Opening
exercising. But into these it is profitless to enter. When all the marvellous is dissociated from the historical in the records of this bishop's career, we have still the figure of a great, good, and gifted man, deeply versed in the heathen lore and science of his time, yet more deeply imbued with the genuine spirit of another wisdom, which, under God, he learned from the illustrious thinker of Alexandria, honouring with all love, gratitude, and veneration that teacher to whom he was indebted for his knowledge of the Gospel, and exercising an earnest, enlightened, and faithful ministry of many years in an office which he had not sought, but for which he had been sought. Such is, in brief, the picture that rises up before us from a perusal of his own writings, as well as from the comparison of ancient accounts of the man and his vocation. Of his well-accredited works we have the following: A Declaration of Faith, being a creed on the doctrine of the Trinity; a Metaphrase of the Book of Ecclesiastes, a Panegyric to Origen, being an oration delivered on leaving the school of Origen, expressing eloquently, and with great tenderness of feeling, as well as polish of style, the sense of his obligations to that master; and a Canonical Epistle, in which he gives a variety of directions with respect to the penances and discipline to be exacted by the Church from Christians who had fallen back into heathenism in times of suffering, and wished to be restored. Other works have been attributed to him, which are doubtful or spurious. His writings have been often edited,—by Gerard Voss in 1604, by the Paris editors in 1662, by Gallandi in 1788, and others, who need not be enumerated here.
[9] Vol. ii. pp. 165, 342.
[10] Isa. lvi. 3.
[11] Vol. iii. p. 271.
[12] See Dean Stanley's Eastern Church and Neale's Introduction.
[13] Recall Cyprian's narratives, vol. v., and this volume infra, Life of Dionysius of Alexandria.
[14] Thus we have accounts of him, more or less complete, in Eusebius (Historia Eccles., vi. 30, vii. 14), Basil (De Spiritu Sancto, xxix. 74; Epist. 28, Num. 1 and 2; 204, Num. 2; 207, Num. 4; 210, Num. 3, 5,—Works, vol. iii. pp. 62, 107, 303, 311, etc., edit. Paris. BB. 1730), Jerome (De viris illustr., ch. 65; in the Comment. in Ecclesiasten, ch. 4; and Epist. 70, Num. 4,—Works, vol. i. pp. 424 and 427, edit. Veron.), Rufinus (Hist. Eccles., vii. 25), Socrates (Hist. Eccles., iv. 27), Sozomen (Hist. Eccles., vii. 27, Evagrius Scholasticus (Hist. Eccles., iii. 31), Suidas in his Lexicon, and others of less moment.
[15] [See p. 5, supra. Cave pronounces it "without precedent," but seems to credit the story.]
[16] [So Gregory Nyssen says. It would have been impossible, otherwise, for him to rule his flock.]
[17] He could move the largest stones by a word; he could heal the sick; the demons were subject to him, and were exorcised by his fiat; he could give bounds to overflowing rivers; he could dry up mighty lakes; he could cast his cloak over a man, and cause his death; once, spending a night in a heathen temple, he banished its divinities by his simple presence, and by merely placing on the altar a piece of paper bearing the words, Gregory to Satan—enter, he could bring the presiding demons back to their shrine. One strange story told of him by Gregory of Nyssa is to the effect that, as Gregory was meditating on the great matter of the right way to worship the true God, suddenly two glorious personages made themselves manifest in his room, in the one of whom he recognised the Apostle John, in the other the Virgin. They had come, as the story goes, to solve the difficulties which were making him hesitate in accepting the bishopric. At Mary's request, the evangelist gave him then all the instruction in doctrine which he was seeking for; and the sum of these supernatural communications being written down by him after the vision vanished, formed the creed which is still preserved among his writings. Such were the wonders believed to signalize the life of Gregory.
Part I. Acknowledged Writings.
A Declaration of Faith. [18]
There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and Eternal Image: [19] perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, Only of the Only, [20] God of God, Image and Likeness of Deity,
## Dubious header
Dubious or Spurious Writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus
Dubious or Spurious Writings
Part II. Dubious or Spurious Writings.
A Sectional Confession of Faith. [271]
I.
Most hostile and alien to the Apostolic Confession are those who speak of the Son as assumed to Himself by the Father out of nothing, and from an emanational origin; [272] and those who hold the same sentiments with respect to the Holy Spirit; those who say that the Son is constituted divine by gift and grace, and that the Holy Spirit is made holy; those who regard the name of the Son as one common to servants, and assert that thus He is the first-born of the creature, as becoming, like the creature, existent out of non-existence, and as being first made, and who refuse to admit that He is the only-begotten Son,—the only One that the Father has, and that He has given Himself to be
## Separate: Canonical Epistle; Theopompus W8; Marian DOUBTFUL