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Introductory Note
to
Gregory Thaumaturgus.
————————————
[a.d.
205–240–265.] Alexandria continues to be the head of
Christian learning.9
It is delightful
to trace the hand of God from generation to generation, as from father
to son, interposing for the perpetuity of the faith. We have
already observed the continuity of the great Alexandrian school:
how it arose, and how Pantænus begat Clement, and Clement begat
Origen. So Origen begat Gregory, and so the Lord has provided for
the spiritual generation of the Church’s teachers, age after age,
from the beginning. Truly, the Lord gave to Origen a holy seed,
better than natural sons and daughters; as if, for his comfort, Isaiah
had written,10
forbidding him to say,
“I am a dry tree.”
Our Gregory has given us not a little of his
personal adventures in his panegyric upon his master, and for his
further history the reader need only be referred to what follows.
But I am anxious to supply the dates, which are too loosely left to
conjecture. As he was ordained a bishop “very young,”
according to Eusebius, I suppose he must have been far enough under
fifty, the age prescribed by the “Apostolic Canons”
(so called), though probably not younger than thirty, the
earliest canonical limit for the ordination of a presbyter. If we
decide upon five and thirty, as a mean reckoning, we may with
some confidence set his birth at a.d. 205,
dating back from his episcopate, which began a.d. 240. He was a native of Neo-Cæsarea, the
chief city of Pontus,—a fact that should modify what we have
learned about Pontus from Tertullian.11
He was born of heathen parentage, and
lived like other Gentile boys until his fourteenth year (circa
a.d. 218), with the disadvantage of being more
than ordinarily imbued by a mistaken father in the polytheism of
Greece. At this period his father died; but his mother, carrying
out the wishes of her husband, seems to have been not less zealous in
furthering his education according to her pagan ideas. He was,
evidently, the inheritor of moderate wealth; and, with his brother
Athenodorus, he was placed under an accomplished teacher of grammar and
rhetoric, from whom also he acquired a considerable knowledge of the
Latin tongue. He was persuaded by the same master to use this
accomplishment in acquiring some knowledge of the Roman laws.
This is a very important point in his biography, and it brings us to an
epoch in Christian history too little noted by any writer. I
shall return to it very soon. We find him next going to
Alexandria to study the New Platonism. He speaks of himself as
already prepossessed with Christian ideas, which came to him even in
his boyhood, about the time when his father died. But it was not
at Alexandria that he began his acquaintance with Christian
learning. Next he seems to have travelled into Greece, and to
have studied at Athens. But the great interest of his
autobiography begins with the providential incidents, devoutly narrated
by himself, which engaged him in a journey to Berytus just as Origen
reached Cæsarea, a.d. 233, making it for a
time his home and the seat of his school. His own good angel, as
Gregory supposes, led him away from Berytus, where he purposed to
prosecute his legal studies, and brought him to the feet of Origen, his
Gamaliel; and “from the very first day of his receiving
us,” he says, “the true Sun began to rise upon
me.” This he
accounts the beginning of his true life; and, if we are right as to our
dates, he was now about twenty-seven years of age.
If he tarried even a little while in Berytus, as
seems probable, his knowledge of law was, doubtless, somewhat
advanced. It was the seat of that school in which Roman law began
its existence in the forms long afterward digested into the Pandects of
Justinian. That emperor speaks of Berytus as “the mother
and nurse” of the civil law. Caius, whose Institutes
were discovered in 1820 by the sagacity of Niebuhr, seems to have been
a Syrian. So were Papinian and Ulpian: and, heathen as they
were, they lived under the illumination reflected from Antioch; and,
not less than the Antonines, they were examples of a philosophic
regeneration which never could have existed until the Christian era had
begun its triumphs. Of this sort of pagan philosophy Julian
became afterwards the grand embodiment; and in Julian’s grudging
confessions of what he had learned from Christianity we have a key to
the secret convictions of others, such as I have named; characters in
whom, as in Plutarch and in many retrograde unbelievers of our day, we
detect the operation of influences they are unwilling to acknowledge;
of which, possibly, they are blindly unconscious themselves.
Roman law, I maintain, therefore, indirectly owes its origin, as it is
directly indebted for its completion in the Pandects, to the new powers
and processes of thought which came from “the Light of the
World.” It was light from Galilee and Golgotha, answering
Pilate’s question in the inward convictions of many a heathen
sage.
It is most interesting, therefore, to find in our
Gregory one who had come into contact with Berytus at this
period. He describes it as already dignified by this school of
law, and therefore Latinized in some degree by its influence.
Most suggestive is what he says of this school: “I refer to
those admirable laws of our sages, by which the affairs of all
the subjects of the Roman Empire are now directed, and which are
neither digested nor learnt without difficulty. They are wise and
strict (if not pious) in themselves, they are manifold and
admirable, and, in a word, most thoroughly Grecian, although
expressed and delivered to us in the Roman tongue, which is a wonderful
and magnificent sort of language, and one very aptly conformable to
imperial authority, but still difficult to me.” Nor is this
the only noteworthy tribute of our author to Roman law while yet that
sublime system was in its cradle. The rhetorician who introduced
him to it and to the Latin tongue was its enthusiastic eulogist; and
Gregory says he learned the laws “in a thorough way, by
his help.…And he said one thing to me which has proved to me the
truest of all his sayings; to wit, that my education in the laws
would be my greatest viaticum,—my ἐφόδιον (for thus he
phrased it);” i.e., for the journey of life. This man, one
can hardly doubt, was a disciple of Caius (or Gaius); and there is
little question that the digested system which Gregory eulogizes
was “the Institutes” of that great father of the civil law,
now recovered from a palimpsest, and made known to our own age, with no
less benefit to jurisprudence than the discovery of the
Philosophumena has conferred on theology.
Thus Gregory’s Panegyric throws light
on the origin of Roman law. He claims it for “our
sages,” meaning men of the East, whose vernacular was the Greek
tongue. Caius was probably, like the Gaius of Scripture, an
Oriental who had borrowed a Latin name, as did the Apostle of the
Gentiles and many others. If he was a native of Berytus, as seems
probable, that accounts for the rise of the school of laws at a place
comparatively inconsiderable. Hadrian, in his journey to
Palestine, would naturally discover and patronize such a jurist; and
that accounts for the appearance of Caius at Rome in his day.
Papinian and Ulpian, both Orientals, were his pupils in all
probability; and these were the “sages” with whose works
the youthful Gregory became acquainted, and by which his mind was
prepared for the great influence he exerted in the East, where his name
is a power to this day.
His credit with our times is rather impaired than
heightened by the epithet Thaumaturgus, which clings to his name
as a convenient specification, to distinguish him from the
other12
| 12 See
Dean Stanley’s Eastern Church and Neale’s
Introduction. |
Gregories whose period was
so nearly his own. But why make it his opprobrium? He is
not responsible for the romances that sprung up after his death; which
he never heard of nor imagined. Like the great Friar Bacon, who
was considered a magician, or Faust, whose invention nearly cost him
his life, the reputation of Gregory made him the subject of legendary
lore long after he was gone. It is not impossible that God
wrought marvels by his hand, but a single instance would give rise to
many fables; and this very surname is of itself a monument of the fact
that miracles were now of rare occurrence, and that one possessing the
gift was a wonder to his contemporaries.
To like popular love of the marvellous I attribute
the stupid story of a mock consecration by Phædimus. If a
slight irregularity in Origen’s ordination gave him such lifelong
troubles, what would not have been the tumult such a sacrilege as this
would have occasioned? Nothing is more probable than that
Phædimus related such things as having occurred in a
vision;13
| 13 Recall
Cyprian’s narratives, vol. v., and this volume infra, Life
of Dionysius of Alexandria. | and this might have
weighed with a mind like Gregory’s to overcome his scruples, and
to justify his acceptance of such a position at an early
age.
We are already acquainted with the eloquent letter
of Origen that decided him to choose the sacred calling after he left
the school at Cæsarea. The Panegyric, which was his
valedictory, doubtless called forth that letter. Origen had seen
in him the makings of a κῆρυξ, and coveted such
another Timothy for the Master’s work. But the
Panegyric itself abounds with faults, and greatly resembles
similar college performances of our day. The custom of schools
alone can excuse the expression of such enthusiastic praise in the
presence of its subject; but Origen doubtless bore it as
philosophically as others have done since, and its evident sincerity
and heartfelt gratitude redeem it from the charge of fulsome
adulation.
For the residue of the story I may refer my readers to
the statements of the translator, as follows:—
Translator’s Notice.
We are in possession of a
considerable body of testimonies from ancient literature bearing on the
life and work of Gregory. From these, though they are largely
mixed up with the marvellous, we gain a tolerably clear and
satisfactory view of the main facts in his history, and the most patent
features of his character.14
| 14 Thus we
have accounts of him, more or less complete, in Eusebius (Historia
Eccles., vi. 30, vii. 14), Basil (De Spiritu Sancto, xxix.
74; Epist. 28, Num. 1 and 2; 204, Num. 2; 207, Num. 4; 210, Num.
3; 5,—Works, vol. iii. pp. 62, 107, 303, 311, etc., edit. Paris.
BB. 1730), Jerome (De viris illustr., ch. 65; in the Comment.
in Ecclesiasten, ch. 4; and Epist. 70, Num. 4,—Works,
vol. i. pp. 424 and 427, edit. Veron.), Rufinus (Hist. Eccles.,
vii. 25), Socrates (Hist. Eccles., iv. 27), Sozomen (Hist.
Eccles., vii. 27, Evagrius Scholasticus (Hist. Eccles., iii.
31), Suidas in his Lexicon, and others of less
moment. |
From various witnesses we learn that he was also known by the name
Theodorus, which may have been his original designation; that he was a
native of Neo-Cæsareia, a considerable place of trade, and one of
the most important towns of Pontus; that he belonged to a family of
some wealth and standing; that he was born of heathen parents; that at
the age of fourteen he lost his father; that he had a brother named
Athenodorus; and that along with him he travelled about from city to
city in the prosecution of studies that were to fit him for the
profession of law, to which he had been destined. Among the
various seats of learning which he thus visited we find Alexandria,
Athens, Berytus, and the Palestinian Cæsareia mentioned. At
this last place—to which, as he tells us, he was led by a happy
accident in the providence of God—he was brought into connection
with Origen. Under this great teacher he received lessons in
logic, geometry, physics, ethics, philosophy, and ancient literature,
and in due time also in biblical science and the verities of the
Christian faith. Thus, having become Origen’s pupil, he
became also by the hand of God his convert. After a residence of
some five years with the great Alexandrian, he returned to his native
city. Soon, however, a letter followed him to Neo-Cæsareia,
in which Origen urged him to dedicate himself to the ministry of the
Church of Christ, and pressed strongly upon him his obligation to
consecrate his gifts to the service of God, and in especial to devote
his acquirements in heathen science and learning to the elucidation of
the Scriptures. On receipt of this letter, so full of wise and
faithful counsel and strong exhortation, from the teacher whom he venerated and loved
above all others, he withdrew into the wilderness, seeking opportunity
for solemn thought and private prayer over its contents. At this
time the bishop of Amasea, a city which held apparently a first place
in the province, was one named Phædimus, who, discerning the
promise of great things in the convert, sought to make him bishop of
Neo-Cæsareia. For a considerable period, however, Gregory,
who shrank from the responsibility of the episcopal office, kept
himself beyond the bishop’s reach, until Phædimus,
unsuccessful in his search, had recourse to the stratagem of ordaining
him in his absence, and declaring him, with all the solemnities of the
usual ceremonial, bishop of his native city.15
| 15 [See p.
5, supra. Cave pronounces it “without
precedent,” but seems to credit the story.] | On receiving the report of this
extraordinary step, Gregory yielded, and, coming forth from the place
of his concealment, was consecrated to the bishopric with all the
customary formalities;16
| 16 [So Gregory
Nyssen says. It would have been impossible, otherwise, for him to
rule his flock.] | and so
well did he discharge the duties of his office, that while there were
said to be only seventeen Christians in the whole city when he first
entered it as bishop, there were said to be only seventeen pagans in it
at the time of his death. The date of his studies under Origen is
fixed at about 234 a.d., and that of his
ordination as bishop at about 240. About the year 250 his church
was involved in the sufferings of the Decian persecution, on which
occasion he fled into the wilderness, with the hope of preserving his
life for his people, whom he also counselled to follow in that matter
his example. His flock had much to endure, again, through the
incursion of the northern barbarians about 260. He took part in
the council that met at Antioch in 265 for the purpose of trying Paul
of Samosata; and soon after that he died, perhaps about 270, if we can
adopt the conjectural reading which gives the name Aurelian instead of
Julian in the account left us by Suidas.
The surname Thaumaturgus, or Wonder-worker,
at once admonishes us of the marvellous that so largely
connected itself with the historical in the ancient records of
this man’s life.17
| 17 He
could move the largest stones by a word; he could heal the sick; the
demons were subject to him, and were exorcised by his fiat; he could
give bounds to overflowing rivers; he could dry up mighty lakes; he
could cast his cloak over a man, and cause his death; once, spending a
night in a heathen temple, he banished its divinities by his simple
presence, and by merely placing on the altar a piece of paper bearing
the words, Gregory to Satan—enter, he could bring the
presiding demons back to their shrine. One strange story told of
him by Gregory of Nyssa is to the effect that, as Gregory was
meditating on the great matter of the right way to worship the true
God, suddenly two glorious personages made themselves manifest in his
room, in the one of whom he recognised the Apostle John, in the other
the Virgin. They had come, as the story goes, to solve the
difficulties which were making him hesitate in accepting the
bishopric. At Mary’s request, the evangelist gave him then
all the instruction in doctrine which he was seeking for; and the sum
of these supernatural communications being written down by him after
the vision vanished, formed the creed which is still preserved among
his writings. Such were the wonders believed to signalize the
life of Gregory. |
He was believed to have been gifted with a power of working miracles,
which he was constantly exercising. But into these it is
profitless to enter. When all the marvellous is dissociated from
the historical in the records of this bishop’s career, we have
still the figure of a great, good, and gifted man, deeply versed in the
heathen lore and science of his time, yet more deeply imbued with the
genuine spirit of another wisdom, which, under God, he learned from the
illustrious thinker of Alexandria, honouring with all love, gratitude,
and veneration that teacher to whom he was indebted for his knowledge
of the Gospel, and exercising an earnest, enlightened, and faithful
ministry of many years in an office which he had not sought, but for
which he had been sought. Such is, in brief, the picture that
rises up before us from a perusal of his own writings, as well as from
the comparison of ancient accounts of the man and his vocation.
Of his well-accredited works we have the following: A
Declaration of Faith, being a creed on the doctrine of the Trinity;
a Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes, a Panegyric to
Origen, being an oration delivered on leaving the school of Origen,
expressing eloquently, and with great tenderness of feeling, as well as
polish of style, the sense of his obligations to that master; and a
Canonical Epistle, in which he gives a variety of directions
with respect to the penances and discipline to be exacted by the Church
from Christians who had fallen back into heathenism in times of
suffering, and wished to be restored. Other works have been
attributed to him, which are doubtful or spurious. His writings
have been often edited,—by Gerard Voss in 1604, by the Paris
editors in 1662, by Gallandi in 1788, and others, who need not be
enumerated here.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
