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ORATION 24

ORATION 24 In praise of Cyprian, the holy martyr and saint, when Gregory had returned from the country the day after the celebration.1 e nearly forgot cyprian!2 What an opportunity we missed! And you, his greatest admirers, who hold a festival in his honor every year, allowed it to pass: Cyprian, whom we should make a special effort to remember even if we are inclined to forget everything else. It is especially important to honor the memory of exemplary individuals because commemorating them is at once an act of piety and a step toward moral betterment. So let us repay our debt with the interest due if we truly have sufficient resources to do so and are not thoroughly impoverished and destitute. But even if we are very much so, I am sure that he will forgive us not only our late payment but also our destitution since he is a man who is in every respect generous as well as reasonable. We have but to give thanks that we have not forgotten him entirely. Let us then offer thanks. It is only fitting that we do so. And at the outset, let us express our gratitude that it is at such an opportune moment and according to God’s good measures, who orders and regulates all things by weight and measure,3 that we have returned to you, forsaking silence for speech, the friend of martyrs4 for the 1. PG 35.1169D–94C. Delivered October 379 in Constantinople. 2. Gregory has confused Cyprian of Carthage, who was martyred under Valerian in 258, with a legendary figure of the same name, who was a professional sorcerer in Pisidian Antioch before his martyrdom at Nicomedia under Diocletian in 304. Both men were Christian converts who became bishops and were executed by decapitation. 3. Wis 11.20. 4. This sermon contains an unusually large number of references to women, beginning with this unnamed “friend of the martyrs,” who may be one of Gregory ’s relatives. 142 martyrs themselves, and the recreation of the flesh for a feast of the spirit. 2. We missed you, my children, and I believe that we, too, were missed to an equal degree. You see a father’s affection: I am attesting to your feelings as much as I am stating my own. After being separated from one another long enough for us to have brought out our mutual longing and confirmed it by the vantage point of distance, as painters do their paintings, we have been reunited once again. How brightly glows the memory of friends and how brief the time we have with them if we have a loving heart, one that reflects God’s love of mankind! As the disciples of Christ, who for our sake emptied himself to the point of adopting a servant’s form5 and has gathered to himself those alienated from the blessings of heaven,6 how could we not reach out and embrace one another and maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,7 which is the hidden meaning, the sum and substance, if you will, of the Law and the Prophets? 3. The one, and the first happy consequence is this, that we ran to one another’s arms as fast as we could. Intense emotion does not tolerate delay; for those in the throes of love a single day is an entire lifetime. But the second and most important is that we have not rushed late to the feast and missed the joyous and spiritually invigorating experience that the rites by which we honor martyrs make us feel. As for myself, I admit that, where all other things are concerned, I am more indifferent than anyone else. Ever since I joined the ranks of Christ, I have divested myself of desire in all its forms. None of the pleasures that others pursue holds attraction for me, not wealth, grubby and fickle, not gastronomical pleasures and satiety, the father of insolence, not soft and flowing robes, not the charm of glittery jewels, not sounds enchanting to the ear, not effeminate perfumes , not the madding applause of crowds and theaters which we have long since abandoned to whoever wants it, not one of the things that have their genesis in that first taste that brought us death; but I also condemn as gross fools those who allow ORATION 24 143 5. Cf. Phil 2.7. 6. Cf. Eph 2.12...