[3226] A document. Benoît (I. p. 179) gives reasons for believing that this was the creed of the council of Antioch, a.d. 363--which accepted the Creed of Nicæa, but explained it in terms capable of a semiarian construction. The "over zealous part" were the monks.
[3227] Partner. S. Gregory had a considerable share in the explanations which made clear his father's real orthodoxy, and re-established peace. Orat. vi. was pronounced by him on the occasion.
[3228] Eccles. xi. 2.
[3229] Isai. lviii. 9. (LXX.).
[3230] Better. Clémencet compares Dem. De Corona.
[3231] Eccles. xi. 1.
[3232] Prov. xxx. 15.
[3233] To the Sanctuary, i.e., To the Priesthood.
[3234] Ps. xxiii. 5. Rod and Staff, i.e., Punishment and support.
[3235] Ps. ci. 6.
[3236] Job i. 21.
[3237] Numb. xii. 3.
[3238] Ps. cxxxii. 1 (LXX.).
[3239] 1 Sam. ix. 9.
[3240] Numb. xxxv. 7.
[3241] Gal. ii. 7.
[3242] S. Mark iii. 17.
[3243] Acts vii. 59.
[3244] Dregs. Cf. Orat. xvi. 4.
[3245] Ps. lxxv. 8; xciv. 1.
[3246] Ib. lviii. 4. (LXX.).
[3247] The poet. Pindar.
[3248] My Miriam. S. Nonna.
[3249] Exod. xv. 20.
[3250] On behalf of, or perhaps "at the head of." The passage does not mean that he actually celebrated the Holy Mysteries, but that he used some of the prayers of the service, and united himself in intention with the service being at the time performed in the church, and invoked the Divine blessing upon his people in his absence.
[3251] The new day. On this feast (in another year) Orat. xliv. was preached.
[3252] 2 Kings xx. 1 et seq.
[3253] Isai. xxxviii. 8.
[3254] Exod. xvi. 14; xvii. 6.
[3255] Ps. lxxviii. 24, 15.
[3256] 1 Kings xvii. 6.
[3257] Dan. xiv. 33 (sc. Hist. of Bel. v. 33).
[3258] One, i.e. Dianius.
[3259] One of, etc., Eusebius.
[3260] Their, i.e., of the Bishops.
[3261] The Emperor, Julian.
[3262] In imminent peril, lit. "on a razor's edge." Homer Il. x. 173.
[3263] Nazarites, i.e., "the monks."
[3264] Your divine, etc., addressed to S. Basil.
[3265] There was lacking. The Council of Nicæa ordered that a Bishop should be consecrated by at least three Bishops.
[3266] Ps. xc. 10.
[3267] Job xl. 4.
[3268] Stone, i.e. the tomb in which his father was buried.
[3269] Which I have resigned, i.e., Sasima. Accepted, i.e., Nazianzus.
[3270] He who has. S. Gregory the elder was the principal mover in S. Basil's election and consecration.
[3271] Gen. i. 16.
Oration XXI.
On the Great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria.
The reference in §22 to "the Council which sat first at Seleucia...and afterwards at this mighty city," leaves no room for doubting that the Oration was delivered at Constantinople. Further local colour is found in the allusions of §5. We are assured by the panegyric on S. Cyprian (Orat. xxiv. 1) that it was already the custom of the Church of Constantinople to observe annual festivals in honour of the Saints: and at present two days are kept by the Eastern Church, viz., Jan. 18th, as the day of the actual death of S. Athanasius, and May 2d, in memory of the translation of his remains to the church of S. Sophia at Constantinople. Probably, therefore, this Oration was delivered on the former day, on which Assemani holds that S. Athanasius died. Papebroke and (with some hesitation) Dr. Bright pronounce in favour of May 2d. Tillemont supposes that a.d. 379 is the year of its delivery; in which case it must have been very shortly after S. Gregory's arrival in the city. Since, however, no allusion is made to this, it seems, on the whole, more likely that it should be assigned to a.d. 380. The sermon takes high rank, even among S. Gregory's discourses, as the model of an ecclesiastical panegyric. It lacks, however, the charm of personal affection and intimate acquaintance with the inner life, which is characteristic of the orations concerned with his own relatives and friends.
1. In praising Athanasius, I shall be praising virtue. To speak of him and to praise virtue are identical, because he had, or, to speak more truly, has embraced virtue in its entirety. For all who have lived according to God still live unto God, though they have departed hence. For this reason, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living. [3272] Again, in praising virtue, I shall be praising God, who gives virtue to men and lifts them up, or lifts them up again, to Himself by the enlightenment which is akin to Himself. [3273] For many and great as are our blessings--none can say how many and how great--which we have and shall have from God, this is the greatest and kindliest of all, our inclination and relationship to Him. For God is to intelligible things what the sun is to the things of sense. The one lightens the visible, the other the invisible, world. The one makes our bodily eyes to see the sun, the other makes our intellectual natures to see God. And, as that, which bestows on the things which see and are seen the power of seeing and being seen, is itself the most beautiful of visible things; so God, who creates, for those who think, and that which is thought of, the power of thinking and being thought of, is Himself the highest of the objects of thought, in Whom every desire finds its bourne, beyond Whom it can no further go. For not even the most philosophic, the most piercing, the most curious intellect has, or can ever have, a more exalted object. For this is the utmost of things desirable, and they who arrive at it find an entire rest from speculation.
2. Whoever has been permitted to escape by reason and contemplation from matter and this fleshly cloud or veil (whichever it should be called) and to hold communion with God, and be associated, as far as man's nature can attain, with the purest Light, blessed is he, both from his ascent from hence, and for his deification there, which is conferred by true philosophy, and by rising superior to the dualism of matter, through the unity which is perceived in the Trinity. And whosoever has been depraved by being knit to the flesh, and so far oppressed by the clay that he cannot look at the rays of truth, nor rise above things below, though he is born from above, and called to things above, I hold him to be miserable in his blindness, even though he may abound in things of this world; and all the more, because he is the sport of his abundance, and is persuaded by it that something else is beautiful instead of that which is really beautiful, reaping, as the poor fruit of his poor opinion, the sentence of darkness, or the seeing Him to be fire, Whom he did not recognize as light.
3. Such has been the philosophy of few, both nowadays and of old--for few are the men of God, though all are His handiwork,--among lawgivers, generals, priests, Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles, shepherds, teachers, and all the spiritual host and band--and, among them all, of him whom now we praise. And whom do I mean by these? Men like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve Patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, David, to some extent Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, the Prophets before the captivity, those after the captivity, and, though last in order, first in truth, those who were concerned with Christ's Incarnation or taking of our nature, the lamp [3274] before the Light, the voice before the Word, the mediator before the Mediator, the mediator between the old covenant and the new, the famous John, the disciples of Christ, those after Christ, who were set over the people, or illustrious in word, or conspicuous for miracles, or made perfect through their blood.
4. With some of these Athanasius vied, by some he was slightly excelled, and others, if it is not bold to say so, he surpassed: some he made his models in mental power, others in activity, others in meekness, others in zeal, others in dangers, others in most respects, others in all, gathering from one and another various forms of beauty (like men who paint figures of ideal excellence), and combining them in his single soul, he made one perfect form of virtue out of all, excelling in action men of intellectual capacity, in intellect men of action; or, if you will, surpassing in intellect men renowned for intellect, in action those of the greatest active power; outstripping those who had moderate reputation in both respects, by his eminence in either, and those who stood highest in one or other, by his powers in both; and, if it is a great thing for those who have received an example, so to use it as to attach themselves to virtue, he has no inferior title to fame, who for our advantage has set an example to those who come after him.
5. To speak of and admire him fully, would perhaps be too long a task for the present purpose of my discourse, and would take the form of a history rather than of a panegyric: a history which it has been the object of my desires to commit to writing for the pleasure and instruction of posterity, as he himself wrote the life of the divine Antony, [3275] and set forth, in the form of a narrative, the laws of the monastic life. Accordingly, after entering into a few of the many details of his history, such as memory suggests at the moment as most noteworthy, in order both to satisfy my own longing and fulfil the duty which befits the festival, we will leave the many others to those who know them. For indeed, it is neither pious nor safe, while the lives of the ungodly are honoured by recollection, to pass by in silence those who have lived piously, especially in a city which could hardly be saved by many examples of virtue, making sport, as it does, of Divine things, no less than of the horse-race and the theatre.
6. He was brought up, from the first, in religious habits and practices, after a brief study of literature and philosophy, so that he might not be utterly unskilled in such subjects, or ignorant of matters which he had determined to despise. For his generous and eager soul could not brook being occupied in vanities, like unskilled athletes, who beat the air instead of their antagonists and lose the prize. From meditating on every book of the Old and New Testament, with a depth such as none else has applied even to one of them, he grew rich in contemplation, rich in splendour of life, combining them in wondrous sort by that golden bond which few can weave; using life as the guide of contemplation, contemplation as the seal of life. For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and, so to say, its first swathing band; but, when wisdom has burst the bonds of fear and risen up to love, it makes us friends of God, and sons instead of bondsmen.
7. Thus brought up and trained, as even now those should be who are to preside over the people, and take the direction of the mighty body of Christ, [3276] according to the will and foreknowledge of God, which lays long before the foundations of great deeds, he was invested with this important ministry, and made one of those who draw near to the God Who draws near to us, and deemed worthy of the holy office and rank, and, after passing through the entire series of orders, he was (to make my story short) entrusted with the chief rule over the people, in other words, the charge of the whole world: nor can I say whether he received the priesthood as the reward of virtue, or to be the fountain and life of the Church. For she, like Ishmael, [3277] fainting from her thirst for the truth, needed to be given to drink, or, like Elijah, [3278] to be refreshed from the brook, when the land was parched by drought; and, when but faintly breathing, to be restored to life and left as a seed to Israel, [3279] that we might not become like Sodom and Gomorrah, [3280] whose destruction by the rain of fire and brimstone is only more notorious than their wickedness. Therefore, when we were cast down, a horn of salvation was raised up for us, [3281] and a chief corner stone, [3282] knitting us to itself and to one another, was laid in due season, or a fire [3283] to purify our base and evil matter, [3284] or a farmer's fan [3285] to winnow the light from the weighty in doctrine, or a sword to cut out the roots of wickedness; and so the Word finds him as his own ally, and the Spirit takes possession of one who will breathe on His behalf.
8. Thus, and for these reasons, by the vote of the whole people, not in the evil fashion which has since prevailed, nor by means of bloodshed and oppression, but in an apostolic and spiritual manner, he is led up to the throne [3286] of Saint Mark, to succeed him in piety, no less than in office; in the latter indeed at a great distance from him, in the former, which is the genuine right of succession, following him closely. For unity in doctrine deserves unity in office; and a rival teacher sets up a rival throne; the one is a successor in reality, the other but in name. For it is not the intruder, but he whose rights are intruded upon, who is the successor, not the lawbreaker, but the lawfully appointed, not the man of contrary opinions, but the man of the same faith; if this is not what we mean by successor, he succeeds in the same sense as disease to health, darkness to light, storm to calm, and frenzy to sound sense.