Orations (other than the Theological Orations)

Contents

Orations 27–31 (the Theological Orations) are separate works on this site. Orations 1 and 13–17 are not yet on the site: the scan text used mislabels or lacks them, and Orations 3, 7, 9–12, 20, 23 and 24 are incomplete in it. Where the scan lost section numbers, several sections share one passage (each marked [n]); Oration 11 begins inside 10.3.

Reading pages: 2.2–2.33 · 2.35–2.37 · 2.38 · 2.39–2.41 · 3.1–4.27 · 4.28–4.59 · 4.60 · 5.2–5.22 · 5.23–6.1 · 6.3–6.15 · 6.17–7.17 · 7.18–7.21 · 8.1–8.22 · 9.1–11.5 · 12.1–18.13 · 18.15–18.31 · 18.32–18.42 · 19.2–19.17 · 20.1–21.13 · 21.19–21.35 · 22.1–22.15 · 23.1 · 24.2–24.4 · 25.1–25.13 · 26.1–32.2 · 32.3–32.25 · 32.26–32.32 · 33.1–33.17 · 34.1–35.4 · 36.1–37.8 · 37.9–37.24 · 38.1–38.16 · 39.1–40.4 · 40.5–40.23 · 40.26–40.43 · 40.44–41.15 · 42.1–42.20 · 42.21–43.10 · 43.12–43.29 · 43.30–43.52 · 43.53–43.57 · 43.58–43.60 · 44.1–45.9 · 45.10–45.30

1. 2.2Gregory begins his defence: order and rule in the church are God's arrangement, and a church without leaders would be crippled.
2. 2.5Rising from being ruled to ruling is no disgrace, and Gregory did not refuse the presbyterate from ambition for a higher rank.
3. 2.6Gregory gives the first causes of his flight: the shock of sudden ordination and his long love of quiet and withdrawal.
4. 2.7Gregory describes the contemplative life he longed for, which many mock because of unworthy practitioners.
5. 2.8Gregory was ashamed of unworthy men who push themselves into the clergy as a career.
6. 2.9Ruling souls is unlike tending animals: the ruler of men must be tested and pure, since his vice spreads to many.
7. 2.10Subjects catch their leader's vice faster than his virtue, as Haggai's question about holy and unclean contact shows.
8. 2.12Evil spreads easily and good with difficulty, so a leader must not be a bad model or a physician full of sores.
9. 2.14Freedom from sin is not enough for a leader: he must excel in good and never stop advancing.
10. 2.15A ruler must lead by excellence and persuasion, not by force.
11. 2.16Guiding souls is the art of arts, harder and nobler than medicine, which deals with perishable bodies.
12. 2.17The soul, bound to the body for its testing and the body's elevation, needs a healing far harder than any physician's.
13. 2.18Unlike bodily illness, sick souls resist their physicians.
14. 2.20Sinners hide, excuse, or flaunt their sins and resent their healers, so the cure of souls needs faith, God's help, and skill.
15. 2.22Unlike medicine, the cure of souls aims at deification, the goal of the law, the prophets, and the whole incarnation, from birth to resurrection.
16. 2.23Clergy are servants of this healing, and healing others is harder than healing oneself.
17. 2.27Physicians toil to lengthen bodily life; the shepherd of souls must treat different people with goad or bridle.
18. 2.31Praise and blame, encouragement and rebuke, public and private correction suit different people.
19. 2.32The shepherd must vary his treatment by person and circumstance; no single remedy fits all.
20. 2.33The shepherd must keep to the royal road between extremes.
21. 2.35Rightly distributing doctrine, on creation, the soul, and providence, needs much of the Spirit.
22. 2.36Teaching on the last things and above all the Trinity is most dangerous, between fusing the three and dividing them.
23. 2.37Gregory names three errors about God, Sabellian fusion, Arian division, and tritheist polyarchy, and rejects all three.
24. 2.38A long stretch of the oration: right teaching on the Trinity, the difficulty of teaching mixed congregations, the presumption of untrained teachers, Paul as the model pastor, the prophets' warnings against bad shepherds, the greatness of the priesthood, and the strife that disgraces the church.
25. 2.39Gregory fears no persecutor, but feels helpless before the church's internal strife, which made him withdraw.
26. 2.40The war of the passions and the sanctity required of priests under the old law show that no one should accept the priesthood before being purified himself.
27. 2.41Gregory explains his return: love for his people, duty to his aged parents, and above all fear of disobedience learned from Jonah and the ancient examples; he submits and asks his father's blessing.
28. 3.1Gregory reproaches the people who forced him back from solitude but did not come to hear him.
29. 3.2They neglected to welcome him and so spoiled the feast; Gregory charges them with not returning his love.
30. 3.4Like the guests in the parable of the wedding feast, but worse, the people invited Gregory and then left him.
31. 3.5Gregory confesses that wounded love nearly turned his sermon into an accusation.
32. 3.7Gregory urges his flock to respect themselves and their faith, to prefer silence and good deeds to talk about God, and to walk the royal road.
33. 4.1Gregory summons the whole world, the angels, and the soul of Constantius to hear his thanksgiving for the fall of the emperor Julian, whose letters and sacrifices he condemns.
34. 4.5Julian's ban on Christian teachers of Greek letters was unjust and cowardly; Gregory calls the persecuted and the wavering to celebrate.
35. 4.9Gregory calls those absorbed in worldly spectacle to turn and recognize God in present events.
36. 4.10Gregory regrets that a group once united with his church now holds apart, but refrains from reproaching it.
37. 4.11Gregory excludes from the celebration those who apostatized under Julian, and praises God, in the words of the psalms, for overthrowing the persecutor.
38. 4.12God punished his people as a father does; Gregory calls creation to rejoice with the children of God.
39. 4.13Gregory calls the widowed church to rejoice in its deliverance, in the words of the prophets and psalms.
40. 4.14Gregory remarks that he is composing his song from the words of Scripture.
41. 4.15Gregory recalls God's ancient wonders, from Enoch to the crossing of the Red Sea.
42. 4.19The wonders continued in the wilderness and in the conquest, and above all in Christ and his apostles.
43. 4.20To show God's deliverance Gregory must describe Julian's character and career, selecting the chief points.
44. 4.21Saved as a child by Constantius in the massacre of 337, Julian repaid neither God nor the emperor.
45. 4.23Julian and Gallus were educated as Christians and even served as readers in the church.
46. 4.24Gallus's shrine for a martyr rose, but Julian's would not stand, a sign of his later impiety.
47. 4.27The martyrs refused honour from the future persecutor, and God exposed his hypocrisy.
48. 4.28God, who rejected Israel's unworthy offerings, rightly rejected Julian's hypocritical gift.
49. 4.30As a young man Julian's hidden paganism began to show, especially in his debates with Gallus.
50. 4.31While Gallus ruled as Caesar, Julian studied with pagan teachers in Asia; the sins of Christians then gave him power.
51. 4.32Christians lost through prosperity what they had won in persecution; Gregory reproaches the dead Constantius for raising Julian, yet excuses him as acting from kindness.
52. 4.37Constantius loved the Christians and sought their unity; his kindness was abused by Julian, who outdid him only in impiety.
53. 4.39Gregory begins to defend Constantius against the charge of folly; Julian's ingratitude was learned from his philosophers.
54. 4.44Gregory mocks the Greek philosophers for their ideal cities, their atheism, Epicureanism, and fatalism, and their lack of any judgment after death.
55. 4.45Julian, schooled in such philosophy, had himself proclaimed emperor and marched against Constantius.
56. 4.47God permitted but did not cause Julian's march; Gregory denies that demons foretold Constantius's death and insinuates Julian's guilt.
57. 4.48Only Constantius's sudden death saved Julian from defeat.
58. 4.49Gregory pities the apostates more than the persecuted, and refrains from gloating over the fallen.
59. 4.52On taking power Julian openly renounced Christianity and is said to have tried to wash off his baptism with sacrificial blood.
60. 4.53Gregory hesitates over a widely reported wonder at one of Julian's sacrifices.
61. 4.54The cross appeared in Julian's sacrificial entrails; in an underground rite the sign of the cross put the demons to flight, but his mystagogue led him on.
62. 4.57Knowing that open persecution strengthens Christians, Julian chose to disguise force as persuasion.
63. 4.58Julian tried to deny Christians the honour of martyrdom, which only increased it.
64. 4.59Christians do not seek glory by dying, unlike pagan sages such as Empedocles who staged their own deification.
65. 4.60The rest of the first invective: Julian's indirect persecution, his assault on the army and the cross-standard, the outrages of Heliopolis, Gaza, and Arethusa (Mark of Arethusa), his law against Christian teachers, his plan to copy the church's institutions, and Gregory's satire of pagan myth and ethics compared with Christian morals.
66. 5.2Gregory passes over the judgments that struck persecutors to tell of Julian's plan to rebuild the Jerusalem temple.
67. 5.3The temple rebuilding was stopped by earthquake and fire; a cross appeared in the sky and on people's clothing, and many sought baptism.
68. 5.8Julian rashly invaded Persia, vowing to sacrifice the Christians to his demons if he won, and advanced to Ctesiphon.
69. 5.10Julian bypassed Ctesiphon by a canal, but harassed by the Persians he trusted a deserter who urged him to abandon his fleet.
70. 5.12Julian burned his ships, was misled, and was mortally wounded; Gregory reports several versions of his death and his attempt to vanish as a god.
71. 5.15Jovian saved the army by a shameful but necessary treaty; Constantius was buried with Christian honours at Constantinople, Julian with mockery at Tarsus.
72. 5.20Gregory mocks Julian's meddling in the courts and his empty promises to his old friends.
73. 5.21Ironically praising Julian's self-control, Gregory recalls his outbursts and his violence toward petitioners.
74. 5.22Gregory ridicules Julian's sacrificial antics, and recalls how at Athens he read Julian's unstable character and foresaw the evil he would do.
75. 5.23Like Hezekiah against Sennacherib, the Christians, helpless and promised as a sacrifice to Julian's demons, could only call on God.
76. 5.27During the persecution Christians cried to God in the words of the psalms.
77. 5.28Gregory now laments the fall of the persecutors and hopes for their repentance.
78. 5.29Gregory prays for the persecutors' conversion and celebrates the end of their outrages against churches, clergy, virgins, and martyrs' relics.
79. 5.31Gregory contrasts pagan rites with Christian worship, and God's creating word with his word that ended the persecution.
80. 5.32Gregory mocks the silenced oracles and the pagan gods, then begins his exhortation: those disciplined by God should not sin again.
81. 5.34Gregory urges Christians not to forget their chastisement now that the persecution is over.
82. 5.35Gregory urges a festival of spiritual joy, not pagan revelry, and forbids revenge on the former persecutors, leaving them to God.
83. 5.38Julian will suffer worse than the punished of myth; Gregory and Basil, kept for last in his persecution, now answer him; Christian martyrs under Julian equalled the ancient heroes of faith.
84. 5.41Gregory sets his discourse against Porphyry's anti-Christian writings and Julian's Misopogon.
85. 5.42Gregory ends his invective as a monument to warn future generations.
86. 6.1Gregory breaks his silence for the sake of peace, and describes the ascetic life of the monks whose separation had grieved him.
87. 6.3Gregory lists the griefs of the schism and celebrates the regained unity, offering his speech to God as his thanksgiving.
88. 6.6The word governs Gregory's passions and is the feast he sets before his reconciled brothers.
89. 6.7Like Zechariah at John's birth, Gregory's tongue is loosed by the sight of the reunited church.
90. 6.8Gregory gives thanks that God used the division to teach the value of peace and restored the body's unity.
91. 6.9Gregory thanks God for regaining the flock and its shepherds, among them one ordained leader still holding back from office.
92. 6.10The church of Nazianzus, long a peaceful ark amid the controversies, fell into schism last and was healed first.
93. 6.11The father's party accepted the separated party's leaders in love, and the monks accepted the father's orthodoxy despite the creed he had signed; both had kept the same faith in the Trinity.
94. 6.12Agreement about God is the strongest bond of concord; God and the angels are at peace, and the devil works through faction.
95. 6.14The world is a cosmos only while its parts are at peace; this order teaches concord.
96. 6.15The order of seasons, heavens, and living things proclaims concord; Gregory turns to Israel's misfortunes as a warning against faction.
97. 6.17Israel prospered while united and fell through faction; Gregory distinguishes good from bad peace, urges reconciliation with the father, and ends with a confession of the Trinity.
98. 7.2Gregory begins his funeral oration for his brother Caesarius by praising the piety of their parents.
99. 7.5Caesarius inherited his virtue from such parents; Gregory passes over his physical gifts.
100. 7.7Caesarius's studies at Alexandria, his providential reunion with Gregory at Byzantium, his career as court physician, and his steadfast confession before Julian.
101. 7.9Caesarius withdrew during Julian's reign and after Julian's death returned to even greater honour at court.
102. 7.15Saved from the earthquake at Nicaea, Caesarius resolved to leave the world, but died of illness; he was buried with Christian honours after his baptism.
103. 7.17Gregory offers his oration as a funeral gift in place of pagan honours, and prays that Caesarius may rest with Abraham and see God.
104. 7.18Gregory consoles his aged parents: life is short, and they will soon follow Caesarius.
105. 7.19Life is fleeting, as David, Jeremiah, and the Preacher teach; its only gain is the fear of God.
106. 7.20Death has freed Caesarius from life's troubles; Gregory looks to the resurrection, examines himself, and contemplates the destiny of man in Christ.
107. 7.21Gregory ends with a prayer commending Caesarius and the mourners to God.
108. 8.1Gregory begins his funeral oration for his sister Gorgonia: he will praise her truthfully, without rhetorical display.
109. 8.4Gregory praises their parents, Gregory and Nonna, as a new Abraham and Sarah.
110. 8.5Gorgonia's true homeland is the heavenly Jerusalem and her true nobility the image of God kept in her.
111. 8.7True nobility is of character, not birth; Gregory turns to Gorgonia's own virtues.
112. 8.8Gorgonia united the advantages of marriage and of celibacy, won her husband to God, and consecrated her whole household.
113. 8.9Gorgonia surpassed even Solomon's capable wife, especially in modesty and restraint of eye, laughter, ear, and tongue.
114. 8.10Gorgonia rejected cosmetics and finery; she was wise, silent about doctrine, generous to the church and the poor, and outstanding in fasting, vigils, prayer, and tears.
115. 8.14Gregory apostrophizes Gorgonia's asceticism, her purity after baptism, and her victory over the legacy of Eve, and turns to the rewards God gave her in this life.
116. 8.18Gorgonia's healing and her longing for death, whose day was revealed to her in a vision.
117. 8.20Gorgonia was baptized late, though her life was already pure, and obtained the baptism of her husband.
118. 8.21Gorgonia prepared for death, gave her last charges, and fell asleep full of days according to God.
119. 8.22As Gorgonia died, her spiritual father heard her murmuring the psalm, “In peace I will lie down and sleep.”
120. 9.1Gregory, newly consecrated bishop, explains his dismay by the examples of Isaiah, Manoah, and Peter before God's presence.
121. 9.2Grace must be kept as well as received; Gregory asks his father and Basil to teach him the shepherd's art, reproaches Basil for forcing his consecration, and prays for himself and his flock.
122. 10.1Gregory explains that old age and friendship have overcome his wish to live in retirement.
123. 10.2Gregory lays aside his anger at the friend who forced him into office and recalls his earlier bitterness over their friendship.
124. 10.3Gregory ends his speech to Basil by describing his consecration as high priest, then, in a new oration, compares Basil and Gregory of Nyssa to Moses and Aaron and asks Gregory of Nyssa why his help came so late.
125. 11.4Gregory postpones his defence and urges the festival crowd to honour the martyrs by purifying themselves and fighting spiritual enemies.
126. 11.5Gregory calls for spiritual rather than self-indulgent celebration of the martyrs, confesses the Trinity, and closes with a prayer for peace.
127. 12.1Gregory gives himself wholly to the Spirit’s leading and asks why his aged father wanted him as a fellow shepherd, citing Aaron’s sons and Joshua.
128. 12.3Gregory describes being torn between longing for contemplative retreat and the Spirit’s call to serve the church, citing Christ’s self-emptying.
129. 12.5Gregory resolves to help his father in the ministry for now, while keeping himself free to follow the Spirit, and insists that church leadership must rest on willing consent.
130. 18.1Gregory opens his father’s funeral oration by addressing Basil with a string of scriptural titles.
131. 18.2Gregory describes the grief of the family and flock at the loss of their aged bishop.
132. 18.3Gregory asks Basil to praise the dead man, console the family with teaching on life and death, and comfort the flock.
133. 18.4Gregory asks Basil to assure the flock that Christ, the good Shepherd, still guards it and that the departed bishop now intercedes for it, and offers an outline of his father’s life.
134. 18.5Gregory tells how his father came from the Hypsistarian sect, a mix of pagan and Jewish practices, and gave up family and property for the truth.
135. 18.7Gregory praises his father’s virtue before his conversion and begins to describe his marriage to Nonna as an ideal union.
136. 18.8Gregory contrasts Eve with his mother Nonna, who led her husband to piety while managing the household and giving generously to the poor.
137. 18.9Gregory lists his mother’s devotion in prayer, fasting, psalmody, and care for orphans, widows, and mourners.
138. 18.10Gregory describes his mother’s reverence and her prayers for her husband’s conversion, his dream of a psalm, and his admission as a catechumen by bishops travelling to Nicaea in a rite resembling ordination.
139. 18.13Gregory tells how his father prepared for baptism with great purity and how a light shone round him as he came up from the water, so that the bishop proclaimed him his successor.
140. 18.15Gregory describes his father’s consistent life, his ordination, his reform of a neglected church, and his orthodox teaching on the Trinity, and alludes to a quarrel in the church that he settled.
141. 18.16Gregory finds his father’s virtues too many to choose among and praises his generous, ungrudging giving to the poor.
142. 18.21Gregory praises his parents’ unostentatious generosity, his father’s just and gentle government of the church, his genuine humility, and above all his freedom from malice.
143. 18.22Gregory describes his father’s quick forgiveness, his mild punishments, and how those who wronged him were often struck by sudden misfortunes that led them to repent.
144. 18.25Gregory shows that his father’s gentleness was joined with energy, combining the serpent’s prudence and the dove’s innocence.
145. 18.28Gregory tells how his father fell gravely ill at Easter while the people and his wife prayed for him in the church.
146. 18.29Gregory’s father, near death, rose during the Easter liturgy, celebrated the Eucharist from his bed, recovered, and gave thanks in church a week later.
147. 18.30Gregory tells how his mother, dying from inability to eat, recovered after dreaming that he fed her with blessed bread.
148. 18.31Gregory recalls a storm at sea, while he was still unbaptized, in which his parents’ prayers and a vision of his mother brought the ship safely to Rhodes, and he vowed himself to God.
149. 18.32Gregory tells how his father resisted the emperor Julian, defended the forced election of a bishop of Caesarea, and, near death, travelled to Caesarea to secure Basil’s election.
150. 18.37Gregory praises his father’s resistance to the heretics backed by the emperor, and reproaches him and Basil for forcing him into the priesthood.
151. 18.38Gregory describes how his father, strengthened only by celebrating the liturgy, died in prayer at nearly a hundred after forty-five years as a priest.
152. 18.39Gregory describes the octagonal church his father built at Nazianzus, calls himself its priest and his sufferings its sacrifice, and addresses his dead father in prayer.
153. 18.41Gregory asks Basil to judge his speech and to add his own praise, then turns to console his widowed mother.
154. 18.42Gregory consoles his mother by contrasting changeable human life with true life in God, calling sin the only real death, and urging her to bear widowhood with hope.
155. 19.2Gregory explains that he kept silent to teach others restraint in speaking about the things of the Spirit.
156. 19.3Gregory says his friends have pressed him to speak, promising benefits to his flock in the tax assessment, and that his silence has made his words more desired.
157. 19.4Gregory calls his hearers from the fleeting goods of this life to true wealth, and urges them to imitate the martyrs whose festival it is in their daily struggles.
158. 19.7Gregory urges all classes of people to join the spiritual contest now, each offering God what he can, from virginity to honourable marriage and from teaching to care for the needy.
159. 19.8Gregory teaches that God accepts every offering, however small, as the Israelites all gave to the tabernacle, and measures gifts by the giver’s ability and goodwill.
160. 19.9Gregory calls each class of people to offer God what fits them, and warns priests to guard the flock lest judgment begin with them.
161. 19.11Gregory tells officials to be content with their lawful pay, urges mercy to the poor, and asks the tax assessor to deal humanely with his people, since Christ was born during a census and paid the temple tax.
162. 19.14Gregory traces need, greed, war, and taxation back to the fall, and asks that those under the same sentence not add to one another’s punishment.
163. 19.15Gregory reminds the assessor of God’s final enrolment in the book of life and asks him to spare the monks and clergy, the treasure of the Church.
164. 19.17Gregory closes by asking for obedience in return for his words and with a doxology to the Trinity.
165. 20.1Gregory, disgusted with self-appointed theologians, longs for solitary contemplation and holds that no one should lead souls or speak about God before he is purified.
166. 20.2Gregory argues from the Old Testament that only the purified may approach God, sets out the doctrine of the Trinity between Sabellius and Arius, answers objections to the Son’s eternal generation, and urges purification and humility before speaking of God.
167. 21.1Gregory describes Athanasius’s upbringing in the Scriptures, uniting contemplation and holy life.
168. 21.7Gregory tells how Athanasius rose through the clergy to the see of Alexandria, sent by God to revive a Church perishing for lack of truth.
169. 21.8Gregory contrasts Athanasius’s lawful, spiritual election to the see of Mark with later violent intrusions, and praises his balanced character as a bishop.
170. 21.10Gregory says Paul’s descriptions of the high priest and of a bishop already portray Athanasius, and invites every class of hearer to praise the virtue that served them.
171. 21.12Gregory laments the sophistical theology that entered the Church, describes Arius’s death and his followers’ errors, and praises Athanasius’s balanced teaching on the Trinity.
172. 21.13Gregory tells how Athanasius opposed Arianism at Nicaea, introduces George of Cappadocia, the usurper of Alexandria, and compares Athanasius’s sufferings with Job’s.
173. 21.19Gregory describes Athanasius’s refuge among the Egyptian monks, both hermits and communities, and how he reconciled the solitary life with the communal.
174. 21.20Gregory tells how the monks revered and protected Athanasius in hiding, while George, through bribery and the court eunuchs, spread his power over Egypt and the East.
175. 21.22Gregory condemns the synods of Seleucia and Constantinople (359–360), which replaced “of the same essence” with an ambiguous “like according to the Scriptures” and forced bishops to sign it.
176. 21.24Gregory laments that almost all bishops yielded to the heretical creed out of fear, need, flattery, or ignorance, and mentions the zealous monks who broke communion over it.
177. 21.25Gregory tells how Athanasius’s absence left the Church defenceless, how Constantius repented on his deathbed, and how the Alexandrians killed George and paraded his body on a camel.
178. 21.27Gregory describes Athanasius’s triumphant return to Alexandria after George’s death, a reception surpassing any honour ever given, even to an emperor.
179. 21.28Gregory describes Athanasius’s entry into Alexandria on a colt amid branches and garments, like Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, and his reconciling rule after his return.
180. 21.32Gregory tells how the emperor Julian, seeing Athanasius as the chief obstacle to his anti-Christian policy, openly banished him from Alexandria.
181. 21.33Gregory tells of Julian’s death in Persia and how the emperor Jovian recalled Athanasius, who then confessed in writing one Godhead and essence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
182. 21.34Gregory describes the different responses to Athanasius’s confession and places himself among those who confessed the truth openly.
183. 21.35Gregory praises Athanasius for reconciling Greeks and Latins who used different terms (hypostasis, person) for the same faith, describes his death, and closes with a prayer to him.
184. 22.1Gregory opens his oration on peace by lamenting its absence more than Jacob mourned Joseph or David mourned Jonathan and Absalom.
185. 22.2Gregory says the worst of present calamities, worse even than barbarian invasion, is the loss of peace in the Church, while even robbers and rival schools keep the peace among themselves.
186. 22.3Gregory asks why Christians, who worship the God of love, quarrel even with those of the same faith, judging the same man holy one day and wicked the next out of contentiousness.
187. 22.4Gregory shows how enmity distorts judgment, and how Christians expose sacred matters and their quarrels to unbelievers who will use them against the Church.
188. 22.7Gregory laments the Church’s self-inflicted sickness and warns that its divisions may open the way for Antichrist.
189. 22.8Gregory laments that the Church’s divisions have made it a laughing stock in Constantinople, though he himself is not troubled by losses of churches or by slander.
190. 22.9Gregory says praise and slander cannot change him, and that the real evil is that no one in the Church is now trusted to be sincere.
191. 22.10Gregory notes that the vices of some Christians are blamed on the whole Church and its doctrine, and urges his hearers to distinguish what may be inquired into and to fight only with reason.
192. 22.12Gregory proposes the worship of the one Godhead in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the one rule of piety, and laments that the orthodox still quarrel among themselves despite so many heresies.
193. 22.13Gregory describes the new dispute over Christ, in which some divide him into two sons and others deny that he assumed a human mind, and condemns quarrels over rival bishops’ thrones.
194. 22.14Gregory deplores the split of the Church into two hostile camps, places himself among the moderates attacked by both, and traces peace from the Trinity through the angels and creation to the human soul and body.
195. 22.15Gregory urges that the Church, like a well-governed household or city, should prefer peace, forgive as God commands, and seek the blessing promised to peacemakers.
196. 23.1Gregory rejects both tritheism and an Arian view that makes the Son and Spirit creatures, sets out the Trinity as one Godhead from one timeless principle, and rejoices in the reconciliation of the orthodox before their opponents.
197. 24.2Gregory greets his congregation after a separation, saying their mutual longing was strengthened by absence, as Christ’s disciples should keep the unity of the Spirit.
198. 24.3Gregory praises Cyprian: his learning, his former life as a magician, his conversion through a virgin he tried to seduce by magic, his episcopate, his encouragement of martyrs from exile under Decius, his martyrdom, and the discovery of his relics.
199. 24.4Gregory urges his hearers to guard their senses and stand firm as the martyrs did, offers his speech to Cyprian as a prize, and asks his intercession for the flock.
200. 25.1Gregory opens his praise of the philosopher Hero, a Christian in Cynic dress and a confessor, inviting him to the altar to be crowned before God and the Church.
201. 25.3Gregory proclaims Hero a champion of the Trinity, noble by descent from martyrs, a citizen of the world and of fervent Alexandria.
202. 25.4Gregory tells how Hero chose Christian philosophy, preferred a life among people to solitude, and kept the Cynic dress while rejecting Cynic godlessness and the empty speculations of the schools.
203. 25.7Gregory says Hero’s philosophy aims at the practical good of society, frank speech to rulers and care for the troubled, rather than logic, geometry, or the eccentricities of the old Cynics.
204. 25.8Gregory surveys the heresies before Arius, the rise of Arianism and its condemnation at Nicaea, and the persecution under Valens, recounting how a presbyter was burned alive on a ship set adrift.
205. 25.11Gregory turns to Hero’s own contest, recalling the death of Athanasius and the violent intrusion of an Arian successor into the see of Alexandria.
206. 25.12Gregory describes the outrages committed by the Arians in Alexandria, Hero’s scourging and four years’ exile in the Oasis, and urges him to confute paganism and heresy, setting out the doctrine of Father, Son, and Spirit.
207. 25.13Gregory asks Hero to remember him and his small congregation; the end of the oration is lost in the scan.
208. 26.1Gregory, returning to his congregation at Constantinople, says shared longing brought him back despite his weariness with the city and his fear of approaching the altar unworthily.
209. 26.2Gregory tells how longing for his flock drew him back, and warns against intruders, especially the “dogs” (Cynics) who tried to make themselves shepherds.
210. 26.3Gregory contrasts himself with self-serving shepherds and asks his people to account for the fruit of his teaching in sound faith and good works.
211. 26.7Gregory asks his people whether they have cared for the poor, strangers, and clergy, as serving Christ in the least of his brothers, and begins to tell what he learned in solitude, watching the sea as an image of life’s temptations.
212. 26.10Gregory compares the true philosopher to a mythical plant that thrives by being cut, showing how he turns every circumstance (birth, age, beauty, health, wealth, or their opposites) into virtue.
213. 26.12Gregory continues his portrait of the philosopher, who bears hunger, thirst, cold, insult, and persecution after the example of Elijah, Paul, Job, and Christ.
214. 26.13Gregory says the philosopher, like God and the angels, cannot be mastered, and answers his opponents’ threats: he cares nothing for homeland, health, throne, or presidency, which is the source of the Church’s strife.
215. 26.16Gregory says no one can exclude him from the spiritual altar or the heavenly city, that the quarrel is over Church property, and recalls the household that sheltered him and the friends who abandoned him.
216. 26.18Gregory, unafraid of his enemies, laments the clergy who joined the schism of Maximus, and closes with a prayer to the Trinity for their return.
217. 32.1Gregory, a shepherd not yet accepted by his fellow bishops, resolves to use his gift and address the festival crowd.
218. 32.2Gregory names peace as the finest and most profitable thing in Christian teaching and discord as the most harmful, and asks what causes each.
219. 32.3Gregory, as a physician of souls, traces discord to zeal without knowledge: noble, spirited souls do great good when trained by reason, and great harm without it.
220. 32.5Gregory says zeal without knowledge has split the Church into parties and multiplied rival views of Christ and the Spirit, and states the faith in one God the Father, one Son, and one Spirit.
221. 32.6Gregory warns that zeal must not exceed the right measure, since the devil leads people astray through an apparent good, citing Ecclesiastes against being overrighteous.
222. 32.7Gregory urges moderation by pointing to the order in which God created the world step by step.
223. 32.8Gregory describes the order that holds together heaven, stars, seasons, and elements, and attributes natural disasters, wars, disease, and sin to disorder.
224. 32.9Gregory shows order in the lives of animals, in day and night, and above all in man, a union of dust and mind, to whom order gave cities, laws, arts, marriage, and the longing for God.
225. 32.10Gregory calls order the mother and safety of all things, putting into its mouth the words of Wisdom in Proverbs 8.
226. 32.11Gregory applies the principle of order to the Church: like the members of a body, its members have different ranks and gifts, shepherds and flock, by the one Spirit.
227. 32.12Gregory applies the order of the body to the Church, urging each to keep his place, learning rather than teaching when not fitted for it, since God hides himself in darkness and is known now only in part.
228. 32.16Gregory points out that even Moses saw only God’s back, and that at Sinai each had his place, from Moses within the cloud to the people below.
229. 32.17Gregory cites the ordered ranks of the Old Testament priesthood and the modesty of Christ’s disciples, who asked their questions in turn, against those who rebel against their leaders after a little study.
230. 32.19Gregory says true humility is shown not in dress or austerities but in speaking modestly about God and yielding to those more competent.
231. 32.20Gregory answers an objector who quotes the Psalms on praising God continually: he forbids not speech about God but contentious and excessive speech.
232. 32.21Gregory advises the unlearned to keep to the faith they were taught, leaving speculation about the Trinity to the wise, and to be quick only in confessing the faith.
233. 32.22Gregory says God gives the necessary goods of creation, like air, water, sun, and health, to all in common, while luxuries belong to a few.
234. 32.23Gregory lists the saving goods of the faith that are common to all, above all the knowledge of the Trinity, and ranks them above rare attainments.
235. 32.24Gregory allows the contemplative to ascend as far as Paul did, provided he does so with knowledge and without pride.
236. 32.25Gregory says the simple, untrained in philosophy, can be saved through faith and confession, as Paul teaches in Romans 10.
237. 32.26Gregory argues that salvation by faith and confession must be open to all, not only the learned, and prefers the simple believer to the clever arguer who empties the cross.
238. 32.27Gregory urges the would-be theologian to know himself first, listing the mysteries of human nature, body, soul, senses, memory, speech, and passions, before approaching higher things.
239. 32.29Gregory tells the contentious not to condemn their brothers as impious, but to correct them gently and look first to their own weakness.
240. 32.30Gregory urges patience with an erring brother, who is the image of God: admonish him repeatedly and, like the farmer with the fig tree, seek his correction rather than his removal.
241. 32.31Gregory urges the strong to bear with a brother’s faults and seek to heal him, citing Paul’s willingness to be cut off for Israel and his teaching on not destroying a brother for whom Christ died.
242. 32.32Gregory proposes that discussion of the faith be reserved to the moderate and suitable, since there are many roads to God besides speculation, and closes by urging all to approach God through life and safe words.
243. 33.1Gregory confronts the Arians, who boast of their numbers and wealth, and offers to refute and heal rather than threaten.
244. 33.2Gregory applies God’s complaint against Israel to his opponents and laments that Christians watch for chances to harm one another.
245. 33.3Gregory contrasts the Arians’ violence under their emperor (assaults on worshippers, desecration of churches and virgins, torture of bishops, burning of presbyters at sea) with his own conduct.
246. 33.5Gregory recalls the earlier Arian outrages against Athanasius and others (false charges, exiles, imprisonment) and a recent stoning of an aged bishop in Constantinople, while he himself pleaded for the culprits.
247. 33.7Gregory answers the charge that he comes from an insignificant place, contrasting the luxuries of the capital with the simple life of himself and his people.
248. 33.8Gregory answers mockery of his appearance, rusticity, and foreign origin: all share a common creation and redemption, God’s great servants came from humble places, the apostles were strangers where they preached, and true nobility is the image of God kept by virtue.
249. 33.13Gregory says he came to Constantinople unwillingly and has not imitated the greedy, claimed churches or money, or used rulers against his opponents.
250. 33.14Gregory, who prayed for those who attacked him, says his sufferings are nothing beside Christ’s, whose meekness in his passion all Christians should imitate.
251. 33.15Gregory contrasts the Arians’ churches and crowds with his small flock, which holds the faith of the Fathers, worshipping one Godhead in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
252. 33.17Gregory refuses a baptism that makes the Son or Spirit a creature and appeals to the baptismal confession into the one name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
253. 34.1Gregory greets the Egyptians who have come to his church, likening the grain Egypt sends to Christ, the bread from heaven who once fled into Egypt.
254. 34.2Gregory praises Egypt for feeding the world with grain and with sound doctrine, through Athanasius and his successor Peter, who withstood every pressure without betraying the Trinity.
255. 34.3Gregory contrasts Egypt’s old animal and idol worship with the Christ and Christian teachers who have surpassed it.
256. 34.4Gregory embraces the Egyptians as his own people, joined in faith and the Spirit though from afar, and urges them, once persecuted, now to refrain from harming others.
257. 34.5A fragment continuing Gregory’s praise of the Egyptian people with promises from Isaiah.
258. 34.6Gregory excuses himself for addressing the Egyptians repeatedly out of affection.
259. 34.7Gregory begins to recall the Egyptians’ festive arrival by sea.
260. 34.8Gregory praises the Egyptians for coming, after paying their dues, to join his orthodox congregation rather than the majority, and invites them to his spiritual table.
261. 34.9Gregory sets out the basic distinction between God, the uncreated Lord subsisting as Father, Son, and Spirit, and creation, and calls all to worship the one Godhead in three.
262. 34.10Gregory argues that no creaturely mark can be shown in the Son or the Spirit, who share all that belongs to the Father except causation and sonship, and calls on his opponents to abandon their sophistries.
263. 34.11Gregory says that he fears the threat against blasphemy of the Spirit, which consists in denying his Godhead, and refuses a baptism that falsifies any of the three.
264. 34.12Gregory argues that if the Spirit were not God he could not deify the baptized, and that a baptism denying his Godhead would deceive and blacken those who receive it.
265. 34.13Gregory gathers Scripture for the Trinity: the cherubim’s threefold holiness, David’s “in your light we see light,” John’s teaching on the Word and the other Paraclete, and Luke’s account of Ananias, who lied to the Spirit as to God.
266. 34.15Gregory shows that Paul names the three in varying order to show their equal honour, and distinguishes the hypostases while uniting the one Godhead.
267. 35.1The preacher rejoices that peace has returned to the city, so that the martyrs are honoured again with festivals after a long war.
268. 35.2The preacher describes the end of heresy as the passing of night, and compares the Arian women who rioted against the Church to Jezebel and to the Maenads of a painting.
269. 35.4The preacher completes his comparison of the Arian riot to a Dionysiac procession, recounts the violence and the seizure of the sacred throne, and returns to rejoicing that peace has come.
270. 36.1Gregory wonders at his people’s attachment to him, disclaims wisdom and originality, credits Bishop Alexander, rejects flattering, theatrical clergy, and recalls his reluctance when the people set him on the episcopal throne.
271. 36.2Gregory suggests three reasons for his people’s affection: they chose him themselves, he is modest and unambitious, and they pity him for the attacks he suffers.
272. 36.3Gregory says his people love him for the learned eloquence that brings him envy, and lists the evils envy has caused from Cain to the divisions of the Church.
273. 36.6Gregory answers the charge that he coveted the see of Constantinople: he came only to serve a widowed Church as a guardian, ready to hand her to a worthy bishop.
274. 36.7Gregory answers those who say he is badly thought of: he cares for what he is before God, who sees the heart, not for public opinion, and his people need not be ashamed of insults to him.
275. 36.8Gregory says that one who loves the good for its own sake stays constant like a rock, unlike those who change with the times.
276. 36.9Gregory turns to address his flock directly.
277. 36.10A fragment of Gregory’s address to his flock.
278. 36.11Gregory tells his people that their orthodox faith and consistent life are his best defence, and exhorts emperors, courtiers, and nobles to use their positions under God.
279. 36.12Gregory closes by exhorting philosophers, the rich, the luxurious, and the whole city of Constantinople to virtue, generosity to the poor, and contempt for the games.
280. 37.1Christ, like the fishermen he chose, moves from place to place and becomes all things to all, even being called sin and curse for our sake, to draw humanity out of the sea of life.
281. 37.2Christ moves from Galilee to Judaea; the timeless and bodiless Word, without becoming two, became one out of two natures, and bears our inadequate bodily language about him.
282. 37.3Had Christ remained in his unapproachable height few would have followed him; Moses barely saw God's back, but Christ's self-emptying makes him accessible.
283. 37.4Gregory grieves that Christ is dishonoured for his condescension, and admits that the bodily names applied to him (fire, sword, fan, axe, door, way, sheep, priest) fall short of the incorporeal.
284. 37.5The Pharisees test Christ on divorce; Gregory says some questions deserve silencing, but this one honours chastity, and he rejects the civil law that punishes a wife's adultery but leaves a husband's unchastity unpunished.
285. 37.6God's law treats father and mother, man and woman, equally, and Paul's comparison of marriage to Christ and the church requires chastity of both spouses.
286. 37.8Gregory reads Eph 5 as discouraging second marriage (the first is law, the second concession, the third transgression) and explains that Christ permits separation only from an unchaste wife, urging spouses to correct rather than separate.
287. 37.9Answering the remark that it is better not to marry, Gregory grants that marriage is honourable and good for the moderate and for children, but not when it becomes a path to vice.
288. 37.10Virginity is higher than the good of marriage, yet virgins and wives depend on and should honour one another; the virgin must keep eyes, tongue, feet and mind virgin too.
289. 37.11Virginity, which most cannot receive, is angelic; the virgin must direct all her love to God and Christ the Bridegroom, valuing none of the world's goods.
290. 37.12As water confined in a pipe rises, desire concentrated on God lifts the virgin upward; she must guard herself on every side against the devil's gradual approaches.
291. 37.13“To whom it is given” does not mean fixed natures, as some heretics teach: aptitude must be called forth by choice, yet even good willing is God's gift, so both our freedom and God's mercy are needed.
292. 37.14Christ's answer to the mother of Zebedee's sons, that the places at his side are “for those to whom it has been given”, raises the question whether effort counts for nothing and all depends on a kind of lot.
293. 37.15Gregory rejects the idea that souls lived a former life that determines their lot, and explains “to whom it is given” as “to those who are worthy”, who both receive from God and contribute themselves.
294. 37.16Natural eunuchs should not pride themselves on an untested, involuntary chastity, since only chosen goodness deserves praise.
295. 37.17Gregory urges the eunuchs to be chaste towards the Godhead: to call the Son or the Spirit a creature dishonours the whole Trinity, which, like one pearl, is damaged as a whole if any part is.
296. 37.18Scripture calls any sin, and especially offence against God, fornication and adultery.
297. 37.19Idolatry is called adultery; Gregory rebukes the eunuchs for joining the impious doctrine and calls them to manliness.
298. 37.20Gregory reads Christ's three kinds of eunuchs figuratively: those good by natural aptitude, and those whose passions are cut away by teachers.
299. 37.21Those who “made themselves eunuchs” are those who, without a teacher, cut out their passions by their own reason and choice; what matters is that the passions are cut away.
300. 37.22Gregory calls for cutting off the passions of soul as well as body, Arian and Sabellian errors alike, and appeals to those in power to protect sound doctrine and the persecuted.
301. 37.24Gregory closes with a prayer, urging his hearers to bear any loss except the loss of the Godhead, and confesses the worship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
302. 38.1The Christmas oration opens by proclaiming Christ's birth: the timeless Word is made flesh, the old order gives way to the new, and all are summoned to praise.
303. 38.3The feast is called both Theophany and Birthday, since the eternal God appeared by being born for our sake; it is to be kept divinely, as a feast of our re-creation in Christ.
304. 38.5The feast is not to be kept with decorations, feasting, finery and drunkenness, especially while others of the same nature go hungry.
305. 38.6Pagan festivals of the belly are left to the Greeks; Christians, who worship the Word, are to find their delight in the word.
306. 38.7Only a fragment of this section, on God's eternal being, survives in the scan.
307. 38.8God is infinite, without beginning, immortal and eternal; God means Father, Son and Holy Spirit, neither more nor fewer, one lordship and Godhead glorified by the seraphim's thrice-holy.
308. 38.9God's overflowing goodness first created the angels through the Word and Spirit; they are hard to move towards evil but not immovable, as Lucifer's fall shows.
309. 38.10After the intelligible world God made the visible, material world, harmonious in its parts, to show that he could create natures both akin and alien to himself.
310. 38.11God made man as a blend of the spiritual and material, a little world, earthly and heavenly, destined by turning to God to be deified.
311. 38.12Adam, placed in paradise with free will and a commandment, ate prematurely of the tree of knowledge (contemplation), was exiled and clothed with mortal flesh, yet even death was a merciful limit to sin.
312. 38.13After many lesser remedies failed, the eternal Word himself became man, uniting flesh to himself through a rational soul, being born of the Virgin, so that he might save the image and make the flesh immortal.
313. 38.14Those who belittle Christ for his humility charge God with his own kindness: the good shepherd, the woman seeking the coin, the one who washes feet and eats with tax collectors.
314. 38.15Christ was sent as man and as God by the Father's good pleasure, gave himself up and rose by his own authority; Gregory rebukes those who deny his Godhead and calls all to worship at Bethlehem with Magi, shepherds and angels.
315. 38.16Gregory urges his hearers to follow Christ through every stage of his life, from the flight into Egypt to the cross and burial, that they may rise and reign with him.
316. 39.1The feast of the Lights, which celebrates Christ's baptism, is a lofty mystery, unlike pagan rites, that purifies us and restores the light darkened by sin.
317. 39.2Christ the light of the world calls us to be enlightened and born again, to recover the first Adam, and to become light from his light.
318. 39.3Christian baptism is neither the shadowy purification of the law nor like the pagan mysteries, which are demonic inventions disguised as myth.
319. 39.4Gregory contrasts the feast with pagan myths and mysteries: the births of Zeus, the rites of Rhea and Demeter at Eleusis, Dionysus, Aphrodite, phallic rites and human sacrifice.
320. 39.5The list continues: Pelops, Hecate, the oracles, Magian and Chaldaean divination, Thracian and Orphic rites, Mithras, Osiris, Isis, Apis and the Nile; none of these is what Christians celebrate.
321. 39.6The worship of animals and idols brings its own punishment, making worshippers more senseless than the things they honour.
322. 39.7The demons, envious of man, led him into idolatry; the remedy begins with the fear of God, which leads through obedience and cleansing to illumination, so that we may receive the Word worthily.
323. 39.8Turning to the feast, Gregory speaks of God as one light and three: three in properties, hypostases or persons, one in essence or Godhead, divided without division and joined in distinction.
324. 39.10Both Sabellius' merging and Arius' division of God are to be rejected as equally impious.
325. 39.12One God the Father, one Lord Jesus Christ, one Holy Spirit: the prepositions mark properties, not different natures; the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeds, and these properties never change.
326. 39.13God made man to worship him on earth and, when man fell, became man without ceasing to be God, deceiving the deceiver; Christ's baptism teaches reverence for purification, humility before the church's ministers, and patience before teaching.
327. 39.15Christ comes to John's baptism to bury the old Adam and sanctify the Jordan; Gregory explains John's reluctance and the images of fan, fire, axe, sword and sandal-thong.
328. 39.16Christ rises from the water, the heavens open, and the Spirit comes as a dove; after a gap, Gregory names the baptisms of martyrdom and of tears.
329. 39.18Against the Novatianists, Gregory defends the readmission of the repentant, citing David, Peter, the Corinthian offender, and Paul's permission for young widows to remarry.
330. 39.19Gregory rejects the Novatianist refusal to readmit the repentant, warns of the final baptism of fire, and ends with the hope that the baptized will become perfect lights before the Trinity.
331. 40.1After the feast of the Lights, Gregory turns on the following day to speak of baptism and its benefits.
332. 40.2There are three births, from the body, from baptism and from the resurrection, and Christ honoured all three in himself.
333. 40.3Baptism, called illumination, is praised by a long list of titles as the most beautiful of God's gifts.
334. 40.4Baptism is called gift, grace, baptism, anointing, illumination, garment, bath and seal, and each name is explained.
335. 40.5God, contemplated in Father, Son and Spirit, is the first light; the angel is the second, man the third; the visible light of creation is another.
336. 40.6The first commandment and the written law were also lights, foreshadowing the great light.
337. 40.7Baptism cleanses body and soul by water and Spirit, and is a covenant with God for a new life; since there is no second regeneration, the baptized must guard its grace, though repentance with tears can heal, if with scars.
338. 40.9It is better to keep baptismal grace than to rely on the uncertain remedy of later penance; the baptized, armed with the seal, can repel the devil's temptations as Christ did.
339. 40.10Gregory urges his hearers to be baptized now, while they are healthy and in control of their minds, rather than putting it off until their deathbed.
340. 40.12Baptism should not wait for a fever; there should be time to work with its grace and earn a reward; the saved are slaves, hirelings or sons, and every moment is the time for baptism.
341. 40.13There is a time for everything else, but the time for salvation is always; the devil robs us by small delays, and sudden death can come in countless ways.
342. 40.15Baptism, the seal, protects in life and is the best shroud in death; the devil persuades people to delay it out of fear of spoiling it, but catechumens should enter fully and take up the shield of faith.
343. 40.17Young and old alike should seek baptism now, and parents should have their infants baptized rather than trusting in amulets.
344. 40.18Baptism benefits virgins, the married, those in authority and slaves, rich and poor; those engaged in public affairs should not fear it; and the parable of the labourers does not justify delaying baptism.
345. 40.19Against the claim that the desire for baptism suffices, Gregory distinguishes those who receive baptism: the wholly wicked, the half-wicked, and the already virtuous, of whom those who prepare and then cultivate the gift are best.
346. 40.20Of those who die unbaptized, those who despise baptism will be punished, those who delay will be punished less, and those who could not receive it, such as infants, will be neither glorified nor punished; desire alone does not equal baptism.
347. 40.21Gregory urges his hearers not to wait for Epiphany, Easter or Pentecost to be baptized, since death may come unexpectedly, and to hasten lest sinners seize the kingdom first.
348. 40.23Only the last words of section 25 survive in the scan: in baptism the more eager is the richer.
349. 40.26Gregory urges immediate baptism and warns against choosing a baptizer by rank or holiness: as gold and iron rings make the same impression, so every approved minister confers the same baptism.
350. 40.27Gregory urges the rich, the noble and masters not to disdain being baptized with the poor and slaves, to confess their sins and accept exorcism, and to receive God's free gift; infants in danger should be baptized.
351. 40.28Circumcision and the blood on the doorposts show that those without understanding can be sealed; otherwise Gregory advises baptizing children at about three years of age, when they can hear and answer.
352. 40.29To the objection that Christ was baptized at thirty, Gregory answers that Christ, being God, needed no cleansing and ran no risk in waiting.
353. 40.30Christ ran no risk in delaying baptism, since he controlled his own suffering and birth.
354. 40.31Christ was baptized at thirty for reasons proper to him: to avoid display, at the age for teaching, and so that all the events leading to the passion might follow in one sequence; his example does not justify our delay.
355. 40.32Our observances of fasting, the Passover and baptism follow Christ's but at different times; the baptized should show gratitude by prayer, tears and generosity to the poor, strangers, the sick, the naked and debtors.
356. 40.33Baptism must reform character as well as wash away sins; it does not forgive the continued keeping of ill-gotten goods; those raised from the tomb of sin should not bind themselves again.
357. 40.34Gregory applies Christ's healings to the baptized: the cleansed leper should be grateful, the withered hand stretched out in giving, the deaf and blind open to the Word and the light of the Trinity, and the gift guarded with care.
358. 40.35Using the parable of the returning unclean spirit, Gregory warns that the baptized must fill their souls with Christ, lest the evil spirit return with greater force.
359. 40.36Scripture speaks of the light of the righteous and of a cleansing fire that Christ brings, but also of a punishing fire for the wicked, the unquenchable fire with the sleepless worm.
360. 40.37Gregory distinguishes the true light from the deceptive one, and calls the baptized to be cleansed and illumined in every sense and member: eyes, ears, tongue, smell, touch, taste, hands, feet, belly and heart.
361. 40.40The cleansing should reach even the loins and kidneys, the seat of desire, so that the whole person, not only parts, is offered to God as a perfect sacrifice.
362. 40.41Gregory entrusts to the baptized the confession of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: one Godhead and power in three, each God by himself, the three one God together.
363. 40.42Gregory answers those who fear that calling the Son “begotten” makes God suffer: he fears instead that calling the Son or Spirit a creature divides God.
364. 40.43To subordinate the Son to the Father and the Spirit to the Son insults God; the Father is “greater” only as cause, not in nature; Gregory offers to bear the controversy himself while the baptized keep the unity of the three.
365. 40.44Gregory declares that he baptizes only in the faith of the undivided Trinity; those who will not accept the full Godhead of the three must seek another baptizer.
366. 40.45Gregory writes on the hearts of the candidates a “new decalogue” of faith: creation from nothing, evil not created by God, the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension and return of the Son, judgment, and good works; the rest is taught after baptism.
367. 40.46The rites after baptism (standing before the sanctuary, psalmody, lamps) foreshadow heaven; Gregory warns, with the parable of the virgins and the wedding feast, against carelessness that would shut the baptized out.
368. 41.1Oration 41, on Pentecost, contrasts Christian with Jewish and pagan feasts, then explains the honour of the number seven in the Law (Sabbath, seventh year, Pentecost, Jubilee) and the fiftieth day as a figure of the age to come.
369. 41.3Scripture honours the number seven: seven spirits, words purified sevenfold, forgiveness seventy times seven, Cain and Lamech, Wisdom's seven pillars, Zerubbabel's stone, praise seven times a day.
370. 41.4Gregory gathers further instances of seven in Scripture, from Enoch and Abraham to Jericho, Elijah, Elisha, the return from exile and the feeding of the four thousand, and explains that Christians, like the Hebrews, honour Pentecost.
371. 41.5Pentecost marks the end of the events of Christ's bodily life and the beginning of the work of the Spirit, who comes as Master, blowing where he wills.
372. 41.6Those who call the Spirit a creature are wicked servants; those who call him God are lofty but must speak prudently to the weak, who may confess the Spirit's nature in other words.
373. 41.8Gregory appeals to the ascetics who are sound on the Son but not on the Spirit to confess the Trinity as one Godhead or nature; he admires their life and would accept any loss to have them glorify the Trinity with him.
374. 41.9Of the others, who are spiritually dead and quarrel among themselves though agreeing in doctrine, Gregory will not speak.
375. 41.10Gregory returns to his subject, the Holy Spirit.
376. 41.11The Holy Spirit is eternal, ranked with Father and Son, deifying and not deified, Lord and giver of gifts; he has all that the Son has except being begotten, as the Son has all the Father's except being unbegotten.
377. 41.12Christian talk about the Spirit belongs to the church and the sober, not to theatrical mockery; Gregory now sets out his own teaching.
378. 41.13The Spirit worked in the angels, the patriarchs and prophets, and in the disciples in three stages, culminating at Pentecost, when he came essentially; Gregory explains “another Paraclete” and the tongues of fire, their division and sitting, and the upper room.
379. 41.14The Spirit, promised to abide for ever, creates with the Son both creation and the new birth, and transforms shepherds, goatherds, youths, fishermen, tax collectors and persecutors into prophets, apostles and evangelists.
380. 41.15Gregory discusses whether the miracle of Pentecost was in the hearing or in the speaking, and prefers to read Acts 2:6 as the apostles themselves speaking in foreign languages.
381. 42.1In his farewell oration Gregory asks the assembled bishops to judge his administration at Constantinople, as Paul submitted his gospel to the apostles.
382. 42.2Gregory begins his defence, inviting refutation if it is false.
383. 42.3Gregory calls on his hearers as witnesses, and recalls how the church was handed over, for its sins, to persecutors, first to Julian, a new Nebuchadnezzar.
384. 42.4God removed Julian by the Persians; the Arian Valens, a false Christian, was worse; but the church came through; Gregory recalls how small and poor the orthodox flock at Constantinople once was.
385. 42.5As God once looked on Israel's affliction in Egypt and made Joseph's family a great nation and a spreading vine, so he has looked upon his people.
386. 42.6Gregory prophesies that his once tiny flock, revived like Ezekiel's dry bones, will grow further, and warns those who divide the Godhead that their power is a shadow.
387. 42.7God promises to enlarge his people; Gregory tells the Arians, proud of their buildings and numbers, that a faithful few in the open air are worth more to God than many who deny the Godhead.
388. 42.8God values the saved and pure doctrine above numbers and buildings; in prophetic style Gregory has God promise to give the churches back to those who confess the Son and the Spirit.
389. 42.9God calls his growing people to enter his gates, and bids the guardian angels of the churches clear the way to the churches here and to the heavenly Jerusalem.
390. 42.11Gregory points to the church he leaves behind: presbyters, deacons, readers, and people of every rank, sex and age, all devoted to God.
391. 42.12Gregory claims a share in building this church by his teaching and spiritual fatherhood, asking no reward but acknowledgement.
392. 42.13Gregory's opponents have been quieted because he fought for Christ in Christ's way, without insults and without compromising the truth; he commends the same balance to all pastors.
393. 42.15Gregory argues that those who speak of three hypostases and those who speak of three persons mean the same thing, three distinguished by properties, not natures, in one essence.
394. 42.17Gregory accepts the terms unbegotten, begotten and proceeding, but rejects calling any of the three a creature, still less an instrument made for our sake.
395. 42.18Gregory will not argue from texts or resolve difficulties now; he submits his conduct at Constantinople to the bishops' judgment, claiming, like Samuel, that he has kept his priesthood pure and sought no power.
396. 42.20Gregory asks as his reward to be released and replaced, pleading old age, illness and weariness with the attacks of enemies and friends, like a pilot fighting both sea and crew.
397. 42.21Gregory laments the factions that divide East and West, compares church parties to circus factions, answers those who blame him for not taking revenge on the Arians and for lacking episcopal pomp, and asks for a successor who will please the many.
398. 42.22Gregory asks the bishops to release him with their prayers and to choose a successor who will not merely please, and bids farewell to his church of the Anastasia, the great church, the clergy, the people, the court, the city, East and West, the angels and the Trinity.
399. 43.1Gregory begins his funeral oration on Basil: no subject is greater for oratory; he explains why he speaks late, having been occupied with the defence of the faith at Constantinople.
400. 43.2Gregory ends his apology and turns to the praise of Basil, asking God's help.
401. 43.3Basil's family on both sides, in Pontus and Cappadocia, could furnish more and greater glories than the heroic houses of Greece.
402. 43.4Unlike the Greek noble houses with their mythical ancestors, Basil's families were distinguished by piety, which Gregory will now show.
403. 43.5Basil's paternal grandparents confessed the faith in the persecution of Maximin, the worst of all.
404. 43.6Following the law of martyrdom, neither provoking nor fleeing the contest when present, Basil's grandparents hid for seven years in the forests of Pontus.
405. 43.7When the grandparents longed for better food, they prayed in faith, recalling God's wonders in the wilderness, and deer came of themselves to be taken.
406. 43.8The wonder of the deer is contrasted with pagan hunting myths; Gregory tells it to show the piety Basil inherited and surpassed.
407. 43.9Basil's parents were known for charity, hospitality, self-control and dedication of property to God, and above all for their children; Gregory will praise Basil not for bodily gifts but for what truly matters.
408. 43.10Gregory defends secular learning against Christians who reject it: like the creation, it is to be used for what is good and purged of what leads to demons and error.
409. 43.12Basil was first educated in life and learning by his father, then at Caesarea, where he excelled as orator, philosopher and Christian, treating letters as a servant of the Christian philosophy of withdrawal to God.
410. 43.14Basil studied at Constantinople and then at Athens, where Gregory came to know him fully; Gregory begs leave to tell how their friendship began.
411. 43.15Gregory and Basil met at Athens, where the students were as fanatical about their rival sophists as racing fans about their horses.
412. 43.16Gregory describes the student factions of Athens and the initiation of newcomers, from which, through Gregory's influence and his own reputation, Basil alone was exempted.
413. 43.17Some Armenian fellow students, envious of Basil, tried to defeat him in debate.
414. 43.18Gregory at first supported the Armenians for the honour of Athens, then, seeing their envy, sided with Basil, who routed them; when Basil was disappointed with Athens, Gregory consoled him, and their friendship grew.
415. 43.19Gregory and Basil became inseparable in the pursuit of philosophy, a friendship lasting because founded on God, not on bodily attraction; Gregory cannot tear himself from the story.
416. 43.21At Athens Gregory and Basil knew only two roads, to the church and to the schools, prided themselves on being Christians, and were confirmed in faith by the very idolatry of the city.
417. 43.22Gregory and Basil led a circle of fellow students and became famous as an inseparable pair, surpassing the legendary friendships of Orestes and Pylades.
418. 43.23Basil mastered rhetoric, grammar, philosophy and dialectic, took from the mathematical sciences only what was useful, learned medicine through his own illness, and excelled above all in character.
419. 43.24When the friends left Athens, Basil went first and Gregory soon followed; Basil was made presbyter in due order, and Gregory deplores the disorder by which unworthy men are hastily raised to the episcopate.
420. 43.25As Saul was among the prophets and Jeroboam among the kings, so unworthy men now become bishops overnight, while the worthy keep the lowest place.
421. 43.26The unworthy bishop sits proudly above humbler and better men, thinking authority has made him wise.
422. 43.27Basil rose through each rank in order, from reader to presbyter to bishop, not seizing honour but being sought by it.
423. 43.28Basil's bishop, Eusebius, grew jealous of him; the monks and many of the people were ready to secede in Basil's support.
424. 43.29Rather than divide the church, Basil withdrew with Gregory to Pontus and the monastic life.
425. 43.30When the Arian emperor Valens attacked the church, Basil, at Gregory's urging, returned from Pontus, reconciled with his bishop, and led the defence of the faith in the Trinity.
426. 43.31After the Arians' defeat Basil served his bishop loyally as counsellor and assistant, and so in effect came to govern the church of Caesarea.
427. 43.32Basil guided the inexperienced bishop, who welcomed his support.
428. 43.34Basil's leadership of the church showed itself in many works, above all in the great famine, when grain dealers were hoarding and profiteering.
429. 43.35Unable to work miracles like Moses or Elijah, Basil persuaded the rich to open their storehouses and himself served food to the starving like Christ washing feet.
430. 43.36Basil surpassed Joseph by giving grain freely, and fed souls too with the word of God.
431. 43.37After the death of Bishop Eusebius, Basil was elected bishop of Caesarea despite opposition; Gregory's aged father, carried there almost dead to vote and consecrate, returned restored.
432. 43.38As bishop Basil surpassed himself, holding that a ruler's virtue must exceed that of those he rules; as Christ grew in wisdom by revealing what he had, so Basil's virtue found wider scope.
433. 43.39Basil showed that his office was a gift of God by refusing to give Gregory, his closest friend, any honour or share in power, and Gregory himself kept away to avoid envy.
434. 43.40Basil won over his opponents by mingling gentleness and firmness and by the force of his virtue, so that they came to see separation from him as estrangement from God.
435. 43.41Basil looked beyond his own church to the whole church, divided by errors and ravaged like the vine of Ps 80, and resolved to act for the common good.
436. 43.42Grieving over the state of the church, Basil wore himself out seeking a remedy.
437. 43.43Basil defended the faith by writings and by action, visiting, admonishing and organizing like Bezalel; the emperor Valens, like the returning unclean spirit, attacked again, and, unlike Xerxes, blasphemed against heaven itself.
438. 43.46Valens' first persecution brought exiles, confiscations, the expulsion of the orthodox from the churches and violence against clergy and virgins.
439. 43.47Valens' attack broke against Basil and Caesarea; Gregory recounts Basil's interview with the prefect Modestus, in which Basil refused to worship a creature, being himself bidden to become god.
440. 43.48To the prefect's threats of confiscation, exile, torture and death, Basil answered that he owned nothing, belonged to no place, had almost no body, and would welcome death as a passage to God.
441. 43.49Basil told the astonished prefect that bishops are humble in all else but unbending where God is concerned, and that no threat would make him consent to impiety.
442. 43.51Defeated, the prefect told Valens that Basil could not be moved; the emperor, admiring him, forbade force but, ashamed to change, did not enter communion with him.
443. 43.52On the feast of the Epiphany Valens came to Basil's church and was overwhelmed by the psalmody, the people and the bishop standing unmoved before the altar.
444. 43.53Overcome by the sight, Valens nearly fell when his offering was not received; afterwards Basil spoke with him within the sanctuary curtain, and the emperor's attitude began to soften.
445. 43.54Basil's exile was prevented when Valens' son fell ill; Basil also healed the prefect; and when a governor of Pontus tried to seize a widow who had taken sanctuary and abused Basil, the people of Caesarea rose to defend him, and Basil saved the governor from the mob.
446. 43.55When Cappadocia was divided into two provinces, the bishop of the new metropolis, Tyana, claimed jurisdiction and revenues, and even seized Basil's mules, under the pretext of doctrine.
447. 43.56Basil answered by creating new bishoprics, one of which he imposed on Gregory; Gregory confesses that he cannot praise this act, which troubled his whole life, but excuses Basil as one who put God above friendship.
448. 43.57Gregory praises Basil's poverty, frugality and ascetic life, his promotion of virginity and his union of solitary and communal monasticism, and above all the “new city” of charity he built for the poor and the lepers.
449. 43.58Gregory praises Basil's writings (the Hexaemeron, the books against Eunomius, On the Holy Spirit, his homilies), defends his reserve in calling the Spirit God, compares him with the great figures of the Old and New Testaments, describes those who imitated his outward manner, and comes to his death.
450. 43.59Gregory describes Basil's death, with his last words from the Psalm, his vast funeral attended by Christians, pagans and Jews, his burial among the martyrs, and his intercession in heaven; he offers his life as a living law.
451. 43.60Gregory calls every class of Basil's people to join his praise, offers the oration to Basil, and asks his intercession and to be received with him into the contemplation of the Trinity.
452. 44.1Oration 44, on New Sunday, begins by explaining the custom of annual dedications and the Scriptural theme of renewal.
453. 44.2The tabernacle, David's kingdom and Christ's temple of the body were renewed; Christ's resurrection makes us a new creation, and the present feast is a dedication.
454. 44.3God is the first, uncreated light, the angels are second lights, and the created light that began the world is a third, which dispelled the primeval darkness.
455. 44.4God created light before the sun, and made the world in an ordered sequence of days, bringing in man last as a king into a prepared palace; had man kept the commandment, he would have advanced further.
456. 44.5Through the devil's envy death entered, and God became man to restore us; the Sunday after Easter is the birthday of the new creation, the eighth day pointing to the life to come.
457. 44.6The hearers must be renewed themselves, putting off the old man and guarding each sense against the temptations that once brought death.
458. 44.7Renewal means directing anger at the devil and desire to God, loving one's brother, sharing with the poor and strangers, and forgiving as one has been forgiven.
459. 44.8Gregory exhorts the married, virgins and the powerful, and all to humility and constant renewal, the true way to keep the feast of dedication.
460. 44.9Gregory calls for a complete change of life, from the faith of demons to that of God, from show to reality, from luxury to humility, so as to receive the new heaven and earth.
461. 44.10All creation joins the feast in spring: sky, sea, rivers, meadows, ships, farmers, shepherds, gardeners and fishermen.
462. 44.11The bees, the birds and the horse join the springtime praise of God, whose hymn becomes ours through us.
463. 44.12Gregory ends with the feast of the martyr Mamas, the shepherd of Caesarea, whose festival coincides with New Sunday, and prays that the visible spring may lead to the spiritual spring of the new life.
464. 45.1Oration 45, the second Easter oration, opens with a vision, after Habakkuk, of an angel proclaiming the resurrection and the renewal of the world.
465. 45.2Easter is the feast of feasts; after the Easter vigil of lights, Gregory offers a discourse on the Word, beginning from God himself.
466. 45.3God is eternal Being, “He who is”, an infinite sea of essence, partly grasped and partly beyond grasp, so that he draws us, purifies us and makes us godlike.
467. 45.4God is infinite, without beginning, immortal and eternal; God means Father, Son and Holy Spirit, neither more nor fewer, one lordship and Godhead glorified by the seraphim's thrice-holy.
468. 45.5God's overflowing goodness first created the angels through the Word and Spirit; they are hard to move towards evil but not immovable, as Lucifer's fall shows.
469. 45.6After the intelligible world God made the visible, material world, harmonious in its parts, to show that he could create natures both akin and alien to himself.
470. 45.7God made man as a blend of the spiritual and material, a little world, earthly and heavenly, destined by turning to God to be deified.
471. 45.8Adam, placed in paradise with free will and a commandment, ate prematurely of the tree of knowledge (contemplation), was exiled and clothed with mortal flesh, yet even death was a merciful limit to sin.
472. 45.9After many lesser remedies failed, the eternal Word himself came to his own image, taking flesh and a rational soul, and was born of the Virgin.
473. 45.10The Word came forth as God with the flesh he assumed; he became poor and was emptied so that humans might share his riches and fullness.
474. 45.11Christ took human flesh to save the image and make the flesh immortal, a communion more wonderful than the first creation.
475. 45.12Gregory turns to the feast itself and explains the name: the Hebrew Phaska means “passing over”, and Greek speakers changed it to Pascha, thinking it referred to the Passion (paschein, “to suffer”).
476. 45.13The whole law was a shadow of what was to come; God revealed himself on Sinai in measure to each, and gave the law as a gentle remedy, allowing sacrifices for a time to lead people gradually from idols to the Gospel.
477. 45.14The sacrifices of the law pointed to Christ, the true victim for the whole world; each feature of the Passover lamb (innocent, perfect, male, a year old, without blemish) is read of him.
478. 45.15Gregory reads the Passover night, the flight from Egypt, the blood on the doorposts, the removal of leaven, the roasting and eating of the lamb, and the girded loins as figures of the Christian's deliverance from sin and the stricter demands of the Gospel.
479. 45.16The sandals and staff of the Passover are interpreted: shoes protect those fleeing Egypt from the serpent, and the staff is the support of faith that lets one eat Christ's body and drink his blood without doubt.
480. 45.20Leaving Egypt, the Christian is to take the Egyptians' gold for good use and destroy the idols; God will then guide him as he guided Israel in the desert. The law sketched the mystery of the Pascha; Christ fulfilled it.
481. 45.22Gregory asks to whom the ransom of Christ's blood was paid: not to the devil, nor as a price demanded by the Father, but accepted by the Father for the economy of salvation. He urges hearers to keep the Pascha spiritually by sacrificing themselves and sharing in every stage of Christ's passion and resurrection.
482. 45.25Gregory bids his hearers ascend with Christ and answer the angels' question, “Who is this King of glory?”: the risen Lord, whose body is made beautiful by his passion.
483. 45.26Gregory turns on those who belittle Christ's Godhead because he humbled himself as the Good Shepherd to seek the lost sheep.
484. 45.27Against those who confuse the Son with the Father and those who sever him from God, Gregory insists on distinction in number and union in Godhead, and declares that he will contend for the Trinity with the Trinity's help.
485. 45.28Gregory sums up the history of salvation: created for blessedness, given paradise and a commandment, humanity fell, and needed God made flesh and put to death, so that dying and rising with him it might be cleansed and glorified.
486. 45.30Gregory closes with a prayer to the Word, offering the sermon as thanksgiving and asking deliverance from the tyranny of the body and a place in the heavenly dwellings, with a doxology to the Trinity.