“…later it makes him look like a pompous, self-pitying twit is surely a warning to us all not to parade our fantasies of self-importance too prominently on the web.”

On the small table in the corner of my office at Westminster there is an icon of the man who became known simply as `The Theologian,’ Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the most important Christian thinkers of the later fourth century.

The icon is, of course, a classic piece of Orthodox artwork: Gregory, with his full beard, balding head, and halo, looks rather like every other church leader I have ever seen represented in such an icon. This is not because the iconographer was simply not very good or a man of limited imagination; in fact, the opposite is the case, with the iconographer clearly knowing his chosen idiom very well.

The portrait is the way it is because an icon is an artistic representation not simply of a particular person but also of a particular theology; and Gregory, as a hero of the Eastern Orthodox, was an advocate, among other things, for a view of salvation that focused on theosis, the process by which individuals ascend to God through an increasing participation in God.

The lack of individuality in icons is therefore a commentary on, for want of a better word, the sanctification of the subject: as the person grows closer to God, they come to reflect his image more. To the iconographer, it is this, and not the person’s individuality, which is the centre of attention.

Rising to prominence in the 360s and 370s, Gregory was one of a trio of theologians, know for convenience as the Cappadocian Fathers, that also included the brothers, Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea. Along with Athanasius, they were key to the triumph of Trinitarianism; and, as a powerful, innovative foursome, they were a kind of patristic Led Zeppelin: no weak link — very rare in four man rock bands; perhaps even rarer in four man theological teams.

Gregory was born ca. 329 into an elite family in Cappadocia in modern day Turkey, where his father, Gregory the Elder, was bishop of Nazianzus. He had an exceptional education and, until his ordination (by his father) in 362, taught rhetoric. At around this time, a collaborative friendship with Basil developed, and the two of them collected excerpts from the writings of Origen, the third century father who, among other things, laid the foundations for later Trinitarianism through his discussion of the eternal generation of the Son.

The friendship of Basil and Gregory became strained after the former appointed the latter as bishop of Sasima, a backwater, in a move to squeeze pro-Arian bishops in his locale. In his funeral oration for Gregory, Basil indicated that Gregory had considered this move a betrayal of their friendship.

When his parents died in 374, Gregory refused to succeed his father as bishop of Nazianzus and withdrew from public life to the monastery of St. Thecla in Seleucia until, in 379, he took over the Nicene congregation in Constantinople. the following year he was made bishop of the city but resigned in 381 in protest at opposition he experienced while presiding over the Council of Constantinople (where the creed most know as the Nicene Creed was formulated and adopted). Always a bit of a self-pitying whiner, it is likely that the opposition he received was somewhat deserved. Nobody likes sitting on a committee with a whiner, after all.

He then acted as bishop of Nazianzus until 384, when he finally retired, to devote his last years to writing, especially poetry and his letters. He died in 390.

After Augustine, we probably know as much about Gregory as of any of the early Fathers, for his writings are full of personal information. Unfortunately for him, he also suffered from self-pity, hypochondria and what we might today term `anger management issues.’ Indeed, some his sermons are quite hilarious for the way in which they are used to settle old scores.

Anyone reading this who is, like myself, a fan of the 1990s Irish comedy, Father Ted, will remember the `Priest of the Year Award,’ where Ted uses his thank you speech as he picks up his `Golden Cleric’ as an opportunity to settle old scores with all of his enemies since seminary.

Well, our Greg got there first. Oration 42 is a classic example — allegedly a sermon – in actual fact is a histrionic rebuke to the bishops at the Council of Constantinople for treating him so badly. That he never delivered it makes it rather like those emails everyone occasionally writes, to purge their system, but never actually sends; that, these hundreds of years later it makes him look like a pompous, self-pitying twit is surely a warning to us all not to parade our fantasies of self-importance too prominently on the web.

Sheer personal disagreeability and navel-gazing self-absorption aside, Gregory did play a critical role in the establishment of Trinitarian orthodoxy and thus we all owe him a debt of gratitude. As Athanasius managed to forge alliances in the 360s that were to prove vital, so the Cappodocia Three were instrumental in bring the debate to a close, both with their careful work on fine-tooling the necessary language for Trinitarian expression and in their defense of the deity of the Spirit (a matter on which Gregory played a particularly important role).

One of the barriers which often hinders appreciation of the early church fathers is the sheer strangeness of the world in which they lived compared to that which we now inhabit. In many ways, the fundamental questions they asked were akin to those we face today.

For example, `What does it look like here and now to be a committed disciple of Christ?’ is one of those hardy perennials that Christians have asked throughout the years. In the ancient church, it looked rather ascetic and monastic. We might today deem such an answer as wrongheaded; but we cannot avoid the legitimate demands the question places on us; we too have to answer it in our day and age and perhaps, 1500 years from now, our answers will look rather odd.

Thus, the fact that Gregory of Nazianzus placed a high premium on the ascetic life indicates to us that his world is not ours but it should not lead us to dismiss him out of hand. He was a real, fallen, flesh-and-blood person, wrestling with the same deep questions of Christian identity and life as thoughtful Christians do today.

Having said this, reading the Fathers is not easy. Students should seek the help of a good beginner’s guide, such as that forthcoming from Michael Haykin (Don’t panic: in this case, the soul patch is a John Bunyan thing, and nothing to do with Michael feeling the need to quote Bono all the time or being a Conversational Worship Experience Facilitator at a church called something like `The Event’ or `Village: Destiny’).

For Gregory, to keep it straightforward, two things that make for good introductory reading are his First Theological Oration and On Flight.

The First Theological Oration is one of a series of five such sermons which were probably delivered at the Chapel of the Resurrection in Constantinople, as part of the teaching of orthodox Trinitarianism over against various streams of Arian thought. What is impressive about this work is the way in which the preaching is clearly very theological.

First, he stresses the intimate connection between God, theologian or preacher, and congregation: theology is a serious business, requiring focus from both preacher and people. It is no pure head science but requires a commitment of heart and soul to the task. As God is pure, so those who presume to discuss God should seek to grow in purity too. hence the ascetic context for theology in Gregory’s day. For us, heading out into the desert may not be an option; so it is well worth pondering what, for each of us, this demand for purity and focus might look like in our own lives and churches.

Second, the identity of God is clearly fundamental to Gregory’s understanding of what salvation means and what it means to be a Christian. Thus, when in the pulpit, he needs to communicate that theology is no ivory tower irrelevance; preaching is about the awesome, overwhelming, holy God, not some pep talk that helps the congregants have a better self-image or be all that they want to be.

The identity of God is at stake every time the preacher opens his mouth; if nothing else, the fourth century debates that culminated at Constantinople in 381 testify to the critical importance which all sides correctly ascribed to the identity of God and to the words that the church could legitimately use about him. And that made Christianity indelibly doctrinal at a foundational level, shaping the practice of the church both liturgically and homiletically.

To Gregory, Christianity was, in a sense, a way of life — but only as a response built upon a prior notion of Christianity as a statement about who God is and what he has done. We should remember this both in our preaching and in our discussions.

There is a tendency today to see theological conflict as unnecessary, as really being about human identity and power struggles than god; that is because we have lost sight of the importance of God’s identity — hardly surprising if, as is so often the case, we assume theological talk is really anthropological talk.

Sometimes trouble needs to be stirred up, fists need to fly, and chairs need to be thrown across the metaphysical room because the identity of God is at stake.

The second piece, On Flight, was written by Gregory to explain why he had `done a runner’ when an attempt was made to take him from his monastery and ordain him in 361. Along with Chrysostom’s `On the Priesthood’ and Gregory the Great’s `Pastoral Rule,’ it is one of the key texts on what the pastoral call looked like in the ancient church.

You need to read it for yourselves, but, suffice it to say, there are few pieces on the pastoral office which bring out the deep and urgent seriousness of the task. And why is that? Because Gregory had an overwhelming sense of God’s holiness. That’s why he fought for God’s name in controversy and feared the call to ministry. That’s why he had to be a turbulent priest.

Carl R Trueman is Departmental Chair of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has an MA in Classics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Church History from the University of Aberdeen. He is editor of the IFES journal, Themelios, and has taught on the faculties of theology at both the University of Nottingham and the University of Aberdeen This article, a combination of two blog posts, is reprinted from the Reformation 21 blog and is used with their permission. http://www.reformation21.org/blog/