay up the body of blessed Gregory Nazianzen the Theologian Bishop and Confessor, and other relics of the Saints, be frequented with fitting honors by the faithful of Christ themselves, and held in due veneration; and that the faithful themselves the more willingly and frequently for the cause of devotion flock to it, the more abundantly they shall have perceived themselves thence refreshed with celestial gifts and graces: trusting in the mercy of almighty God, and the authority of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the faithful of Christ of both sexes, truly penitent, confessed, and refreshed with the most holy Communion, who shall yearly devoutly visit the said chapel on the feast days of the Assumption of the same blessed Mary, and of B. Gregory Nazianzen himself, and of S. Jerome, and of S. Basil, as well as of S. Barnabas the Apostle the XI of the month of June, on which the said body, the Lord granting, shall be translated, and also on the XII day immediately following, from first Vespers until sunset of festivity of this kind, and there shall have poured out pious prayers to God for peace among Christian Princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy mother Church; on which day of the aforesaid they shall have done this, we mercifully grant and bestow in the Lord a most full indulgence, absolution and remission of all their sins; the present things to endure in perpetual future times. Given at Rome at S. Peter's under the ring of the fisherman, on the XXV day of May 1580, in the ninth year of our Pontificate.

[47] The tenor of the faculty concerning the translating of the body. The tenor of the faculty granted to the most Illustrious Lord Cardinal Moronus, of consigning the body of S. Gregory to the Canons and chapter of S. Peter, is such. Gregory Pope XIII, to our Venerable Brother John Bishop of Ostia, named Cardinal Moronus of the Holy Roman Church. Our Venerable Brother greeting, etc. Since we have determined, that the glorious body of B. Gregory Nazianzen, which is now situated in the church of the nuns of the Campus Martius of the bountiful city of the order of S. Benedict, be transported to the Basilica of S. Peter Prince of the Apostles on the next Sunday, by the Canons and Chapter of the same Basilica; therefore we enjoin your circumspection, that you, who are the protector of the said Order, by yourself or another Prelate to be deputed by you, take the body of B. Gregory himself of this kind, and deliver and consign it to the same Canons and Chapter, no contrary things whatsoever notwithstanding. Given at Rome at S. Peter's under the ring of the fisherman, on the XIV day of March 1578, in the VI year of our Pontificate. Subsigns in both places Caesar Glorierius.

ANNOTATIONS.

ON S. TUDINUS ABBOT

OF CORISOPITUM IN ARMORIC BRITAIN.

Tudinus, Abbot of Corisopitum in Armoric Britain (S.)

G. H.

Corisopitum, an Episcopal city of Gaul in the Western part of Armoric Britain called Cornwall, acknowledges as its first Bishop S. Corentinus, and venerates him as its chief Patron, from whom it is also called Quimper-Corentin. The Acts from the Life of S. Corentinus. In his Life, transmitted to us from a very old Breviary and to be edited on the XII day of December, are contained some few Acts of S. Tudinus, which excerpted thence we propose on this day, which is reckoned to be his birthday.

[2] God omnipotent disposed, that Corentinus at a fitting time should be placed upon the candlestick. Offered with S. Corentinus and Guengaloeus to S. Martin, for the Bishopric, For Cornwall demanded a Bishop, whom it did not have: and chose three men of holy name and worthy reputation, namely Corentinus, Guengaloeus and Tudinus, to be sent to Tours to S. Martin Archbishop of Tours, that of them he should consecrate a Bishop, and send him back consecrated to the diocese of Cornwall. B. Martin therefore called to himself his Clerics, discreet and honest: and when he had noted in Tudinus learning and honesty, in Guengaloeus eloquence and religion, in Corentinus reverence of person, simplicity of countenance and humility of heart, and venerable sanctity in all things; the holy Spirit inspiring, he chose S. Corentinus, his companions demanding it, as Bishop of Cornwall, although reluctant and unwilling, and commanded him to be prepared for consecration, as was fitting. The man of God Corentinus is consecrated Bishop by B. Martin, and with his holy companions is sent back to the Cathedral See of Cornwall… Without delay, since he knew his companions, Guengaloeus and Tudinus, commendable in sanctity and science, he blessed them as Abbots, that they might help him in propagating the Catholic faith. he is blessed as Abbot by S. Corentinus. For he had asked of the Metropolitan S. Martin, when he had been consecrated Bishop, that he should impose the hand of benediction on his aforesaid companions, and send them back to Cornwall as blessed Abbots. But Saint Martin, as he was of dovelike simplicity and serpentine prudence, kindly answered him in this manner: By no means, dearest Brother Corentinus, by no means is it expedient, that we bless your Abbots: lest this example among posterity be drawn to a consequence, and derogate from your dignity. Go rather to your See, and use your liberty: and these your two companions, according to the prescription of S. Martin. whom we believe to be worthy by the proof of their religion and discretion of merit, in your Church by Episcopal authority bless as Abbots. These therefore according to the counsel of S. Martin being blessed as Abbots, at length resolved in a holy death, he who had lived to Christ, dies in Christ.

[3] Thus far those Acts, which also Albert le Grand in his treatise on the Saints of Armoric Britain in the Life of S. Corentinus published in French, Cult on the 9th and 10th of May. and in the Alphabetical Index at the end of the book assigns the birthday of S. Tudinus to the ninth day of May with the proper Offices of the notable Church of Corisopitum printed in the year 1642. But in these, on account of the double feast of S. Gregory Nazianzen, it is transferred to the following and tenth day of May, on which the feast of S. Tudinus Abbot is celebrated under a semidouble rite, and all things are prescribed from the Common. The Prayer Intercession, the Lessons in the second Nocturn, The day of Blessed Tudinus, in the third Nocturn a Homily on the Gospel, Behold we have left all things. But on the XII of December, in the sixth Lesson concerning S. Corentinus, the same things concerning Guingaloeus and Tudinus contracted into a compendium are recited. But the feast of S. Guingaloeus is prescribed on the III day of March, Guingaloeus other than S. Winwaleus related on the 3rd of March. under a double rite in the Cathedral Church, this cause being added, because he was a companion of S. Corentinus; and proper Lessons are prescribed to be recited in the second Nocturn, in which no mention is made either of S. Corentinus or of S. Tudinus: as neither in the triple Life which we edited on the said III of March: where in the preceding Commentary we showed, that that S. Winwaleus was born about the year 555, that is about 58 years after the death of S. Martin the Bishop: so that necessarily from that Winwaleus another Guingaloeus the companion of SS. Corentinus and Tudinus seems to be established: which can be more accurately examined at the Life of S. Corentinus. Saussay knew nothing of the cult of S. Tudinus, and accordingly into the Catalogue of Saints, who do not have their own histories or birthdays, rejected him with this eulogy: Guingaloeus and Tudinus, men of holy estimation, presented, with S. Corentinus, to B. Martin Metropolitan of Tours, that whom of these three he willed he should promote to the Bishopric of Corisopitum.