Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07: 27.02.10 Oration XVI Part 1

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Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07: 27.02.10 Oration XVI Part 1



TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 07 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 27.02.10 Oration XVI Part 1

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Oration XVI.

On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail.

This Oration belongs to the year a.d. 373. A series of disasters had befallen the people of Nazianzus. A deadly cattle plague, which had devastated their herds, had been followed by a prolonged drought, and now their just ripened crops had been ruined by a storm of rain and hail. The people flocked to the church, and finding S. Gregory the elder so overwhelmed by his sense of these terrible misfortunes that he was unable to address them, implored his coadjutor to enter the pulpit. The occasion gave no time for preparation, so S. Gregory poured out his feelings in a discourse which was in the fullest sense of the words ex tempore. its present form, however, as Benoit suggests, may be due to a later polishing of notes taken down at the time of delivery.

1. Why do you infringe upon the approved order of things? Why would you do violence to a tongue which is under obligation to the law? Why do you challenge a speech which is in subjection to the Spirit? Why, when you have excused the head, have you hastened to the feet? Why do you pass by Aaronhyperlink and urge forward Eleazar? I cannot allow the fountain to be dammed up, while the rivulet runs its course; the sun to be hidden, while the star shines forth; hoar hairs to be in retirement, while youth lays down the law; wisdom to be silent, while inexperience speaks with assurance. A heavy rain is not always more useful than a gentle shower. Nay, indeed, if it be too violent, it sweeps away the earth, and increases the proportion of the farmer's loss: while a gentle fall, which sinks deep, enriches the soil, benefits the tiller and makes the corn grow to a fine crop. So the fluent Speech is not more profitable than the wise. For the one, though it perhaps gave a slight pleasure, passes away, and is dispersed as soon, and with as little effect, as the air on which it struck, though it charms with its eloquence the greedy ear. But the other sinks into the mind, and opening wide its mouth, fills ithyperlink with the Spirit, and, showing itself nobler than its origin, produces a rich harvest by a few syllables.

2. I have not yet alluded to the true and first wisdom, for which our wonderful husbandman and shepherd is conspicuous. The first wisdom is a life worthy of praise, and kept pure for God, or being purified for Him Who is all-pure and all-luminous, Who demands of us, us His only sacrifice, purification-that is, a contrite heart and the sacrifice of praise,hyperlink and a new creation in Christ,hyperlink and the new man,hyperlink and the like, as the Scripture loves to call it. The first wisdom is to despise that wisdom which consists of language and figures of speech, and spurious and unnecessary embellishments. Be it mine to speak five words with my understanding in the church, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue,hyperlink and with the unmeaning voice of a trumpet,hyperlink which does not rouse my soldier to the spiritual combat. This is the wisdom which I praise, which I welcome. By this the ignoble have won renown, and the despised have attained the highest honours. By this a crew of fishermen have taken the whole world in the meshes of the Gospel-net, and overcome by a word finished and cut shorthyperlink the wisdom that comes to naught.hyperlink I count not wise the man who is clever in words, nor him who is of a ready tongue, but unstable and undisciplined in soul, like the tombs which, fair and beautiful as they are outwardly, are fetid with corpses within,hyperlink and full of manifold ill-savours; but him who speaks but little of virtue, yet gives many examples of it in his practice, and proves the trustworthiness of his language by his life.

3. Fairer in my eyes, is the beauty which we can gaze upon than that which is painted in words: of more value the wealth which our hands can hold, than that which is imagined in our dreams; and more real the wisdom of which we are convinced by deeds, than that which is set forth in splendid language. For "a good understanding," he saith, "have all they that do thereafter,"hyperlink not they who proclaim it. Time iS the best touchstone of this wisdom, and "the hoary head is a crown of glory."hyperlink For if, as it seems to me as well as tO Solomon, we must "judge none blessed before his death,"hyperlink and it is uncertain" what a day may bring forth,"hyperlink since our life here below has many turnings, and the body of our humiliationhyperlink is ever rising, falling and changing; surely he, who without fault has almost drained the cup of life, and nearly reached the haven of the common sea of existence is more secure, and therefore more enviable, than one who has yet a long voyage before him.

4. Do not thou, therefore, restrain a tongue whose noble utterances and fruits have been many, which has begotten many children of righteousness-yea, lift up thine eyes round about and see,hyperlink how many are its sons, and what are its treasures; even this whole people, whom thou hast begotten in Christ through the Gospel.hyperlink Grudge not to us those words which are excellent rather than many, and do not yet give us a foretaste of our impending loss.hyperlink Speak in words which, if few, are dear and most sweet to me, which, if scarcely audible, are perceived from their spiritual cry, as God heard the silence of Moses, and said to him when interceding mentally, "Why criest thou unto Me?"hyperlink Comfort this people, I pray thee, I, who was thy nursling, and have since been made Pastor, and now even Chief Pastor. Give a lesson, to me in the Pastor's art, to this people of obedience. Discourse awhile on our present heavy blow, about the just judgments of God, whether we grasp their meaning, or are ignorant of their great deep.hyperlink How again "mercy is put in the balance,"hyperlink as holy Isaiah declares, for goodness is not without discernment, as the first labourers in the vineyardhyperlink fancied, because they could not perceive any distinction between those who were paid alike: and how anger, which is called "the cup in the hand of the Lord,"hyperlink and "the cup of falling which is drained,"hyperlink is in proportion to transgressions, even though He abates to all somewhat of what is their due, and dilutes with compassion the unmixed draught of His wrath. For He inclines from severity to indulgence towards those who accept chastisement with fear, and who after a slight affliction conceive and are in pain with conversion, and bring forth(hyperlink ) the perfect spirit of salvation; but nevertheless he reserves the dregs,hyperlink the last drop of His anger, that He may pour it out entire upon those who, instead of being healed by His kindness, grow obdurate, like the hard-hearted Pharaoh,hyperlink that bitter taskmaster, who is set forth as an example of the powerhyperlink of God over the ungodly.

5. Tell us whence come such blows and scourges, and what account we can give of them. Is it some disordered and irregular motion or some unguided current, some unreason of the universe, as though there were no Ruler of the world, which is therefore borne along by chance, as is the doctrine of the foolishly wise, who are themselves borne along at random by the disorderly spirit of darkness? Or are the disturbances and changes of the universe, (which was originally constituted, blended, bound together, and set in motion in a harmony known only to Him Who gave it motion,) directed by reason and order under the guidance of the reins of Providence? Whence come famines and tornadoes and hailstorms, our present warning blow? Whence pestilences, diseases, earthquakes, tidal waves, and fearful things in the heavens? And how is the creation, once ordered for the enjoyment of men, their common and equal delight, changed for the punishment of the ungodly, in order that we may be chastised through that for which, when honoured with it, we did not give thanks, and recognise in our sufferings that power which we did not recognise in our benefits? How is it that some receive at the Lord's hand double for their sins,hyperlink and the measure of their wickedness is doubly filled up, as in the correction of Israel, while the sins of others are done away by a sevenfold recompense into their bosom?hyperlink What is the measure of the Amorites that is not yet full?hyperlink And how is the sinner either let go, or chastised again, let go perhaps, because reserved for the other world, chastised, because healed thereby in this? Under what circumstances again is the righteous, when unfortunate, possibly being put to the test, or, when prosperous, being observed, to see if he be poor in mind or not very far superior to visible things, as indeed conscience, our interior and unerring tribunal, tells us. What is our calamity, and what its cause? Is it a test of virtue, or a touchstone of wickedness? And is it better to bow beneath it as a chastisement, even though it be not so, and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God,hyperlink or, considering it as a trial, to rise superior to it? On these points give us instruction and warning, lest we be too much discouraged by our present calamity, or fall into the gulf of evil and despise it; for some such feeling is very general; but rather that we may bear our admonition quietly, and not provoke one more severe by our insensibility to this.

6. Terrible is an unfruitful season, and the loss of the crops. It could not be otherwise, when men are already rejoicing in their hopes, and counting on their all but harvested stores. Terrible again is an unseasonable harvest, when the farmers labour with heavy hearts, sitting as it were beside the grave of their crops, which the gentle rain nourished, but the wild storm has rooted up, whereof the mower filleth not his hand, neither he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom,hyperlink nor have they obtained the blessing which passers-by bestow upon the farmers. Wretched indeed is the sight of the ground devastated, cleared, and shorn of its ornaments, over which the blessed Joel wails in his most tragic picture of the desolation of the land, and the scourge of famine;hyperlink while anotherhyperlink prophet wails, as he contrasts with its former beauty its final disorder, and thus discourses on the anger of the Lord when He smites the land: before him is the garden of Eden, behind Him a desolate wilderness.hyperlink Terrible indeed these things are, and more than terrible, when we are grieved only at what is present, and are not yet distressed by the feeling of a severer blow: since, as in sickness, the suffering which pains us from time to time is more distressing than that which is not present. But more terrible still are those which the treasureshyperlink of God's wrath contain, of which God forbid that you should make trial; nor will you, if you fly for refuge to the mercies of God, and win over by your tears Him Who will have mercy,hyperlink and avert by your conversion what remains of His wrath. As yet, this is gentleness and loving-kindness and gentle reproof, and the first elements of a scourge to train our tender years: as yet, the smokehyperlink of His anger, the prelude of His torments; not yet has fallen the flaming fire,hyperlink the climax of His being moved; not yet the kindled coals,hyperlink the final scourge, part of which He threatened, when He lifted up the other over us, part He held back by force, when He brought the other upon us; using the threat and the blow alike for our instruction, and making a way for His indignation, in the excess of His goodness; beginning with what is slight, so that the more severe may not be needed; but ready to instruct us by what is greater, if He be forced so to do.

7. I know the glittering sword,hyperlink and the blade made drunk in heaven, bidden to slay, to bring to naught, to make childless, and to spare neither flesh, nor marrow, nor bones. I know Him, Who, though free from passion, meets us like a bear robbed of her whelps, like a leopard in the way of the Assyrians,hyperlink not only those of that day, but if anyone now is an Assyrian in wickedness: nor is it possible to escape the might and speed of His wrath when He watches over our impieties, and His jealousy,hyperlink which knoweth to devour His adversaries, pursues His enemies to the death.hyperlink I know the emptying, the making void, the making waste, the melting of the heart, and knocking of the knees together,hyperlink such are the punishments of the ungodly. I do not dwell on the judgments to come, to which indulgence in this world delivers us, as it is better to be punished and cleansed now than to be transmitted to the torment to come, when it is the time of chastisement, not of cleansing. For as he who remembers God here is conqueror of death (as Davidhyperlink has most excellently sung) so the departed have not in the grave confession and restoration; for God has confined life and action to this world, and to the future the scrutiny of what has been done.

8. What shall we do in the day of visitation,hyperlink with which one of the Prophets terrifies me, whether that of the righteous sentence of God against us, or that upon the mountains and hills, of which we have heard, or whatever and whenever it may be, when He will reason with us, and oppose us, and set before ushyperlink those bitter accusers, our sins, comparing our wrongdoings with our benefits, and striking thought with thought, and scrutinising action with action, and calling us to account for the imagehyperlink which has been blurred and spoilt by wickedness, till at last He leads us away self-convicted and self-condemned, no longer able to say that we are being unjustly treated-a thought which is able even here sometimes to console in their condemnation those who are suffering.

9. But then what advocate shall we have? What pretext? What false excuse? What plausible artifice? What device contrary to the truth will impose upon the court, and rob it of its right judgment, which places in the balance for us all, our entire life, action, word, and thought, and weighs against the evil that which is better, until that which preponderates wins the day, and the decision is given in favour of the main tendency; after which there is no appeal, no higher court, no defence on the ground of subsequent conduct, no oil obtained from the wise virgins, or from them that sell, for the lamps going out,hyperlink no repentance of the rich man wasting away in the flame,hyperlink and begging for repentance for his friends, no statute of limitations; but only that final and fearful judgment-seat, more just even than fearful; or rather more fearful because it is also just; when the thrones are set and the Ancient of days takes His seat,hyperlink and the books are opened, and the fiery stream comes forth, and the light before Him, and the darkness prepared; and they that have done good shall go into the resurrection of life,hyperlink now hid in Christhyperlink and to be manifested hereafter with Him, and they that have done evil, into the resurrection of judgment,hyperlink to which they who have not believed have been condemned already by the word which judges them.hyperlink Some will be welcomed by the unspeakable light and the vision of the holy and royal Trinity, Which now shines upon them with greater brilliancy and purity and unites Itself wholly to the whole soul, in which solely and beyond all else I take it that the kingdom of heaven consists. The others among other torments, but above and before them all must endure the being outcast from God, and the shame of conscience which has no limit. But of these anon.

10. What are we to do now, my brethren, when crushed, cast down, and drunken but not with strong drink nor with wine,hyperlink which excites and obfuscates but for a while, but with the blow which the Lord has inflicted upon us, Who says, And thou, O heart, be stirred and shaken,hyperlink and gives to the despisers the spirit of sorrow and deep sleep to drink:hyperlink to whom He also says, See, ye despisers, behold, and wonder and perish?hyperlink How shall we bear His convictions; or what reply shall we make, when He reproaches us not only with the multitude of the benefits for which we have continued ungrateful, but also with His chastisements, and reckons up the remedies with which we have refused to be healed? Calling us His childrenhyperlink indeed, but unworthy children, and His sons, but strange sonshyperlink who have stumbled from lameness out of their paths, in the trackless and rough ground. How and by what means could I have instructed you, and I have not done so? By gentler measures? I have applied them. I passed by the blood drunk in Egypt from the wells and rivers and all reservoirs of waterhyperlink in the first plague: I passed over the next scourges, the frogs, lice, and flies. I began with the flocks and the cattle and the sheep, the fifth plague, and, sparing as yet the rational creatures, I struck the animals. You made light of the stroke, and treated me with less reason and attention than the beasts who were struck. I withheld from you the rain; one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered,hyperlink and ye said "We will brave it." I brought the hail upon you, chastising you with the opposite kind of blow, I uprooted your vineyards and shrubberies, and crops, but I failed to shatter your wickedness.



Footnotes

1 Aaron, S. Gregory the elder. Eleazar, S. Gregory Nazianzen.



2 Ps. lxxxi. 11.



3 Ib. I. 23; li. 19.



4 2 Cor. v. 17.



5 Eph. iv. 24.



6 1 Cor. xiv. 19.



7 Ib. xiv. 8.



8 Isai. x. 22, 23 (lxx.); Rom. ix. 28.



9 1 Cor. ii. 6.



10 S. Matt. xxiii. 27.



11 Ps. cxi. 10.



12 Prov. xvi. 31.



13 Eccles. xi. 28.



14 Prov. xxvii. 1.



15 Phil. iii. 21.



16 Isai. xlix. 18.



17 1 Cor. iv. 15.



18 Loss, i.e., the death of his father, which, from his age, could not be long delayed.



19 Exod. xiv. 15.



20 Ps. xxxvi. 6.



21 Is. xxviii. 17. (lxx.).



22 S. Matt. xx. 12.



23 Ps. lxxv. 9.



24 Isai. li. 17 (lxx.).



25 Ib. xxvi. 18.



26 Ps. lxxv. 10.



27 Exod. v. 6; vii. 22.



28 Rom. ix. 17.



29 Isai. xl. 2.



30 Ps. lxxix. 12.



31 Gen. xv. 16.



32 1 Pet. v. 6.



33 Ps. cxxix. 7.



34 Joel i. 10.



35 Another. Either this is a wrong reading, or S. Gregory's memory fails him. The second quotation is also from Joel.



36 Joel ii. 3.



37 Deut. xxxii. 34; Jer. l. 25.



38 Hos. vi. 6.



39 Ps. xviii. 8.



40 Ib. cv. 32.



41 Ib. lxxviii. 50.



42 Ezek. xxi. 9.



43 Hos. xiii. 7, 8.



44 Isai. xxvi. 11 (lxx.).



45 Hos. viii. 3.



46 Nahum ii. 10.



47 Ps. vi. 5 (lxx.).



48 Isai, x. 3.



49 Ps. l. 21.



50 Gen. i. 26.



51 S. Matt. xxv. 8.



52 S. Luk. xvi. 24.



53 Dan. vii. 9.



54 S. John v. 29.



55 Col. iii. 3.



56 S. John v. 29.



57 S. John iii. 18; xii. 48.



58 Isai. xxix. 9.



59 Hab. ii. 16.



60 Ps. lx. 2, 3; Isai. xxix. 10.



61 Hab. i. 5; Acts xiii. 41.



62 Deut. xxxii. 5.



63 Ps. xviii. 46.



64 Exod. vii. 19.



65 Amos iv. 7.