HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*
CHAPTER X.
CHURCH FATHERS, AND THEOLOGICAL
LITERATURE.
Comp. the general
literature on the Fathers in vol. i. § 116, and the special literature in the
several sections following.
I._The
Greek Fathers.
§ 161. Eusebius of C sarea.
I. Eusebius Pamphili: Opera omnia Gr. et Lat., curis variorum nempe II.
Valesii, Fr. Vigeri, B. Montfaucon,
Card. Angelo Maii edita; collegit et denuo recognovit J. P. Migne.
Par. (Petit-Montrouge) 1857. 6 vols. (tom. xix.-xxiv. of Migne’s Patrologia
Graeca). Of his several works his Church History has been oftenest
edited, sometimes by itself, sometimes in connection with his Vita Constantini,
and with the church histories of his successors; best by Henr. Valesius
(Du Valois), Par. 1659-’73, 8
vols., and Cantabr. 1720, 3 vols., and again 1746 (with additions by G.
Reading, best ed.); also (without the later historians) by E. Zimmermann,
Francof. 1822; F. A. Heinichen, Lips. 1827-’8, 3 vols.; E. Burton,
Oxon. 1838, 2 vols. (1845 and 1856 in 1 vol.); Schwegler, TĂĽb. 1852;
also in various translations: In German by Stroth, Quedlinburg, 1776
ff., 2 vols.; by Closs, Stuttg. 1839; and several times in French and
English; in English by Hanmer (1584), T. Shorting, and
better by Chr. Fr. Cruse (an Amer. Episcopalian of German descent, died
in New York, 1865): The Ecclesiastical History of Euseb. Pamph., etc., Now
York, 1856 (10th ed.), and Lond. 1858 (in Bohn’s Eccles. Library). Comp. also
the literary notices in Brunet, sub Euseb., and James Darling,
Cyclop. Bibliograph. p. 1072 ff.
II. Biographies by Hieronymus (De viris illustr. c. 81, a brief sketch, with a list of his
works), Valesius (De vita scriptisque Eusebii Caesar.),
W. Cave (Lives of the most
eminent Fathers of the Church, vol. ii. pp. 95-144, ed. H. Cary, Oxf. 1840), Heinichen, Stroth, Cruse,
and others, in their editions of the Eccles. Hist. of Eusebius. F. C. Baur:
Comparatur Eusebius Hist. eccl. parens cum parente Hist. Herodoto. Tub. 1834. Haenell: De Euseb. Caes. religionis christ. defensore. Gott. 1843. Sam.
Lee: Introductory treatise in his
Engl. edition of the Theophany of Eusebius,
Cambr. 1843. Semisch: Art.
Eusebius v. Caes. in Herzog’s Encycl. vol. iv. (1855), pp. 229-238. Lyman Coleman:
Eusebius as an historian, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, Andover, 1858, pp. 78-96.
(The biography by Acacius, his successor in the see of Caesarea, Socr. ii. 4,
is lost.)
This third period is uncommonly rich
in great teachers of the church, who happily united theological ability and
practical piety, and who, by their development of the most important dogmas in
conflict with mighty errors, earned the gratitude of posterity. They
monopolized all the learning and eloquence of the declining Roman empire, and
made it subservient to the cause of Christianity for the benefit of future
generations. They are justly called fathers of the church; they belong
to Christendom without distinction of denominations; and they still, especially
Athanasius and Chrysostom among the Greek fathers, and Augustine and Jerome
among the Latin, by their writings and their example, hold powerful sway,
though with different degrees of authority according to the views entertained
by the various churches concerning the supremacy of the Bible and the value of
ecclesiastical tradition.
We begin the series of the most
important Nicene and post-Nicene divines with Eusebius
of Caesarea, the "father of church history," the Christian Herodotus.
He was born about the year 260
or 270, probably in Palestine, and was educated at Antioch, and afterwards at
Caesarea in Palestine, under the influence of the works of Origen. He formed an
intimate friendship with the learned presbyter Pamphilus,1894 who had collected a
considerable biblical and patristic library, and conducted a flourishing
theological school which he had founded at Caesarea, till in 309 he died a
martyr in the persecution under Diocletian.1895 Eusebius taught for a long time in this school; and after the
death of his preceptor and friend, he travelled to Tyre and to Egypt, and was
an eye-witness of the cruel scenes of the last great persecution of the
Christians. He was imprisoned as a confessor, but soon released.
Twenty years later, when
Eusebius, presiding at the council at Tyre (335 or 336), took sides against
Athanasius, the bishop Potamon of Hieraclea, according to the account of
Epiphanius, exclaimed in his face: "How dost thou, Eusebius, sit as judge
of the innocent Athanasius? Who can
bear it? Why! didst thou not sit with
me in prison in the time of the tyrants?
They plucked out my eye for my confession of the truth; thou camest
forth unhurt; thou hast suffered nothing for thy confession; unscathed thou art
here present. How didst thou escape from prison? On some other ground than because thou didst promise to do an
unlawful thing [to sacrifice to idols]? or, perchance, didst thou actually do
this? "But this insinuation of
cowardice and infidelity to Christ arose probably from envy and party passion
in a moment of excitement. With such a stain upon him, Eusebius would hardly
have been intrusted by the ancient church with the episcopal staff.1896
About the year 315, or earlier,
Eusebius was chosen bishop of Caesarea,1897 where he labored till his death in 340. The
patriarchate of Antioch, which was conferred upon him after the deposition of
Eustathius in 331, he in honorable self-denial, and from preference for a more
quiet literary life, declined.
He was drawn into the Arian
controversies against his will, and played an eminent part at the council of
Nicaea, where he held the post of honor at the right hand of the presiding
emperor. In the perplexities of this movement he took middle ground, and
endeavored to unite the opposite parties. This brought him, on the one hand,
the peculiar favor of the emperor Constantine, but, on the other, from the
leaders of the Nicene orthodoxy, the suspicion of a secret leaning to the Arian
heresy.1898 It is certain
that, before the council of Nicaea, he sympathized with Arius; that in the
council he proposed an orthodox but indefinite compromise-creed; that after the
council he was not friendly with Athanasius and other defenders of orthodoxy;
and that, in the synod of Tyre, which deposed Athanasius in 335, he took a
leading part, and, according to Epiphanius, presided. In keeping with these
facts is his silence respecting the Arian controversy (which broke out in 318)
in an Ecclesiastical History which comes down to 324, and was probably not
completed till 326, when the council of Nicaea would have formed its most
fitting close. He would rather close his history with the victory of
Constantine over Licinius than with the Creed over which theological parties
contended, and with which he himself was implicated. But, on the other hand, it
is also a fact that he subscribed the Nicene Creed, though reluctantly, and
reserving his own interpretation of the homoousion; that he publicly recommended it to the people of his
diocese; and that he never formally rejected it.
The only satisfactory solution
of this apparent inconsistency is to be found in his own indecision and leaning
to a doctrinal latitudinarianism, not unfrequent in historians who become
familiar with a vast variety of opinions in different ages and countries. On
the important point of the homoousion
he never came to a firm and final conviction. He wavered between the older
Origenistic subordinationism and the Nicene orthodoxy. He asserted clearly and
strongly with Origen the eternity of the Son, and so far was decidedly opposed
to Arianism, which made Christ a creature in time; but he recoiled from the homoousion, because it seemed to him to go
beyond the Scriptures, and hence he made no use of the term, either in his book
against Marcellus, or in his discourses against Sabellius. Religious sentiment
compelled him to acknowledge the full deity of Christ; fear of Sabellianism
restrained him. He avoided the strictly orthodox formulas, and moved rather in
the less definite terms of former times. Theological acumen he constitutionally
lacked. He was, in fact, not a man of controversy, but of moderation and peace.
He stood upon the border between the ante-Nicene theology and the Nicene. His
doctrine shows the color of each by turns, and reflects the unsettled problem
of the church in the first stage of the Arian controversy.1899
With his theological indecision
is connected his weakness of character. He was an amiable and pliant court-theologian,
and suffered himself to be blinded and carried away by the splendor of the
first Christian emperor, his patron and friend. Constantine took him often into
his counsels, invited him to his table, related to him his vision of the cross,
showed him the famous labarum, listened standing to his occasional sermons,
wrote him several letters, and intrusted to him the supervision of the copies
of the Bible for the use of the churches in Constantinople.
At the celebration of the
thirtieth anniversary of this emperor’s reign (336), Eusebius delivered a
panegyric decked with the most pompous hyperbole, and after his death, in
literal obedience to the maxim: "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum," he
glorified his virtues at the expense of veracity and with intentional omission
of his faults. With all this, however, he had noble qualities of mind and
heart, which in more quiet times would have been an ornament to any episcopal
see. And it must be said, to his honor, that he never claimed the favor of the
emperor for private ends.
The theological and literary
value of Eusebius lies in the province of learning. He was an unwearied reader
and collector, and probably surpassed all the other church fathers, hardly
excepting even Origen and Jerome, in compass of knowledge and of acquaintance
with Grecian literature both heathen and Christian; while in originality,
vigor, sharpness, and copiousness of thought, he stands far below Origen,
Athanasius, Basil, and the two Gregories. His scholarship goes much further in
breadth than in depth, and is not controlled and systematized by a
philosophical mind or a critical judgment.
Of his works, the historical are
by far the most celebrated and the most valuable; to wit, his Ecclesiastical
History, his Chronicle, his Life of Constantine, and a tract
on the Martyrs of Palestine in the Diocletian persecution. The position
of Eusebius, at the close of the period of persecution, and in the opening of
the period of the imperial establishment of Christianity, and his employment of
many ancient documents, some of which have since been lost, give these works a
peculiar value. He is temperate, upon the whole, impartial, and
truth-loving_rare virtues in an age of intense excitement and polemical zeal
like that in which he lived. The fact that he was the first to work this
important field of theological study, and for many centuries remained a model
in it, justly entitles him to his honorable distinction of Father of Church
History. Yet he is neither a critical student nor an elegant writer of history,
but only a diligent and learned collector. His Ecclesiastical History, from the
birth of Christ to the victory of Constantine over Licinius in 324, gives a
colorless, defective, incoherent, fragmentary, yet interesting picture of the
heroic youth of the church, and owes its incalculable value, not to the
historic art of the author, but almost entirely to his copious and mostly
literal extracts from foreign, and in some cases now extinct, sources. As
concerns the first three centuries, too, it stands alone; for the successors of
Eusebius begin their history where he leaves off.
His Chronicle consists of an
outline-sketch of universal history down to 325, arranged by ages and nations
(borrowed largely from the Chronography of Julius Africanus), and an abstract
of this universal chronicle in tabular form. The Greek original is lost, with
the exception of unconnected fragments by Syncellus; but the second part,
containing the chronological tables, was translated and continued by Jerome to
378, and remained for centuries the source of the synchronistic knowledge of
history, and the basis of historical works in Christendom.1900 Jerome also translated, with several corrections and additions, a
useful antiquarian work of Eusebius, the so-called Onomasticon, a description
of the places mentioned in the Bible.1901
In his Life, and still more in
his Eulogy, of Constantine, Eusebius has almost entirely forgotten the dignity
of the historian in the zeal of the panegyrist. Nevertheless, this work is the
chief source of the history of the reign of his imperial friend.1902
Next in importance to his
historical works are his apologetic; namely, his Praeparatio evangelica,1903 and his Demonstratio evangelica.1904 These were both written before
324, and are an arsenal of the apologetic material of the ancient church. The
former proposes, in fifteen books, to give a documentary refutation of the
heathen religious from Greek writings. The latter gives, in twenty books, of
which only the first ten are preserved, the positive argument for the absolute
truth of Christianity, from its nature, and from the fulfilment of the
prophecies in the Old Testament. The Theophany, in five books, is a
popular compend from these two works, and was probably written later, as
Epiphanius wrote his Anacephalaeosis after the Panarion, for more general use.1905 It is known in the Greek original from fragments only, published
by Cardinal Mai,1906 and now complete in a Syriac version which was
discovered in 1839 by Tattam, in a Nitrian monastery, and was edited by Samuel
Lee at London in 1842.1907 To this class
also belongs his apologetic tract Against Hierocles.1908
Of much less importance are the
two dogmatic works of Eusebius: Against Marcellus, and Upon the
Church Theology (likewise against Marcellus), in favor of the hypostatical
existence of the Son.1909
His Commentaries on several
books of the Bible (Isaiah, Psalms, Luke) pursue, without independence, and
without knowledge of the Hebrew, the allegorical method of Origen.1910
To these are to be added,
finally, some works in Biblical Introduction and Archaeology, the Onomasticon,
already alluded to, a sort of sacred geography, and fragments of an
enthusiastic Apology for Origen, a juvenile work which he and Pamphilus jointly
produced before 309, and which, in the Origenistic controversy, was the target
of the bitterest shots of Epiphanius and Jerome.1911
§ 162. The Church Historians after Eusebius.
I. The Church
Histories of Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagrius,
Philostorgius, and Theodorus Lector have been edited, with the Eccles. Hist. of Eusebius,
by Valesius, Par. 1659-’73, in 3 vols. (defective reprint, Frankf. a. M.
1672-’79); best ed., Cambridge, 1720, and again 1746, in 3 vols., with
improvements and additions by Guil. Reading. Best English translation by
Meredith, Hanmer, and Wye Saltonstall, Cambr. 1688, 1692,
and London, 1709. New ed. in Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library, Land. 1851, in 4
vols. small 8vo.
II. F. A. Holzhausen: De fontibus, quibus Socrates, Sozomenus, ac Theodoretus in
scribenda historia sacra usi sunt. Gött. 1825. G. Dangers: De
fontibus, indole et dignitate librorum Theod.
Lectoris et Evagrii. Gött. 1841. J. G. Dowling:
An Introduction to the Critical Study of Eccl. History. Lond. 1838, p. 84 ff.
F. Chr. Baur: Die Epochen der
kirchlichen Geschichtschreibung. TĂĽb. 1852, pp. 7-32. Comp. P. Schaff: History of the Apostolic
Church, Gen. Introd. p. 52 f.
Eusebius, without intending it, founded
a school of church historians, who continued the thread of his story from
Constantine the Great to the close of the sixth century, and, like him, limited
themselves to a simple, credulous narration of external facts, and a collection
of valuable documents, without an inkling of the critical sifting,
philosophical mastery, and artistic reproduction of material, which we find in
Thucydides and Tacitus among the classics, and in many a modern historian. None
of them touched the history of the first three centuries; Eusebius was supposed
to have done here all that could be desired. The histories of Socrates,
Sozomen, and Theodoret run nearly parallel, but without mutual acquaintance or
dependence, and their contents are very similar.1912 Evagrius carried the narrative down to the close of the sixth
century. All of them combine ecclesiastical and political history, which after
Constantine were inseparably interwoven in the East; and (with the exception of
Philostorgius) all occupy essentially the same orthodox stand-point. They
ignore the Western church, except where it comes in contact with the East.
These successors of Eusebius
are:
Socrates, an attorney or scholasticus in
Constantinople, born in 380. His work, in seven books, covers the period from
306 to 439, and is valuable for its numerous extracts from sources, and its
calm, impartial representation. It has been charged with a leaning towards
Novatianism. He had upon the whole a higher view of the duty of the historian
than his contemporaries and successors; he judged more liberally of heretics
and schismatics, and is less extravagant in the praise of emperors and bishops.1913
Hermias
Sozomen, a native
of Palestine, a junior contemporary of Socrates, and likewise a scholasticus in
Constantinople, wrote the history of the church, in nine books, from 323 to the
death of Honorius in 423,1914 and hence in its subjects keeps pace for the most part
with Socrates, though, as it would appear, without the knowledge of his work,
and with many additions on the history of the hermits and monks, for whom he
had a great predilection.1915
Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, was born at
Antioch about 390, of an honorable and pious mother; educated in the cloister
of St. Euprepius (perhaps with Nestorius); formed upon the writings of Diodorus
of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia; made bishop of Cyros, or Cyrrhos, in
Syria, after 420; and died in 457. He is known to us from the Christological
controversies as the most scholarly advocate of the Antiochian dyophysitism or
moderate Nestorianism; condemned at Ephesus in 431, deposed by the council of
Robbers in 449, acquitted in 451 by the fourth ecumenical council on condition
of his condemning Nestorius and all deniers of the theotokos, but again partially condemned
at the fifth long after his death. He was, therefore, like Eusebius, an actor
as well as an author of church history. As bishop, he led an exemplary life,
his enemies themselves being judges, and was especially benevolent to the poor.
He owned nothing valuable but books, and applied the revenues of his bishopric
to the public good. He shared the superstitions and weaknesses of his age.
His Ecclesiastical History, in
five books, composed about 450, reaches from 325 to 429. It is the most
valuable continuation of Eusebius, and, though shorter, it furnishes an
essential supplement to the works of Socrates and Sozomen.
His "Historia
religiosa" consists of biographies of hermits and monks, written with
great enthusiasm for ascetic holiness, and with many fabulous accessories,
according to the taste of the day. His "Heretical Fables,"1916 though superficial and marred
by many errors, is of some importance for the history of Christian doctrine. It
contains a severe condemnation of Nestorius, which we should hardly expect from
Theodoret.1917
Theodoret was a very fruitful
author. Besides these histories, he wrote valuable commentaries on most of the
books of the Old Testament and on all the Epistles of Paul; dogmatic and
polemic works against Cyril and the Alexandrian Christology, and against the
heretics; an apology of Christianity against the Greek philosophy; and sermons
and letters.1918
Evagrius (born about 536 in Syria, died
after 594) was a lawyer in Antioch, and rendered the patriarch Gregory great
service, particularly in an action for incest in 588. He was twice married, and
the Antiochians celebrated his second wedding (592) with public plays. He is
the last continuator of Eusebius and Theodoret, properly so called. He begins
his Ecclesiastical History of six books with the council of Ephesus, 431, and
closes it with the twelfth year of the reign of the emperor Maurice, 594. He is
of special importance on the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies; gives
accounts of bishops and monks, churches and public buildings, earthquakes and
other calamities; and interweaves political history, such as the wars of
Chosroes and the assaults of the barbarians.1919 He was strictly orthodox, and a superstitious venerator of monks,
saints, and relics.1920
Theodorus Lector, reader in the church of Constantinople about 525,
compiled an abstract from Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, under the title of Historia tripartita, which is still extant in the
manuscript;1921 and composed a continuation of Socrates from 431 to
518, of which fragments only are preserved in John Damascenus, Nilus, and
Nicephorus Callisti.1922
Of Philostorgius, an Arian church historian (born in 368), nothing
has come down to us but fragments in Photius; and these breathe so strong a
partisan spirit, that the loss of the rest is not to be regretted. He described
the period from the commencement of the Arian controversy to the reign of
Valentinian III. a.d. 423.
The series of the Greek church
historians closes with Nicephorus
Callistus or Callisti (i.e., son of Callistus),1923 who lived at Constantinople in
the fifteenth century. He was surprised that the voice of history had been silent
since the sixth century, and resumed the long-neglected task where his
predecessors had left it, but on a more extended plan of a general history of
the catholic church from the beginning to the year 911. We have, however, only
eighteen books to the death of emperor Phocas in 610, and a list of contents of
five other books. He made large use of Eusebius and his successors, and added
unreliable traditions of the later days of the Apostles, the history of
Monophysitism, of monks and saints, of the barbarian irruptions, &c. He,
too, ignores the Pelagian controversy, and takes little notice of the Latin
church after the fifth century.1924
In the Latin church_to
anticipate thus much_Eusebius found only one imitator and continuator, the
presbyter and monk Rufinus, of
Aquileia (330-410). He was at first a friend of Jerome, afterwards a bitter
enemy. He translated, with abridgments and insertions at his pleasure, the
Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and continued it to Theodosius the Great
(392). Yet his continuation has little value. He wrote also biographies of
hermits; an exposition of the Apostles’ Creed; and translations of several
works of Origen, with emendations of offensive portions.1925
Cassiodorus, consul and monk (died about
562), composed a useful abstract of the works of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret,
in twelve books, under the title of Historia tripartita, for the Latin church of the middle age.
The only properly original
contributions to church history from among the Latin divines were those of Jerome (†419) in his biographical and
literary Catalogue of Illustrious Men (written in 392), which Gennadius, a Semi-Pelagian presbyter of
South Gaul, continued to the year 495. Sulpicius
Severus (†420) wrote in good
style a Sacred History, or History of the Old and New Testament, from the
creation down to the year 400; and Paulus
Orosius (about 415) an apologetic
Universal History, which hardly, however, deserves the name of a history.
§ 163. Athanasius the Great.
I. S. Athanasius: Opera omnia quae extant vel
quae ejus nomine circumferuntur, etc., Gr. et lat., opera et studio monachorum
ordinis S. Benedicti e congregatione S. Mauri (Jac. Lopin et B. de, Montfaucon). Paris, 1698. 3
tom. fol. (or rather 2 tomi, the first in two parts). This is the most elegant
and correct edition, but must be completed by two volumes of the Collectio nova
Patrum, ed. B. de Montfaucon. Par. 1706. 2 tom. fol. More complete, but
not so handsome, is the edition of 1777, Patav., in 4 vols. fol. (Brunet says
of the latter "Édition moins belle et moins chère quo cello de Paris, mais
augmentée d’un 4e vol., lequel renferme les opuscules de S. Athan.,
tirés de la Collectio nova du P. Montfaucon et des Anecdota de
Wolf, et de plus l’interpretatio Psalmorum.") But now both these older editions need again
to be completed by the Syrian Festal Letters of Athanasius, discovered by Dr.
Tattam in a Nitrian monastery in 1843; edited by W. Cureton in Syriac
and English at London in 1846 and 1848 (and in English by H. Burgess and
H. Williams, Oxf. 1854, in the Libr. of the Fathers); in German, with
notes by F. Larson, at Leipzig in 1852; and in Syriac and Latin by Card.
Angelo Mai in the Nova Patr. Bibliotheca, Rom. 1853, tom. vi. pp.
1-168. A new and more salable, though less accurate, edition of the Opera omnia
Athan. (a reprint of the Benedictine) appeared at Petit-Montrouge (Par.) in J.P.
Migne’s Patrologia Gr. (tom. xxv.-xxviii.), 1857, in 4 vols.
The more important
dogmatic works of Athanasius have been edited separately by J. C. Thilo,
in the first volume of the Bibliotheca Patrum Graec. dogmatica, Lips. 1853; and
in an English translation, with explanations and indexes, by J. H. Newman,
Oxf. 1842-’44 (Library of the Fathers, vols. 8, 13, 19).
II. Gregorius Naz.: Oratio panegyrica in Magnum Athanasium (Orat. xxi.).
Several Vitae Athan. in the 1st vol. of the Bened.
ed. of his Opera. Acta Sanctorum for May 2d. G. Hermant: La Vie d’Athanase, etc. Par. 1679.
2 vols. Tillemont: MĂ©moires, vol.
viii. pp. 2-258 (2d ed. Par. 1713). W. Cave:
Lives of the most eminent Fathers of the first Four Centuries, vol. ii. pp.
145-364 (Oxf. ed. of 1840). Schröckh:
Th. xii. pp. 101-270. J. A. Möhler:
Athanasius der Grosse und die Kirche seiner Zeit, besonders im Kampfe mit dem
Arianismus. Mainz, 1827. 2d (title) ed. 1844. Heinrich
Voigt: Die Lehre des heiligen
Athanasius von Alexandria oder die kirchliche Dogmatik des 4ten Jahrhunderts
auf Grund der biblischen Lehre vom Logos. Bremen, 1861. A. P. Stanley: Lectures on the History of the
Eastern Church. New York, 1862, lecture vii. (pp. 322-358).
Athanasius is the theological
and ecclesiastical centre, as his senior contemporary Constantine is the
political and secular, about which the Nicene age revolves. Both bear the title
of the Great; the former with the better right, that his greatness was
intellectual and moral, and proved itself in suffering, and through years of
warfare against mighty, errors and against the imperial court. Athanasius contra mundum, et
mundus contra Athanasium, is a well-known sentiment which strikingly expresses his fearless
independence and immovable fidelity to his convictions. He seems to stand an
unanswerable contradiction to the catholic maxim of authority: Quod sem per,
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est, and proves that truth is by no
means always on the side of the majority, but may often be very unpopular. The
solitary Athanasius even in exile, and under the ban of council and emperor,
was the bearer of the truth, and, as he was afterwards named, the "father
of orthodoxy."1926
On a martyrs’ day in 313 the
bishop Alexander of Alexandria saw a troop of boys imitating the church
services in innocent sport, Athanasius playing the part of bishop, and
performing baptism by immersion.1927 He caught in this a glimpse of future greatness; took the youth
into his care; and appointed him his secretary, and afterwards his archdeacon.
Athanasius studied the classics, the Holy Scriptures, and the church fathers,
and meantime lived as an ascetic. He already sometimes visited St. Anthony in
his solitude.
In the year 325 he accompanied
his bishop to the council of Nicaea, and at once distinguished himself there by
his zeal and ability in refuting Arianism and vindicating the eternal deity of
Christ, and incurred the hatred of this heretical party, which raised so many
storms about his life.
In the year 3281928 he was nominated to the
episcopal succession of Alexandria, on the recommendation of the dying
Alexander, and by the voice of the people, though not yet of canonical age, and
at first disposed to avoid the election by flight; and thus he was raised to
the highest ecclesiastical dignity of the East. For the bishop of Alexandria
was at the same time metropolitan of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis.
But now immediately began the
long series of contests with the Arian party, which had obtained influence at
the court of Constantine, and had induced the emperor to recall Arius and his
adherents from exile. Henceforth the personal fortunes of Athanasius are so
inseparably interwoven with the history of the Arian controversy that Nicene
and Athanasian are equivalent terms, and the different depositions and
restorations of Athanasius denote so many depressions and victories of the
Nicene orthodoxy. Five times did the craft and power of his opponents, upon the
pretext of all sorts of personal and political offences, but in reality on
account of his inexorable opposition to the Arian and Semi-Arian heresy,
succeed in deposing and banishing him. The first exile he spent in Treves, the
second chiefly in Rome, the third with the monks in the Egyptian desert; and he
employed them in the written defence of his righteous cause. Then the Arian
party, was distracted, first by internal division, and further by the death of
the emperor Constantius (361), who was their chief support. The pagan Julian
recalled the banished bishops of both parties, in the hope that they might destroy
one another. Thus, Athanasius among them, who was the most downright opposite
of the Christian-hating emperor, again received his bishopric. But when, by his
energetic and wise administration, he rather restored harmony in his diocese,
and sorely injured paganism, which he feared far less than Arianism, and thus
frustrated the cunning plan of Julian, the emperor resorted to violence, and
banished him as a dangerous disturber of the peace. For the fourth time
Athanasius left Alexandria, but calmed his weeping friends with the prophetic
words: "Be of good cheer; it is only a cloud, which will soon pass
over." By presence of mind he
escaped from an imperial ship on the Nile, which had two hired assassins on board.
After Julian’s death in 362 he was again recalled by Jovian. But the next
emperor Valens, an Arian, issued in 367 an edict which again banished all the
bishops who had been deposed under Constantius and restored by Julian. The aged
Athanasius was obliged for the fifth time to leave his beloved flock, and kept
himself concealed more than four months in the tomb of his father. Then Valens,
boding ill from the enthusiastic adherence of the Alexandrians to their
orthodox bishop, repealed the edict.
From this time Athanasius had
peace, and still wrote, at a great age, with the vigor of youth, against
Apollinarianism. In the year 3731929 he died, after an
administration of nearly forty-six years, but before the conclusion of the
Arian war. He had secured by his testimony the final victory of orthodoxy, but,
like Moses, was called away from the earthly scene before the goal was reached.
Athanasius, like many great men
(from David and Paul to Napoleon and Schleiermacher), was very small of
stature,1930 somewhat stooping and emaciated by fasting and many
troubles, but fair of countenance, with a piercing eye and a personal
appearance of great power even over his enemies.1931 His omnipresent activity, his rapid and his mysterious movements,
his fearlessness, and his prophetic insight into the future, were attributed by
his friends to divine assistance, by his enemies to a league with evil powers.
Hence the belief in his magic art.1932 His congregation in Alexandria and the people and monks of Egypt
were attached to him through all the vicissitudes of his tempestuous life with
equal fidelity and veneration. Gregory Nazianzen begins his enthusiastic
panegyric with the words: "When I praise Athanasius, I praise virtue
itself, because he combines all virtues in himself." Constantine the Younger called him "the
man of God;" Theodoret, "the great enlightener;" and John of
Damascus, the corner-stone of the church of God."
All this is, indeed, very
hyperbolical, after the fashion of degenerate Grecian rhetoric. Athanasius was
not free from the faults of his age. But he is, on the whole, one of the
purest, most imposing, and most venerable personages in the history of the
church; and this judgment will now be almost universally accepted.1933
He was (and there are few such)
a theological and churchly character in magnificent, antique style. He was a
man of one mould and one idea, and in this respect one-sided; yet in the best
sense, as the same is true of most great men who are borne along with a mighty
and comprehensive thought, and subordinate all others to it. So Paul lived and labored
for Christ crucified, Gregory VII. for the Roman hierarchy, Luther for the
doctrine of justification by faith, Calvin for the idea of the sovereign grace
of God. It was the passion and the life-work of Athanasius to vindicate the
deity of Christ, which he rightly regarded as the corner-stone of the edifice
of the Christian faith, and without which he could conceive no redemption. For
this truth he spent all his time and strength; for this he suffered deposition
and twenty years of exile; for this he would have been at any moment glad to
pour out his blood. For his vindication of this truth he was much hated, much
loved, always respected or feared. In the unwavering conviction that he had the
right and the protection of God on his side, he constantly disdained to call in
the secular power for his ecclesiastical ends, and to degrade himself to an
imperial courtier, as his antagonists often did.
Against the Arians he was
inflexible, because he believed they hazarded the essence of Christianity
itself, and he allowed himself the most invidious and the most contemptuous
terms. He calls them polytheists, atheists, Jews, Pharisees, Sadducees,
Herodians, spies, worse persecutors than the heathen, liars, dogs, wolves,
antichrists, and devils. But he confined himself to spiritual weapons, and
never, like his successor Cyril a century later, used nor counselled measures
of force. He suffered persecution, but did not practise it; he followed the
maxim: Orthodoxy should persuade faith, not force it.
Towards the unessential errors
of good men, like those of Marcellus of Ancyra, he was indulgent. Of Origen he
spoke with esteem, and with gratitude for his services, while Epiphanius, and
even Jerome, delighted to blacken his memory and burn his bones. To the
suspicions of the orthodoxy of Basil, whom, by the way, be never personally
knew, he gave no ear, but pronounced his liberality a justifiable condescension
to the weak. When he found himself compelled to write against Apollinaris, whom
he esteemed and loved, he confined himself to the refutation of his error,
without the mention of his name. He was more concerned for theological ideas
than for words and formulas; even upon the shibboleth homoousios he would not obstinately
insist, provided only the great truth of the essential and eternal Godhead of
Christ were not sacrificed. At his last appearance in public, as president of
the council of Alexandria in 362, he acted as mediator and reconciler of the
contending parties, who, notwithstanding all their discord in the use of the
terms ousia and hypostasis, were one in the ground-work of
their faith.
No one of all the Oriental
fathers enjoyed so high consideration in the Western church as Athanasius. His
personal sojourn in Rome and Treves, and his knowledge of the Latin tongue,
contributed to this effect. He transplanted monasticism to the West. But it was
his advocacy of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity that, more than all,
gave him his Western reputation. Under his name the Symbolum Quicunque, of much
later, and probably of French, origin, has found universal acceptance in the
Latin church, and has maintained itself to this day in living use. His name is
inseparable from the conflicts and the triumph of the doctrine of the holy
Trinity.
As an author, Athanasius is distinguished
for theological depth and discrimination, for dialectical skill, and sometimes
for fulminating eloquence. He everywhere evinces a triumphant intellectual
superiority over his antagonists, and shows himself a veritable malleus haereticorum. He pursues them into all their
hiding-places, and refutes all their arguments and their sophisms, but never
loses sight of the main point of the controversy, to which he ever returns with
renewed force. His views are governed by a strict logical connection; but his
stormy fortunes prevented him from composing a large systematic work. Almost
all his writings are occasional, wrung from him by circumstances; not a few of
them were hastily written in exile.
They may be divided as follows:
1. Apologetic works in defence of Christianity. Among these are
the two able and enthusiastic kindred productions of his youth (composed before
325): "A Discourse against the Greeks," and "On the Incarnation
of the Divine Word,)"1934 which he already looked upon as the central idea of the
Christian religion.
2. Dogmatic and Controversial
works in defence of the Nicene faith; which are at the same time very important
to the history of the Arian controversies. Of these the following are
directed against Arianism: An Encyclical Letter to all Bishops (written in
341); On the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea (352); On the Opinion of
Dionysius of Alexandria (352); An Epistle to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya
(356); four Orations against the Arians (358); A Letter to Serapion on the
Death of Arius (358 or 359); A History of the Arians to the Monks (between 358
and 360). To these are to be added four Epistles to Serapion on the Deity of
the Holy Spirit (358), and two books Against Apollinaris, in defence of the
full humanity of Christ (379).
3. Works in his own Personal Defence: An Apology against the Arians (350); an Apology to
Constantius (356); an Apology concerning his Flight (De fuga, 357 or 358); and
several letters.
4. Exegetical works; especially a Commentary on the Psalms, in
which he everywhere finds types and prophecies of Christ and the church,
according to the extravagant allegorizing method of the Alexandrian school; and
a synopsis or compendium of the Bible. But the genuineness of these unimportant
works is by many doubted.1935
5. Ascetic and Practical
works. Chief among these are his "Life of St. Anthony," composed
about 365, or at all events after the death of Anthony,1936 and his "Festal
Letters," which have but recently become known.1937 The Festal Letters give us a glimpse of his pastoral fidelity as
bishop, and throw new light also on many of his doctrines, and on the condition
of the church in his time. In these letters Athanasius, according to
Alexandrian custom, announced annually, at Epiphany, to the clergy and
congregations of Egypt, the time of the next Easter, and added edifying
observations on passages of Scripture, and timely exhortations. These were read
in the churches, during the Easter season, especially on Palm-Sunday. As
Athanasius was bishop forty-five years, he would have written that number of
Festal Letters, if he had not been several times prevented by flight or
sickness. The letters were written in Greek, but soon translated into Syriac,
and lay buried for centuries in the dust of a Nitrian cloister, till the
research of Protestant Scholarship brought them again to the light.
§ 164. Basil the Great.
I. S. Basilius Caes. Cappad. archiepisc.:
Opera omnia quae exstant vel quae ejus nomine circumferuntur, Gr. et Lat. ed. Jul.
Garnier, presbyter and monk of the Bened. order. Paris, 1721-’30. 3 vols.
fol. Eadem ed. Parisina altera, emendata et aucta a Lud. de Sinner, Par.
(Gaume Fratres) 1839, 8 tomi in 6 Partes (an elegant and convenient ed.).
Reprinted also by Migne, Par. 1857, in 4 vols. (Patrol. Gr. tom xxix,
xxxii.). The first edition of St. Basil was superintended by Erasmus
with Froben in Basle, 1532. Comp. also Opera Bas. dogmatica selecta in Thilo’s
Bibl. Patr. Gr. dogm. vol. ii. Lips. 1854 (under care of J. D. H. Goldhorn, and
containing the Libri iii. adversus Eunomium, and Liber i. de Spiritu Sancto).
II. Ancient accounts
and descriptions of Basil in the funeral discourses and eulogies of Gregory Naz. (Oratio xliii.), Gregory
Nyss., Amphilochius, Ephraem Syrus. Garnier:
Vita S. Basilii, in his edition of the Opera, tom. iii. pp. xxxviii.-ccliv. (in
the new Paris ed. of 1839; or tom. i. in Migne’s reprint). Comp. also the Vitae
in the Acta Sanctorum, sub Jan. 14, by Hermant, Tillemont (tom. ix.), Fabricius
(Bibl. tom. ix.), Cave, Pfeiffer, Schröckh (Part xiii. pp. 8-220), Böhringer, W. Klose
(Basilius der Grosse, Stralsund, 1835), and Fialon
(Etude historique et littéraire sur S. Basile, Par. 1866).
The Asiatic province of
Cappadocia produced in the fourth century the three distinguished church
teachers, Basil and the two Gregories, who stand in strong contrast with the
general character of their countrymen; for the Cappadocians are described as a
cowardly, servile, and deceitful race.1938
Basil was born about the year 329,1939 at Caesarea, the capital of
Cappadocia, in the bosom of a wealthy and pious family, whose ancestors had
distinguished themselves as martyrs. The seed of piety had been planted in him
by his grandmother, St. Macrina, and his mother, St. Emmelia. He had four
brothers and five sisters, who all led a religious life; two of his brothers,
Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, and Peter, bishop of Sebaste, and his sister, Macrina
the Younger, are, like himself, among the saints of the Eastern church. He
received his literary education at first from his father, who was a
rhetorician; afterwards at school in Constantinople (347), where he enjoyed the
instruction and personal esteem of the celebrated Libanius; and in Athens,
where he spent several years, between 351 and 355,1940 studying rhetoric, mathematics,
and philosophy, in company with his intimate friend Gregory Nazianzen, and at
the same time with prince Julian the Apostate.
Athens, partly through its
ancient renown and its historical traditions, partly by excellent teachers of
philosophy and eloquence, Sophists, as they were called in an honorable sense,
among whom Himerius and Proaeresius were at that time specially conspicuous,
was still drawing a multitude of students from all quarters of Greece, and even
from the remote provinces of Asia. Every Sophist had his own school and party,
which was attached to him with incredible zeal, and endeavored to gain every
newly arriving student to its master. In these efforts, as well as in the
frequent literary contests and debates of the various schools among themselves,
there was not seldom much rude and wild behavior. To youth who were not yet
firmly grounded in Christianity, residence in Athens, and occupation with the
ancient classics, were full of temptation, and might easily kindle an
enthusiasm for heathenism, which, however, had already lost its vitality, and
was upheld solely by the artificial means of magic, theurgy, and an obscure
mysticism.1941
Basil and Gregory remained
steadfast, and no poetical or rhetorical glitter could fade the impressions of
a pious training. Gregory says of their studies in Athens, in his forty-third
Oration:1942 "We knew only two streets of the city, the first
and the more excellent one to the churches, and to the ministers of the altar;
the other, which, however, we did not so highly esteem, to the public schools
and to the teachers of the sciences. The streets to the theatres, games, and
places of unholy amusements, we left to others. Our holiness was our great
concern; our sole aim was to be called and to be Christians. In this we placed
our whole glory."1943 In a later oration on classic studies Basil encourages
them, but admonishes that they should be pursued with caution, and with
constant regard to the great Christian purpose of eternal life, to which all
earthly objects and attainments are as shadows and dreams to reality. In
plucking the rose one should beware of the thorns, and, like the bee, should
not only delight himself with the color and the fragrance, but also gain useful
honey from the flower.1944
The intimate friendship of Basil
and Gregory, lasting from fresh, enthusiastic youth till death, resting on an
identity of spiritual and moral aims, and sanctified by Christian piety, is a
lovely and engaging chapter in the history of the fathers, and justifies a
brief episode in a field not yet entered by any church historian.
With all the ascetic narrowness
of the time, which fettered even these enlightened fathers, they still had
minds susceptible to science and art and the beauties of nature. In the
works of Basil and of the two Gregories occur pictures of nature such as we
seek in vain in the heathen classics. The descriptions of natural scenery among
the poets and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome can be easily compressed
within a few pages. Socrates, as we learn from Plato, was of the opinion that
we can learn nothing from trees and fields, and hence he never took a walk; he
was so bent upon self-knowledge, as the true aim of all learning, that he
regarded the whole study of nature as useless, because it did not tend to make
man either more intelligent or more virtuous. The deeper sense of the beauty of
nature is awakened by the religion of revelation alone, which teaches us to see
everywhere in creation the traces of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of
God. The book of Ruth, the book of Job, many Psalms, particularly the 104th,
and the parables, are without parallel in Grecian or Roman literature. The
renowned naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, collected some of the most
beautiful descriptions of nature from the fathers for his purposes.1945 They are an interesting proof of the transfiguring power of the
spirit of Christianity even upon our views of nature.
A breath of sweet sadness runs
through them, which is entirely foreign to classical antiquity. This is
especially manifest in Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil. "When I
see," says he, for example, "every rocky ridge, every valley, every
plain, covered with new-grown grass; and then the variegated beauty of the
trees, and at my feet the lilies doubly enriched by nature with sweet odors and
gorgeous colors; when I view in the distance the sea, to which the changing
cloud leads out_my soul is seized with sadness which is not without delight.
And when in autumn fruits disappear, leaves fall, boughs stiffen, stripped of
their beauteous dress_we sink with the perpetual and regular vicissitude into
the harmony of wonder-working nature. He who looks through this with the
thoughtful eye of the soul, feels the littleness of man in the greatness of the
universe."1946 Yet we find
sunny pictures also, like the beautiful description of spring in an oration of
Gregory Nazianzen on the martyr Mamas.1947
A second characteristic of these
representations of nature, and for the church historian the most important, is
the reference of earthly beauty to an eternal and heavenly principle, and that
glorification of God in the works of creation, which transplanted itself from
the Psalms and the book of Job into the Christian church. In his homilies on
the history of the Creation, Basil describes the mildness of the serene nights
in Asia Minor, where the stars, "the eternal flowers of heaven, raised the
spirit of man from the visible to the invisible." In the oration just mentioned, after
describing the spring in the most lovely and life-like colors, Gregory
Nazianzen proceeds: "Everything praises God and glorifies Him with
unutterable tones; for everything shall thanks be offered also to God by me,
and thus shall the song of those creatures, whose song of praise I here utter,
be also ours .... Indeed it is now [alluding to the Easter festival] the
spring-time of the world, the spring-time of the spirit, spring-time for souls,
spring-time for bodies, a visible spring, an invisible spring, in which we also
shall there have part, if we here be rightly transformed, and enter as new men
upon a new life." Thus the earth
becomes a vestibule of heaven, the beauty of the body is consecrated an image
of the beauty of the spirit.
The Greek fathers placed the
beauty of nature above the works of art, having a certain prejudice against art
on account of the heathen abuses of it. "If thou seest a splendid building,
and the view of its colonnades would transport thee, look quickly at the vault
of the heavens and the open fields, on which the flocks are feeding on the
shore of the sea. Who does not despise every creation of art, when in the
silence of the heart he early wonders at the rising sun, as it pours its golden
(crocus-yellow) light over the horizon? when, resting at a spring in the deep
grass or under the dark shade of thick trees, he feeds his eye upon the dim
vanishing distance?" So Chrysostom
exclaims from his monastic solitude near Antioch, and Humboldt1948 adds the ingenious remark:
"It was as if eloquence had found its element, its freedom, again at the
fountain of nature in the then wooded mountain regions of Syria and Asia Minor."
In the rough times of the first
introduction of Christianity among the Celtic and Germanic tribes, who had
worshipped the dismal powers of nature in rude symbols, an opposition to
intercourse with nature appeared, like that which we find in Tertullian to
pagan art; and church assemblies of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at
Tours (1163) and at Paris (1209), forbid the monks the sinful reading of books
on nature, till the renowned scholastics, Albert, the Great (†1280), and the
gifted Roger Bacon (†1294), penetrated the mysteries of nature and raised the
study of it again to consideration and honor.
We now return to the life of
Basil. After finishing his studies in Athens he appeared in his native city of
Caesarea as a rhetorician. But he soon after (a.d.
360) took a journey to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, to become acquainted with
the monastic life; and he became more and more enthusiastic for it. He
distributed his property to the poor, and withdrew to a lonely romantic
district in Pontus, near the cloister in which his mother Emmelia, with his
sister Macrina, and other pious and cultivated virgins, were living. "God
has shown me," he wrote to his friend Gregory, "a region which
exactly suits my mode of life; it is, in truth, what in our happy jestings we
often wished. What imagination showed us in the distance, that I now see before
me. A high mountain, covered with thick forest, is watered towards the north by
fresh perennial streams. At the foot of the mountain a wide plain spreads out,
made fruitful by the vapors which moisten it. The surrounding forest, in which
many varieties of trees crowd together, shuts me off like a strong castle. The
wilderness is bounded by two deep ravines. On one side the stream, where it
rushes foaming down from the mountain, forms a barrier hard to cross; on the
other a broad ridge obstructs approach. My hut is so placed upon the summit,
that I overlook the broad plain, as well as the whole course of the Iris, which
is more beautiful and copious than the Strymon near Amphipolis. The river of my
wilderness, more rapid than any other that I know, breaks upon the wall of
projecting rock, and rolls foaming into the abyss: to the mountain traveller, a
charming, wonderful sight; to the natives, profitable for its abundant fisheries.
Shall I describe to you the fertilizing vapors which rise from the (moistened)
earth, the cool air which rises from the (moving) mirror of the water? Shall I tell of the lovely singing of the
birds and the richness of blooming plants?
What delights me above all is the silent repose of the place. It is only
now and then visited by huntsmen; for my wilderness nourishes deer and herds of
wild goats, not your bears and your wolves. How would I exchange a place with
him? Alcmaeon, after he had found the
Echinades, wished to wander no further."1949
This romantic picture shows that
the monastic life had its ideal and poetic side for cultivated minds. In this
region Basil, free from all cares, distractions, and interruptions of worldly
life, thought that he could best serve God. "What is more blessed than to
imitate on earth the choir of angels, at break of day to rise to prayer, and
praise the Creator with anthems and songs; then go to labor in the clear
radiance of the sun, accompanied everywhere by prayer, seasoning work with
praise, as if with salt? Silent
solitude is the beginning of purification of the soul. For the mind, if it be
not disturbed from without, and do not lose itself through the senses in the
world, withdraws into itself, and rises to thoughts of God." In the Scriptures he found, "as in a
store of all medicines, the true remedy for his sickness."
Nevertheless, he had also to find
that flight from the city was not flight from his own self. "I have well
forsaken," says he in his second Epistle,1950 "my residence in the city
as a source of a thousand evils, but I have not been able to forsake myself.
l am like a man who, unaccustomed to the sea, becomes seasick, and gets out of
the large ship, because it rocks more, into a small skiff, but still even there
keeps the dizziness and nausea. So is it with me; for while I carry about with
me the passions which dwell in me, I am everywhere tormented with the same
restlessness, so that I really get not much help from this solitude." In the sequel of the letter, and elsewhere,
he endeavors, however, to show that seclusion from worldly business, celibacy,
solitude, perpetual occupation with the Holy Scriptures, and with the life of
godly men, prayer and contemplation, and a corresponding ascetic severity of
outward life, are necessary for taming the wild passions, and for attaining the
true quietness of the soul.
He succeeded in drawing his
friend Gregory to himself. Together they prosecuted their prayer, studies, and
manual labor; made extracts from the works of Origen, which we possess, under
the name of Philocalia, as the joint work of the two friends; and wrote
monastic rules which contributed largely to extend and regulate the coenobite
life.
In the year 364 Basil was made
presbyter against his will, and in 370, with the co-operation of Gregory and
his father, was elected bishop of Caesarea and metropolitan of all Cappadocia.
In this capacity he had fifty country bishops under him, and devoted himself
thenceforth to the direction of the church and the fighting of Arianism, which
had again come into power through the emperor Valens in the East. He endeavored
to secure to the catholic faith the victory, first by close connection with the
orthodox West, and then by a certain liberality in accepting as sufficient, in
regard to the not yet symbolically settled doctrine of the Holy Ghost, that the
Spirit should not be considered a creature. But the strict orthodox party,
especially the monks, demanded the express acknowledgment of the divinity of
the Holy Ghost, and violently opposed Basil. The Arians pressed him still more.
The emperor wished to reduce Cappadocia to the heresy, and threatened the
bishop by his prefects with confiscation, banishment, and death. Basil replied:
"Nothing more? Not one of these
things touches me. His property cannot be forfeited, who has none; banishment I
know not, for I am restricted to no place, and am the guest of God, to whom the
whole earth belongs; for martyrdom I am unfit, but death is a benefactor to me,
for it sends me more quickly to God, to whom I live and move; I am also in
great part already dead, and have been for a long time hastening to the
grave."
The emperor was about to banish
him, when his son, six years of age, was suddenly taken sick, and the
physicians gave up all hope. Then he sent for Basil, and his son recovered,
though he died soon after. The imperial prefect also recovered from a sickness,
and ascribed his recovery to the prayer of the bishop, towards whom he had
previously behaved haughtily. Thus this danger was averted by special divine
assistance.
But other difficulties,
perplexities, and divisions, continually met him, to obstruct the attainment of
his desire, the restoration of the peace of the church. These storms, and all
sorts of hostilities, early wasted his body. He died in 379, two years before
the final victory of the Nicene orthodoxy, with the words: "Into Thy
hands, O Lord I commit my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of
truth."1951 He was borne to
the grave by a deeply sorrowing multitude.
Basil was poor, and almost
always sickly; he had only a single worn-out garment, and ate almost nothing
but bread, salt, and herbs. The care of the poor and sick he took largely upon
himself. He founded in the vicinity of Caesarea that magnificent hospital,
Basilias, which we have already mentioned, chiefly for lepers, who were often
entirely abandoned in those regions, and left to the saddest fate; he himself
took in the sufferers, treated them as brethren, and, in spite of their revolting
condition, was not afraid to kiss them.1952
Basil is distinguished as a
pulpit orator and as a theologian, and still more as a shepherd of souls and a
church ruler; and in the history of monasticism he holds a conspicuous place.1953 In classical culture he yields to none of his contemporaries, and
is justly placed with the two Gregories among the very first writers among the
Greek fathers. His style is pure, elegant, and vigorous. Photius thought that
one who wished to become a panegyrist, need take neither Demosthenes nor Cicero
for his model, but Basil only.
Of his works, his Five Books
against Eunomius, written in 361, in defence of the deity of Christ, and his
work on the Holy Ghost, written in 375, at the request of his friend
Amphilochius, are important to the history of doctrine.1954 He at first, from fear of Sabellianism, recoiled from the strong
doctrine of the homoousia; but the persecution of the
Arians drove him to a decided confession. Of importance in the East is the
Liturgy ascribed to him, which, with that of St. Chrysostom, is still in use,
but has undoubtedly reached its present form by degrees. We have also from St.
Basil nine Homilies on the history of the Creation, which are full of
allegorical fancies, but enjoyed the highest esteem in the ancient church, and
were extensively used by Ambrose and somewhat by Augustine, in similar works;1955 Homilies on the Psalms;
Homilies on various subjects; several ascetic and moral treatises;1956 and three hundred and
sixty-five Epistles,1957 which furnish much information concerning his life and times.
§ 165. Gregory of Nyssa.
I. S. Gregorius Nyssenus: Opera omnia, quae reperiri potuerunt, Gr. et Lat.,
nunc primum e mss. codd. edita, stud. Front. Ducaei (Fronto le Duc, a
learned Jesuit). Paris, 1615, 2 vols. fol. To be added to this. Appendix Gregorii
ex ed. Jac. Gretseri, Par. 1618, fol.; and the Antirrhetoricus adv.
Apollinar., first edited by L. Al. Zacagni, Collectanea monum. vet. eccl. Graec. et Lat. Rom. 1698, and
in Gallandi, Bibliotheca, tom. vi. Later editions of the Opera by Aeg.
Morél, Par. 1638, 3 vols. fol. ("moins belle que cello de 1615, mais
plus ample et plus commode ... peu correcte," according to Brunet); by Migne,
Petit-Montrouge (Par.), 1858, 3 vols.; and by Franc. Oehler, Halis
Saxonum, 1865 sqq. (Tom. i. continens libros dogmaticos, but only in the Greek
original.) Oehler has also commenced an
edition of select treatises of Gregory of Nyasa in the original with a German
version. The Benedictines of St. Maur had prepared the critical apparatus for
an edition of Gregory, but it was scattered during the French Revolution. Angelo
Mai, in the Nov. Patrum Biblioth. tom. iv. Pars i. pp. 1-53 (Rom. 1847),
has edited a few writings of Gregory unknown before, viz., a sermon Adversus
Arium et Sabellium, a sermon De Spiritu Sancto adv. Macedonianos, and a
fragment De processione Spiritus S. a Filio (doubtful).
II. Lives in the Acta Sanctorum,
and in Butler, sub Mart. 9. Tillemont: Mém. tom. ix. p. 561 sqq. Schröckh: Part xiv. pp. 1-147. Jul. Rupp:
Gregors des Bischofs von Nyssa Leben und Meinungen. Leipz. 1834
(unsatisfactory). W. Möller:
Gregorii Nyss. doctrina de hominis natura, etc. Halis, 1854, and article in Herzog’s
Encykl. vol. v. p. 354 sqq.
Gregory of Nyssa was a
younger brother of Basil, and the third son of his parents. Of his honorable
descent he made no account. Blood, wealth, and splendor, says he, we should
leave to the friends of the world; the Christian’s lineage is his affinity with
the divine, his fatherland is virtue, his freedom is the sonship of God. He was
weakly and timid, and born not so much for practical life, as for study and
speculation. He formed his mind chiefly upon the writings of Origen, and under
the direction of his brother, whom he calls his father and preceptor. Further
than this his early life is unknown.
After spending a short time as a
rhetorician he broke away from the world, retired into solitude in Pontus, and
became enamored of the ascetic life.
Quite in the spirit of the then
widely-spread tendency towards the monastic life, he, though himself married,
commends virginity in a special work, as a higher grade of perfection, and
depicts the happiness of one who is raised above the incumbrances and snares of
marriage, and thus, as he thinks, restored to the original state of man in
Paradise.1958 "From all
the evils of marriage," he says, "virginity is free; it has no lost
children, no lost husband to bemoan; it is always with its Bridegroom, and
delights in its devout exercises, and, when death comes, it is not separated
from him, but united with him forever."
The essence of spiritual virginity, however, in his opinion, by no means
consists merely in the small matter of sensual abstinence, but in the purity of
the whole life. Virginity is to him the true philosophy, the perfect
freedom. The purpose of asceticism in general he considered to be not the
affliction of the body_which is only a means_but the easiest possible motion of
the spiritual functions.
His brother Basil, in 372,
called him against his will from his learned ease into his own vicinity as
bishop of Nyssa, an inconsiderable town of Cappadocia. He thought it better
that the place should receive its honor from his brother, than that his brother
should receive his honor from his place. And so it turned out. As Gregory
labored zealously for the Nicene faith, he drew the hatred of the Arians, who
succeeded in deposing him at a synod in 376, and driving him into exile. But
two years later, when the emperor Valens died and Gratian revoked the sentences
of banishment, Gregory recovered his bishopric.
Now other trials came upon him.
His brothers and sisters died in rapid succession. He delivered a eulogy upon
Basil, whom he greatly venerated, and he described the life and death of his
beautiful and noble sister Macrina, who, after the death of her betrothed, that
she might remain true to him, chose single life, and afterwards retired with
her mother into seclusion, and exerted great influence over her brothers.
Into her mouth he put his
theological instructions on the soul, death, resurrection, and final
restoration.1959 She died in the
arms of Gregory, with this prayer: "Thou, O God, hast taken from me the
fear of death. Thou hast granted me, that the end of this life should be the
beginning of true life. Thou givest our bodies in their time to the sleep of
death, and awakest them again from sleep with the last trumpet .... Thou hast
delivered us from the curse and from sin by Thyself becoming both for us; Thou
hast bruised the head of the serpent, hast broken open the gates of hell, hast
overcome him who had the power of death, and hast opened to us the way to,
resurrection. For the ruin of the enemy and the security of our life, Thou hast
put upon those who feared Thee a sign, the sign of Thy holy cross, O eternal
God, to whom I am betrothed from the womb, whom my soul has loved with all its
might, to whom I have dedicated, from my youth up till now, my flesh and my
soul. Oh! send to me an angel of light, to lead me to the place of refreshment,
where is the water of peace, in the bosom of the holy fathers. Thou who hast
broken the flaming sword, and bringest back to Paradise the man who is
crucified with Thee and flees to Thy mercy. Remember me also in Thy kingdom!...
Forgive me what in word, deed, or thought, I have done amiss! Blameless and without spot may my soul be
received into Thy hands, as a burnt-offering before Thee!"1960
Gregory attended the ecumenical
council of Constantinople, and undoubtedly, since he was one of the most
eminent theologians of the time, exerted a powerful influence there, and
according to a later, but erroneous, tradition, he composed the additions to
the Nicene Creed which were there sanctioned.1961 The council intrusted to him, as "one of the pillars of
catholic orthodoxy," a tour of visitation to Arabia and Jerusalem, where
disturbances had broken out which threatened a schism. He found Palestine in a
sad condition, and therefore dissuaded a Cappadocian abbot, who asked his
advice about a pilgrimage of his monks to Jerusalem. "Change of
place," says he, "brings us no nearer God, but where thou art, God
can come to thee, if only the inn of thy soul is ready .... It is better to go
out of the body and to raise one’s self to the Lord, than to leave Cappadocia
to journey to Palestine." He did
not succeed in making peace, and he returned to Cappadocia lamenting that there
were in Jerusalem men "who showed a hatred towards their brethren, such as
they ought to have only towards the devil, towards sin, and towards the avowed
enemies of the Saviour."
Of his later life we know very
little. He was in Constantinople thrice afterwards, in 383, 385, and 394, and
he died about the year 395.
The wealth of his intellectual
life he deposited in his numerous writings, above all in his controversial
doctrinal works: Against Eunomius; Against Apollinaris; On the Deity of the Son
and the Holy Ghost; On the difference between ousia and hypostasis
in God; and in his catechetical compend of the Christian faith.1962 The beautiful dialogue with his sister Macrina on the soul and
the resurrection has been already mentioned. Besides these he wrote many
Homilies, especially on the creation of the world, and of man,1963 on the life of Moses, on the
Psalms, on Ecclesiastes, on the Song of Solomon, on the Lord’s Prayer, on the
Beatitudes; Eulogies on eminent martyrs and saints (St. Stephen, the Forty
Martyrs, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Ephrem, Meletius, his brother Basil); various
valuable ascetic tracts; and a biography of his sister Macrina, addressed to
the monk Olympios.
Gregory was more a man of
thought than of action. He had a fine metaphysical head, and did lasting
service in the vindication of the mystery of the Trinity and the incarnation,
and in the accurate distinction between essence and hypostasis. Of all the
church teachers of the Nicene age he is the nearest to Origen. He not only
follows his sometimes utterly extravagant allegorical method of interpretation,
but even to a great extent falls in with his dogmatic views.1964 With him, as with Origen, human freedom plays a great part. Both
are idealistic, and sometimes, without intending it or knowing it, fall into
contradiction with the church doctrine, especially in eschatology. Gregory
adopts, for example, the doctrine of the final restoration of all things. The
plan of redemption is in his view absolutely universal, and embraces all
spiritual beings. Good is the only positive reality; evil is the negative, the
non-existent, and must finally abolish itself, because it is not of God.
Unbelievers must indeed pass through a second death, in order to be purged from
the filthiness of the flesh. But God does not give them up, for they are his
property, spiritual natures allied to him. His love, which draws pure souls
easily and without pain to itself, becomes a purifying fire to all who cleave
to the earthly, till the impure element is driven off. As all comes forth from
God, so must all return into him at last.
§ 166. Gregory Nazianzen.
I. S. Gregorius Theologus, vulgo Nazianzenus:
Opera omnia, Gr. et Lat. opera et studio monachorum S. Benedicti e congreg. S.
Mauri (Clemencet). Paris, 1778, tom. i. (containing his orations). This
magnificent edition (one of the finest of the Maurian editions of the fathers)
was interrupted by the French Revolution, but afterwards resumed, and with a
second volume (after papers left by the Maurians) completed by A. B.
Caillau, Par. l837-’40, 2 vols. fol. Reprinted in Migne’s Patrolog.
Graec. (tom. 35-38), Petit-Montrouge, 1857, in 4 vols. (on the separate
editions of his Orationes and Carmina, see Brunet, Man. du libraire, tom. ii. 1728 sq.)
II. Biographical
notices in Gregory’s Epistles and
Poems, in Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Rufinus,
and Suidas (s. v. Grhgovrio"). Gregorius
Presbyter (of uncertain origin,
perhaps of Cappadocia in the tenth century): Bivo" tou' Grhgorivou (Greek and Latin in Migne’s ed.
of the Opera, tom. i. 243-304). G. Hermant:
La vie de S. Basile le Grand et celle de S. Gregoire de Nazianz. Par. 1679, 2
vols. Acta Sanctorum, tom. ii. Maji, p. 373 sqq. Bened. Editores: Vita Greg. ex iis
potissimum scriptis adornata (in Migne’s ed. tom. i. pp. 147-242). Tillemont: Mémoires, tom. ix. pp.
305-560, 692-731. Le Clerc: Bibliothèque Universelle, tom.
xviii. pp. 1-128. W. Cave: Lives
of the Fathers, vol. iii. pp. 1-90 (ed. Oxf. 1840). Schröckh: Part xiii. pp. 275-466. Carl Ullmann:
Gregorius von Nazianz, der Theologe. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und
Dogmengeschichte des 4ten Jahrhunderts. Darmstadt, 1825. (One of the best
historical monographs by a theologian of kindred spirit.) Comp. also the articles of Hefele in Wetzer und Welte’s
Kirchenlexikon, vol. iv. 736 ff., and Gass
in Herzog’s Encykl. vol. v. 349.
Gregory Nazianzen, or Gregory the Theologian, is the third in the
Cappadocian triad; inferior to his bosom friend Basil as a church ruler, and to
his namesake of Nyssa as a speculative thinker, but superior to both as an
orator. With them he exhibits the flower of Greek theology in close union with
the Nicene faith, and was one of the champions of orthodoxy, though with a mind
open to free speculation. His life, with its alternations of high station,
monastic seclusion, love of severe studies, enthusiasm for poetry, nature, and
friendship, possesses a romantic charm. He was "by inclination and fortune
tossed between the silence of a contemplative life and the tumult of church
administration, unsatisfied with either, neither a thinker nor a poet, but,
according to his youthful desire, an orator, who, though often bombastic and dry,
labored as powerfully for the victory of orthodoxy as for true practical
Christianity."1965
Gregory Nazianzen was born about
330, a year before the emperor Julian, either at Nazianzum, a market-town in
the south-western part of Cappadocia, where his father was bishop, or in the
neighboring village of Arianzus.1966
In the formation of his
religious character his mother Nonna, one of the noblest Christian women of
antiquity, exerted a deep and wholesome influence. By her prayers and her holy
life she brought about the conversion of her husband from the sect of the
Hypsistarians, who, without positive faith, worshipped simply a supreme being;
and she consecrated her son, as Hannah consecrated Samuel, even before his
birth; to the service of God. "She was," as Gregory describes her,
"a wife according to the mind of Solomon; in all things subject to her
husband according to the laws of marriage, not ashamed to be his teacher and
his leader in true religion. She solved the difficult problem of uniting a
higher culture, especially in knowledge of divine things and strict exercise of
devotion, with the practical care of her household. If she was active in her
house, she seemed to know nothing of the exercises of religion; if she occupied
herself with God and his worship, she seemed to be a stranger to every earthly
occupation: she was whole in everything. Experiences had instilled into her
unbounded confidence in the effects of believing prayer; therefore she was most
diligent in supplications, and by prayer overcame even the deepest feelings of grief
over her own and others’ sufferings. She had by this means attained such
control over her spirit, that in every sorrow she encountered, she never
uttered a plaintive tone before she had thanked God." He especially celebrates also her
extraordinary liberality and self-denying love for the poor and the sick. But
it seems to be not in perfect harmony with this, that he relates of her:
"Towards heathen women she was so intolerant, that she never offered her
mouth or hand to them in salutation.1967 She ate no salt with those who came from the unhallowed altars of
idols. Pagan temples she did not look at, much less would she have stepped upon
their ground; and she was as far from visiting the theatre." Of course her piety moved entirely in the
spirit of that time, bore the stamp of ascetic legalism rather than of
evangelical freedom, and adhered rigidly to certain outward forms. Significant
also is her great reverence for sacred things. "She did not venture to
turn her back upon the holy table, or to spit upon the floor of the
church." Her death was worthy of a
holy life. At a great age, in the church which her husband had built almost
entirely with his own means, she died, holding fast with one hand to the altar
and raising the other imploringly to heaven, with the words: "Be gracious
to me, O Christ, my King!" Amidst
universal sorrow, especially among the widows and orphans whose comfort and
help she had been, she was laid to rest by the side of her husband near the
graves of the martyrs. Her affectionate son says in one of the poems in which
he extols her piety and her blessed end: "Bewail, O mortals, the mortal
race; but when one dies, like Nonna, praying, then weep I not."
Gregory was early instructed in
the Holy Scriptures and in the rudiments of science. He soon conceived a
special predilection for the study of oratory, and through the influence of his
mother, strengthened by a dream,1968 he determined on the celibate
life, that he might devote himself without distraction to the kingdom of God.
Like the other church teachers of this period, he also gave this condition the
preference, and extolled it in orations and poems, though without denying the
usefulness and divine appointment of marriage. His father, and his friend
Gregory of Nyssa were among the few bishops who lived in wedlock.
From his native town he went for
his further education to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he probably already made
a preliminary acquaintance with Basil; then to Caesarea in Palestine, where
there were at that time celebrated schools of eloquence; thence to Alexandria,
where his revered Athanasius wore the supreme dignity of the church; and
finally to Athens, which still maintained its ancient renown as the seat of
Grecian science and art. Upon the voyage thither he survived a fearful storm,
which threw him into the greatest mental anguish, especially because, though
educated a Christian, he, according to a not unusual custom of that time, had
not yet received holy baptism, which was to him the condition of salvation. His
deliverance he ascribed partly to the intercession of his parents, who had
intimation of his peril by presentiments and dreams, and he took it as a second
consecration to the spiritual office.
In Athens be formed or
strengthened the bond of that beautiful Christian friendship with Basil, of
which we have already spoken in the life of Basil. They were, as Gregory says,
as it were only one soul animating two bodies. He became acquainted also with
the prince Julian, who was at that time studying there, but felt wholly
repelled by him, and said of him with prophetic foresight: "What evil is
the Roman empire here educating for itself!"1969 He was afterwards a bitter antagonist of Julian, and wrote two
invective discourses against him after his death, which are inspired, however,
more by the fire of passion than by pure enthusiasm for Christianity, and which
were intended to expose him to universal ignominy as a horrible monument of
enmity to Christianity and of the retributive judgment of God.1970
Friends wished him to settle in
Athens as a teacher of eloquence, but he left there in his thirtieth year, and
returned through Constantinople, where he took with him his brother Caesarius,
a distinguished physician,1971 to his native city and his parents’ house. At this time
his baptism took place. With his whole soul he now threw himself into a strict
ascetic life. He renounced innocent enjoyments, even to music, because they
flatter the senses. "His food was bread and salt, his drink water, his bed
the bare ground, his garment of coarse, rough cloth. Labor filled the day;
praying, singing, and holy contemplation, a great part of the night. His
earlier life, which was anything but loose, only not so very strict, seemed to
him reprehensible; his former laughing now cost him many tears. Silence and quiet
meditation were law and pleasure to him."1972 Nothing but love to his parents restrained him from entire
seclusion, and induced him, contrary to talent and inclination, to assist his
father in the management of his household and his property.
But he soon followed his
powerful bent toward the contemplative life of solitude, and spent a short time
with Basil in a quiet district of Pontus in prayer, spiritual contemplations,
and manual labors. "Who will transport me," he afterwards wrote to
his friend concerning this visit,1973 "back to those former
days, in which I revelled with thee in privations? For voluntary poverty is after all far more honorable than
enforced enjoyment. Who will give me back those songs and vigils? who, those
risings to God in prayer, that unearthly, incorporeal life, that fellowship and
that spiritual harmony of brothers raised by thee to a God-like life? who, the ardent
searching of the Holy Scriptures, and the light which, under the guidance of
the Spirit, we found therein?"
Then he mentions the lesser enjoyments of the beauties of surrounding
nature.
On a visit to his parents’
house, Gregory against his will, and even without his previous knowledge, was
ordained presbyter by his father before the assembled congregation on a feast
day of the year 361. Such forced elections and ordinations, though very
offensive to our taste, were at that time frequent, especially upon the urgent
wish of the people, whose voice in many instances proved to be indeed the voice
of God. Basil also, and Augustine, were ordained presbyters, Athanasius and
Ambrose bishops, against their will. Gregory fled soon after, it is true, to
his friend in Pontus, but out of regard to his aged parents and the pressing
call of the church, he returned to Nazianzum towards Easter in 362, and
delivered his first pulpit discourse, in which he justified himself in his
conduct, and said: "It has its advantage to hold back a little from the
call of God, as Moses, and after him Jeremiah, did on account of their age; but
it has also its advantage to come forward readily, when God calls, like Aaron
and Isaiah; provided both be done with a devout spirit, the one on account of
inherent weakness, the other in reliance upon the strength of him who
calls." His enemies accused him of
haughty contempt of the priestly office; but he gave as the most important
reason of his flight, that he did not consider himself worthy to preside over a
flock, and to undertake the care of immortal souls, especially in such stormy
times.
Basil, who, as metropolitan, to
strengthen the catholic interest against Arianism, set about the establishment
of new bishoprics in the small towns of Cappadocia, intrusted to his young
friend one such charge in Sasima, a poor market town at the junction of three
highways, destitute of water, verdure, and society, frequented only by rude
wagoners, and at the time an apple of discord between him and his opponent, the
bishop Anthimus of Tyana. A very strange way of showing friendship,
unjustifiable even by the supposition that Basil wished to exercise the
humility and self-denial of Gregory.1974 No wonder that, though a bishopric in itself was of no account to
Gregory, this act deeply wounded his sense of honor, and produced a temporary
alienation between him and Basil.1975 At the combined request of his friend and his aged father, he
suffered himself indeed to be consecrated to the new office; but it is very
doubtful whether he ever went to Sasima.1976 At all events we soon afterwards find him in his solitude, and
then again, in 372, assistant of his father in Nazianzum. In a remarkable discourse
delivered in the presence of his father in 372, he represented to the
congregation his peculiar fluctuation between an innate love of the
contemplative life of seclusion and the call of the Spirit to public labor.
"Come to my help,"
said he to his hearers,1977 "for I am almost torn asunder by my inward longing
and by the Spirit. The longing urges me to flight, to solitude in the
mountains, to quietude of soul and body, to withdrawal of spirit from all
sensuous things, and to retirement into myself, that I may commune undisturbed
with God, and be wholly penetrated by the rays of His Spirit .... But the
other, the Spirit, would lead me into the midst of life, to serve the common
weal, and by furthering others to further myself, to spread light, and to
present to God a people for His possession, a holy people, a royal priesthood
(Tit. ii. 14; 1 Pet. ii. 9), and His image again purified in many. For as a
whole garden is more than a plant, and the whole heaven with all its beauties
is more glorious than a star, and the whole body more excellent than one
member, so also before God the whole well-instructed church is better than one
well-ordered person, and a man must in general look not only on his own things,
but also on the things of others. So Christ did, who, though He might have
remained in His own dignity and divine glory, not only humbled Himself to the
form of a servant, but also, despising all shame, endured the death of the
cross, that by His suffering He might blot out sin, and by His death destroy
death."
Thus he stood a faithful helper
by the side of his venerable and universally beloved father, who reached the
age of almost an hundred years, and had exercised the priestly office for
forty-five; and on the death of his father, in 374, he delivered a masterly
funeral oration, which Basil attended.1978 "There is," said he in this discourse, turning to his
still living mother, "only one life, to behold the (divine) life; there is
only one death_sin; for this is the corruption of the soul. But all else, for
the sake of which many exert themselves, is a dream which decoys us from the
true; it is a treacherous phantom of the soul. When we think so, O my mother,
then we shall not boast of life, nor dread death. For whatsoever evil we yet
endure, if we press out of it to true life, if we, delivered from every change,
from every vortex, from all satiety, from all vassalage to evil, shall there be
with eternal, no longer changeable things, as small lights circling around the
great."
A short time after he had been
invested with the vacant bishopric, he retired again, in 375, to his beloved
solitude, and this time be went to Seleucia in Isauria, to the vicinity of a
church dedicated to St. Thecla.
There the painful intelligence
reached him of the death of his beloved Basil, a.d. 379. On this occasion be wrote to Basil’s brother,
Gregory of Nyssa: "Thus also was it reserved for me still in this unhappy
life to hear of the death of Basil and the departure of this holy soul, which
is gone out from us, only to go in to the Lord, after having
already prepared itself for this through its whole life." He was at that time bodily and mentally very
much depressed. In a letter to the rhetorician Eudoxius he wrote: "You
ask, how it fares with me. Very badly. I no longer have Basil; I no longer have
Caesarius; my spiritual brother, and my bodily brother. I can say with David,
my father and my mother have forsaken me. My body is sickly, age is coming over
my head, cares become more and more complicated, duties overwhelm me, friends
are unfaithful, the church is without capable pastors, good declines, evil
stalks naked. The ship is going in the night, a light nowhere, Christ asleep.
What is to be done? O, there is to me
but one escape from this evil case: death. But the hereafter would be terrible
to me, if I had to judge of it by the present state."
But Providence had appointed him
yet a great work and in exalted position in the Eastern capital of the empire.
In the year 379 he was called to the pastoral charge by the orthodox church in
Constantinople, which, under the oppressive reign of Arianism, was reduced to a
feeble handful; and he was exhorted by several worthy bishops to accept the
call. He made his appearance unexpectedly. With his insignificant form bowed by
disease, his miserable dress, and his simple, secluded mode of life, he at
first entirely disappointed the splendor-loving people of the capital, and was
much mocked and persecuted.1979 But in spite of all he succeeded, by his powerful eloquence and
faithful labor, in building up the little church in faith and in Christian
life, and helped the Nicene doctrine again to victory. In memory of this
success his little domestic chapel was afterwards changed into a magnificent
church, and named Anastasia, the Church of the Resurrection.
People of all classes crowded to
his discourses, which were mainly devoted to the vindication of the Godhead of
Christ and to the Trinity, and at the same time earnestly inculcated a holy
walk befitting the true faith. Even the famous Jerome, at that time already
fifty years old, came from Syria to Constantinople to hear these discourses,
and took private instruction of Gregory in the interpretation of Scripture. He
gratefully calls him his preceptor and catechist.
The victory of the Nicene faith,
which Gregory had thus inwardly promoted in the imperial city, was outwardly
completed by the celebrated edict of the new emperor Theodosius, in February,
380. When the emperor, on the 24th of December of that year, entered
Constantinople, he deposed the Arian bishop, Demophilus, with all his clergy,
and transferred the cathedral church1980 to Gregory with the words:
"This temple God by our hand intrusts to thee as a reward for thy
pains." The people tumultuously
demanded him for bishop, but he decidedly refused. And in fact he was not yet released
from his bishopric of Nazianzum or Sasima (though upon the latter he had never
formally entered); he could be released only by a synod.
When Theodosius, for the formal
settlement of the theological controversies, called the renowned ecumenical
council in May, 381, Gregory was elected by this council itself bishop of
Constantinople, and, amidst great festivities, was inducted into the office. In
virtue of this dignity he held for a time the presidency of the council.
When the Egyptian and Macedonian
bishops arrived, they disputed the validity of his election, because, according
to the fifteenth canon of the council of Nice, he could not be transferred from
his bishopric of Sasima to another; though their real reason was, that the
election had been made without them, and that Gregory would probably be
distasteful to them as a bold preacher of righteousness. This deeply wounded
him. He was soon disgusted, too, with the operations of party passions in the
council, and resigned with the following remarkable declaration:
"Whatever this assembly may
hereafter determine concerning me, I would fain raise your mind beforehand to
something far higher: I pray you now, be one, and join yourselves in love! Must we always be only derided as
infallible, and be animated only by one thing, the spirit of strife? Give each other the hand fraternally. But I
will be a second Jonah. I will give myself for the salvation of our ship (the
church), though I am innocent of the storm. Let the lot fall upon me, and cast
me into the sea. A hospitable fish of the deep will receive me. This shall be
the beginning of your harmony. I reluctantly ascended the episcopal chair, and gladly
I now come down. Even my weak body advises me this. One debt only have I to
pay: death; this I owe to God. But, O my Trinity! for Thy sake only am I sad.
Shalt Thou have an able man, bold and zealous to vindicate Thee? Farewell, and remember my labors and my
pains."
In the celebrated valedictory
which be delivered before the assembled bishops, he gives account of his
administration; depicts the former humiliation and the present triumph of the
Nicene faith in Constantinople, and his own part in this great change, for
which he begs repose as his only reward; exhorts his hearers to harmony and
love; and then takes leave of Constantinople and in particular of his beloved
church, with this address:
"And now, farewell, my
Anastasia, who bearest a so holy name; thou hast exalted again our faith, which
once was despised; thou, our common field of victory, thou new Shiloh, where we
first established again the ark of the covenant, after it had been carried
about for forty years on our wandering in the wilderness."
Though this voluntary
resignation of so high a post proceeded in part from sensitiveness and
irritation, it is still an honorable testimony to the character of Gregory in
contrast with the many clergy of his time who shrank from no intrigues and
by-ways to get possession of such dignities. He left Constantinople in June,
381, and spent the remaining years of his life mostly in solitude on his
paternal estate of Arianzus in the vicinity of Nazianzum, in religious
exercises and literary pursuits. Yet he continued to operate through numerous
epistles upon the affairs of the church, and took active interest in the
welfare and sufferings of the men around him. The nearer death approached, the
more he endeavored to prepare himself for it by contemplation and rigid ascetic
practice, that he "might be, and might more and more become, in truth a
pure mirror of God and of divine things; might already in hope enjoy the
treasures of the future world; might walk with the angels; might already
forsake the earth, while yet walking upon it; and might be transported into
higher regions by the Spirit." In
his poems he describes himself, living solitary in the
