St. Gregory was born into an upper-class, landholding family in Cappadocia. His father, also a Gregory, was able to pay most of the cost of a new church building in Nazianzus.
He had not always held Christianity in such high regard; his family had belonged to the Hypsistarii, a Hellenized Jewish sect that worshiped one God, observed the Sabbath, and kept the food laws, but rejected circumcision.
St. Gregory’s mother, Nonna, evidently was the Christian center of the family. She influenced her husband to become a believer.
When the elder Gregory became a Christian, his paternal grandmother disowned him for a time. But during the younger Gregory’s early adult years, Gregory the elder was bishop of Nazianzus.
St. Gregory studied at Nazianzus, Caesarea in Cappadocia (where he first met Basil of Caesarea), Caesarea in Palestine, Alexandria, and finally Athens.
He was also able to learn from Thespesius, a noted rhetorician.
Ca. 371, the Emperor Valens divided the civil province of Cappadocia into two, naming Caesarea (the centre of St. Basil’s metropolitanship) as the capital of Cappadocia Prima, and Tyana as capital of Cappadocia Secunda. Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, insisted that the ecclesiastical divisions should be the same as the civil and claimed jurisdiction over some of St. Basil’s sees. St. Basil objected and erected several new bishoprics to assert his rights and his position. Sasima was one of the towns selected, and St. Basil consecrated St. Gregory as its bishop.
St. Gregory never received possession of his see and he remained at Nazianzus assisting his father until his
What he wrote
Having written most things during his lifetime with a view to a larger public, he was able to collect his letters and to edit and publish various other works.
In his writings, St. Gregory turned Hellenic and Hellenistic tradition to Christian use. He wrote more than 17,000 verses. Unlike the two Apollinaris of Laodicea, he did not think of versifying the Bible but of making Greek poetry carry Christian content.
Although his lines are not always markedly creative, he did write good elegies. His theological poetry, if often bland, fits the classical forms well. He used classical vocabulary and meter in works featuring Christian concepts and heroes. His greatest achievement in verse, however, is his autobiographical poetry, which marks a new level of autobiography both in poetic form and in personal reflection. 1. Five Theological Orations and Other Orations
St. Gregory’s most important works are his Orations. genuine discourses have come down to us. The bulk of them were preached at church services and the festivals of the Epiphany and the Pentecost etc. They reveal St. Gregory at his best, both as orator and as Christian believer.
The Five Theological Orations on the Divinity of the Logos give evidence of his rhetorical skill and defense of the Nicene position. They were delivered at Constantinople, probably in the year before the Second General Council 381, and they form at once a tremendous indictment of the Eunomians and Macedonians. These orations earned him the title, “The Theologian.” 2. His Panegyrics are splendid specimens of another kind of oratory. His funeral oration for St. Basil is often considered the best. 3. Thirty-Eight Dogmatic and Forty Moral Poems, besides ninety-nineon his own life and others to his friends. 4. HisLettersto St. Basil help us to follow the course of one of the most romantic of friendships. The letters to Cledonius on