_Gr._ St. Gregory Theologos. _Lat._ S. Gregorius Nazianzenus. _Ital._
San Gregorio Nazianzeno. _Fr._ St. Grégoire de Naziance. _Ger._ St.
Gregor von Nazianz. (May 9, A.D. 390.)
This Doctor, like St. Basil, was one of a family of saints; his father,
St. Gregory, having been bishop of Nazianzus before him; his mother,
St. Nonna, famous for her piety; and two of his sisters, St. Gorgonia
and St. Cesarea, also canonized. Gregory was born about the year 328;
and his mother, who fondly believed that he had been granted to her
prayers, watched over his early education, and guided his first steps
in piety and literature. When a boy, he had a singular dream, which he
has related himself. He beheld in his sleep two virgins of celestial
beauty; they were clothed in white garments, and their faces shone
upon him like two stars out of heaven: they took him in their arms and
kissed him as if he had been their child. He, charmed by their virgin
beauty and their caresses, asked who they were, and whence they came?
One of them replied, ‘I am called Chastity, and my sister here is
Temperance; we come to thee from Paradise, where we stand continually
before the throne of Christ, and taste ineffable delights: come to us,
my son, and dwell with us for ever;’ and having spoken thus, they left
him and flew upwards to heaven. He followed them with longing eyes till
they disappeared, and as he stretched his arms towards them he awoke.
This dream—how natural in a boy educated between a tender mother, who
had shielded him, as only mothers can, against all sinful temptations,
and a lovely and saintly sister!—he regarded as a direct revelation
from heaven: it decided his future life, and he made a vow of perpetual
continence and temperance. Like the other Greek doctors, he began
by the study of profane literature and rhetoric. He went to Athens,
where he formed an enduring friendship with St. Basil, and pursued
his studies with Julian, afterwards Cæsar and Apostate. After leaving
Athens, in his thirtieth year, he was baptized; and, devoting himself
solemnly to the service of God and the study of the Scriptures, like
his friend Basil, he destroyed his health by his austerities and
mortifications: he confesses that they were wholly repugnant to his
nature —a nature sensitive, imaginative, poetical; but this of course
only added to their merit and efficacy. His aged father withdrew
him from his solitude, and ordained him as his coadjutor: in 362 he
succeeded to the bishopric of Nazianzus: but great part of his time
was still spent at Constantinople, whither he was invited to preach
against the Arians. It was a strange spectacle to see, in the capital
of the world, a man, from a distant province and an obscure town, of
small shrunken stature, bald-headed, wrinkled, haggard with vigils and
fasting, poor, ill-clothed, and in his address unpolished and abrupt,
stand up to oppose himself to a luxurious court and prevalent sect.
The people began by stoning him; but at length his earnestness and
eloquence overcame all opposition.
Religious disputes were the fashion at that time in Constantinople,
not merely among the priesthood, but among the laity, the lawyers, and
above all the women, who were heard, in assemblies and at feasts, at
home and abroad, declaiming and arguing on the most abstruse mysteries
of the evangelical doctrine, till they lost temper and modesty:—so
true it is, that there is nothing new under the sun. This was in 378,
and St. Gregory found more difficulty in silencing their squabbles
than in healing the schisms of the Church. He was ordained Bishop of
Constantinople by the favour of Theodosius; but, unable to endure the
odious cabals and uncharitable contests which at that time distracted
and disgraced Christianity, he resigned his sacred office, and retired
to a small paternal estate, where he lived, with his usual self-denial
and austerity, till his death. He composed in his retreat a number of
beautiful poems in his native Greek: he was, in fact, the earliest
Christian poet on record. These poems are not hymns only, but lyrics,
in which he poured forth his soul, his aspirations, his temptations,
his joys, his sufferings, his plaintive supplications to Christ, to
aid him in his perpetual combats against a too vivid imagination, and
feelings and passions which not even age and penance had subdued.
* * * * *
St. Gregory Nazianzen ought to be represented as an old man wasted
by fasting and vigils, with a bald head, a long beard of a reddish
colour, and eyebrows the same. He is always the last in a series of
the Four Greek Fathers, and, though often occurring in Greek Art,
the popularity of St. Gregory the GREAT has completely banished St.
Gregory the POET from Western Art.
There remains, however, a very valuable and singular monument to the
honour of St. Gregory Nazianzen, in the Greek MS. of his sermons
preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris, and adorned with Byzantine
miniatures, which must once have been beautiful and brilliant: ruined
as they are, they present some of the most ancient examples which
remain to us of the treatment of many sacred subjects from the Old and
the New Testament, and give a high idea of the classic taste and the
skill of the Byzantine limners of the ninth century. Besides the sacred
subjects, we have numerous scenes interspersed from the life of Gregory
himself, his friend St. Basil, and the Emperor Theodosius. As these are
subjects which are exceptional, I need not describe them. Of the style
of the miniatures I have already spoken, and given one example (_v._ p.
75).