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Saint ) Gregory (of Nazianzus; Translated by Martha Vinson
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This translation makes available nineteen orations by the
fourth-century Cappadocian father Gregory of Nazianzus. Most are
appearing here in English for the first time. These homilies span
all the phases of Gregory's ecclesiastical career, beginning with
his service as a parish priest assisting his father, the elder
Gregory, in his hometown of Nazianzus in the early 360s, to his
stormy tenure as bishop of Constantinople from 379 to 381, to his
subsequent return to Nazianzus and role as interim caretaker of his
home church (382-83). Composed in a variety of rhetorical formats
such as the lalia and encomium, the sermons treat topics that range
from the purely theological to the deeply personal. Up until now,
Gregory has been known primarily for his contributions as a
theologian, indifferent to the social and political concerns that
consumed his friend Basil. This view will change. It has been due
in large measure to the interests and prejudices of the
nineteenth-century editors who excluded the sermons translated here
from the Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the
Church. This new translation will help the English-speaking reader
appreciate just how deeply Gregory was engaged in the social and
political issues of his day. Exemplifying the perfect synthesis of
classical and Christian paideia, these homilies will be required
reading for anyone interested in late antiquity. The introduction
and notes accompanying the translation will assist both the
specialist and the general reader as they seek to navigate the
complex environment in which Gregory lived and worked.
The present volume reproduces a work of antiquity, which describes
the Life and Miracles of St. Benedict in a narrative full of
beautiful simplicity and filial love-a narrative whose every page
bears the impress of patristic authority and monastic devotedness.
This narrative flows from no less distinguished a pen than that of
the Monk-Pope St. Gregory the Great. He writes with the credentials
of the Vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, and is supported by the
testimony of those who were at the same time eye-witnesses of the
facts he describes, and his own intimate and cherished brethren in
religion. Hence the filial admiration which he displays of the'
Venerable Father' who, as he says, ' wrote a rule for his monks,
both excellent for discretion and also eloquent for the style.'
J'he translation which is here presented to the reader is also
itself a relic of antiquity, having been first published in Paris
in 1608. However, before speaking of the old English version, it
will be well to premise a few remarks on St. Gregory's Book of
'Dialogues, ' from which the Life of St. Benedict is taken, and
which constitutes the matter presented under this particular form.
The second book of the 'Dialoguecs' of St. Gregory is given in its
entirety to the narration of the Life and Miracles of St. Benedict.
We must not, however, expect to find a finished biography of the
Saint. According to the generally accepted signification of the
word, we expect to find in a biography a chronological and
consecutive account of the actions of the person who forms the
subject of the narrative, with a more or less complete recital of
the undertakings in which he was engaged and which have rendered
his name celebrated; besides this-if the subject of the biography'
comes within the range of hagiology-we look, moreover, for a
detailed and classified rehearsal of his heroic virtues, confirmed
and illustrated by a variety of miraculous manifestations of his
sanctity. Now this is not precisely what St. Gregory proposed to
lfimself to accomplish, and we must not therefore expect in the
following pages a finished and complete biography of St. Benedict.
What was the precise object St. Gregory had in view in writing the
four books of his t Dialogues' we are told in the touching
introduction with which the holy Monk Pope himself prefaces his
work, and which I here transcribe from the same old English version
already mentioned: 'Being upon a certain day too much overcharged
with the troubles of worldly business, in which oftentimes men are
enforced to do more than of duty they are bound, I retired myself
into a solitary place, very fit for a sad and melancholy
disposition, where each discontentment and dislike concerning such
secular affairs might plainly show themselves, and all things that
usually bring grief, mustered together, might freely be presented
before mine eyes. In' which place, after that I had sat a long
while in much silence and great sorrow of soul, at length Peter, my
dear son and deacon, came unto me-a man whom, from his younger
years, I had always loved most entirely, and used him for my
companion in the study of Sacred Scripture: who, seeing me drowned
in such a depth of sorrow, spake unto me in this manner: "What is
the matter? or what bad news have you heard? for, certain I am,
that some extraordinary sadness doth now afflict your mind." ..."
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