Select Orations

Introduction

INTRODUCTION The sermons translated here represent those omitted from the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church.1 Since Orations 4 and 5, Against Julian, are easily accessible in the translation of C. W. King,2 they have not been included in the present volume. Of the remaining nineteen sermons, although a few, notably Orations 14 and 15, On Love for the Poor and In Praise of the Maccabees respectively,3 have been previously translated, most are appearing here in English for the first time. These sermons span all the phases of Gregory’s ecclesiastical career , beginning with his service as a parish priest assisting his father , the elder Gregory, in his hometown of Nazianzus in the early 360’s, to his stormy tenure as bishop of Constantinople from 379–81, to his subsequent return to Nazianzus and role as interim caretaker of his home church (382–83). The subject matter is similarly diverse and ranges from the purely theological to the deeply personal, but throughout Gregory stands revealed as an individual deeply engaged in the pursuit of social and political justice, whether this pursuit is conducted in an overt or covert manner. Finally, Gregory expresses himself in a variety of rhetorical formats such as the lalia and encomium. In comparison to most of his contemporaries, Gregory led a 1. Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen, trans. C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace, 2d series, vol. 7 (1894; reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson , 1995), pp. 203–434. 2. C. W. King, The Emperor Julian (London, 1888), pp. 1–121. 3. M. F. Toal trans. and ed., The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, vol. 4 (Chicago and New York: Regnery, 1963; reprint, Swedesboro, N.J.: Preservation Press, 1996), pp. 43–64. There is also a partial translation of Homily 14 in Peter C. Phan, Social Thought (Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1984), pp. 122–26 and in The Liturgy of the Hours, vol. 2 (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1976), pp. 96–97. J. Collier, A Panegyrick upon the Maccabees by St. Gregory Nazianzen (London, 1716). xiii very privileged existence. Born to wealthy, landowning parents around 329, he received the best education money could buy, beginning at home in Nazianzus, then on to Caesarea, the provincial capital of Cappadocia, before proceeding abroad for graduate work in rhetoric in Alexandria and Athens, where he studied with the Christian Prohaeresius. The friendships that Gregory made during his student days with Basil, the future bishop of Caesarea, and Julian, who was to become an important treasury official, were enduring ones. And Gregory’s lifelong love of learning and devotion to the authors of classical antiquity such as Homer and Plato stand as a testament to the dedication of the teachers who inspired him. Indeed, Gregory seems to have been on the verge of becoming a perennial student when he decided to return home in 358–59 and was subsequently ordained a priest against his will by his own father in 361. This tyrannical exercise of paternal prerogative not only ensured that Gregory would stay close to home at least until his parents’ deaths in 374, but also freed his younger brother, Caesarius, to pursue a secular career as a physician at the imperial court in Constantinople. Gregory never got over the sense of betrayal or his resentment that the choice between the contemplative and active life had been taken completely out of his hands. These negative feelings only intensi fied ten years later when his best friend Basil, now bishop of Caesarea, acting in collusion with the elder Gregory, consecrated him bishop of Sasima in 372 in order to further his own ecclesiastical ambitions. Although Gregory never failed in his duty as a pastor or a bishop, he also never forgot the treachery of those closest to him and from time to time withdrew from active participation in worldly affairs to practice philosophy, that is, solitary contemplation. The sermons from the first phase of Gregory’s career (361– 79) reveal the influence that these events had on him both personally and professionally. Yet however much Gregory may have longed for monastic life, he nonetheless remained in the world and, despite his protestations of indifference, fully engaged in worldly affairs. Worldly affairs, both then and now, included politics, local as well as national. For Gregory, the central...