A The fact that it was delivered at Pascha is clear to the reader, and it can be reconciled. Indeed, the individual words of the oration savor of the very day of the Resurrection present at that time, and of yesterday’s celebration of the Lord’s Passion. Furthermore, a learned man is moved by these words of Gregory, "to the old and the new pastor," and professes himself ignorant as to whether these befit a simple presbyter or a bishop who was already governing the Nazianzen Church with his father among the shared responsibilities. This difficulty is too slight to have delayed a man as learned as he. For he, being highly versed in ecclesiastical antiquity, knew perfectly well that the titles "pastor," or "prelate, superior, president, antistite," were not, especially in those times, so peculiar to a bishop as not to be appropriate for second-order priests as well. Combefis himself, in his notes to the *Great Apologetic*, frequently reproaches Billius for attributing to bishops alone things which Gregory ascribes just as much to priests as to bishops. Nor does Gregory use these words, which give Combefis pause, only in this third oration; one finds the same expressions used by Gregory of himself in the first oration, § 6 and 7, and in oration 11, § 117. There is no one who would not admit that these orations were written before his episcopate. In them, he speaks not merely for himself, acting as a kind of vicar and assistant to his father the bishop, but also of the other priests, whom he calls "fellow pastors and co-pastors." Finally, in this third oration the discourse is everywhere about the Nazianzens and addressed to the Nazianzens, over whom our Gregory was never ordained bishop. He also indicates not obscurely at the end the persecution of Julian the Apostate, who was an emperor who had nonetheless paid the penalty for his impious desertion before Gregory was advanced to the episcopate.
VII. If anyone should contend from this that the *Great Apologetic* was not polished and elaborated until after this oration, we shall not much disagree; provided this be conceded, that it was placed quite conveniently after the former one on Pascha, as a second part of the same oration, as Elias says. Indeed, if account is to be taken of the time at which the final hand was applied to the *Apologetic*, it might seem that it should be placed after most, and perhaps even all, of the orations. For anyone can easily persuade himself that of those orations, this is the one that Gregory polished with greater care and refinement. In sum, the argument, time, and occasion of the oration are sufficiently recognized from the heading and the scholium above. It is first an expostulatory oration, then laudatory, and finally hortatory. With wondrous art, Gregory ingenuously and most lovingly complains, praises, and exhorts; to his old, or rather advanced-in-age parent, and to himself as the new pastor, he conciliates the goodwill of the Nazianzens by showing his own toward them, while at the same time adding spurs to their spirits for virtue.
ORATION III
AD EOS QUI IPSUM ACCIVERANT NEC OCCURRERANT.I. What is this, O friends and brethren, that you are so slow and sluggish in coming to our sermon: especially when you have been so prompt and swift to offer force and to drag us from our citadel—that is, from the solitude (which I had cherished above all things, and which I had marveled at, regarding it as the comrade and minister of my divine ascent and as that which makes God out of man, and had appointed for myself as the guide and directress of my whole life)—that you would be so prompt and quick to draw me away? Is there any reason why you neglect that which you were so eager to receive, now that it is already accepted, and have seen fit to be held by a desire for one who is absent, rather than to enjoy one who is present, as if it had been proposed to you to be masters of our philosophy, rather than to reap any fruit from it? And in truth, even this seems to me...
A to be something to be wondered at.
II. Nor have you gathered us in as guests, or come together with us—to speak with a little more sympathy—out of respect, if for no other reason, for the A commandment; nor have you taken us by the hand as those who are being led, nor have you emboldened us as cowards, nor encouraged us as those who have been constrained. But rather, you have made the festival feastless for us—I hesitate to say it, but it must be said—and you have welcomed us with beginnings that were not good; and you have mingled gloom with the celebration, precisely because you, as my victors—for it is not true to call you my lovers—do not provide for my pleasure. Thus everything that is easily conquered is easily held in contempt; and while the exalted is honored, that which humbles itself to God is dishonored.
III. B What do you want? Shall I dispute with you, or shall I be the judge? Shall I render a verdict, or receive one? For I hope for both: that if I am judged, I shall depart a victor; and if I pronounce upon the case, I shall justly and deservedly condemn you. Your crime, then, is this: that you do not at all respond to us in love, nor do you return honor to us in exchange for our compliance with you, nor do you guarantee with your present zeal that which is to come—which, even with such zeal, is hardly to be trusted, since everyone is more fervent when they first begin. Rather, you hold other things preferable B to both the old and the new shepherd, neither respecting the gray hair C nor inviting the youth.
IV. C There is in the Gospels a sumptuous and magnificent banquet, and a good and festive host, and friends, and a most pleasant feast; for it is the wedding of a son. And one invites, but they do not come; and he is indignant. I pass over the details in between, for the sake of avoiding ill omens, and to put it as mildly as I can, he fills the feast with other men. This, then, we pray God to avert from you; yet, how shall I speak of it gently? You have acted towards me more haughtily or more insolently than they who, when invited, insulted and rejected the feast, and treated the one inviting them with contumely. For you, being neither strangers nor of the number of those invited to the wedding, but having yourselves invited us, and having bound us to this holy D table, and having shown us the splendor of the bridal chamber, then
A you have suddenly abandoned us (for this action of yours is truly most remarkable): one towards his own field, another towards his yoke of newly purchased oxen, another towards his newly wedded wife, another towards some other matter of slight importance, you have dispersed and leaped away, paying little heed to the bridal chamber, and to the bridegroom himself.
V. Therefore I was filled with sadness and perplexity; for I will not keep silent about what has happened to me, nor was anything closer to happening than that I should keep to myself the discourse which I had determined to offer as a wedding gift—a discourse which I possess and consider to be the most beautiful and precious of all—nor was anything closer to happening than that I should turn the sting of the same argument against you, my friends, since force has been used upon me; having chanced upon so clear an argument for a speech, and at the same time with love sharpening the tongue, which indeed is most keen and copious for accusation, when it has flared up into jealousy* on account of the grief received from B an unexpected slight. If any of you, struck by the gadfly of love, has felt himself neglected, he surely understands the power of this passion, and will therefore forgive us for having suffered this, and for having nearly fallen into this madness.
VI. But for my part, it is not right for me at this time to speak anything harsher against you, nor would I wish it to happen at any other time. And perhaps we have even chidden you more than is equitable in this speech—you, I say, the sacred flock, the glorious sheep of Christ, the divine inheritance, on account of which you are rich and wealthy, O Father, even if in other respects you lack resources. And I think that those words of Scripture are fitting for you: *The lines have fallen to you in pleasant places; for your inheritance is excellent for you* (Ps. XV, 6). Nor indeed will I concede that most populous cities and vastest flocks should be preferred to us in any respect, C who are few in number, who are of the smallest tribe among the sons of Israel, who are the very few among the thousands of Judah, the little Bethlehem among cities, in which Christ is born, and now and from the beginning is well known and worshipped; among whom the Father is exalted, and the Son is declared equal, and the Holy Spirit is glorified together: we who are of one mind, who think the same thing, suffering no loss to the Trinity, by either setting one above another or by cutting them off; as the wicked arbiters and measurers of the Godhead D do, who diminish and insult the whole.
A VII. But as for you, if you have any mind to gratify me—my tillage, my vine, my very bowels, or rather the bowels of this common Father of ours, whom he has begotten in Christ through the Gospel—reverence us too. For it is just, since we have preferred you to all things; you are witnesses, and you are those who entrusted this position, whether it be an office of governance or a ministry, to our faith. And if more is owed to him who has loved more, by what measure shall I gauge that love with which my own affection has bound you to me as if by a debt? Nay, rather, grant honor to yourselves, and to the image entrusted to you, and to Him who entrusted it, and to the passions of Christ, and to the hopes from thence; retaining the faith which you have received, in which you have been nurtured, and with which you are believed not only to be saved yourselves, but also to bring salvation to others; for your boast, know well, is not of the many. B And consider that piety consists not in speaking much and often about God, but, for the most part, in keeping silence; for the tongue is a slippery thing for men unless it is governed by reason. And consider it always less dangerous to listen than to speak about God, so that it is more pleasant to learn something than to teach. Leave the more exact examination of these matters to the stewards of the Word; but do you yourselves honor God with your words in [only] a few things, but with your actions in much, and prove your love for Him more by the observance of the laws than by the praising and preaching of the Lawgiver—fleeing vice, pursuing virtue, living by the Spirit, walking by the Spirit, drawing unto yourselves knowledge by this means, and building upon the foundation of the faith not wood, nor hay, nor stubble—a light matter and easily consumed when our actions shall be judged or purified by fire—but gold, silver, and precious stones, things that remain and stand firm.
C VIII. I would have you do these things and embrace us with this kind of honor, whether you are present at our discourses or prefer to be absent, whether you are led by a desire for our prayers or have some other pursuit more important than this. And become pure and blameless children of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; and do not become entangled in the things that surround...
that you may be blameless; nor be caught in the ropes of your own sins, nor be boundound by the chains of your own transgressions, and let not the word be choked in you by worldly cares, nor let you become unfruitful; but walk in the royal road, not turning aside to the right hand or to the left, and though it be narrow, walk in it as if it were a broad road, led by the Spirit; and our state shall be well both now and in the trial beyond, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen.
WARNING ON ORATIONS IV AND V
BI. "He is not obscure," to speak with Basil, "when he states his goal as an orator: for he publicly marks the impieties of the Apostate with infamy, as if carved on a column. Nor does he attack him only by pointing out his crimes, but he strikes him with those same things upon which he seemed to be lifted up to heaven as if upon wings—by fables, histories, and deceitful sophistries, by illusions, sacrifices, and the frauds of demons and oracles, which he vomited forth as the greatest injury against us and against Christ. But since that entire subject matter is abundant and varied, the Father employs a varied and multiplex style of speech and artifice. Proceeding by way of panegyric, at times judicial, and then deliberative, he turns himself into every form that art allows, so that the oration may be varied."
II. Camerarius supposed that the twin invectives "Against Julian" were written by Gregory in the earliest days of his youth; but this, as Billius very well observes, is refuted by the gravity of the oration and the weight of its sentences, and also by the death and funeral of the Apostate, which are most certainly narrated therein C. And indeed, while still at Athens, Gregory, in the thirtieth year of his age, having known Julian while he was staying there, had predicted his demise as truly as it was evil. Soon after, as he says, that "beast" raged, and he was working on his excellent book "On the Priesthood"; therefore, he could not have written both these orations until after the Apostate had paid the penalty for his renounced religion and impiety. He died, in fact, on the night that connected the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh days of June, in the year 363. Not long after—it seems, as the year 363 was ending, which the beginning of the first Steleutic and the conclusion of the latter clearly show—Gregory, having retired for the third time into the solitude of Pontus, was no longer concerned, together with Basil, with "Augeas's stable," nor with a "wagon" or a "plane tree"; he hewed and adorned not "any stones whatsoever," but a "column more noble and more exalted than those of Hercules," with a dual purpose; one which he intended to set up not fixed in a single place, but mobile in every place and time, for the sins of the Apostate and for the admonition of posterity. D For this is what Gregory achieved with his Orations, that once the praises which Eunapius, Libanius, Callistus, and other flatterers had perversely heaped upon Julian were exploded, he branded his name with an eternal mark of infamy. We fear less, with Baronius, to call Basil into a partnership of this labor and glory, because, being united in spirit and even in location at that time, both seem to speak in these Orations: "These are for you," he says, "the efforts of your adversaries, Basil and Gregory," etc. Both Orations are certainly worthy of praise, whose excellence, says Baronius, "the most famous orators could not sufficiently praise; and any prudent person would call them two lightning bolts, sent from heaven with a mighty crash of thunder and flashing with the light of truth, with a powerful strike against a horrendous monster."
III. Let those rash writers go away, therefore, and if there is any shame in them, let them hide themselves in corners, lest
what I might say more harshly, they, clinging to the footsteps of Eunapius, Zosimus, and Libanius, not only extol the miserable Apostate with the highest praises, but even join that praise with the disparagement of the holy Fathers and the injury of the Christian name. Who could tolerate A Petrus Cunæus asserting that "men distinguished in piety were blinded by the zeal of factions and were exceedingly bitter"; and that it happened from this, "that when judgment is rendered concerning those princes who lived long ago, the authority of certain ancients, whom we know to have been clear and illustrious in the Church of God, deceives us much." I am ashamed to pursue the rest of what he vomits forth in calumny against the holy Fathers, and what he gloriously proclaims about Julian, whom he does not fear to assert was far superior to Constantine, and he proceeds to such a point of impiety, nay, of madness, as to say that "veneration for Julian had entered his soul"; a man, indeed, whose memory has been execrable to all in past B centuries, and always will be. Clericus, vexed by the same delirium as Cunæus, attributes to the Theologian "bitterness of soul and impotence." A voice worthy of Libanius and Zosimus, and of those who have defected from the Catholic religion. To these it is permitted to despise the most holy Fathers of the Church and to praise the Apostate. But from where, I ask, is it established to them regarding the virtues of Julian? Truly from nowhere else, if they wish to confess the truth, than from Julian's own testimony about himself, or from Libanius, Zosimus, and Ammianus Marcellinus, namely the ethnic writers who, for their love for the deserter of the Christian religion and for their hatred and malice toward Christians, have lied about him in many things. By what right? By what fairness, are the most holy and most learned Fathers of the Church set behind ethnic writers? Or are Libanius and Zosimus, both Gentiles, more serious and clearer witnesses C of the truth than our Gregory and Cyril of Alexandria? Let those of our own who have inconsiderately written many things too gloriously about Julian, and not reverently enough about the SS. Fathers, especially Gregory, seriously weigh these things. Let the praisers of the Apostate read what Augustine wrote against the Donatists, who, having offered a petition to this emperor, had praised his justice; St. Augustine, not even allowing the praise of any justice to be attributed to Julian, and not thinking that it became Christians, sharply rebukes and attacks the Donatists. Our devotion to the holy Fathers and our debt of zeal for religion have elicited these things from us.
IV. Rejecting, therefore, the adulatory testimony of the ethnics concerning the Apostate, let us recognize that those things which the holy Fathers, and especially the Theologian, wrote about him are true. These things remain firm, these remain unshaken; and now, with the most famous father of the «Ecclesiastical Annals», one is moved to wonder how graphically the sacred writer, under the D overshadowed form of the apostate man, expressed every single lineament of Julian himself in these words: «An apostate man, a useless man, walks with a perverse mouth, winks with his eyes, scrapes with his foot, speaks with his finger, plots evil with a perverse heart, and at every time sows quarrels. To him sudden destruction will come, and he will be crushed suddenly, and he will no longer have healing.»
V. In the first *Steleuticus*, the "wickedness and perversity of the man," as Gregory himself says, that is, of Julian, is abundantly shown, both by those things which he perpetrated against the Catholics, as well as by those which he was preparing to do. In the other *Invective*, or fifth oration, which is the second part and appendix of this work, the orator proposes to himself another goal, and one both holier before God and more pleasant to the auditors, and thus more useful to posterity; namely, that he might add to those things said above the just scales of God, and describe those punishments by which wickedness is compensated and exercised. This is the scope of the second invective, in which he follows the death of Julian. Two things, therefore, remain for us to weigh. First, concerning the Orations, whether they were only written or whether they were also spoken: second, concerning the praises of Constantius, which offended the minds of not a few in the past, and still offend them today.
VI. That these Orations were made and written to be declaimed before the people, the beginning of the first and other scattered words seem to demonstrate; but we are forced to believe from Gregory himself that they were not actually pronounced: since he repeatedly confesses that, with the monks divided "from the Father" and split apart, he had withdrawn his speech and granted it to no one. But that division persisted, and the sorrow for the schism of the Church of Nazianzus, which like some cloud entering the heart of Gregory obscured the rays of his speech, remained when he wrote the Invectives. Which is indeed manifest in these words of Gregory, in which he marks none other than the monks who were more fervent in the zeal of faith, and for that reason dissenting from Gregory the Father. "And I wish that this group also might join our choir, which since it previously sang no adulterated or ignoble song (and therefore not Arian) to God, and since it was once held worthy of the right order (in which monks were placed for the sake of honor), and as I trust it will shortly be held again, I know not by what move it was stirred to suddenly change the chant to the contrary, and places itself in another grade and order; and it cannot be brought, even for the sake of common joy, to join with us," etc. These things in no way fit the Arians, but suit the monks perfectly, as do very many others. The Theologian says that he is restrained from exercising zeal against them regarding their "retaining the faith," and that he still "cherishes and embraces them as his own members." Would he have spoken so of the Arians? Therefore, these things are to be understood as concerning the monks dissenting from Father Gregory; dissi-
- senting, but only in writing, and not spoken before a crowded congregation.
VII. Now, as for the praises of Constantius, many have long been offended by Gregory’s encomiums concerning him, as has already been said, and indeed are so even today; and many have gone so far, as Baronius A testifies, as to "shamelessly and very rashly accuse Gregory of betraying the truth." Constantius certainly presented himself as more accommodating to the Arians and more hostile to the Catholics than he could be excused for, let alone absolved; yet Gregory, who praised him, can be excused and defended. First of all, it must be observed that Constantius did not burn with as much hatred among the ancients as he burns with among us today. For today, the name of Constantius scarcely signifies anything other than an enemy of Christ and the truth, a persecutor of the Church, and almost that of B the Antichrist. The ancients were more indulgent; perceiving some of his outstanding gifts and certain noble deeds, they formed a milder judgment of him and even adorned him with praises. To provide one of many instances of this, I shall bring forward a most weighty witness: Ambrose, who writes thus of him to Valentinian, "Constantius, of August memory, not yet initiated into the sacred mysteries, thought he would be contaminated if he saw that altar; he ordered it to be removed, he did not order it to be replaced." This indeed happened at Rome, when Constantius, ascending the Capitol, ordered the altar of Victory to be taken away from there.
VIII. The praises of Constantius by Gregory occur in those Orations which he wrote against Julian, his successor. Who, then, will show himself to be such a severe and rigid judge of an orator that he thinks nothing at all should be conceded to him if, comparing Constantius with Julian, he demeans the latter and extols the former? For this reason, therefore, it was permitted for Gregory to praise Constantius by way of comparison with Julian, and in praising him he can merit an excuse, even if he may have been excessive. By comparison with the worst, it sometimes happens that a bad man is praised.
IX. Constantius could also be commended, without adulation and falsehood, for his piety, or for the cult towards religion that he exhibited. There are certainly most clear testimonies of his devotion to the Christian religion in the laws promulgated by Constantius for that cause, and in the edicts sanctioned against the idolaters, the superstitious, the sorcerers, and the magicians; for which he could not appear to be in the least inferior to his father Constantine and many other princes of the orthodox faith. If Gregory is accused for having praised Constantius, St. Hilary of Poitiers will also have to be accused; he, that very prelate than whom no other was a more fervent defender of the Catholic faith against the Arians. For Hilary praises Constantius for his "singular and admirable wisdom, for his blessed and religious will." "I truly admire you, Lord Emperor Constantius," he says, "seeking the faith only according to those things which have been written; and properly hastening, indeed, to those very oracles of the Only-Begotten God, so that a breast capable of imperial solicitude might also be full of the knowledge of the divine oracles." If it is a crime to have praised Constantius, the great Athanasius will be called into the crime, that unconquered defender of the orthodox faith, in whom for many years the Catholic faith seemed to lean and rest: indeed, he calls Constantius a "humane and pious emperor." "They," he says, speaking of the Arian bishops, "promulgate beyond the mind of the humane and pious Emperor Constantius what they wish according to their own impulse," etc. You may find many other things of this kind in the Apologies of Athanasius; although from him, as from Hilary, he was heard more than once as a patron of impiety, an emperor of heresy, and an Antichrist. From this, it can be gathered how truly Gregory wrote these things concerning that unhappy prince: "Who indeed (Constantius), if he caused us any trouble, did not do so out of contempt for us, nor to treat us with contumely, nor to indulge others rather than us; but so that we might all come together as one, and be joined by the consensus of our minds, and not be torn and dissected by internal schisms." And in the second Steleutica: "For even if he appeared to decline not a little from the true faith, this crime should nevertheless be attributed to the obtrusiveness of the nobles and the weakness of their faith," etc. C 77 X. Deceived, no doubt, albeit – as Hilary bears witness – a man most desirous of hearing the truth, the good prince was unwittingly urging the Catholics, and was compelled to rage against them. Because they were not the sort to purchase a false peace by betraying the truth and their conscience. And this becomes the more credible from what Theodoret writes: "Even if Constantius, deceived by those to whom he had allowed himself to be guided, did not admit the word 'consubstantial,' he nonetheless sincerely confessed its meaning." Which things, indeed, if they are true, the fault of Constantius is to be diminished, although he cannot be fully absolved.
XI. Gregory, however, seems to absolve him, and even to place him in heaven. But this is an error to be forgiven, since, ignorant of the facts, he thought Constantius was a penitent; for he had heard that he had grieved on his deathbed that he had studied new dogmas. Gregory was certain, when he wrote his invectives, that "Constantius had closed his life with a pious end." But if, as he himself thought, it happened that he truly did so, Baronius says, it is not inconsistent with faith that it was rumored by the report of many that a song was heard from heaven, since there is joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance.