Francesco Celia: Preaching the Gospel to the Hellenes: The Life and Works of Gregory the Wonderworker, Late Antique History and Religion 20, Leuven (Peeters) 2019, X + 379 pp., ISBN 978-90-429-3816-8, € 105,– (original) (raw)
Related papers
Gregory of Nazianzus's Reception of Origen
The single piece of known documentary evidence regarding Gregory of Nazianzus's provides a wealth of study for Gregory's reception of Origen. In Epistle CXV, Gregory sends to the Bishop of Tyana a small gift, The Philocalia of Origen, an editorial selection of passages from Origen's works selected by Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea, which is meant to be a clerical guidebook for Scriptural interpretation, current issues in early Christian apologetics, and the subject of Free Will. This essay provides an introduction to Gregory of Nazianzus's reception of Origen, along with the history, structure, and significance of The Philocalia of Origen.
Gregory Thaumaturgus (‘Wonderworker’) is one of the most charismatic figures in the history of Early Christianity. For centuries he has been considered the pupil of Origen who later became the bishop of Neocaesarea and evangelised Pontus. His evangelical activity was considered to be supported by his works and by the large number of miracles which eminent figures such Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa and many other hagiographies attributed to him. In the last forty years, however, scholars have radically called into question the foundations of his biographical and literary profiles to the extent that the figure of Gregory seems to be groundless to many. This dissertation has a twofold structure, for it aims to verify the degree of reliability of Gregory’s traditional identity on the basis of the reconsideration of the ancient sources concerning him and of the main works handed down under his name. The first part of this study deals with three issues related to the biographical problem: a short outline of the cultural context of Neocaesarea will introduce the scrutiny of the ancient accounts on Gregory, which will be followed by a section concerning chronological problems. The second part includes four chapters focusing on the In Origenem Oratio Panegyrica (CPG 1763), Metaphrasis in Ecclesiasten (CPG 1766), Ad Theopompum de passibili et impassibili in Deo (CPG 1767), Confessio fidei (CPG 1764) and Ad Gelianum. It is argued that Gregory’s traditional figure is substantially reliably attested because the ancient biographical accounts are to a large extent trustworthy and because the main works ascribed to him are indeed authentic and corroborate Gregory’s engagement in confronting and evangelising pagans.
Origen's Protreptics to Philosophy: Testimony of Gregory Thaumaturgus in the Oratio Panegyrica, VI
Origeniana Undecima: Origen and Origenism in the History of Western Thought, 2016
St. Gregory’s Address is a unique document depicting a situation of conversion in the early Church. It represents a necessary link between ancient and Christian traditions of exhortation. We show that there is continuity between them, for protreptic motifs of the Address are to a great extent inspired or even directly borrowed from Plato.
The "Dialogues" of Gregory the Great in Their Late Antique Cultural Background. Joan M. Petersen
Speculum, 1986
is found by R. M. Haines to be 'a tolerant man in an age of intolerance'. Other pre-Reformation contributors take broader themes: R. I. Moore discusses popular violence and popular heresy c. IOOO-I 179, but is unable to find clear evidence of popular hostility to heretics or heresy as such; J. Riley-Smith ranges widely in examining the First Crusade and the persecution of the Jews; J. Edwards investigates mission and inquisition among conversos and moriscos in Spain, 1250-1550. Such treatments enable the reader to make some useful comparisons between regions and centuries, but no broad conclusion is possible, partly because authors are not considering precisely the same issues. This aspect of the volume becomes even more evident in its early modern and modern history papers. While most authors (a little surprisingly) consider 'persecution' to be, in N. M. Sutherland's words, 'self-explanatory', a number of them fish for the dictionary when it comes to ' toleration', although, like her, they find that the word 'blurs like the recollection of a dream'. Other authors plunge into their papers without worrying at all about definitions. Whatever differences there are in this respect, there are some notable papers-in particular B. Worden on toleration and the Cromwellian protectorate, J. Iliffe on nineteenthcentury Yorubaland and O. Chadwick on the pope and the Jews in 1942. They blend scholarship, insight and sympathy in a high degree. Messrs Fletcher, Goldie and Szechi look at the practical politics of toleration in late-seventeenth-and early-eighteenth-century England and Scotland. Other papers, no less thorough, examine the situation of the Churches in colonial Natal, the fate of French Jesuits in the 1760s, the deliberations of Canadian Anglican bishops, the Puseyite' threat' in Ulster, an early ' fundamentalist' crisis in British Methodism, Bishop Alexander and the Jews, and Pope Pius ix and religious freedom. Norman Stone's essay on the religious background to Max Weber is no less welcome for being slightly unexpected in its surrounding company. The standard of the papers is excellent. The disquiet that remains is not so much with the range and diversity of the contributions as with the fact that, by tradition, there is no 'afterword'. We are left with stimulating variations on a theme but no informed consensus among the contributors about the meaning of the central terms. No doubt, however, there are some scholars who would see more firm guidelines, or conceptual clarity, as intolerable examples of editorial or presidential persecution. After all, it is well known that a major project on toleration never advanced beyond the drawing-board.
2016
Gregory's second oration is a book-length treatise on the episcopal office that became a foundational text in the Byzantine tradition while also exercising an important influence, thanks to Rufinus's translation, in the Latin West. In outlining the duties of the ideal bishop, Gregory invokes the New Testament image of the Good Shepherd, only to build on the text of John's Gospel by invoking the prologue of Callimachus' Aetia. He transforms the aesthetics of the latter into a guiding principle for the relationship between priest and congregation. The use of Callimachus to develop the metaphor from the New Testament text is characteristic of Gregory, who frequently adapts Callimachean language for his own literary, polemical, and theological ends. Finally, this paper demonstrates how Rufinus, working with an educated Latin audience in mind, turns to Virgil in order to render the literary texture of Gregory's original, which draws heavily on the Alexandrian bucolic tradition.
Gregory of Neocaesarea: evangelist in Pontus
2004
German translation of the Syriac text. I would to like acknowledge my appreciation of the direction, assistance, encouragement and patience of Alanna Nobbs, Ken Parry, and Samuel Lieu, who have directed this study, other academic staff of Macquarie University Ancient History Department, in particular