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Gregory Theologian Bilingual Anthology, Resources Online and in Print
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17 Pages
Page 15
In 377 a Roman Synod excommunicated Apollinarius and his adherents, and S. Damasus wrote a letter containing twenty-five anathemas, which he sent to Paulinus of Antioch and others. This condemnation is in almost the identical words used by S. Gregory in the first of two letters on the question which he wrote to Cledonius, a Priest of Nazianzus, and which were adopted as symbolic at the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Of these letters Canon Bright says that they belong to that class of documents of the Fourth Century which refuted by anticipation the heresies of the Fifth. Gregory affirmed True Godhead and True Manhood to be combined in the One Person of the Crucified, Who was the adorable Son, Whose Mother was the Mother of God, and Who assumed, in order to redeem it, the entire nature that fell in Adam. In his seclusion, says Mr. Crake, his sole luxuries were a garden and a fountain. He spent his last days in continual devotion. His knees were worn with kneeling, and his whole thoughts and aspirations had gone before to the long home to which he was hastening. After the manner of the Saints, he was very rigorous in his self-denial. His bed was of straw with a covering of sackcloth, and a single tunic was all the outward clothing of him who had been Bishop of Constantinople. Yet his glory was only in the Lord. "As a fish cannot swim without water, and a bird cannot fly without air, he said, so a Christian cannot advance a single step without Christ." He died in 391, and in the same year that he passed from the roll of the earthly episcopate Augustine was ordained Priest at Hippo Regius in Africa.
Ullmann gives the following description of his character and personal appearance:
"Gregory was of middle height and somewhat pale; but his pallor became him. His hair was thick and blanched by age, his short beard and conspicuous eyebrows were thicker. On his right eye he had a scar. His manner was friendly and attractive; his conduct simple. The keynote of his inner being was piety; his soul was full of fiery strength of faith, turned to God and Christ; a lofty zeal for divine things led him all his life. This zeal manifested itself above all in a steadfast adherence to and defence of certain dogmas which that age held to be specially important; as well as in lively conflicts, not always free from partisanship, with opposing convictions; but not less in a hearty and living apprehension of practical Christianity, the establishment and enlargement of which in men's minds was to him all important. His asceticism was overdone; it injured his health; yet it did not degenerate into hypocrisy; it was to him the means for elevating and liberating the mind, but not in and for its own sake a higher virtue. An inborn and inbred love of solitude hindered him from turning all his powers to a publicly useful activity. His seclusion did not allow him to become familiar with the knowledge of men and of the world; lacking in knowledge of men, carelessly confident, sometimes distrustful and bitter in his judgment of others, he demanded from others much, but from himself most. Susceptible of great resolves, and full of fiery zeal for all good, he was not always steadfast and persevering in carrying them out. In endurance and conflict he was noble and high-minded; in victory moderate; in prosperity humble; never flattering the great, but an ever ready helper to the oppressed and persecuted, and to the poor a loving father. The most excellent qualities were in Gregory mingled with faults; he was not quite free from vanity, he was very irritable and sensitive, but also readily forgave and cherished no grudges. He was a man feeling after holiness, and striving after the highest good, but not perfect, as no man upon earth is."
Before leaving Constantinople he made his will, in which he bequeathed all his property to the Deacon Gregory for life, with reversion to the poor of Nazianzus.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/gregory-nazianzen/orations-introduction.asp?pg=15
