St Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography

Publication Data: Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: xxviii + 437
Dimensions (l × w × h): 22.8 cm × 15.4 cm × 2.8 cm
ISBN: 978‒0‒88141‒864‒4

   
John A. McGuckin

“In the Orthodox world Gregory had always been regarded first and foremost as a theologian. That was usually understood to refer to his work on the foundations of classical Trinitarian orthodoxy. In fact his influence was probably more pervasively felt in the paradigm of Christian Hellenism he bequeathed to nascent Byzantium. Byzantine Christianity, in a real sense, was Gregory’s mind-child and masterpiece, partly by design, and partly by his transmission to later Byzantium as the last of the ancients and the first of their ‘moderns.’ He was the archetypal patron of the new Christian Byzantine culture that set out to clip the roses of Hellenism of their thorns, and gather them in to decorate and color the form of a new world order. As the study of Byzantine theology itself begins, rightly, to take a place in the light, and demand a hearing on its own terms, so too the time is right for a reassessment of this last of the Antique and the first of the Byzantine Christian theologians; and surely one of the finest.”
—“Preludium”

CONTENTS

   Chronological Synopsis of the Vita Gregorii
   Bibliographic Abbreviations
   St Gregory Nazianzen
   Preludium
1 In Search of a Self
2 “Then Came Athens and Letters”
3 Politics and Priesthood in Cappadocia
4 Bishop of Sasima
5 An Invitation to Byzantium
6 Archbishop of Constantinople
7 The Twilight of a Poet
   An Epilogue
   Bibliography
      Orations and Letters
      Gregory’s Orations
         Other Translations & Editions
         The Poetic works
         Other Related Classical Primary Texts
      A Select Bibliography of General Studies and Biographical Sources Relevant to the Subject
      Studies on the Thought and Style of St Gregory Nazianzen
      A Thematic Guide to the Bibliography
   Index of Names & Places
   Index of Subjects
   Maps & Illustrations
   Corrigenda