GREGORY
17
GREGORY
sndeavoured to turn his thoughts towards the Church,
for when the young man chose a secular career and
began the study of rhetoric, Basil remonstrated with
him long and earnestly ; when he had failed he called
on Gregory's friends to influence him against that
objectionable secular caUing. It was all in vain;
moreover, it would seem that the young man married.
There exists a letter addressed to him by Gregory of
Nazianzus condoling with him on the loss of one Theo-
sebeia, who must have been his wife, and with whom
he continued to live, as with a sister, even after he
became bishop. This is also evident from his treatise
"De virginitate".
Some think that Gregory spent a certain time in retreat before his consecration as bishop, but we have no proof of the fact. His extant letters make no mention of such retirement from the world. Nor are we better informed of the circumstances of his election to the See of Nyssa, a little town on the banks of the Halys, along the road between Caesarea and Ancyra. According to Gregory of Nazianzus it was Basil who performed the episcopal consecration of his brother, before he himself had taken possession of the See of Sozima; which would place the beginning of Gregory of Nyssa's episcopate about 371. Was this brusque change in Gregory's career the result of a sudden voca- tion? St. Basil tells us that it was necessary to over- come his brother's repugnance, before he accepted the office of bishop. But this does not help us to an answer, as the episcopal charge in that day was beset with many dangers. Moreover in the fourth century, and even later, it was not uncommon to express dis- like of the episcopal honour, and to fly from the pros- pect of election. The fugitives, however, were usually discovered and brought back, and the con- secration took place when a show of resistance J*nd saved the candidate's himiility. Whether it was so in Gregory's case, or whether he really did feel his own unfitness, we do not know. In any case, St. Basil seems to have regretted at times the constraint thus put on his brother, now removed from his in- fluence ; in his letters he complains of Gregory's naive and clumsy interference with his (Basil's) business. To Basil the synod called in 372 by Gregory at Ancyra seemed the ruin of his own labours. In 375 Gregory seemed to him decidedly incapable of ruling a Church. At the same time he had but faint praise for Gregory's zeal for souls.
On arriving in his see Gregory had to face great difficulties. His sudden elevation may have turned against him some who had hoped for the office them- selves. It would appear that one of the courtiers of Emperor Valens had solicited the see either for himself or one of his friends. When Demosthenes, Governor of Pontus, convened an assemblj' of Eastern bishops, a certain Philocares, at one of its sessions, accused Gre- gory of wasting church property, and of irregularity in his election to the episcopate, whereupon Demos- thenes ordered the Bishop of Nyssa to be seized and brought before him. Gregory at first allowed himself to be led away by his captors, then losing heart and discouraged by the cold and brutal treatment he met with, he took an opportimity of escape and reached a place of safety. A Synod of Nyssa (376) deposed him, and he was reduced to wander from town to town, until the death of Valens in 378. The new emperor, Gratian, published an edict of tolerance, and Gregory returned to his see, where he was received with joy. A few months after this (January, 379) his brother Basil died; whereupon an era of activity began for Gregory. In 379 he assisted at the Council of Antioch which had been summoned because of the Meletian schism. Soon after this, it is supposed, he visited Palestine. There is reason for believing that he was sent officially to remedy the disorders of the Church of Arabia. But possibly his journey did not take place till after the Council of Constantinople in 381, con- VII.— 2
vened by Emperor Theodosius for the welfare of
religion in that city. It asserted the faith of Nicaea,
and tried to put an end to Arianism and Pneumatism
in the East. This council was not looked on as an
important one at the time; even those present at it
seldom refer to it in their writings. Gregory himself,
though he assisted at the council,, mentions it only
casually in his funeral oration overMeletius of Antioch,
who died during the course of this assembly.
An edict of Theodosius (30 July, 381 ; Cod. Theod., LXVI, tit. I., L. 3) having appointed certain episcopal sees as centres of Catholic commimion in the East, Helladius of Ca;sarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Otreius of Melitene were chosen to fill them. At Constanti- nople Gregory gave evidence on two occasions of his talent as an orator; he delivered the discourse at the enthronization of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also the aforesaid oration over Meletius of Antioch. It is very probable that CJregory was present at another Council of Constantinople in 383 ; his " Oratio de deitate Fihi et Spiritus Sancti" seems to confirm this. In 385 or 386 he preached the funeral sermon over the imperial Princess Pulcheria, and .shortly afterwards over Empress Flaccilla. A little later we meet him again at Constantinople, on which occasion his counsel was sought for the repression of ecclesiastical disorders in Arabia; he then disappears from history, and probably did not long survive this joiu-ney. From the above it will be seen that his life is little known to us. It is difficult to outline clearly his personality, while his writings contain too many flights of eloquence to per- mit final judgment on his real character.
(Vorks. — Exegetical. — Most of his writings treat of the Sacred Scriptures. He was an ardent admirer of Origen, and applied constantly the latter's principles of hermeneutics. Gregory is ever in quest of allegor- ical interpretations and mystical meanings hidden away beneath the literal sense of texts. As a rule, however, the "great Cappadocians" tried to eliminate this tendency. His " Treatise on the Work of the Six Days " follows St. Basil's Hexaemeron. A nother work, "On the Creation of Man ", deals with the work of the .Sixth Day, and contains some curious anatomical details; it was translated into Latin by Dionysius Exiguus. His account of Mo.ses as legislator offers much fine-spun allegorizing, and the same is true of his " Explanation of the Titles of the Psalms". In a brief tractate on the Witch of Endor he says that the woman did not .see Samuel, but only a demon, who put on the figure of the prophet. Besides a homily on the sixth Psalm, he wrote eight homilies on Ecclesiastes, in which he taught that the soul should rise above the senses, and that true peace is only to be found in con- tempt of worldly greatness. He is also the author of fifteen homilies on the Canticle of Canticles (the union of the soul with its Creator), five very elo(]uent homi- lies on the Lord's Prayer, and eight highly rhetorical homilies on the Beatitudes.
Theological. — In theology Gregory shows himself more original and more at ease. Yet his originality is purely in manner, since he added little that is new. His diction, however, offers many felicitous and pleas- ing allusions, suggested probably by his mystical turn of mind. These grave studies were taken up by him late in life, hence he follows step by .step the teaching of St. Basil and of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Like them he defends the unity of the Divine nature and the trinity of Persons ; where he loses their guidance, our confidence in him tends to decrease. In his teaching on the Eucharist he appears really original ; his Christ o- logical doctrine, however, is based entirely on Origen and St. .■\thanasius. ■ The most important of his theo- logical writings in his large "Catechesis", or "Oratio Catechetica", an argumentative defence in forty chap- ters of Catholic teaching as against Jews, heathens, and heretics. The most extensive of his extant works is his refutation of Eunomius in twelve books, a de-
