[4308] Hos. ix. 10 (LXX.).
[4309] Isai. lxv. 8.
[4310] Ib. xxx. 17.
[4311] 1 Sam. ii. 6 sqq.
[4312] Amos v. 8.
[4313] 1 Kings xviii. 42.
[4314] S. James v. 16, 17.
[4315] Ps. cxlvii. 6.
[4316] Exod. iii. 7.
[4317] Ps. cxxxvi. 12.
[4318] Ib. lxxvii. 20.
[4319] Gen. xxxvii. 28.
[4320] Exod. xii. 37.
[4321] Gen. xlix. 22.
[4322] Hos. x. 1.
[4323] Ps. lxxx. 8 et seq.
[4324] Rom. iv. 17.
[4325] Ezek. xxxvii. 7, 10.
[4326] Ps. lxvi. 7.
[4327] Ps. lxxiii. 20.
[4328] Wisd. v. 9 sqq.
[4329] Zech. xi. 2.
[4330] Ps. ix. 18.
[4331] Hab. iii. 13.
[4332] Isai. liv. 2.
[4333] Ib. liv. 8.
[4334] 1 Sam. ii. 30.
[4335] Deut. xxxii. 21, 34.
[4336] S. Matt. xviii. 20.
[4337] Gen. xii. 6; xiii. 12.
[4338] Ib. xix. 1.
[4339] Exod. ii. 15.
[4340] Judg. vii. 5.
[4341] Gen. xiv. 14.
[4342] Isai. x. 22; Rom. ix. 27.
[4343] 1 Kings xix. 18; Rom. xi. 4.
[4344] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
[4345] Jer. xxiii. 24.
[4346] Isai. lxvi. 1.
[4347] Ib. i. 12.
[4348] To tread, etc. The Arians for a time had been in possession of the churches of Constantinople.
[4349] Isai. xxvi. 6 (LXX.).
[4350] Ib. lvii. 13; lxv. 9.
[4351] 1 Sam. vi. 1.
[4352] Hos. iv. 6.
[4353] Go through, etc. This passage refers to the restoration of the churches to the orthodox by Theodosius, Jan. 10, a.d. 381.
[4354] Isai. lxii. 10.
[4355] Rev. ii. 1.
[4356] Isai. lxii. 10.
[4357] Ib. lvii. 14.
[4358] Acts vii. 48.
[4359] Gal. iv. 26.
[4360] Heb. ix. 3, 24.
[4361] Rom. i. 6.
[4362] 1 Pet. ii. 9.
[4363] S. Matt. xiii. 21.
[4364] 2 Cor. vi. 10.
[4365] Isai. lx. 4.
[4366] Ib. xxviii. 1 (LXX.).
[4367] 2 Tim. ii. 3.
[4368] 2 Cor. xi. 17.
[4369] S. Matt. xi. 29.
[4370] Ib. viii. 17; Isai. liii. 4.
[4371] With three faces (or masks). A play upon the word prosopon which is used in theology in the sense of Person.
[4372] Properties. Cf. xliii. 30, note.
[4373] Deut. xxiii. 3.
[4374] 2 Cor. xii. 17.
[4375] 1 Kings xii. 2.
[4376] A Holy War. That against the Phocians to avenge their sacrilege at Delphi.
[4377] § 22 is a comparison of Ecclesiastical partisanship to the emulation and party spirit connected with the horse races in the amphitheatre.
[4378] Narrow strait, lit. Euripus.
[4379] Acts ii. 4.
[4380] The burning, etc., cf. This was by order of Valens.
[4381] Demand. After all these persecutions, some thought S. Gregory ought to have used his influence with Theodosius to requite or punish the former persecutors of the orthodox.
[4382] Perhaps, an ironical passage.
[4383] 2 Cor. xii. 13.
[4384] 1 Cor. ix. 22.
[4385] Gen. xxii. 8.
[4386] Anastasia. The little church "of the Resurrection" in which the orthodox Christians worshipped with S. Gregory at first on his arrival, while the churches of the city were held by the heretics.
[4387] Josh. xviii. 1.
[4388] 1 Chron. xi. 4.
[4389] 1 Cor. xv. 10.
[4390] Apostles. The Church of the Holy Apostles, to which Constantius translated the relics of SS. Andrew, Luke and Timothy.
[4391] Satan, i.e., "thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan"--in S. Gregory's case serious ill health.
[4392] 2 Cor. xii. 7.
[4393] S. James iv. 8.
[4394] Rom. x. 2.
[4395] 1 Tim. vi. 20.
[4396] Col. iv. 18.
Oration XLIII.
Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia.
S. Basil died January 1, a.d. 379. A serious illness, in addition to other causes, prevented S. Gregory from being present at his funeral (Epist. 79). Benoît holds that an expression (Epitaph, cxix. 38) in which S. Gregory says that his "lips are fettered" proves that he was still in retirement at Seleucia. This is an unwarranted deduction. In this Oration, § 2, the Saint, alluding to his illness in disparaging terms, alleges his labours at Constantinople as a more pressing reason for his absence: and says that he undertook the task according to the judgment of S. Basil. This implies that S. Gregory went to Constantinople before the death of S. Basil, or that he had then been influenced by his friend's advice and was on the point of setting out--more probably the former, as we may be sure that, if S. Gregory had been still at Seleucia, no reason but physical incapacity would have kept him from his friend's side. His pressing duties at Constantinople and the difficulties of the long journey were the "other causes" of his letter to S. Gregory of Nyssa: and we know that he suffered from serious illness at Constantinople (Carm. xi. 887. Orat. xxiii. 1). S. Gregory left Constantinople in June, a.d. 381, and Tillemont places the date of this Oration soon after his return to Nazianzus. Benoît thinks that it was probably delivered on the anniversary of S. Basil's death. The Oration, as all critics are agreed, is one of great power and beauty. Its length (62 pages folio), the physical weakness of the speaker, and the limits of the endurance of even an interested audience, incline us to suppose that it was not spoken in its present form. We cannot well set aside expressions which clearly point to actual delivery, but it may have been amplified later.
1. It has then been ordained that the great Basil, who used so constantly to furnish me with subjects for my discourses, of which he was quite as proud as any other man of his own, should himself now furnish me with the grandest subject which has ever fallen to the lot of an orator. For I think that if anyone desired, in making trial of his powers of eloquence, to test them by the standard of that one of all his subjects which he preferred (as painters do with epoch-making pictures), he would choose that which stood first of all others, but would set aside this as beyond the powers of human eloquence. So great a task is the praise of such a man, not only to me, who have long ago laid aside all thought of emulation, but even to those who live for eloquence, and whose sole object is the gaining of glory by subjects like this. Such is my opinion, and, as I persuade myself, with perfect justice. But I know not what subject I can treat with eloquence, if not this; or what greater favour I can do to myself, to the admirers of virtue, or to eloquence itself, than express our admiration for this man. To me it is the discharge of a most sacred debt. And our speech is a debt beyond all others due to those who have been gifted, in particular, with powers of speech. To the admirers of virtue a discourse is at once a pleasure and an incentive to virtue. For when [4397] I have learned the praises of men, I have a distinct idea of their progress: now, there is none of us all, within whose power it is not to attain to any point whatsoever in that progress. As for eloquence itself, in either case, all must go well with it. For, if the discourse be almost worthy of its subject--eloquence will have given an exhibition of its power: if it fall far short of it, as must be the case when the praises of Basil are being set forth, by an actual demonstration of its incapacity, it will have declared the superiority of the excellences of its subject to all expression in words.
2. These are the reasons which have urged me to speak, and to address myself to this contest. And at my late appearance, long after his praises have been set forth by so many, who have publicly and privately done him honour, let no one be surprised. Yea, may I be pardoned by that divine soul, the object of my constant reverence! And as, when he was amongst us, he constantly corrected me in many points, according to the rights of a friend and the still higher law; for I am not ashamed to say this, for he was a standard of virtue to us all; so now, looking down upon me from above, he will treat me with indulgence. I ask pardon too of any here who are among his warmest admirers, if indeed anyone can be warmer than another, and we are not all abreast in our zeal for his good fame. For it is not contempt which has caused me to fall short of what might have been expected of me: nor have I been so regardless of the claims of virtue or of friendship; nor have I thought that to praise him befitted any other more than me. No! my first reason was, that I shrunk from this task, for I will say the truth, as priests [4398] do, who approach their sacred duties before being cleansed both in voice and mind. In the second place, I remind you, though you know it well, of the task [4399] in which I was engaged on behalf of the true doctrine, which had been properly forced upon me, and had carried me from home, according, as I suppose, to the will of God, and certainly according to the judgment of our noble champion of the truth, the breath of whose life was pious doctrine alone, such as promotes the salvation of the whole world. As for my bodily health, I ought not, perhaps, to dare to mention it, when my subject is a man so doughty in his conquest of the body, even before his removal hence, and who maintained that no powers of the soul should suffer hindrance from this our fetter. [4400] So much for my defence. I do not think I need labour it further, in speaking of him to you who know so clearly my affairs. I must now proceed with my eulogy, commending myself to his God, in order that my commendations may not prove an insult to the man, and that I may not lag far behind all others; even though we all equally fall as far short of his due, as those who look upon the heavens or the rays of the Sun.
3. Had I seen him to be proud of his birth, and the rights of birth, or any of those infinitely little objects of those whose eyes are on the ground, we should have had to inspect a new catalogue of the Heroes. What details as to his ancestors might I not have laid under contribution! Nor would even history have had any advantage over me, since I claim this advantage, that his celebrity depends, not upon fiction or legend, but upon actual facts attested by many witnesses. On his father's side Pontus offers to me many details, in no wise inferior to its wonders of old time, of which all history and poesy are full; [4401] there are many others concerned with this my native land, of illustrious men of Cappadocia, renowned for its youthful progeny, [4402] no less than for its horses. Accordingly we match with his father's family that of his mother. What family owns more numerous, or more illustrious generals and governors, or court officials, or again, men of wealth, and lofty thrones, and public honours, and oratorical renown? If it were permitted me to wish to mention them, I would make nothing of the Pelopidæ and Cecropidæ, the Alcmæonids, the Æacidæ, and Heracleidæ, and other most noble families: inasmuch as they, in default of public merit in their house, betake themselves to the region of uncertainty, claiming demigods and divinities, merely mythical personages, as the glory of their ancestors, whose most vaunted details are incredible, and those which we can believe are an infamy.
4. But since our subject is a man who has maintained that each man's nobility is to be judged of according to his own worth, and that, as forms and colours, and likewise our most celebrated and most infamous horses, are tested by their own properties, so we too ought not to be depicted in borrowed plumes; after mentioning one or two traits, which, though inherited from his ancestors, he made his own by his life, and which are specially likely to give pleasure to my hearers, I will then proceed to deal with the man himself. Different families and individuals have different points of distinction and interest, great or small, which, like a patrimony of longer or shorter descent, come down to posterity: the distinction of his family on either side was piety, which I now proceed to display.
5. There was a persecution, the most frightful and severe of all; I mean, as you know, the persecution of Maximinus, which, following closely upon those which immediately preceded it, made them all seem gentle, by its excessive audacity, and by its eagerness to win the crown of violence in impiety. It was overcome by many of our champions, who wrestled with it to the death, or well-nigh to the death, with only life enough left in them to survive their victory, and not pass away in the midst of the struggle; remaining to be trainers [4403] in virtue, living witnesses, breathing trophies, silent exhortations, among whose numerous ranks were found Basil's paternal ancestors, upon whom, in their practice of every form of piety, that period bestowed many a fair garland. So prepared and determined were they to bear readily all those things on account of which Christ crowns those who have imitated His struggle on our behalf.