thirteenth year of Theodosius) says, that he was CHAP.III. then ninety years old. By that account he must year after have been born in the year 300, which is twenty- the apo five years before his father was a Christian. But Baroniusd finds reason, as he thinks, to correet this chronology, from a passage out of Gregory himself; who, in the aforesaid Carmen de vita sua, speaking of his studying at Athens, and of his resolution to leave that place, says, it was then his thirtieth year [or, the thirtieth year]. This Baronius concludes to be the year 354, by Julian the apostate's being a student there at the same time, (for he was made Cæsar and sent into France the next year.) From whence he infers, that Gregory was born in the year 324, (which was the year be fore his father's conversion,) and that he was but sixty-five years old when he died. IV. But Papebrochius in his Acta Sanctorum Maii octaro corrects this correction, and sets the time of his birth back to the old account: bringing a great many probable evidences that Gregory's age must be greater than sixty-five years; since he himself so often speaks of his being unfit for business, by reason of his great age. When Maximus the cynic opposed his being made bishop of Constantinople; Gregory, in his oration on that subject, brings in his adversaries, objecting to him his sickliness and old age. stles. When he desired to resign the said bishopric, (which was eight years before he died,) and per-281. • Verb. Γρηγορ. d Ad an. 354. et 389. * Chronologia vitæ Sancti Greg, expensa et emendata. [apud Acta Sanctorum Maii, tom. ii. p. 370.] f Orat. 28. [or. 26. edit. Benedict.] the apo CHAP.III. suaded the bishops then present at the council to Year after consent to his so doing; he used this argument: 'Let these my grey hairs prevail with you :' which looks as if he were then more than fifty-seven years old. stles. This learned man does also answer the reason that Baronius brings to the contrary, by endeavouring to shew that the foresaid mention of the thirtieth year, is not meant for the thirtieth year of his life, (of which it was the fifty-fourth, as he thinks,) but the thirtieth of his studies. And indeed the words, as they stand, do bear that sense very well; they are these: καὶ γὰρ πόλυς τέτριπτο τοῖς λόγοις χρόνος ἤδη τριακοστὸν μοὶ σχεδὸν τοῦτ ̓ ἦν ἔτος. For I had already spent a long time in study of learning: This was almost the thirtieth year [or, my thirtieth year.'] Gregorius Presbyter, who wrote the life of St. Gregory, and took it for the most part out of his foresaid poem, seems to understand it so: and yet his words are capable of the other construction too. He expresses it thus: τριακοστὸν ἤδη πληρώσας ἔτος ἐν τοῖς μαθήμασιν· ' Having now completed thirty years "[or else his thirtieth year] in the study of learning h.' Moreover Rufinus, who was contemporary with him, says, he died jam fessa ætate, being spent with age.' Which hardly can be said of one that was but sixty-five years old. 6 These reasons, joined with some others of less g Orat. 32. [or. 42. edit. Benedict.] h In vita Gregorii, [Operibus ejus præfixa, p. cxxxii. edit. Benedict.] i Hist. lib. ii. c. 9. [See the two books added by Rufinus to the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.] weight, prevailed with Papebrochius to embrace the CHAP.III. old account as the truest, viz. that he was ninety year after years old when he died; and consequently that he the apo was born anno Dom. 300. And that was twenty-five years before his father was a Christian. Mr. Le Clerc, who writes a sort of life of this saint, manages this argument of his age after a heedless and absurd manner. For first, he, following Pagi, who had followed Papebrochius, says, that he was born anno 300, which is twenty-five years before his father's conversion: and accordingly supposes with the foresaid authors, that the year on which he left Athens was the fifty-fourth of his age. And the use he makes of this is, to wonder that • he would spend so great a part of his life in studying rhetoric, forgetting in the mean time all care of his aged parents, and of the church of God.' And yet afterward, in the same life, he wonders why, since it was the opinion of that age, that those that die unbaptized are damned, his father and mother being such zealous Christians did not ⚫ get him baptized in infancy.' Which is to suppose that he was born after his father's conversion, which he and every body place at the year 325; or else it is the wonder of a man that doats. One of these suppositions helps a man that would expose Gregory to censure; which seems to be the design of this writer of lives for this and some other Fathers. And the other serves to raise objections against the universality of the then practice of pædobaptism. But it is very unfair to serve both these intentions from this instance; because one of them supposes WALL, VOL. II. k Bibliothèque, tom. x. stles. CHAP.III. him to be born after his father was a Christian, and Year after the other twenty-five years before. the apo stles. There is another reason to make one believe that he was born before his father's conversion; which is this. In the foresaid oration at his father's funeral, he tells how his mother, being desirous of a son, and begged one of God in her prayers, and that in answer to those prayers he was born to her. And afterward he comes to speak of those prayers that she made for her husband's conversion in which prayers she was encouraged to the greater hope of being heard, as having,' says he, already 'made trial of the Divine liberality.' On which Bilius makes this comment; namely, when she obtained her son Gregory of God, by her prayers, as he had said a little before. And indeed that is the only instance mentioned before in that oration, to which one can suppose him to refer. Also this reason: he often mentions his mother's pious and Christian care and dedication of him to God in his infancy, and from the womb ", but never any such thing of his father. V. These reasons would be sufficient to sway a man to believe that he was born before his father was a Christian; were it not for one that seems very plain to the contrary. And that is a passage in the foresaid poem, where Gregory the elder earnestly persuades his son, who had more mind to a private life, to become his assistant in the office of bishop of Nazianzum. He uses all the force of paternal authority, requiring him, upon pain of the loss of his blessing, to comply with his desire, and to 1 Annot. in loc. m Orat. Apologet. [Orat. ii. edit. Benedict.] et alibi. relieve his old age: and, among the rest, has these CHAP.III. words": Οὔπω τοσοῦτον ἐκμεμέτρηκας βίον, Όσος διῆλθε θυσιῶν ἐμοὶ χρόνος Δὸς τὴν χάριν, δός. So many years of life you have not seen Papebrochius does take notice of this place, and says, it has puzzled every body that has read it. He goes about to answer it by supposing the word θυσιῶν is misprinted, and that it should be ἐτησίων. But he produces no manuscript in favour of his amendment: and if one were to amend by the sense without any book, I should think rather that voiv has crept in by mistake for Toλv; (or, for the verse sake, TV Tov: for he often here lets an anapæstus go for the fourth foot of his iambic ;) the sense according to the editions is, Your life is not of so many years, as are the years of my 'sacrificing" i. e. officiating in the priest's office: which is a sense very difficult to reconcile in history with truth. That of Papebrochius; You are not so old as I am; is true: but a poor sense. 'You are not so 'old as my grey hairs are,' is to the purpose of the father's argument at that place. Bishop Hall had found out this place, when he sought for instances of clergymen that had made use of the marriage-bed after they were in holy n Carmen de vita sua, vers. 520. circiter pag 6. edit. Paris. 1610. [p. 9. edit. Paris. 1630.] • Honour of the married Clergy, [maintained against the malicious challenges of C. E. Masse-priest,] lib. ii. §. 8. [8vo. Lond. 1620. reprinted in his Works, fol. 1624. p. 709, &c.] Year after the apostles. |