§ 166. GKEGOKY NAZIANZEN. 90S
derts. Da."ii:sf,adt, 1825. (One of the best historical mt nog raphs by a theologian of kindred spirit.) Comp. also the articles cf Hefele in "Wetzer und Welte's Kirchenlexikon, vol. iv. 736 ff., and Gass in Her zog's Encykl. vol. v. 349.
Gkegoey Nazianzen, or Gregory the Tlieologian, is the third in the Cappadocian triad ; interior to his bosom friend Basil as a church ruler, and to his namesake of Njssa as a speculative thinker, but superior to both as an orator. With them he exhibits the flower of Greek theology in close union with the Nicene faith, and was one of the champions of orthodoxy, though with a mind open to free speculation. His life, with its alternations of high station, monastic seclusion, love of severe studies, enthusiasm for poetry, nature, and friendship, possesses a romantic charm. He was "by inclination and fortune tossed between the silence of a contemplati ve life and the tumult of cluirch administration, unsatisfied with either, neither a thinker nor a poet, but, according to his youthful desire, an orator, who, though often bombastic and dry, labored as powerfully for the victory of orthodoxy as for true practical Christianity." '
Gregory T^azianzen was born about 330, a year before the emperor Julian, either at IN^azianzum, a market-town in tlie south-western part of Cappadocia, where his father was bishop, or in the neighboring village of Arianzus.*
' So K. Hase admirably characterizes him, in his Lehrbuch, p. 138 (Yth ed.). The judgment of Gibbon (Decline and Fall, eh. xxii.) is characteristic : " The title of Saint has been added to his name : but the tenderness of his heart, and the elegance of his genius, reflect a more pleasing lustre on the memory of Gregory Nazianzen." The praise of "the tenderness of his heart" suggests to the skeptical historian another fling at the ancient church, by adding the note : " I can only be understood to mean, that such was his natural temper when it was not hardened, or inflamed, by religious zeal. From his retirement, he exhorts Nectarius to prosecute the heratics of Constantinople."
' Respecting the time and place of his birth, views are divided. According to Suidas, Gregory was over ninety years old, and therefore, since he died in 389 or 390, must have been born about the year 300. This statement was accepted by Pagi and other Roitin divines, to remove the sc.mdal of his eamnized father's having begotten children after he became bishop but it is irreconcilable ffith the fact that Gregory, according to his own testimony (Carmen de vita sua, v. 112 ■ind 238, and Orat. v. c. 23), studied in Athens at the same time with Julian thf Apostate, therefore in 355, &pA left Athens at the age of thirty years. Comp
910 TniKD TERIOB. A.D. 317-590.
In tlie formation of liis religious cliaraeter liis niotlicr Nonna, one of the noblest Christian women of antiquity, exerted a deep and wholesome influence. By her prayers and her holy life she brought about the conversion of her husband from tlie sect of the Hypsistarians, who, without positive faith, ■worshipped simply a supreme being; and she consecrated her Bon, as Hannah consecrated Samuel, even before his birth, to the service of God. "She was," as Gregory describes her, "a wife according to the mind of Solomon ; in all things subject to her husband according to the law^s of marriage, not ashamed to be his teacher and his leader in true religion. She solved the difficult problem of uniting a higher culture, especially in knowledge of divine things and strict exercise of devotion, with ''the practical care of her household. If she was active in her house, she seemed to know nothing of the exercises of religion ; if she occupied herself with God and his worship, she seemed to be a stranger to eveiy earthly occupation: she was whole in everything. Experiences had instilled into her unl)0un(led confidence in the etJ'ects of believing prayer; therefore she was most diligent in supplications, and by prayer overcame even the deepest feelings of grief over her own and others' sufl'erings. She had by this means attained such control over her spirit, that in every sorrow she encountered, she never uttered a plaintive tone before she had thanked God." He especially celebrates also her extraordinary liberality and self-denying love for the poor and the sick. But it seems to be not in perfect harmony with this, that he relates of her: "Towards heathen women she was so intolerant, that she never offered her mouth or hand to them in salutation.' She ate no salt ■with those who came from the unhallowed altars of idols. Pagan temples she did not look at, much less would she have Btepped upon their ground ; and she was as far from visiting
Tillcmont, torn. ix. pp. 693-697 ; Schrockli, Part xiii. p. 276, and the admirable monograph of Ullmatn, p. 548 sqq. (of whicli I have made special use in this see tion).
' Against the express injunction of love for enemies, Matt. v. 44 ff. The com Jimnd of John in his 2d Epistle, v. 10, 11, which might be quoted in justification of Nonn-u refers not to pagans, but to anti-Christian heretics.