26 - Gregory of Nazianzus

Summary

GREGORY’S PLACE IN HISTORY

Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390), described by some of the Renaissance commentators as the ‘Christian Demosthenes’, is the most well documented of all the early Christian rhetoricians with the exception of Augustine. Like the great African rhetor he leaves his reader copious autobiographical information from which a critical biography can be successfully constructed. It was Gregory, indeed, who introduced the genre of autobiography into Christian letters as a way of making theological inquiry, as well as rhetorically attacking enemies, anticipating Augustine’s efforts along the same lines by a generation. Accordingly, we have from his pen a host of autobiographical letters, poems and orations. He also was the first to model, for Christian use, the genre of the Funeral Encomium; taking Greek precedents and reworking them to new moral and eschatological ends. In his Funeral Orations for several of his family members (Orations 7, 8, 18) he gives us a fascinating picture of an extremely well-placed and wealthy provincial family that straddled the era from Constantine to Theodosius the Great, and was actively involved with the court at several instances, particularly under Julian (whom he knew personally) as well as under Valens, whose state visit to Caesarea Gregory helped orchestrate (alongside Basil the Great), and lastly under Theodosius I, whom he thought rather dim, but who elevated Gregory to high office, as Archbishop of his imperial capital.