Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint

The autobiographical poems of Gregory of Nazianzus, fourth-century Father of the Greek Church, are remarkable not only for a highly individual picture of the Byzantine world but also for moments that are intimate, passionate and moving. This book contains Greek text and facing English translation of a selection from his one hundred or so surviving poems. Gregory is best known for the five orations he gave in Constantinople but, De Vita Sua apart, his poems can only be read in a nineteenth-century Greek edition and have never before been translated into English. The selected poems highlight Gregory's spiritual outlook and also his poetics; Gregory shows his expertise in a variety of metres and literary dialects, deriving from his knowledge of classical Greek literature. The substantial introduction provides biographical information against which to set the poems, focusing particularly on the years which Gregory spent in Constantinople.

Known as 'the Theologian', St Gregory of Nazianzus is, with St Basil and St Gregory of Nyssa, one of the celebrated Cappadocian Fathers of the fourthcentury Christian Church. Highly educated in both Christian theology and classical Greek literature, he found himself torn between a solitary, contemplative life and the reluctantly accepted, though in actuality relished, public figure of bishop - vigorous in the defence of orthodoxy against the attacks of the Arians. He was even, briefly, bishop of Constantinople and chairman of the council in 381 which produced what we know as the Nicene Creed. This, the first modern edition of his poems, brings together his theological acumen in a formative period and shows his ability to operate in the genre of didactic verse going back the the eighth century BC. The poems cover a range of topics, from the strictly theological to others dealing more broadly with the creation of the world, providence, the world of spiritual beings, and the human soul. They give a unique new insight into both the theological ideas of the period and the uneasy emergence of Christian culture from the pagan past.

St Gregory is one of the most open and self-revealing of the Fathers of the Church, and his poetry is remarkable for its personal character. In these poems, he speaks of the joys and frustrations of his own life; he reveals his inner questioning about the purpose and values of life in the face of sin and mortality, and his ultimate faith in Christ as redeeming and reconciling all things. While St Gregory of Nazianzus' poetry has recently begun to appear in English translations, this is the first book to provide an affordable translation of his major doctrinal poems. Included are poems on the Trinity, Creation and Providence, Angels and the Soul, the Person of Christ, Human Nature and poems debating the Christian understanding of marriage and virginity.