Gregory of Nazianzus (Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)

Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality

Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering, series editors

AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES

Athanasius

by Peter J. Leithart

Basil of Caesarea

by Stephen M. Hildebrand

Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian Doctrine

by Thomas G. Guarino

© 2016 by Brian Matz

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-0572-5

For William, Daniel, Sophia, and Katelynn

Contents

Cover    i

Series Page    ii

Title Page    iii

Copyright Page    iv

Dedication    v

Series Preface  ix

Acknowledgments    xi

Abbreviations  xiii

Introduction    1

1. Gregory as Pastor and Theologian    15

2. Preaching Purification    37

3. Preaching Pastoring: Oration 2    53

4. Preaching Contemplation: Oration 45    71

5. Preaching Baptism: Oration 40    91

6. Preaching Love for the Poor: Oration 14    113

Conclusion    127

Appendix 1: Scripture Cited in Oration 2    131

Appendix 2 : Scripture Cited in Oration 45    134

Appendix 3 : Scripture Cited in Oration 40    136

Appendix 4 : Scripture Cited in Oration 14    139

Notes    141

Select Bibliography    169

Index    189

Back Cover    192

Series Preface

Recent decades have witnessed a growing desire among Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants to engage and retrieve the exegetical, theological, and doctrinal resources of the early church. If the affirmations of the first four councils constitute a common inheritance for ecumenical Christian witness, then in the Nicene Creed Christians find a particularly rich vein for contemporary exploration of the realities of faith. These fruits of the patristic period were, as the fathers themselves repeatedly attest, the embodiment of a personally and ecclesially engaged exegetical, theological, and metaphysical approach to articulating the Christian faith. In the Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality series, we will explore this patristic witness to our common Nicene faith.

Each volume of the present series explores how biblical exegesis, dogmatic theology, and participatory metaphysics relate in the thought of a particular church father. In addition to serving as introductions to the theological world of the fathers, the volumes of the series break new ecumenical and theological ground by taking as their starting point three related convictions. First, at the core of the Foundations series lies the conviction that ressourcement, or retrieval, of the shared inheritance of the Nicene faith is an important entry point to all ecumenical endeavor. Nicene Christianity, which received its authoritative shape at the councils of Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451), was the result of more than three centuries of ecclesial engagement with the implications of the incarnation and of the adoration of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the liturgy of the church. Particularly since the 1940s, when Catholic scholars such as Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, and others reached back to the church fathers for inspiration and contemporary cultural and ecclesial renewal, ressourcement has made significant contributions to theological development and ecumenical discussion. The last few decades have also witnessed growing evangelical interest in an approach to the church fathers that reads them not only for academic reasons but also with a view to giving them a voice in today’s discussions. Accordingly, this series is based on the conviction that a contemporary retrieval of the church fathers is essential also to the flourishing and further development of Christian theology.

Second, since the Nicene consensus was based on a thorough engagement with the Scriptures, renewed attention to the exegetical approaches of the church fathers is an important aspect of ressourcement. In particular, the series works on the assumption that Nicene theology was the result of the early church’s conviction that historical and spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures were intimately connected and that both the Old and the New Testaments speak of the realities of Christ, of the church, and of eternal life in fellowship with the Triune God. Although today we may share the dogmatic inheritance of the Nicene faith regardless of our exegetical approach, it is much less clear that the Nicene convictions—such as the doctrines of the Trinity and of the person of Christ—can be sustained without the spiritual approaches to interpretation that were common among the fathers. Doctrine, after all, is the outcome of biblical interpretation. Thus, theological renewal requires attention to the way in which the church fathers approached Scripture. Each of the volumes of this series will therefore explore a church father’s theological approach(es) to the biblical text.

Finally, it is our conviction that such a ressourcement of spiritual interpretation may contribute significantly toward offsetting the fragmentation—ecclesial, moral, economical, and social—of contemporary society. This fragmentation is closely connected to the loss of the Platonic-Christian synthesis of Nicene Christianity. Whereas this earlier synthesis recognized a web of relationships as a result of God’s creative act in and through Christ, many today find it much more difficult to recognize, or even to pursue, common life together. A participatory metaphysic, which many of the church fathers took as axiomatic, implies that all of created reality finds its point of mutual connection in the eternal Word of God, in which it lies anchored. It is this christological anchor that allows for the recognition of a common origin and a common end, and thus for shared commitments. While the modern mind-set tends to separate nature and the supernatural (often explicitly excluding the latter), Nicene Christianity recognized that the created order exists by virtue of God’s graciously allowing it to participate, in a creaturely fashion, in his goodness, truth, and beauty as revealed in Christ through the Spirit. A participatory metaphysic, therefore, is one of the major presuppositions of the creed’s articulation of the realities of faith.

In short, rooted in the wisdom of the Christian past, the volumes of the series speak from the conviction that the above-mentioned convictions informed the life and work of the church fathers and that these convictions are in need of ressourcement for the sake of today’s theological, philosophical, and exegetical debates. In light of a growing appreciation of the early Christians, the series aims to publish erudite introductions that will be of interest in seminary and university courses on doctrine and biblical exegesis and that will be accessible to educated lay readers with interest in how early Christians appropriated and passed on divine revelation.

Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering, series editors

Acknowledgments

I owe a debt of thanks to many people for the completion of this project. First of all, I thank Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering for inviting me to contribute this volume on Gregory of Nazianzus to their series. In June 2007, I was working at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) when I read an announcement of the names of scholars in residence coming during the summer months in the faculty of theology. On that list was Hans Boersma, whose name I knew from articles of his I had read as a graduate student several years earlier. I immediately contacted him, and we met several times over his weeks in Leuven. I shared his fascination with some of the things he was researching then, which he has subsequently published, on orthodoxy, neo-orthodoxy, and patristic literature. I could not have known then that, many months later, he would email me with an invitation to write a volume for this series. Thank you, Hans.

That chance encounter in Leuven was made possible by the fact that I was in so auspicious an environment as Leuven at all. For that, I will always be in the debt of Johan Leemans and Johan Verstraeten. True, they led me with superb skill through the study of early Christian social ethics, but in the midst of that, they challenged me continually to improve as a scholar and as a professional in this world of academia, for which I am very grateful.

Hans asked me to write this book because he learned that Gregory had been the subject of my earlier dissertation at Saint Louis University. Indeed, a few parts of this book have been adapted from that work on Gregory’s baptismal theology. In any case, I thank my teachers at Saint Louis University who guided me during those years. I thank especially Fr. Ken Steinhauser, Fr. Fred McLeod, Cornelia Horn, Jim Kelhoffer, Julie Hanlon Rubio, and Valerie Karras.

I also offer a warm thanks to Gretel Stock-Kupperman and her staff at the Todd Wehr Memorial Library at Viterbo University (La Crosse, Wisconsin). They kindly provided me with quiet work space in their facilities for several weeks during the summer of 2012 to further work on this book while my wife and children were enjoying time with extended family in the area. The Franciscan value of hospitality is alive and well at Viterbo! Thanks is also due to my former colleagues at Carroll College, my colleagues at Fontbonne University, my former dean Paula McNutt, my student assistants—Taylor Stewart, Paul Stepanek, and Amy Dixon—and the staff of both institutions’ libraries. Each in their own way contributed moral support, financial assistance, interlibrary loan services, course reductions for research, and summer research grants. Further, my appreciation is due to the Catholic University of America Press for granting me permission to incorporate into chapter 6 materials that were previously published in my essay "Deciphering a Recipe for Preaching in Oration 14," in Re-reading Gregory of Nazianzus: Essays on History, Theology, and Culture, ed. Christopher A. Beeley, CUA Studies in Early Christianity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2012), 49–66.

The staff at Baker Academic is also due for recognition here. This project arrived on their desks much later than originally promised. I regret its late arrival, but my editor, James Ernest (while still at Baker), was always very kind in his gentle (and occasionally firm) communications with me seeking the manuscript. The rest of the staff at Baker has been equally supportive whenever I met with them at conferences. I look forward to future projects with this excellent publisher.

I also extend thanks to some influential pastors in my life. They did not have a direct role in helping complete this book, but I was asked from the outset to write a book that would be fit for a pastorally minded audience. My contact over the years with pastors like Dale Swanson, Carl Anderson, Keith Hileman, and Seth Dombach kept coming to mind as I wrote this book. What would help them? What would help others like them who aspire to the office of pastor-teacher? I hope that I have written a book that is as useful to pastors as it is to students of early Christianity. I hope that within these pages every reader will meet an early Christian theologian who loved God as much as they do.

Finally, I thank my family. My extended family continues to provide much moral support even if at times they are a bit confused about what it is, exactly, I do. They are always there to lend a helping hand. Most especially, I thank my wife, Heidi. Without her continued love, support, and encouragement, I would not have been able to spend the necessary time in the quiet of my study to work on this and other writing projects. It goes beyond words to express how thankful I am that she has offered these things to me while, at the same time, bearing the brunt of the task of raising our four delightful young children. I love you, and I thank you. It is to these four children that I have dedicated this book. May they find in Gregory’s life an example of passion for truth, self-discipline, and a commitment to a life of virtue.

Abbreviations

Introduction

Welcome to a glimpse into the world of Gregory of Nazianzus. A child with a privileged upbringing. Christian parents concerned to raise him in accord with virtue. Training at some of the best schools in the Roman Empire. A job as pastor in his hometown waiting for him upon graduation. Later, a pastor at a church in Constantinople that the emperor himself attended. Briefly appointed as bishop of the capital city. Attended the Second Ecumenical Council in 381. Defended the equality of Jesus as God alongside God the Father. The first to call the Spirit God and thus to defend the trinitarian theology Christians know today. Abruptly quit as bishop of Constantinople. Retired in his early fifties with enough time and money to preach at his leisure, to teach at his leisure, and to leisurely edit his writings for posterity. Died during or soon after his sixtieth year.

But this book is not really a biography. It is also not really an exegetical study of all or most of his writings. His biography has been written more capably by others,1 and no one book could contain an exegetical study of all of his writings. Indeed, Gregory left behind well over a hundred letters, thousands of lines of poetry, and forty-five orations, a few of which are nearly a thousand lines long themselves. Readers interested in studying all that Gregory left for posterity have their work cut out for them, both in terms of wading through that primary literature and then all of the secondary literature that has been written about him in the sixteen centuries since his death. It is a tremendous topic, to say the least.

This book has a much smaller aim. It introduces the reader to Gregory’s way of reading Scripture. It also introduces one of his chief pastoral concerns: purification. In other words, it invites the reader into Gregory’s study—into the place where Gregory spoke about what concerned him as a pastor, as a theologian, and as an interpreter of Scripture.

Most pastors used to have studies; some still do. They are the offices in which pastors retreat from the world to get into the serious business of praying and studying Scripture. They are the offices in which pastors reflect on the meaning of Scripture for themselves and for their congregations. It is where they read the biographies of men and women who have stood for the faith in centuries past. It is where they dive into texts on systematic and historical theology. It is where they pray for themselves and for their parishoners.

I wonder sometimes just how often modern pastors utilize or realize their need for a study. I see pastors working out of busy public places like coffee shops. I hear of prominent pastors jet-setting around the country and giving talks to other pastors about how not to be so busy. I see pastors busily setting up mini-fiefdoms with multisite churches, video-linked services, and grand campuses of buildings. Do they realize how quickly their only real work as pastors is slipping away? Do they realize that the study, interpretation, and application of Scripture is their raison d’être? Counseling. Preaching. Strategic planning. It all flows from a heart and mind steeped in the Scriptures and an understanding of the way of Jesus. It flows, if you will, from a commitment to devote part of every day to time alone in the study.

For some, a look at Gregory’s pastorate and his ways of reading Scripture will be an unsettling connection to another world. Yet it is hoped that Gregory’s writings are an occasion for reflection, renewal, and worship. This is precisely what they have been for so many in the centuries since his death, and it is hoped that this study continues in this tradition.

Brief Biographical Sketch

As his name implies, Gregory was from Nazianzus or, more correctly, the nearby Arianzus. This is a town in Cappadocia, which is in the central portion of modern-day Turkey. His was a privileged upbringing in the home of a landowning (i.e., wealthy) family. He had two younger siblings—a brother and a sister, Caesarius and Gorgonia. Only a short time before his birth on or around AD 330, his father, Gregory the Elder, had joined the Christian religion. Gregory’s mother, Nonna, had been a Christian for much longer. Since Nonna had been unable to bear children for several years, Gregory writes in his autobiography that his birth was reminiscent of Samuel’s to Hannah in the book of 1 Samuel. Like Hannah, at the appointed time, Nonna too gave up her miracle son to the Lord for whatever work God had in store for him. While that work would one day include serving as pastor to the Roman emperor and writing some of the most famous texts on trinitarian doctrine, the path was decidedly circuitous.

At age six, after having been weaned by his mother, Gregory was transferred to the care of his father for education. For a few years, that involved local tutors in subjects like grammar, mathematics, music, and gymanstics—great humanistic disciplines that Hellenism felt best prepared young men for life in the polis. Eventually Gregory was sent to Caesarea, the local capital, where he continued in his education alongside the children of other wealthy Cappadocian families. Among them was Basil of Caesarea, with whom Gregory would establish a lifelong, if complicated, friendship.

After a few years of primary schooling in Caesarea, Gregory was recalled home. Then Gregory the Elder arranged for Gregory and his brother, Caesarius, to study medicine in Alexandria. Alexandria had established itself as the center of medical studies, since the famous Greek physician Galen had taught his trade there two centuries earlier. Yet medicine was not in Gregory’s blood. It was apparently in his brother’s blood, since Caesarius would graduate from Alexandria’s school and take up a position on the imperial staff.2 No, Gregory preferred the life of letters, rhetoric, and philosophy. So as soon as he could, he decamped from Alexandria and boarded a ship bound for Athens, a journey about which more will be said in the next chapter.

Gregory’s arrival in Athens both reconnected him with Basil and connected him with such eminent students as the future emperor, Julian. Indeed, his time in Athens was not simply an opportunity to study in the Roman Empire’s premier school for rhetoric and philosophy; it was equally an opportunity to rub shoulders with members of the ruling class, the future elite of the empire, and this included its ecclesiastical as well as its civil governors. Thus the banality of medical studies in Alexandria gave way to a love affair with letters, art, and literature in Athens. It was there Gregory learned the skill of weaving together classical and scriptural sources, words and exempla, into his own voice, all of which became a hallmark of his writings. His studies focused on rhetoric, which is to say, the art of speaking and writing well. This required many hours spent in digesting the great works of the classical world and further hours spent crafting speeches and verse that would artfully mimic those same styles. Gregory was apparently sufficiently good at all of this that he was asked to remain as a lecturer after the conclusion of his studies, which he did for a couple years. Also at Athens, Gregory and Basil spent some of their free time plotting how they would impact the Christian community back home in Cappadocia, and they made plans for the construction of a monastic retreat center in Pontus on land owned by Basil’s family.

Yet all good things eventually come to an end. Approaching his thirtieth year, Gregory wrote to his parents and to Basil that he was coming home. By 359, he had arrived back on the family estate of Arianzus. But the responsibilities set before him of assisting his parents with both managing the family estate and the family’s church in Nazianzus seemed too large of a burden for him to bear. Although he was ordained to the priesthood in 361, Gregory later wrote that he viewed that as having been forced upon him by his father. So, either late in 361 or early in 362, Gregory left Nazianzus for the region of Pontus to join Basil in building that monastic retreat they discussed back in Athens. Unfortunately, that experience was far less than Gregory had envisioned. He wrote years later that the place was a hovel, and that the rain that often fell made it largely uninhabitable. It seems the honeymoon period of a life spent in philosophical reflection and prayer at a monastic retreat dissipated quickly. So, having acquired a bit more wisdom about the real world, he returned home by Easter in 362.

Still, his pastoral career would be marked not by alternating days of public ministry and private study but by alternating months and years of such turns. He seemed as often to flee from pastoral responsibilities as he did to embrace them. Gregory wanted to be a contemplative, a philosopher, not a busy cleric. He wanted to read, think, and write. He preferred not to be bothered with the petty affairs of a small church in a remote town in an increasingly unremarkable province of the Roman Empire. And when he was assigned by his friend Basil to the bishop’s office in Sasima—an even more remote outpost—he practically had a fit.

Now, lest this picture of Gregory become altogether unflattering, it is worth remembering that, when duty called, Gregory stepped forward. When the church in Nazianzus suffered theological division between Gregory the Elder and a local group of monks, it was Gregory who stepped in to heal the division (Or. 6). When his father’s declining health compelled the relinquishment of his pastoral duties in Nazianzus, Gregory stepped forward to aid the church for several years. When a government tax assessor came calling in Nazianzus, Gregory spoke up on behalf of the citizens and demanded fair assessments (Or. 19). And, when the time seemed right and the invitation presented itself, Gregory departed for the capital city to defend the cause of Nicene theology among a bitterly divided Christian constituency there (Or. 27–31).

So, while Gregory certainly had his own personal issues that took years for him to address, we discover in the life of Gregory a pastor, a theologian, and a teacher devoted to a Christian faith informed by reason and articulated in a winsome way to a doubtful culture. And when Gregory finally stepped up to the call of pastoral and theological service, he did so with no fear of opposition. His theological legacy is the defense of Nicene theology in the face of those who preferred to set aside the nonbiblical word homoousios from the Nicene Creed. To Gregory, that nonbiblical word was so important because it provided the lens through which to read the Scriptures.3 That we today affirm a consubstantial Trinity is due, in no small part, to Gregory’s ministry.

It is these aspects of his ministry, really, that we want to understand more as the book progresses. Gregory was a complicated individual, and this was matched by his rich and varied use and interpretation of Scripture. Moreover, his rhetorical adeptness, largely unmatched in his day, led him to weave together seemingly unrelated passages into new communities of texts. The Bible comes alive in Gregory’s hands. It is a remarkably fluid text, providing fodder for nearly any path down which his mind wished to tread. His is still an amazing legacy for Christians today.

Outline of the Book

Since here we are interested in Gregory’s pastoral theology of purification and the extent to which it played a role in shaping his selection and use of Scripture, the first chapter of the book examines four formative periods of Gregory’s life as a pastor and theologian, including his baptism, transition into pastoral service in Nazianzus, pastoral service in Constantinople, and experience at the Council of Constantinople (AD 381). The study of these periods opens us to the complex figure that Gregory was. Baptism heightened his awareness of the likelihood he would never be able fully to lead the contemplative life that he wanted. His pastoral service in Nazianzus was marked by repeated exits over frustrations with precisely its inability to accommodate a contemplative life. And his pastoral service in Constantinople, including during the Council, while arguably the shining moment of his theological career, revealed to him the unsettling reality of ecclesiastical politics that he was not willing to spend more than a few years playing. If readers of this book thought they were going to encounter here the life of an uncomplicated Christian saint, this chapter will quickly disabuse them of that notion. Gregory never seemed to be happy doing whatever he was doing. He protested (some would say too much) that he would rather have had everyone just leave him alone. It is with apologies to Gregory, then, that we refuse to do so.

Having said that, perhaps Gregory would then appreciate that in chapter 2 the book steps back from a biographical sketch of his life. That chapter turns to a broad overview of Gregory’s preaching of purification. As an academic