Select Orations

ORATION 23

ORATION 23 Third Oration on Peace. On the accord that we of common faith have reached following our quarrel.1 eal is fervent, the Spirit is gentle, love is something kind, or rather, the very essence of kindness, and hope something long-suffering. Zeal lights a fire, the Spirit soothes, hope abides, and love binds together the good that is within us and does not permit it to dissolve, even though our nature is subject to dissolution, and one of three things may happen to it: love either remains as it is, or, if it is disturbed, steadies itself, or, if it is deflected it returns, just like plants that have been forcibly bent back with our hands and then released.2 They quickly revert to their true nature and in so doing show their basic proclivity: they can be made to bend by force but they do not right themselves by force. For vice is by nature something easily accessible and the road to corruption wide, a torrent tumbling straight down or a bit of brush that is easily kindled by wind and spark and, as it turns to flame, con1 . PG 35.1152B–68A. The date of this homily as well as its relationship to Or. 6 and 22 is problematic because the internal evidence is so ambiguous as to preclude the positive identification of the quarrel referred to in the title and thus the time and place of its delivery. A related difficulty concerns the identity of the father and son mentioned in section 5. If, as many have assumed, Gregory is referring to himself and his own father, then Or. 23 must antedate 374, the year of the elder Gregory’s death. On this basis, the most recent editor, J. Mossay, follows the ancient tradition and groups it with Or. 6, given at Nazianzus in 364, noting that intellectually Or. 23 is closer to Gregory’s student days in Athens than to his episcopal career in Constantinople. However, the same observation could also be made of Or. 25, and other scholars such as J. Bernardi, La prédication des pères cappadociens (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), pp. 177–81, place Or. 23 after Or. 22, assigning its delivery to Constantinople in 380. See SC 270, pp. 260–75, and, for the related problem of the title of this homily, Or. 22, n. 1. 2. This image also appears in Or. 6.8. and 20.5 131 sumes itself along with the product of its own creation. For fire is the product that matter produces, as well as the agent of its destruction, just as vice destroys the vicious and vanishes along with what feeds it. If one has nurtured some good quality that has molded his character, transgression becomes more difficult than becoming good in the first place, for every virtue that is firmly rooted by time and reason becomes second nature, as does the love within us too, with which we worship the true love and which we have folded to our hearts in love and adopted as the guiding principle for all our existence. 2. Where then are those who keep a close watch on our affairs , successes and failures alike, not to judge them, but to voice their disapproval; not to share in our happiness but to gloat over us and belittle our accomplishments and in melodramatic tones to magnify our faults and use the lapses of their neighbors as an excuse for their own miserable conduct? Would theirs were a fair evaluation! For there would be a certain bene- fit even in bile,3 as the proverb has it, if fear of the enemy could keep us more secure; as it is, their judgment of us is tainted by hostility and a malevolence that beclouds their minds, so that even their invective lacks credibility. Where then are those who hate the Godhead as much as they hate us? This is the most magnificent thing to happen to us: we are put in the dock together with God. Just where, we ask you, are those judges who are lenient when their own personal affairs are concerned but ruthless in their scrutiny of matters affecting others so that here too they may misrepresent the truth? Just where, we ask you, are those who berate us for our bruises when they bear the marks of wounds themselves? who ridicule us for stumbling when they themselves fall down flat...