CHAP.III. and is sufficiently detected to be such by Rivet P, Year after Baronius", Bellarmin', Possevin, and before them the apo- all, by bishop Jewels.

stles.

The author thereof had, I suppose, read or heard that Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, had wrote an account of St. Basil's life, (as he did indeed, and Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory Nyssen did the like; but that which was written by him is lost, as are most or all his other works). He therefore put forth his stuff under the name of that great man. But it betrays itself by many tokens, of fabulous miracles, incongruities in history, &c. And in that fable which he gives of his baptism, there are such silly monkish quibbles and witticisms put into the discourse that passed between Basil and Maximus, who is made to be his baptizer, (as one asks, Quis est mundus? The other answers, Qui fecit mundum, &c.?) that one might guess from what shop they come.

F. Combefis has published this piece in Greek and Latin, and endeavoured to vindicate it by saying, the main part of it might be genuine though it be interpolated and mixt with some fabulous additions: but, as Mr. Du Pin observes, he brings no kind of proof of his opinion.

III. The true account wrote by Nazianzen, Orat. 30. in laudem Basilii, nor that by Nyssen, have no mention of any such thing; nor that under the name of Ephraem Syrus. On the contrary, Nazi

p Crit. Sacr. lib. iii. cap. 27.

9 Ad annum 363.

T De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, [§. De Amphilochio, apud Op. tom. vii. p. 68. edit. Colon. 1617.]

s Apolog. Eccles. Angl. Artic. i. Div. 33.

t Nouv. Biblioth. tom. ii. Amphiloch.

anzen seems plainly to refer to his baptism in in-CHAP.111, fancy by his own father; as I shewed before.

Year after

stles.

Their reciting all the remarkable passages of his the apolife, after he came to age, without mentioning any thing of his baptism, is a strong argument that there was no such thing: since in all that are baptized at age, their baptism makes a considerable circumstance for a writer, whose chief subject is their Christianity. And therefore the monk, who framed a life for him that might sell well, would not omit it: and to dress it up the better, made it to be in Jordan, where Christ was baptized, and Constantine desired to be.

IV. If the twenty-ninth chapter of St.Basil's book, de Spiritu Sancto, be genuine, (which is questioned by Erasmus and others,) then it is certain that the same man that baptized him, did also put him into the ministry: for so he says in that chapter. He is there shewing, that the custom used by him and the churches, of saying the Doxology, thus, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, with the Holy Spirit; or thus, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,' (instead whereof the Arians would have him say, 'By the Son in the Holy Spirit,') was no innovation. He quotes several ancient authors that had spoke so: and begins thus:

I myself, if it be proper to say any thing of my'self in this case, do keep the use of this expression ὥσπέρ τινα κλῆρον πατρῴον, as an inheritance left me by my father, having received it from a man who lived a long time in the ministry of God, by whom I was both baptized and also put into the ministry of the church.'

Year after the apo

stles.

CHAP.III. This could not be Meletius, (whom Dr. Cave reckons to be the man by whom he was ordained deacon,) because he afterwards reckons Meletius, as another of his authors for the same usage; and says, that the famous Meletius is of the same 'sentiment, they that have conversed with him do 'affirm.'

6

That St. Basil himself did use to baptize children, I shewed before in the First Part of this work, ch. xii. §. 9, 10.

§. VI. Of St. Gregory Nazianzen.

He was not baptized in infancy. An inquiry whether his father was a Christian, when this his son was born.

§. I. When fourteen instances are produced to prove any thing, and one can shew that thirteen of them are mistakes, he is apt to suspect that there is some mistake in the other two, though he cannot find it out. Yet here is an instance of a Christian's son not baptized in infancy, if this Gregory's Carmen de vita sua be a genuine piece, (as I never heard of any that questioned it,) and if there be no mistake in the reading of it.

I shall represent impartially, and as briefly as I can, the proofs that are brought of his being born before his father's Christianity; and those to the contrary.

That he was not baptized in infancy is plain, both from the foresaid poem de vita sua, and also from the sermon that he made at his father's funeral", and also from the history of his life by Gregorius Presbyter. For in all these a full relation

u Orat. 19. [Orat. 18. edit. Benedict. fol. 1778.]

the apo

is given, how he, in a voyage by sea from Alex-CHAP.III. andria to Athens, was in great danger of shipwreck year after by a storm; and whereas all the rest in the ship stles. were terrified with the fear of their bodily death, ́ I,' says he, ́ did more dreadfully fear the death of my soul. For I was in great hazard of departing this life unbaptized: amidst the sea waters that were to be my death, wanting that spiritual water. And therefore I cried out, entreated, besought, that * some space of life might be granted to me.' He goes on to shew how his lamentation and dread on that account were so great and so moving, that the people in the ship forgot their own danger, in compassion to those terrors which they saw were upon his soul. And how he then vowed to God, that if he were delivered from that danger, he would offer himself up to God; and did so accordingly.

II. That his father was not a Christian when he married, nor for some time after, is plain from the said funeral oration. He was of the religion called Hypsistarian. These men, as is there related, did so renounce the worship of idols and sacrifices, as that they retained nevertheless the worship of fire and torches.

Mr. Le Clerc, being busied in finding contradictions in the Fathers, thinks he has found one here: because Gregory in another place says, his father ὑπ ̓ εἰδώλοις πάρος δεν ζώων· which he translates, was subject to the idols of animals:' not minding that Ce there is the participle of the poetical verb (ww

* Orat. 19. [or 18.]

y Life of Greg. Naz. Bibliotheque, tom. x.

* Carm. 1. de Rebus Suis. [Op. tom. ii. p. 31. edit. Paris. 1630.]

CHAP.III. and not the genitive of (or though Bilius had noted Year after that criticism.

the apo

stles.

He continued in that superstition till the year of 225. the council of Nice, anno Dom. 325. His wife had

before used her persuasions and prayers for his conversion. But then, when Leontius bishop of Cæsarea, and some other bishops, were going by that place for Nice to the council, she got them to instruct him in the grounds of the Christian religion; and he was baptized into it quickly after: and not long after that took priest's orders: and when the bishop of Nazianzum died, became his successor. In which office he lived forty-five years, and died near 100 years old. All this is clear in the oration aforesaid.

III. Now the question is, whether our Gregory his son were born before that his father's conversion in the said year 325, or after?

And the solution of it must be collected by knowing, if one could, how old he [the son] was when he died. For we know justly the year on which he died, by St. Hierome, who wrote the tract de Scriptoribus Ecclesiast. the fourteenth year of Theodosius, anno 392; and says there, that Gregory Nazianzen had been dead but three years. He died 289. therefore in the year 389.

The difficulty is, to know what age he was of when he died.

Gregorius Presbyter, who wrote his life, says, he died very old. And Suidas (who mistakes the time of his death two years, making him to live till the

a [Hieronymus de Viris illustribus. Op. tom. ii. edit. Vallars.] Verb. Hieronymus. [cap. 135.]

b Verb. Gregor. [cap. 117.]