GREGORY
13
GREGORY
doubtless heard with secret satisfaction ; and Gregory
at once sought and obtained from the emperor per-
mission to resign his see. In June 381 he preaclied
a farewell sermon before the council and in presence
of an overflowing congregation. Ihe peroration of
this discourse is of singular and touching beauty and
imsuroassed even among his many eloquent ora,tions.
Very soon after its delivery he left Constantinople
(Nectarius, a native of Cilicia, being chosen to succeed
him in the bishopric), and retired to his old honie
at Nazianzus. His two extant^ letters addressed to
Nectarine at this time are noteworthy as affording
evidence by their spirit and tone, that he was actuated
by no other feelings than those of interested goodwill
towards the diocese of which he was resigning the
care and towards his successor in the episcopal charge
On his return to Nazianzus, Gregory found the <- hurch
there in a miserable condition, being overrun with the
erroneous teaching of ApoUinaris the \ounger, who
had seceded from the Catholic communion a few years
previously, and died shortly after Gregory himself
Gregory's anxiety was now to find a learned and
zealous^bishop who would be able to stem the flood
of heresy which was threatening to overwhelm the
Christian Church in that place. All his efforts were
at first unsuccessful, and he consented at length with
much reluctance to take over the administration of
Se diocese himself. He combated for a time, with
his usual eloquence and as much energy as remained
to him, the ]alse teaching of the adversaries of the
Church- but he felt him.self too broken m health to
continue the active work of the episcopate, and wrote
to the Archbishop of Tyana "g'^f l^/PPf "§ *?h "n' to provide for the appointment of another bishop. His request was granted, and his cousin Eiilalius, a Driest of holy life to whom he was much attached, was duly appointed to the See of Nazianzus. This was towards the end of the year 383, and Gregory, happy in seeing the care of the diocese entrusted to a man after his own heart, immediately withdrew t« Arian- zus the scene of his birth and his childhood, where he snent the remaining years of his life m retirement, and in the literary labours, which were so much more congenial to his character than the harassing work of ecclesiastical administration m those stormy and
troubled times. rffi„„u ,,^t
Looking back on Gregory's career, it is difficidt not to feel that from the day when he was compelled to accept priestly orders, until that which saw him return from Constantinople to Nazianzus to end his life in retirement and obscurity, he seemed constantly to be nlaced through no initiative of his own, in positions apparently unsuited to his disposition and tempera- ment and not really calculated to call for the exercise of the most remarkable and attractive qualities of his mind and heart. Affectionate and tender by natvire, of hi<^hlv sensitive temperament, simple and humble, lively and cheerful by disposition, yet lable >o de- spondency and irritability, constitutionally timid, and somewhat deficient, as it seemed, both in decision of character and in self-control, he was very human, very lovable, very gifted— yet not, one might be inclined to think, naturally adapted to play the remarkable part which he did during the period preceding and following the opening of the Council of Constaiitinople He entered on his difficult and arduous w'ork in that citv within a few months of the death of Basil, the beloved friend of his youth; and Newman, m his appreciation of Gregory's character and careex, sug- gests the striking thought that it was his friends lofty and heroic spirit which had entered into him, and inspired him to take the active and important part which fell to his lot in the work of re-establishmg the orthodox and Catholic faith in the eastern capital of the empire. It did, in truth, seem to be rather with the firmness and intrepidity, the high resolve and unflinching perseverance, characteristic of Basil, than
in his own proper character, that of a gentle, fastidious,
retiring timorous, peace-loving saint and scholar,
that he sounded the war-trumpet during those anxious
and turbulent months, in the very stronghold and
headquarters of militant heresy, utterly regardless
of the actual and pressing danger to his safety, and
even his life, which never ceased to menace him.
"May we together receive", he said at the conclusion
of the wonderful discourse which he pronounced on his
departed friend, on his return to Asia from Constanti-
nople, " the reward of the warfare which we have waged,
which we have endured." It is impossible to doubt,
reading the intimate details which he has himself
given us of his long friendship with, and deep admira-
tion of, Basil, that the spirit of his early and well-
loved friend had to a great extent moulded and
informed his own sensitive and impressionable person-
ality and that it was this, under God, which nerved and
inspired him, after a life of what seemed, externally,
one almost of failure, to co-operat« in the mighty task
of overthrowing the monstrous heresy which had so
lone devastated the greater part of Christendom and
bringing about at length the pacification of the East-
ern Church. . , , , •
During the six years of life which remained to him after his final retirement to his birth-place, Gre_gory composed, in all probability, the greater part of the copious poetical works which have come down to us. These include a valuable autobiographical poem of nearly 2000 lines, which forms, of course, one of the most important sources of information for the facts of his life ; about a hundred other shorter poems relating to his past career; and a large number of epitaphs, epigrams, and epistles to well-known people of the day. Many of his later personal poems refer to the continuous illness and severe sufferings, both physical and spiritual, which assailed him during his last years, and doubtless assisted to perfect him in those saintly qualities which had never been wanting to him rudely shaken though he had been by the trials and buffetings of his life. In the tiny plot of ground at Arianzus, all (as has already been said) that re- mained to him of his rich inheritance, he wrote and meditated, as he tells, by a fountain near which there was a shady walk, his favourite resort. Here, too, he received occasional visits from intimate friends, as well as sometimes from strangers attracted to his retreat by his reputation for sanctity and learning; and here he peacefully breathed his last. The exact date of his death is unknown, but from a passage in Jerome (De Script. Eccl.) it may be assigned, with tolerable certainty, to the year 389 or 390.
Some account must now be given of Gregorys voluminous writings, and of his reputation as an orator and a theologian, on which, more than on anything else rests his fame as one of the greatest lights of the Eastern Church . His works naturally fall under three heads namely his poems, his epistles, and his orations. Much' though by no means all, of what he wrote has been preserved, and has been frequently published, the editio princepsoi the poems being the .Aldine (1504) while the first edition of his collected works appeared in Paris in 1609-11. The Bodleian catalogue con- tains more than thirty folio pages enumerating various editions of Gregory's works, of which the best and most complete are the Benedictine edition (two folio volumes, begun in 1778, finished in 1840) and the edition of Migne (four volumes XXXV-XXXVili. in P. G., Paris, 1857-18G2).
Poetical Compositions.^These, as already stated, compri.se autobiographical verses, epigrams, epitaphs and epistles. The epigrams have been translated by Thomas Drant (London, 1568), the epitaphs by Boyd (London, 1826), while other poems have been gracefully and charmingly paraphrased by Newinan in his "Church of the Fathers". Jerome and Suidas say that Gregory wrote more than 30,000 verses; if
