GREGORIUS NAZIANZENUS 994 GREGORIUS NAZIANZENUS
if against a personal encmj-. " He takes eloquence away from us,'' he says, "as though we were thieves Avho had stolen it." Elsewhere, addressing the hea- then, he writes : " Every thing else, riches, birth, glo- ry, power, and all the vain pomps of earth wiiose bril- liancy vanishes like a dream, I willingly abandon to you ; but I will not abandon eloquence. I do not com- plain of the fatigues I have undergone by land and by sea to attain it. Please God that my friends and I may possess its power ! Among the things I care for it stands foremost — that is, foremost after those which are above all, faitli, and the hope which rises up above things visible." And again : " It is our duty to ren- der thanks unto God that eloquence has again become free." These two discourses, it must be admitted, are really nothing but pamphlets, exhibiting little of the charity and mildness which one would expect from a Christian pastor speaking of a deceased enemy. There is, nevertheless, a certain grandeur in the indignation which Gregory pours out against Julian. At the close of the second discourse the orator grows calmer, and endeavors to prevent revenge being taken on the par- tisans of Julian : he saj's : "Let not the facilit}' of avenging ourselves lead us to forget the dut}' of mod- eration. Let us leave to God's judgment the chas- tisement of those who have offended us . . . and be satisfied with seeing tiie people openly hissing our per- secutors in the public places and in the theatres." Gregory's friendly relations with Basil came near be- ing sadly interrupted. Gregory had, in 3G5, brought about a reconciliation between his friend and Eusebius of Caesarea. The latter dying in 370, Basil succeeded him as archbishop, and Gregory came to visit him in the year following. There was a contest between Basil and Anthimus, bishop of Tyana in Cappadocia, who 4)retended to be metropolitan of the province. Basil, in order to secure a useful ally, offered Gregory the bishopric of Sasima, a smalL unhealthy place on the frontier of the two provinces which divided Cappado- cia. Gregory', after declining for some time, finalh' accepted, and was ordained bishop in 372 ; but when pressed by Basil to take his part actively, he answered "that he would not take up arms in his quarrel with Anthimus, as he did not wisli to play the part either of battle-field or of pre}'." Retiring to Nazianzum a bishop without a bishopric, he remained with his fa- ther, whom he assisted in the government of his church. " He taught the people, defended the Church against the vexations of the Roman governors, and liy his elo- quence and virtue exerted that kind of religious su- premac}' which, in the earlj' ages, formed part of eccle- siastical power" (Villemain, Tableau de I'E'oqiience chretitnne au quatri'eme Steele, p. 133). Losing his fa- ther and mother almost at the same time (A.D. 374), lie retired to a convent of Seleucia. He was still there, living in a calm which, as he said himself, "the hisses of heretics" could not disturb, when he heard of the death of Basil in 379. It affected him deeply, and he wrote a letter of encouragement and consolation to Gregory of Nj'ssa, the brother of his deceased friend. The Church of Constantinople had been for forty years a prey to Arianism, when Gregory was chosen as the most proper person to bring it back to ortlio- doxy. Though unwilling to be drawn out from the calm retirement he so much enjoyed, Gregory permit- ted himself to be led by the advice of his friends and the interests of the Church. His emaciated appear- ance, tlie marks of severe penance and of sickness, and his strange speech, made him at first a butt for the laughter and irony of the heretics at Constantinople. The orthodox had not a single church of their own in Constantinople ; Gregory was therefore obliged to preach at first in a private house, which gave place to a church named Anastasia, in remembrance of the re- riviil of faith. He tauglit'and defended the Nicene Creed before crowded audiences attracted by his elo- quence. It is then he was surnamed the Theologian,