[3073] Ps. lxxv. 10.
[3074] Exod. v. 6; vii. 22.
[3075] Rom. ix. 17.
[3076] Isai. xl. 2.
[3077] Ps. lxxix. 12.
[3078] Gen. xv. 16.
[3079] 1 Pet. v. 6.
[3080] Ps. cxxix. 7.
[3081] Joel i. 10.
[3082] Another. Either this is a wrong reading, or S. Gregory's memory fails him. The second quotation is also from Joel.
[3083] Joel ii. 3.
[3084] Deut. xxxii. 34; Jer. l. 25.
[3085] Hos. vi. 6.
[3086] Ps. xviii. 8.
[3087] Ib. cv. 32.
[3088] Ib. lxxviii. 50.
[3089] Ezek. xxi. 9.
[3090] Hos. xiii. 7, 8.
[3091] Isai. xxvi. 11 (LXX.).
[3092] Hos. viii. 3.
[3093] Nahum ii. 10.
[3094] Ps. vi. 5 (LXX.).
[3095] Isai. x. 3.
[3096] Ps. l. 21.
[3097] Gen. i. 26.
[3098] S. Matt. xxv. 8.
[3099] S. Luke xvi. 24.
[3100] Dan. vii. 9.
[3101] S. John v. 29.
[3102] Col. iii. 3.
[3103] S. John v. 29.
[3104] S. John iii. 18; xii. 48.
[3105] Isai. xxix. 9.
[3106] Hab. ii. 16.
[3107] Ps. lx. 2, 3; Isai. xxix. 10.
[3108] Hab. i. 5; Acts xiii. 41.
[3109] Deut. xxxii. 5.
[3110] Ps. xviii. 46.
[3111] Exod. vii. 19.
[3112] Amos iv. 7.
[3113] Jer. xviii. 12 (LXX.).
[3114] Isai. xlviii. 4.
[3115] Ib. xxi. 2 (LXX.).
[3116] Jer. vi. 29.
[3117] Exod. ix. 10.
[3118] Lev. xxvi. 27, 28.
[3119] Lev. xxvi. 1 (LXX.); Amos iv. 9.
[3120] Deut. xxxii. 25.
[3121] Isai. v. 1.
[3122] Dan. ix. 5.
[3123] Isai. lxv. 2.
[3124] Ps. xiv. 3.
[3125] Ib. lxxvi. 7.
[3126] Isai. lxiv. 5.
[3127] Ps. lxxix. 4.
[3128] Ib. 6, 13.
[3129] Jer. x. 24.
[3130] Joel ii. 15.
[3131] Joel ii. 17.
[3132] Ps. xcv. 6.
[3133] Ib. xcv. 2 (LXX.).
[3134] Joel ii. 14.
[3135] Ps. cxxvi. 5.
[3136] Gen. xix. 17, 23; Jonah iii. 5.
[3137] To do no wrong. etc. Clémencet quotes this as an aphorism from Demosth. de Cor.
[3138] Wisd. ix. 15.
[3139] Prov. iii. 12.
[3140] Jer. v. 3.
[3141] Isai. ix. 13.
[3142] Jer. viii. 5.
[3143] Heb. x. 31.
[3144] Ps. xxxiv. 16.
[3145] Jer. xxiii. 24.
[3146] Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8.
[3147] Nahum i. 1, 2.
[3148] Isai. i. 10.
[3149] Isai. i. 5 (LXX.).
[3150] Ib. i. 6.
[3151] 2 Sam. i. 21.
[3152] Ps. lxv. 9.
[3153] Hag. i. 9.
[3154] Deut. xxviii. 39.
[3155] Isai. v. 10.
[3156] Ib. xxi. 6; lxii. 6; Habak. ii. 1.
[3157] Ezek. xxxiii. 3.
[3158] Isai. v. 8.
[3159] S. Matt. xxv. 26.
[3160] Mal. iii. 8.
[3161] S. Luke xii. 18.
[3162] Amos ii. 7.
[3163] Isai. xxix. 21.
[3164] Amos v. 10.
[3165] Habak. i. 16.
[3166] Isai. iii. 14.
[3167] Zech. xi. 5.
[3168] Eph. v. 6.
[3169] Gen. xli. 39.
[3170] Amos viii. 5.
[3171] Prov. xx. 10.
[3172] Zech. v. 8.
[3173] 1 Kings xi. 33.
[3174] Prov. xxx. 15.
[3175] Amos vi. 4-6.
[3176] Zech. xi. 2.
[3177] Isai. lviii. 7.
[3178] Exod. xxxii. 11.
[3179] Ps. cvi. 23, 30.
[3180] 1 Pet. ii. 5.
[3181] Rom. xii. 1.
[3182] Joel ii. 23.
[3183] Ps. lxxxv. 13.
[3184] Ib. lxvii. 6.
Oration XVIII.
On the Death of his Father.
ThisOration was delivered a.d. 374. S. Gregory the elder died early in that year, according to the Greek Menæa on the 1st of January, though Clémencet and some others place his death a few months later. His wife, S. Nonna, survived him, and was present to hear the Oration, as was also S. Basil, who desired to honour one who had consecrated him to the Episcopate. The aged Saint, who died in his hundredth year, had originally belonged to a sect called Hypsistarii. Our knowledge of the existence and tenets of this sect is due to this Oration [3185] and to a few sentences in that of S. Greg. Nyssen. (c. Eunom. I. ed. 1615, p. 12), by whom they are called Hypsistians. He was converted by the prayers, influence and example of his wife, S. Nonna, and, soon after his baptism, consecrated Bishop of Nazianzus. He was eminent as an able administrator, a devout Christian, an orthodox teacher, a steadfast Confessor of the faith, a sympathetic Pastor, an affectionate father. In his life and work he was seconded by his wife, and followed by his three children, Gregory, Gorgonia, and Cæsarius, whose names are all to be found upon the roll of the Saints.
Funeral Oration on His Father, in the Presence of S. Basil.
1. O man of God, [3186] and faithful servant, [3187] and steward of the mysteries of God, [3188] and man of desires [3189] of the Spirit: [3190] for thus Scripture speaks of men advanced and lofty, superior to visible things. I will call you also a God to Pharaoh [3191] and all the Egyptian and hostile power, and pillar and ground of the Church [3192] and will of God [3193] and light in the world, holding forth the word of life, [3194] and prop of the faith and resting place of the Spirit. But why should I enumerate all the titles which your virtue, in its varied forms, has won for and applied to you as your own?
2. Tell me, however, whence do you come, what is your business, and what favour do you bring us? Since I know that you are entirely moved with and by God, and for the benefit of those who receive you. Are you come to inspect us, or to seek for the pastor, or to take the oversight of the flock? You find us no longer in existence, but for the most part having passed away with him, unable to bear with the place of our affliction, especially now that we have lost our skilful steersman, our light of life, to whom we looked to direct our course as the blazing beacon of salvation above us: he has departed with all his excellence, and all the power of pastoral organization, which he had gathered in a long time, full of days and wisdom, and crowned, to use the words of Solomon, with the hoary head of glory. [3195] His flock is desolate and downcast, filled, as you see, with despondency and dejection, no longer reposing in the green pasture, [3196] and reared up by the water of comfort, but seeking precipices, deserts and pits, in which it will be scattered and perish; [3197] in despair of ever obtaining another wise pastor, absolutely persuaded that it cannot find such an one as he, content if it be one who will not be far inferior.
3. There are, as I said, three causes to necessitate your presence, all of equal weight, ourselves, the pastor, and the flock: come then, and according to the spirit of ministry which is in you, assign to each its due, and guide your words in judgment, so that we may more than ever marvel at your wisdom. And how will you guide them? First by bestowing seemly praise upon his virtue, not only as a pure sepulchral tribute of speech to him who was pure, but also to set forth to others his conduct and example as a mark of true piety. Then bestow upon us some brief counsels concerning life and death, and the union and severance of body and soul, and the two worlds, the one present but transitory, the other spiritually perceived and abiding; and persuade us to despise that which is deceitful and disordered and uneven, carrying us and being carried, like the waves, now up, now down; but to cling to that which is firm and stable and divine and constant, free from all disturbance and confusion. For this would lessen our pain because of friends departed before us, nay we should rejoice if your words should carry us hence and set us on high, and hide distress of the present in the future, and persuade us that we also are pressing on to a good Master, and that our home is better than our pilgrimage; and that translation and removal thither is to us who are tempest-tost here like a calm haven to men at sea; or as ease and relief from toil come to men who, at the close of a long journey, escape the troubles of the wayfarer, so to those who attain to the hostel yonder comes a better and more tolerable existence than that of those who still tread the crooked and precipitous path of this life.
4. Thus might you console us; but what of the flock? Would you first promise the oversight and leadership of yourself, a man under whose wings we all would gladly repose, and for whose words we thirst more eagerly than men suffering from thirst for the purest fountain? Secondly, persuade us that the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep [3198] has not even now left us; but is present, and tends and guides, and knows his own, and is known of his own, and, though bodily invisible, is spiritually recognized, and defends his flock against the wolves, and allows no one to climb over into the fold as a robber and traitor; to pervert and steal away, by the voice of strangers, souls under the fair guidance of the truth. Aye, I am well assured that his intercession is of more avail now than was his instruction in former days, since he is closer to God, now that he has shaken off his bodily fetters, and freed his mind from the clay which obscured it, and holds intercourse naked with the nakedness of the prime and purest Mind; being promoted, if it be not rash to say so, to the rank and confidence of an angel. This, with your power of speech and spirit, you will set forth and discuss better than I can sketch it. But in order that, through ignorance of his excellences, your language may not fall very far short of his deserts, I will, from my own knowledge of the departed, briefly draw an outline, and preliminary plan of an eulogy to be handed to you, the illustrious artist of such subjects, for the details of the beauty of his virtue to be filled in and transmitted to the ears and minds of all.
5. Leaving to the laws of panegyric the description of his country, his family, his nobility of figure, his external magnificence, and the other subjects of human pride, I begin with what is of most consequence and comes closest to ourselves. He sprang from a stock unrenowned, and not well suited for piety, for I am not ashamed of his origin, in my confidence in the close of his life, one that was not planted in the house of God, [3199] but far removed and estranged, the combined product of two of the greatest opposites--Greek error and legal imposture, some parts of each of which it escaped, of others it was compounded. For, on the one side, they reject idols and sacrifices, but reverence fire and lights; on the other, they observe the Sabbath and petty regulations as to certain meats, but despise circumcision. These lowly men call themselves Hypsistarii, and the Almighty is, so they say, the only object of their worship. What was the result of this double tendency to impiety? I know not whether to praise more highly the grace which called him, or his own purpose. However, he so purged the eye of his mind from the humours [3200] which obscured it, and ran towards the truth with such speed that he endured the loss of his mother and his property for a while, for the sake of his heavenly Father and the true inheritance: and submitted more readily to this dishonour, than others to the greatest honours, and, most wonderful as this is, I wonder at it but little. Why? Because this glory is common to him with many others, and all must come into the great net of God, and be caught by the words of the fishers, although some are earlier, some later, enclosed by the Gospel. But what does especially in his life move my wonder, it is needful for me to mention.
6. Even before he was of our fold, he was ours. His character made him one of us. For, as many of our own are not with us, whose life alienates them from the common body, so, many of those without are on our side, whose character anticipates their faith, and need only the name of that which indeed they possess. My father was one of these, an alien shoot, but inclined by his life towards us. He was so far advanced in self control, that he became at once most beloved and most modest, two qualities difficult to combine. What greater and more splendid testimony can there be to his justice than his exercise of a position second to none in the state, without enriching himself by a single farthing, although he saw everyone else casting the hands of Briareus upon the public funds, and swollen with ill-gotten gain? For thus do I term unrighteous wealth. Of his prudence this also is no slight proof, but in the course of my speech further details will be given. It was as a reward [3201] for such conduct, I think, that he attained to the faith. How this came about, a matter too important to be passed over, I would now set forth.