§ 168. GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 913
parents' house. At this time liis baptism took place. With his whole soul he now threw himself into a strict ascetic life. He renounced innocent enjoyments, even to music, because they flatter the senses. " His food was bread and salt, his drink water, his bed the bare ground, his garment of coai-se, rough cloth. Labor filled the day ; praying, singing, and holy contemplation, a great part of the night. His earlier hfe, which was anything but loose, only not so very strict, seemed to him reprehensible ; his former laughing now cost him many tears. Silence and quiet meditation were law and pleasure to him," ' JSTothing but love to his parents restrained him from entire seclusion, and induced him, contrary to talent and inclination, to assist his father in the management of his household and his property.
But he soon followed his powerful bent toward the contemplative life of solitude, and spent a short time with Basil in a quiet district of Pontus in prayer, spiritual contemplations, and manual labors. " Who will transport me," he afterwards wrote to his friend concerning this visit,* " back to those former days, in which I revelled with thee in privations ? For voluntary poverty is after all far more honorable than enforced enjoyment. Who will give me back those songs and vigils? who, those risings to God in prayer, that unearthly, inco;poreal life, that fellowship and that spiritual harmony of brothers raised by thee to a God-like life? who, the ardent searchhig of the Holy Scriptures, and tlie light which, under the guidance of the Spirit, we found therein ? " Then he mentions the lesser enjoyments of the beauties of surrounding nature.
On a visit to his parents' house, Gregory against his will, and even without his previous knowledge, was ordained presbyter by his father before the assembled congregation on a feast day of the year 361. Such forced elections and ordinations, though very offensive to our taste, were at that time frequent, especially upon the urgent wish of tJie people, whose voice in many instances proved to be indeed the voice of God.
• Ullmann, .. c. p. 50. Epist. ix. p. 774, of the old order, or Ep. vi. of the new (ed. Bened. ii. p. 6).
914 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Basil also, and Augustine, were ordained presLyters, Atlianasins and Ambrose bishops, against their will. Gregory fled fioon after, it is true, to his friend in Pontus, but out of regard to his aged parents and the pressing call of the church, he returned to Nazianzuu) towards Easter in 362, and delivered hia first pulpit discourse, in wliich he justified himself in his conduct, and said : " It has its advantage to hold back a little from the call of God, as Moses, and after him Jeremiah, did on account of their age; but it has also its advantage to como forward readily, when God calls, like Aaron and Isaiah ; provided both be done with a devout spirit, the one on account of inherent weakness, the other in reliance upon the strength ol liim who calls." His enemies accused him of haughty con tempt of the priestly office; but he gave as the most import ant reason of his flight, that he did not consider himself worthy to preside over a flock, and to undertake the care of immortal souls, especially in such stormy times.
Basil, who, as metropolitan, to strengthen the catholic in terest against Arianism, set about the establishment of new bishoprics in the small towns of Cappadocia, intrusted to his young friend one such charge in Sasima, a poor market town at the junction of three highways, destitute of water, verdure, and society, frequented only by rude wagoners, and at the time an apple of discord between him and his opponent, the bishop Anthinms of Tyana. A verj^ strange way of showing friendship, unjustiflable even by the supposition that Basil wished to exercise the humility and self-denial of Gregory.' No wonder that, though a bishopric in itself was of no account to Gregory, this act deeply wounded his sense of hoTior, and produced a temporary alienation between him and Basil." At the
' Gibbou (ch. xirii.) very unjustly attributes tlii3 action of Basil to hierarchical pride and to an intention to insult Gregory. Basil treated his own brother cot much better; for Nyssa was likewise an insignificant place.
^ Gregory gave to the pangs of injured friendship a touching expression in the following lines from the jiocm on his own Life (De vita sua, vss. 476 sqq. torn. ii. pt 699, of the Bened. ed., or turn. iii. 1062, in Migne's ed.):
ToioOt' 'Arrival, Kal ttoVoi koivuI K6y(icv,
'Olx6<jTfy6'; Tf Ka\ avviarws fiios,
NoGs elj (V afxipolv, oil Svu, bavfj.' E\Xa5ot,
Ko) Serial, KSafioy /xiv iis -ir/i^pu fioKuy,