RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Gregory Nazianzen Gregory Thaumaturges
No final discussion of Gregory's works is possible until more critical labor has been expended upon them than they have yet received. References to the personal history of the author demonstrate the authenticity of a considerable number Works, of them, including, besides several letters, the " Hexaemeron," the "Making of Man," the "Life of Moses," "Against Usurers," "Against Eunomius," "On the Soul and the Resurrection," "Eulogy of Basil," "Letter to Peter," and the "Life of the Holy Macrina." Ancient external testimony comes to the support of internal evidence in the cases of others, such as "On the Song of Songs," "On Prayer" (five homilies, the last four a careful exposition of the Lord's Prayer), "On the Beatitudes," the "Great Catechetical Oration," "Against Apollinaris," and the "Antirrhetic against Apollinares." But, on the other hand, the works either omitted or marked as doubtful by Migne are by no means all the spurious ones which have passed under Gregory's name.
Among his dogmatic works special attention is deserved by the "Great Cathechism," an apologeticdogmatic treatise on the Trinity and the Incarnation with instructions on baptism and the Lord's Supper; the "Soul and the Resurrection"; the treatise against Eunomius, his most extensive work; and the "Antirrhetic," the most important of the extant anti-Apollinarian treatises. Of the exegetical writings, the "Hexaemeron" and the "Making of Man" are the most sober and valuable; in the ethically interesting "Life of Moses" and "On the Superscriptions of the Psalms" the allegorizing tendency runs riot. Among the sermons, those on the lives of Basil and Macrina are the most interesting.
The personality of the man Gregory is difficult
to grasp; his works are too rhetorical and too little
individual to give a clear conception of it. As
far, however, as is determinable, he seems to have
had a more harmonious, calm, and
Person- self-controlled character than his
ality and brother or Gregory Nazianzen, and to Teaching, have been less forceful but more amiable than either of them. His theological position stands out more clearly than his personal character, though it, too, is lacking in distinction. He has few new thoughts, and the form which he gives to the old bears little mark of genius. But he was an accomplished theologian, who succeeded in reconciling to a certain extent the Origenistic traditions with the demands of a theology which had grown narrower and more realistic. He had sufficient acuteness to work among his formulas with technical correctness while satisfying the tendencies of a mystical nature by avoiding precise definition at the right time and rising above the terminology in which the dogmatic controversies of his age expressed themselves. His teaching on the Trinity is so similar to that of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen that in the case of three works it is safe to predicate the authorship of one of the three men, but impossible to determine which. For his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, see Lord's Supper, II. His Christology also is substantially the same as that reached by Gregory Nazianzen in his later
life. A fuller investigation of his whole Christological doctrine would need to go deeply into the connection of his thought with those of Origen and Athanasius. It is worth mentioning that he held the Origenistic belief in the final restoration of all things, so that the patriarch Germanus of Constantinople in the eighth century imagined his "Soul and the Resurrection" to have been interpolated by the heretics, instead of containing, as it does, genuine Origenism; and here, as with Origen, the foundation of this doctrine is to be sought not in the "generic" conception of the humanity of Christ but in his idea of God. (F. Loofs.)
Bibliography: The earlier Latin editions of the Opera were Cologne, 1537, Basel, 1562 and 1571, Paris, 1573, all surpassed by that of Paris, 2 vols., 1603. The Greek text, with Lat. transl., appeared 2 vols., Paris, 1615, with appendix, 1618, 2d ed., ib. 1638, the 2d edition inferior, however, to the first in many respects (contents are given in Hauck-Herzog, RE, vii. 146-147). New material was discovered and included in the collection in A. Gallandi, Bibliotheca veterum patrum, vi. 515-716, Venice, 1770. MPG, xliv.-xlvi. included all that had then been discovered except what the editor rejected as of doubtful authenticity. An excellent edition, with critical apparatus, was begun by G. H. Forbes, but only two parts appeared, Burntisland, 1855-61. A selection of the works has been edited by F. Oehler, with Germ, transl., Halle, 1864, and in the Bibliothek der Kirchenvater,' vols, i.-iv., Leipsic, 1858-59. An Eng. transl. of selected treatises and letters, with a sketch of the life, activities and characteristics, is in NPNF, 2d ser., vol. v., and the Catechetical Oration, ed. J. H. Srawley, appeared London, 1903. Consult: J. Rupp, Gregors des Bischofs von Nyssa heben und Meinungen, Leipsic, 1834; E. W. Moller, Gregorii Nysseni doctrinam de hominis natura, Halle, 1854; J. N. Stigler, Die Psychologie des heiligen Gregor von Nyssa, Regensburg, 1857; J. Huber, Die Philosophie der Kirchenvater, Munich, 1859; L. Kleinheidt, Sancti Gregorii doctrina de angelis exposita, Freiburg, 1860; P. Bouedron, Doctrines psychologiques de S. Gregoire, Paris, 1861; F. Bohringer, Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, vol. viii., Stuttgart, 1876; S. P. Heyns, Disputatio . de Gregorio Nysseno, Leyden, 1885; F. W. Farrar, Lives of the Fathers, ii. 57-82, New York, 1889; A. Krampf, Der Urzustand des Menschen nach der Lehre des Gregor
von Nyssa, Wiirzburg, 1889; F. Hilt, Des . Gregor von Nyssa Lehre vom Menschen, Cologne, 1890; W. Meyer, Die Gotteslehre des Gregor von Nyssa, Leipsic, 1894; F. Diekamp, Die Gotteslehre des . Gregor von Nyssa, Miinster, 1896; F. Preger, Die Grundlagen der Ethik des Gregor von Nyssa, Leipsic, 1897; W. Vollert, Die Lehre Gregors von Nyssa vom Guten und Bbsen, ib. 1897; F. Loofs, Eustathius, Halle, 1898; Ceillier, Auteurs sacres, vi. 119-258, cf. iv. passim and v. passim; DCB, ii. 761- 768; Neander, Christian Church, vol. ii. passim, cf. Index; Schaff, Christian Church, iii. 903-908 et passim.
GREGORY THAUMATURGUS ("the Wonder- Worker"): Bishop of Neocffisarea in Pontus and an important ecclesiastical writer of the Eastern Church; d. about 270. His name was originally Theodore, and he came of a prominent heathen family in Neoca3sarea, becoming acquainted with Christianity only after his father's death, when he was fourteen. With his brother Athenodorus, he studied law in the famous school at Berytus, but on a visit to Casarea he came under the spell of Origen, who had arrived there a short time before, and became his enthusiastic disciple, first in philosophy and then in theology. The oration in which he expresses his gratitude to his teacher is valuable as affording an insight into Origen's methods of teaching, and as the first attempt at a Christian autobiography. Returning to Neocffisarea with the in-
Gregory Thaumaturgus Gregory