The zenith of Gregory's public career, 381–386
biography there. Of the various dates proposed for Gregory's homily on Theodore, that of Bernardi: February 381, best fits the chronology presented here.101
To this period also can be assigned the small treatise–letters on the Trinity, letter 33 to Eustathius the physician on the Holy Trinity, letter 35 To Peter his brother on the divine ousia and hypostasis, To the Greeks on common notions, and To Ablabius that there are not three gods. In these letter-treatises, Gregory's ongoing controversy with the Pneumatomachians who accused him of advocating three gods and the Eunomians who accused him of being a Sabellian, can be discerned. The truncated letter 24 to Heracleianus on Trinitarian doctrine is surely a specimen of many other such doctrinal letters from this period or a little later that have not survived.
The zenith of Gregory's public career, 381–386 In February 380, Gratian and Theodosius published the epochmaking edict that all their Christian subjects were to profess the faith of the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria.102 During that year they secured a tactical peace with the Goths. But before Theodosius could make his way to the eastern capital, he fell gravely ill at Thessalonika and asked Baptism from its bishop, Ascholius—once he had assured himself of the bishop's Nicene faith. But unexpectedly Theodosius revived. Thus it was as a baptized Christian, unusual for men of affairs in the secular world then, that Theodosius entered Constantinople for the first time on 24 November 380 as the Roman emperor of the east.103 Theodosius paid immediate attention to the ecclesiastical situation. Very shortly he was accompanying St Gregory Nazianzen, leader of the Neo-nicene faithful, into the cathedral of Hagia
Sophia and witnessing, if not his enthronement, at least his installation as administrator of the church in Constantinople.
Theodosius ordered a council to settle the affairs of the churches in the eastern empire in favour of the Nicene faith and to formalize Gregory Nazianzen's election as bishop. The council convened
101 J. Bernardi, La prédication des Pères Cappadociens (Paris: 1968), 303.
102 Cod. Theod. 'de Fide Catholica', 16.1.2; Sozomen H.E. 7.4.
103 Socrates H.E. 5.6, Orosius, Hist. 8.34, CSEL, 381; Chron. Pasch. PG 92, 762.
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in May 381. Daniélou104 argues that Gregory preached the opening address, and it survives in the work misleadingly called On his own ordination.105 Amid the many tumults of that council—so well rehearsed by Gregory Nazianzen—the venerable Meletius of Antioch, first president of the council, died suddenly towards the end of May. Gregory of Nyssa was chosen as the eulogist, and preached his Funeral Oration on Meletius, Bishop of Antioch. Jerome preserves an interesting sidelight on Gregory's activities at the council, for he too was present at the council, and together with Gregory Nazianzen listened to Gregory reading from his Contra Eunomium I.106
The council fathers drew up a list of bishops whom they proposed as standard-bearers of Neo-nicene orthodoxy. The list was ratified by an edict of Theodosius on 30 July, 381,107 according to which certain bishops were nominated for various regions, communion with whom would be reckoned as proof of orthodoxy. The three chosen for the civil diocese of Pontica were Helladius of Cæsarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Otreius of Melitene. The fact that Helladius, a metropolitan, and one of his bishops were together appointed to the same ecclesiastical pre-eminence, perhaps bore the seeds of future trouble between the two men. Gregory's brilliant, wonderful Letter 1 is eloquent testimony to the mounting disaster of their relationship. Letter
17, written to the presbyters of Nicomedia probably in the late 380s/390, passionately exhorts them on the qualities to be looked for in choosing a bishop. Awareness of Helladius' simony, and many other sad experiences of fractious church affairs, had stirred Gregory to a deep religious passion for the remedying of the churches.
According to Theodoret, HE 5.8.4, Gregory's brother Peter was also at the council of Constantinople. One can well imagine a congenial scene: Gregory travels up to Annisa, where he collects Peter
104 'Chronologie', p. 357.
105 There are 'for example, the references to discussions on the Holy Spirit, the mention of the expected arrival of delegates from Egypt'. And in the funeral oration for Meletius Gregory 'clearly refers to his discourse on his Ordination. 'This is a decisive proof of its date', From Glory to Glory, 1961/1995 repr. p. 72, n. 29. May concurs with this dating, 'Die Chronologie' p. 59. Tillemont had assigned the homily to Gregory's last appearance in Constantinople in 394. He is followed by R. Staats,
'Die Asketen aus Mesopotamien in der Rede des Gregor von Nyssa In Suam Ordinationem', Vigiliae Christianae 21 (1967), 165–179.
106 de Viris Illustribus 128, PL 23.713.
107 Cod. Theod. 16.1.3, Sozomen H.E. 7.9.6.
biography and travels with him along the Via Pontica to the capital, just as Basil and himself had once travelled the same route in Eustathius' entourage to the council of 360. Since Neo-nicene orthodoxy was now to be established throughout the churches of the eastern empire with imperial backing, the aftermath of this council seems the most suitable moment to date Peter's election as bishop of Sebasteia, replacing a heterodox successor to Gregory himself.108
The council ended in July 381. Gregory's special mission to visit the churches in Arabia and Jerusalem, reported in letters 2 and 3, is far better dated after this council of 381 than after the council of Antioch in 379, as Tillemont and many following him had proposed.
There was simply no time for such a lengthy mission further south in that hurried year of 379.109 It appears that the mission to Arabia concerned strife over the see of Bozra. Daniélou mentions also that the 'antidicomarianite' heresy, which denied Mary's perpetual virginity, was at its height. Gregory's interest in the figure of Mary is discernible in the letter 3 written soon after his return home.110
The scarifying experiences in Jerusalem that Gregory reports in that letter brought home to him how necessary it was to give further attention to Christological issues. Through the winter of 381/382 he completed his Against Apollinaris, in which he mentions his recent long journey, evidently the mission to Arabia. At Easter 382 he preached his 2nd sermon on the Pasch or the Resurrection in Nyssa, which takes up again the subject matter of his Against Apollinaris and letter 3. This sermon, says Daniélou,111 also shows his shift to Scripture which characterizes his evolution at this period. Thus Gregory's theological preoccupations in 382 turned increasingly to Christology, as in the previous year they had been with the Trinity and with the Holy Spirit.
108 On this dating of Peter's succession to Sebasteia see Maraval, Lettres, 288 n. 1.
109 Maraval, Lettres 35–38, argues at length for this later dating. He notes especially the figure of Cyril of Jerusalem, who at the very least was not one of Gregory's defenders. Maraval suggests that Gregory's Word/Man Christology did not commend itself to certain partisans of Nicaea, since it seemed to imperil the immutability of the divine Word and to involve the divine nature in change. It was not impossible that Cyril, with his Word/Flesh Christology was among these objectors.
See letter 3.12–13 and note.
110 From Glory to Glory, 1961/1995 repr. p. 7.
111 Chronologie 361.
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Another work completed soon after his great journey south, probably through the winter of 381/382, was the VSM, since the introductory letter mentions his recent trip south from Antioch. The VSM is a much more considered reflection on the events surrounding his sister's death that he had reported briefly in letter 19 shortly after the event.
May112 considers that the On the Holy Spirit, against the Macedonians was another follow-up of the 381 council, since in discussing the worship of the Holy Spirit, it deals with quite specific comments of the Pneumatomachians that seem to have arisen in oral controversy, and the work evinces key words on the Holy Spirit added to the Nicene creed by the council.
During 382 Gregory completed the second book of his Contra Eunomium113 a reply to the second book of Eunomius' Apologia pro
Apologia, and in it he alludes to his own Hexaemeron.114 There is a passage in the introduction to this work in which Gregory represents his own motivation in working so hard to combat heterodox theologians. It is also an excellent example of the perfect marriage in Gregory of rhetorical art and transparent personal sincerity:
Let no one think that it is through love of honour or desire of human glory that I go down eagerly to grapple with the foe in this truceless and implacable war. For if it were possible for me to lead a peaceful life not meddling with anyone, it would be far from my inclination to willingly disturb my tranquillity and by offering provocation of my own accord to stir up a war against myself. But now that the City of God, the Church, is besieged, and the great wall of the faith is battered by the encircling engines of heresy, and there is no small danger that the word of the Lord may be swept into captivity by the onslaught of demons, I consider it a fearful thing not to take part in the agonia of Christians. Hence I have not turned aside to tranquillity, but regard the sweat of these toils as preferable to the tranquillity of repose.115
There is no particular evidence that Gregory attended the followup synod in Constantinople in 382, which has led some to propose that his trip to Arabia may be dated to this year rather than the 112 'Die Chronologie,' p. 59.
113 Appearing as C.E. XIIB or XIII in PG 45.909–1121, now restored by Jaeger as C.E. II, GNO 1.226–409; tr. NPNF ser. 2 vol. 5,250–314.
114 GNO 1.291 line 28.
115 C.E. II, GNO 1.228 lines 7–21.
biography previous year. But it seems probable that he used the time to labour on his dense theological writing. Through another productive winter and into 383, Gregory finally finished the third book of his Contra
Eunomium, a huge tome, by far the longest of controversial writings against Eunomius, and indeed of any of his works.116
In that year (383) Peter was in his early days as bishop of Sebasteia.
There occurred to him an excellent way of consolidating his own position and confirming his church in sound faith. He had the relics of his predecessor Bishop Peter I of Sebasteia brought back to the metropolis and decided to establish the cult of his predecessor on the great dies memorabilis of the city: the Feast of the Forty Martyrs, whose cult Peter I himself had once established. Symbolically the whole exercise was to represent a return to the unity of the faith of 'the olden times', after the long hiatus of the first Peter's successors,
Eulalius and Eustathius.117 Peter II invited his famous brother Gregory to attend the festivities and to preach, and so Gregory came to Sebasteia in far happier circumstances that his visit in 380 (Letter
1.5b). It was then that Gregory delivered his First homily on the Forty Martyrs, divided into two parts, 1a and 1b, at Sebasteia—not, Daniélou argues,118 during his sojourn there in 380, but during Lent 383.119
This accords well with the date of the martyrs' feast day: 9 March.
The second part would then have been delivered on the following day, 10 March 383. While staying in Sebasteia Gregory no doubt took counsel with his brother Peter over his current literary task, the Contra Eunomium III.
The emperor Theodosius convened another council at Constantinople in May 383, at which he required representatives of the Eunomians and the Pneumatomachians to submit professions of their faith. It was on this occasion that Gregory preached his dogmatic homily On the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the themes of which accorded precisely with the object of the council. In speak116 It appears as C.E. Book III-XII in PG 45.572–908, now restored by Jaeger as C.E. III in GNO 2.1–311; tr. NPNF ser. 2 vol. 5, 135–229.
117 'of olden times', from Gregory's comments on the disunity in the faith at Sebasteia, letter 19.7. Eulalius (probably Eustathius' father) had been on Arius's side at the council of Nicaea; Eustathius, a Homoiousian in league with Basil in the 360s against Eunomius, turned against Basil in the 370s, when he espoused a Pneumatomachian position and courted Valens' favour.
118 Chronologie 362.
119 Daniélou thinks that letter 1 is to be dated later in the 380s.
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ing of 'the four royal luminaries', Gregory was referring obliquely to Arcadius, whom his father had appointed Augustus on January 16 that year. It is in this homily that we find his famous characterization of the overheated theological atmosphere in the eastern capital:
It is a city full of earnest theological disputes, everyone talking and declaiming in the squares, in the market places, at the cross-roads, in the alley ways. If you ask anyone for change of silver, he will debate with you whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten. If you ask for the price of a loaf, you will receive the answer 'The Father is greater, the Son is less'. If you ask whether the bath is prepared, you will be solemnly told that 'There was nothing before the Son was created'.'120
During this council Eunomius presented his Profession of Faith. Gregory subsequently wrote a detailed critique of it for the Emperor. This in a way constitutes a 'fourth' treatise against Eunomius, though it is not really part of the ordered sequence of Gregory's own books.121
Gregory very possibly wrote his On the Soul and the Resurrection in the following winter of 383/384, since the previous winter had been fully occupied with the Contra Eunomium III. He certainly wrote it after the VSM, because it very considerably expands an episode described in VSM 17–18, where he had expressed his desire to revisit his conversation with his sister at greater length. Thus three documents concerning Macrina emanate one from the other in an unfolding, constantly deepening meditation on the events of her life, her doctrine and her death: letter 19.6–10 is expanded in the form of the VSM; VSM 17–18 in turn is greatly expanded in the form of On the Soul and the Resurrection. This latter is in the form of a philosophical dialogue. Macrina figures as the 'teacher' who fields the objections raised by Gregory concerning life after death, anthropology (what man was created to be and how this original constitution is affected by the Fall) and eschatology (concerning his ultimate destiny). It shows both a willingness to depart from certain positions taken by Origen and yet maintains Origen's line on apocatastasis, the idea of a final restoration of all things in God and the cessation of evil and Hell—a position, it might be noted, vigorously repudiated by Basil in his Shorter Responses 267.
120 Oratio de deitate Filii et Sancti Spiritus 4, PG 46.553–576 at 557–558.
121 In the confusing rearrangements of Gregory's C.E. of a later era, it was used to replace the original C.E. II. It appears as C.E. II in PG 45.464–572, now restored by Jaeger as A Refutation of Eunomius' Profession, GNO 2.312–410; tr. NPNF ser. 2 vol. 5, 101–134.
biography The winter of 384/385 is one of those for which we are least informed about Gregory's activities. So Daniélou122 is glad to be able to situate here Gregory's Against the Pneumatomachoi, the last of his great dogmatic treatises.
Gregory's spent quite some time at Constantinople in 385, arriving in May for the council that year, and staying until well into the autumn. During this long visit he had many contacts with the intellectual elites and the pagan philosophers of the capital, as he intimates in the treatise Against Fate written at the beginning of 386. It must also have about this time that he renewed and deepened his acquaintance with that great and holy lady of Constantinople,
Olympias, whom he had probably met for the first time in 381. It was to her that he later dedicated his homilies On the Song of Songs.
Marking the zenith of the honour he was accorded in Theodosius' court, he preached two funeral orations, the first for the emperor's daughter, and the second for his wife. Allusion to the earthquake in Nicomedia on 24 August 358 helps fix the date of Funeral discourse on Pulcheria, to 24 August 385. Scarcely a few weeks had passed when Pulcheria's mother, the saintly Empress also died, perhaps 14
September. His Funeral Oration on the Empress Flacilla attests the empress's unease and perhaps his own, at the degree to which Arians and pagans continued to flourish in the capital.123
The matter of the pagan intellectuals stayed on Gregory's mind after he returned home. In the winter of 386/387 he completed a comprehensive exposition of the Catholic faith for their use, the Catechetical discourse, also known as the Great Catechesis. Quasten says of it: 'It represents the first attempt after Origen's de Principiis to create a systematic theology. Gregory gives a remarkable presentation of the principal dogmas and defends them against pagans, Jews and heretics. He seeks to establish the whole complex of Christian doctrines on a foundation of metaphysics rather than on the authority of scripture alone.'124 His full treatment of the sacraments is noteworthy. Baptism receives much attention, since the doctrine of the Trinity on which Gregory had laboured so long is so intimately bound up with it. He is the first Church writer to attempt to account
122 Daniélou, Chronologie, p. 364.
123 Daniélou, Chronologie, p. 365.
124 Johannes Quasten Patrology vol. 3 (Allen, Texas: Christian Classis, 2000), 262.
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metaphysically for what becomes of the bread and wine in the Divine Liturgy, for which he uses the verbal form of a Stoic term, metastoixei≈siw, lit. trans-elementation or transformation (ch. 37). Despite its doctrine of apocatastasis or universal restoration, which was eventually ruled inadmissible by the Church, the Catechetical discourse was a great success and found wide circulation. It can be dated somewhat by the fact that in Chapter 38 he refers to two earlier works, of which one is certainly the Contra Eunomium in which he dealt with doctrinal issues polemically, and the other one of a group of small non-polemical treatises To Ablabius, To Simplicius, or On Common Notions.
It is in the context of these contacts with cultivated pagans and Gregory's growing interest in liturgical commentary that we might date letter 4, to Eusebius, to about 387.
A series of homilies in the Christmas season of 386 attest the sequence of saints' feast-days as celebrated at that time, and give us one of the last glimpses of Gregory as theological polemicist. On the nativity of Christ, dated by Daniélou to 25 December 386 is one of the earliest testimonies to the celebration of a feast of the Nativity distinct from Epiphany in the Christian east. This was immediately followed by the Discourse on Saint Stephen, first martyr, in which Gregory attacks the Pneumatomachoi and the Christomachoi (Eunomians). The next day, Sunday 27 December 386, he preached his Second discourse on St Stephen which was dedicated for the most part to the Apostles
Peter, James and John celebrated on that day. On May 18, 388 he preached another sermon also important for the history of the liturgy,
On the Ascension of Christ, which is our earliest evidence for a distinct feast of the Ascension.
Throughout the early and mid 380s Gregory played a prominent role as a consultant theologian in the Church of the Eastern empire, specially in the capital and in the churches of eastern Anatolia and upper Syria. It is noticeable that his theological writings become increasingly engaged in Christological issues, stimulated by the growing success of Apollinarism. He wrote two works, the (Antirrhetic) against Apollinaris, written in c. 383, according to Daniélou,125 in 387 according to May,126 and the To Theophilus bishop of Alexandria written
125 J. Daniélou, 'Chronologie', 361.
126 G. May, 'Die Chronologie', p. 61, who argues, relying on Lietzmann and Mühlenberg, that Gregory Nazianzen did not learn of Apollinaris' Proof of the Divine
Incarnation, till 387.