now enumerating, now counting together, now subordinating. Why this? Surely to show the equality of nature: sometimes he makes mention of the three, sometimes of two, or of one, as if the remaining persons follow together; and sometimes he attributes the operation of God to the Spirit, A so that in nothing is he different; and sometimes, instead of the Spirit, he brings in Christ; and when he distinguishes the persons, he uses these words: *One God, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.* But when he gathers them into one Deity, he speaks thus: *Because from him, and through him, and in him are all things*, certainly through the Holy Spirit, as it is shown in many places of Scripture. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. B
ADMONITION ON ORATION XXXV
I. Theodosius the Great, having set out from Macedonia, came to Constantinople on the seventh day before the Kalends of December in the year 380. Two days later, having ejected the heretics, he restored every single church of the royal city to the Catholics. Moved by such a benefit, the citizens of Constantinople, exulting with religious joy, extol the emperor’s piety and glory to the very heavens. Gregory himself, as was fitting, showing himself also a participant in the public joy, gave evidence of his grateful mind toward God in this short oration. On this day, a certain festival of the martyrs was being celebrated. Hence Gregory gives thanks to God and congratulates his hearers, because they had come together, prompt and eager, not to stir up arms, but to hold a festival. He ascribes this unexpected miracle to the patronage of the martyrs. "O martyrs," he says (Or. XXXV, n. 1), "this struggle is yours. You have finished a huge war, I know well. Your sweats have accomplished this," etc. Then he brings forth the heretics, like nocturnal birds which, fleeing the serenity of light, betake themselves into the hiding-places of darkness. Then the orator moves on to the calamities which they had suffered at the hands of those very heretics in the preceding year. He expresses that mournful time with colors of eloquence that are natural, indeed, but dark and shadowy, so to speak. But he immediately withdraws his eyes from so unpleasant a picture, lest the day of such a great festival be contaminated by this tearful and gloomy image; and he calls the hearers back again to the movements of an exulting mind.
II. Leuvenklaius thought that this oration had been delivered at the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, at the time when the Theologian had not long before arrived in Constantinople. But the learned man errs. The beginning and end of the oration, and indeed the whole oration itself, is against him. We believe, with Tillemont (16), that it was spoken on the seventh day before the Kalends of December of the year 380, or shortly after, at which time the churches were restored to the Catholics. It is also the case that this is the oration which was delivered first in the greater and most sacred church of St. Sophia. Leuvenklaius was the first to translate this and publish it in Latin only, in the year 1571. He notes that it was excerpted from a very ancient book, which had been written by the hand of the historian Choniates Acuminatus. The Latin edition of Gregory, which appeared in the year 1583 under the care of Chatardus and Genebrardus, was supplemented with this oration, not from the translation of Leuvenklaius, but from that of Billius. Montacutius, however, was the first who, having transcribed it from the library of the most illustrious Count Palatine Elector, and compared it with another copy in the same place by Georgius Lingleshemius, published it in Greek alone in the year 1610. Montacutius thinks that this is not so much an oration as a fragment of an oration. Which opinion perhaps cannot be held to be entirely contemptible. Far be it, however, for us to consider it, with some, as a certain fragment culled from some oration of St. Chrysostom. For, as Leuvenklaius says (17), "no one will doubt that this is the genuine offspring of our Theologian, if one looks at the character of the diction." Thus also thinks the most learned Tillemontius. And certainly, as the learned observe, the things which are treated in this oration in no way harmonize with the times of Chrysostom, but highly with those of Gregory. For the Theologian describes here the same things which are read in his *Poem on his own Life* and elsewhere passim.
ORATIO XXXV. — DE MARTYRIBUS
ORATION XXXV. On the Martyrs, and against the Arians.
A I. What can be said that is as great as that which the eyes are permitted to behold? What speech can be compared to the good things that we see? Behold, a spectacle appears before our eyes, one beyond belief, which we have often indeed wished to behold; and yet, desired as it was, it exceeds our very prayers. Again, honor is here rendered to the martyrs—a practice neglected for much time preceding this; again, the coming together of God’s priests; again, dances and spiritual celebrations. This vast, crowded assembly is gathered to keep a feast, not to engage in armed combat. O, the wonder of it! Weapons have been cast from hands, the battle line is broken, and the concern for war is abandoned. No longer are the cries of those howling heard; instead, feasts, joys, and peaceful delights dance around the entire city—a city which was of old the mother of martyrs, but which had for much of the intervening time been deprived of that honor it used to derive from its children. But now, to use the words of the Apostle, it has all things and abounds. B Well done, O martyrs; this contest, too, is yours: you have finished the great war, I know it well. These achievements are but the fruits of your labors. You have raised this trophy for peace. You have drawn to yourselves the priests of God. You have set them over this congregation as the dancers of the Holy Spirit. O, how greatly have they suffered loss, whose span of life did not reach unto this present spectacle, so that they might have been sated with peace’s blessings after being filled with troubles and miseries!
C II. The deceit of heresy has departed and is vanished, like a certain mist, scattered by the Holy Spirit; and the serenity of peace has shone forth pure, and through it the city’s stars sparkle, radiating in the splendid light of truth; they are not assigned to night and darkness, but all shine in the daylight, gleaming with the true light of justice. And since, as the Apostle saith, the night is far spent—or rather, it has vanished altogether—and all things are made cheerful by the light of the day, the wild beasts that seek their food by night flee away and betake themselves to the woods and caverns; so too do the heretical night-owls flee, making a shrill cry, D and being blinded by the light of truth, and clinging to one another by the head, they cast themselves into the clefts, of the rocks. Through the light of this day, the brotherhoods of revelers and drunkards have ceased. Thieves, wall-breakers, heralds, and whatever else [is evil]…
of the night, has been hidden away by the dawning light of peace. For as long as that night existed, darkening everything with the fog of deception, what were the things that were being done? They are worthy of oblivion and deep silence, so that the present grace might not be defiled by the memory of worse things. For how could one speak of the evils committed against it? Or how, again, could one remain silent? What disaster from a tragedy is like this? What myth spinning tales of calamity, what poet of dramas has ever cried out such a disaster upon a stage? The calamity surpasses the power of speech: the evils are greater than can be recounted in words.
A III. That chorus was the seat and stronghold of the devil. Here he had established his army for himself, and had stationed his own bodyguards within it. Here was the camp of falsehood, the champions of error, the expedition of demons, the legions of unclean spirits; and, if it be permitted to use even external names, from there the wicked army of the Furies raged against the Church. For I am led to call those women [by such a name], who, beyond nature, showed themselves to be manly in their malice. One such was Jezebel in the days of Elias, breathing slaughter against the prophets of the Lord; and the divinely inspired Scripture brands her B so that, in my opinion, every age thereafter might be instructed by the memory of such a wanton and shameless woman. But how many, like this Jezebel, have suddenly sprung up from the land like hemlock, surpassing in greater cruelty even the one I have commemorated? And if you do not believe my words, look at history. That woman handed over the vineyard of Naboth to the mourning Ahab, so that he might make a garden out of the vineyard, an ornament of luxury, a feminine delight; these women, however, committing this evil by their own hands, attempted to utterly destroy and overthrow the living vineyard of God, that is, the Church. What example of this that I recount shall I find? What image of such depravity and wickedness shall I contrive? I saw a painting on a whitewashed wall C (forgive my spirit, ulcerated by the memory of evils; or rather, you yourselves grieve at our pain; for we are recounting our own ills, not another's). What, then, was that painting to which I compare our circumstances? It was a lewd and most shameless dance of women, twisting themselves into one sort of obscene posturing and gesturing after another (the fables call such women Maenads). At the breath of the wind, their hair floated about; their look was the gateway of fury; burning torches were carried in their hands, from which flames rolled with the swirling of their bodies, while the breeze in the folds of their garments ruined the modest propriety D of their robes, treading upon one another’s heads.