Leadership in the Post-Constantinian Church According to St. Gregory Nazianzen George Demacopoulos*

Abstract. — One of the unexpected consequences of Constantine’s conversion to Christianity was the rapid growth of monastic communities, which provided an outlet for Christians who were unable to find a space for a more rigorous practice of Christianity in a Church no longer threatened with persecution. With time, these communities developed their own ideas about leadership and spiritual formation, which were, in many ways, distinct from the clerical and increasingly institutionalized model that operated in the broader Church. Gregory Nazianzen was one of the first bishops to appreciate the value of ascetic discipline and meditation. He was also the author of the first book of pastoral literature, a treatise in which he identified several criteria for spiritual authority. In short, Gregory offered a compromise between the monastery and the parish: the Church should be run by well-educated aristocrats (the growing practice of the post-Constan- tinian institutional Church) but only those aristocrats who had achieved purification through renunciation and contemplation. This article examines Gregory’s orations (especially his Apologia de fuga) and other works to reconstruct his vision for Christian leadership and argues that his model continues to be of value today.

In November of 2004, Pope John Paul II returned the relics of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, in a ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.1 This joyous event was a moment of great celebration in the Orthodox world and was a welcome development for all those who hope for a reconciliation of the Eastern Orthodox

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the North American Patristic Society in May of 2004. I would like to thank the anonymous readers who offered many helpful suggestions. The errors that remain are my own. 1. The ceremony at St. Peter’s occurred on November 27, 2004. The relics were subsequently installed in the Cathedral of St. George in Constantinople on November 30. Ronald Robertson offers a few of the details in his “Facing East: New Initiatives toward the Orthodox,” America (May 16th, 2005) 7-10. LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 215 and Roman Catholic traditions. As institutions, the Orthodox and Catholic churches are frequently critiqued (both by insiders and those outside of their communions) for their use of “medieval” models of leadership. With all the attention that the return of the relics has generated, it is appropriate that we reflect upon Gregory Nazianzen’s role in shaping our modern sense of spiritual authority. He was, in fact, the first and perhaps the most important of the Church fathers to articulate a vision for Christian leadership in the age after Con- stantine’s conversion. His model of leadership not only shaped the Byzantine ideal for the episcopate, it was also the cornerstone upon which Pope Gregory I articulated his own pastoral theology (a theology that dominated the medieval West and continues to inform the Roman tradition).2 Like all theologians, Nazianzen responded to the challenges of his era. Born in 330, Gregory benefited from living in the generation after Constantine’s conversion. Christians in the post-Constantinian age, however, faced challenges that their predecessors were unlikely to antic- ipate. One such problem was the emerging divide between the ascetic community and its secular counterpart.3 To accommodate the increasingly differentiated pastoral needs of the monastery and the parish, spiritual direction had begun to evolve into distinct monastic and lay patterns.4 It was in this environment that Gregory Nazianzen offered his second oration, Apologia de fuga, the first Christian treatise of pastoral literature.5 In short, Gregory offered a compromise: the

2. Gregory Nazianzen is, in fact, the only Church father that Gregory I cites in his famous Liber regulae pastoralis. Over six hundred manuscripts of Pope Gregory’s treatise survive (an astonishing number); its ideas about leadership were so pervasive that Alfred the Great of England disseminated it among his bureaucrats as a model of civil governance in the ninth century. 3. In the wake of Constantine’s conversion, thousands of new converts flooded into the Church. Many of these would-be Christians were perceived by their contemporaries to be lacking the depth of faith that had been possessed by the pre-Constantinian community. To this end, most historians of the period believe that the rapid growth of monasticism in the later fourth century was an attempt by the more rigorous members to return to the struggle of the earliest Christians. 4. By spiritual direction, I mean the ways in which persons in authority (e.g. a cleric or a monastic elder) diagnosed and treated the spiritual flaws of those persons in their care. In the monastic setting, this was often governed by a close relationship between a “spiritual father” and his disciples. The novice monk would confess his sins to the elder and the elder would prescribe a specific routine of pious observance to remedy the situ- ation. Before Gregory, there is little evidence for a similar scenario in the lay church of the fourth century. 5. Though offered as a defense of his actions (he had initially fled after his ordination for fear of his new responsibilities), this oration was the first to identify problems and offer solutions to the many sides of pastoral ministry. For example, it 216 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS

Church should be run by well-educated aristocrats (the growing practice of the post-Constantinian institutional Church) but only those aristocrats who had achieved purification through renunciation and contemplation.6 Gregory was, himself, a late ancient aristocrat in most ways. His father was a wealthy landowner in Nazianzus, a prosperous but rural sec- tion of Cappadocia. Gregory’s education was as reputable as any of his generation, capped by ten years of study at the Academy in Athens.7 Despite his wealth and training, however, Gregory, like many men of similar position in his era, forsook a secular career to pursue what he called the “true philosophy” (i.e. religious meditation performed in the stillness of retreat). In theological circles, Gregory is best known for his Five Theo- logical Orations, which he delivered in Constantinople between 380 and 381 at the height of the conflict between Nicenes and Eunomi- ans.8 In the first of these orations, Gregory declares “not everyone is suited to discuss theology, no not everyone; the subject is not so cheap or so common.”9 In many ways this brief line summarizes Gregory’s understanding of Christian leadership – he felt that few were qualified. Of course, he was not alone in this belief. Everyone in Christian antiquity who wrote about the priesthood and its responsibilities noted the scarcity of acceptable candidates.10 What makes Gregory’s critique details the many responsibilities of priestly ministry and explains who should and who should be ordained. Many subsequent authors imitated both the style and ideas of this text, including John Chrysostom and Pope Gregory I. Concerning Gregory’s influence on Chrysostom, see Manfred Lochbrunner, Über das Priestertum: Historische und systematische Untersuchung zum Priesterbild des Johannes Chrysostomus (Bonn: Borengässer, 1993) 39-66. Throughout, I have relied on the Sources Chrétiennes edi- tions for Gregory’s orations. 6. For a detailed account of the number of aristocrats (both of curial and senato- rial rank) who entered the clergy following Constantine’s conversion, see Claudia Rapp, “The Elite Status of Bishops in Late Antiquity in Ecclesiastical, Spiritual and Social Contexts,” Arethusa 33 (2000) 379-399. 7. After a customary local education that would accompany his station, Gregory traveled first to Caesarea Maritima to study at the school founded by the great Chris- tian intellectual Origen. From Caesarea Maritima, Gregory went on to Alexandria before finally settling into Athens and Plato’s academy in 348. Gregory Naz., De vita sua vv. 51-121. 8. The Eunomians were extreme subordinationists (neo-Arians) who completely denied that the Father and Son shared a common essence. For more on the context of the Five Theological Orations, see Frederick Norris and Lionel Wickham, Faith Gives Full- ness to Reason (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991) 53-71. 9. Gregory, Or. 27.3. The same theme dominates Or. 20 and Or. 32. 10. See, for example, John Chrysostom, De Sacerdotis 3.13-15 and Augustine, Ep. 22*. LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 217 in the oration so interesting is that he condemns his opponents on two grounds that we might otherwise have considered mutually exclu- sive: that they are insufficiently refined (i.e. of common stock) and that they have not achieved an adequate level of detachment from the material world. We might simply explain his ability to level contra- dictory charges as a demonstration of his skill as an orator. But there is more to Gregory’s styling of spiritual authority than rhetorical finery. Gregory is, in effect, limiting authority to an aristocratic and ascetic elite. When Gregory retired his position as archbishop of Constantino- ple in 381 after a brief and controversial tenure, he authored a series of poems against the men who had forced his departure.11 These poems offer a critical assessment of a younger generation of bishops, who, in Gregory’s eyes, were unprepared for the demands of leadership. In one of the poems, De se ipso et de episcopis, he sneers: Some of them are the off-spring of tribute-mongers, whose only concern is falsification of accounts. Some come straight from the tax booth and the sort of statutes you get there; some from the plough, with their sunburn still fresh; some again from day-long exertions with the mattock and the hoe; some have just left the galleys or the army. They are still redolent of the bilge water, or exhibit the brand [of the army] on their bodies.12 Nazianzen implies that these men are unqualified because of their common beginnings, essentially linking the potential for Christian leadership to social class. Opponents might argue, Gregory anticipates, that the apostles were poor and lacked education. His response is two-fold. The apostles, he retorts, were men of great faith and great asceticism; those qualities trump the limitations of a common birth. But his opponents have no such advantage. “Answer me one thing,” Gregory demands “can you exorcise devils, deliver a man from leprosy, or the dead from their tomb?”13 He then challenges the notion that the apostles were uneducated. “If these

11. For more on Gregory’s time in Constantinople and his self-fashioning of that period, see John McGuckin, “Autobiography as Apologia in St. Gregory Nazianzus,” Studia Patristica 37 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001) 160-177, and Susanna Elm, “A Programmatic Life: Gregory of Nazianzus’ Orations 42 and 43 and the Constantinopolitan Elites,” Arethusa 33 (2000) 411-427. 12. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 155-61. For Gregory’s autobiographical poems, I have relied on the translation of D. Meehan, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Three Poems, The Fathers of the Church, 75 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989). 13. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 212-214. 218 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS authors had not a measure of cultivation … how did they succeed in converting kings and cities and assemblies?”14 Nazianzen confesses that he has spent his entire life in books but struggles to understand the intri- cate meaning of the scriptures. They are complex, he argues, and require a level of attention that only a man of learning can provide. As noted, Gregory’s Apology for his Flight was, in effect, the first treatise of pastoral care. Though not as lengthy or systematic as subsequent treatises, Nazianzen’s text identifies many of the qualities that he believes are necessary for a successful ministry. First among those is the capacity for preaching. As a trained rhetorician, Gregory naturally believed that quality preaching was dependent upon intellectual capacity and professional training. The willingness of untrained persons to expand upon the gospels is, for Gregory, a cause of great scandal.15 In a subsequent oration he scoffed: “we live in an age of instant experts and ordained theologians, who think that they only have to wish it and they are wise.”16 Not surprisingly, Gregory dismisses the opinions of those who lack the spiritual purity necessary to understand the truth, but he also implies that many are unable to comprehend, intellectually, the finer points of orthodox doctrine – a disqualification for instructing others.17 In his famous funeral oration for his friend Basil, the bishop of Cae- sarea, Nazianzen pushed this point further still by critiquing those Chris- tians who did not think that education was an important prerequisite for episcopal leadership. I take it all intelligent men agree that the first of our advantages is education. I refer not only to the more noble form of it [i.e. Chris- tian learning], which dismisses the ambitious ornaments of rhetoric and seeks only salvation and the beauty of spiritual contemplation; but also to that external culture, which many Christians foolishly scorn as treacherous and dangerous and as turning us away from God. The heavens, earth, air and all such things should not be con- demned because some have falsely interpreted them … Instead, we select from them what is useful both for life and fancy and we avoid what is dangerous.18

14. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 237-238. 15. Gregory, Or. 2.35. 16. Gregory, Or. 20.1. We might also understand this passage as a critique of Nek- tarios, the man who replaced Gregory as bishop of Constantinople. McGuckin has effec- tively demonstrated that many of Gregory’s criticisms of an unidentified bishop were, in fact, directed at Nektarios. See McGuckin, “Autobiography as Apologia,” 169-177. 17. Gregory, Or. 2.35-39. 18. Gregory, Or. 43.11. Andrea Sterk argues that Basil, though he too appreciated the intellectual skills of certain bishops, did not require his priests or bishops to have a LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 219

Gregory likely offered this eulogy on the third anniversary of Basil’s death, shortly after he left Constantinople – roughly the same time as his autobiographical poems. Unlike Basil, whom he identifies as a paragon of learning and nobility, Gregory caricatures his opponents as incompetent buffoons of low birth and inadequate education.19 Such a censure was circular – in Christian antiquity, only the curial class would have had access to the level of education that Gregory seems to require of the episcopate.20 Not all Christians in the patristic era were as committed to classical education.21 Some, like Tertullian, maintained that a Christian should shy away from the deceptions of pagan literature.22 Within the ascetic communities of the Egyptian desert many expressed a sense of anxiety about education and especially classical education. When Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, wrote his Vita Antoni for one of these communities, for example, he maintained that the famous hermit was unlettered, though a majority of scholars believe that Antony authored a number of letters to his disciples.23 While we may read a fair amount of self-presentation into Gregory’s criteria for authority (much of the oration is a defense of dealings with Basil and his more recent behavior in Constantinople), the call for an classical education. Sterk, Renouncing the World yet Leading the Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) 60-61. 19. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 202-207; 230-245. 20. Not all curiales were literate. But the expense of education (especially beyond the primary level) was such that only a family of means could support the endeavor. Concerning literacy and education in general, see William Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989) esp. 285-322. 21. Gregory’s comments here were clearly designed to defend the appropriation of classical learning. Before his death, Basil had written a letter to his nephews equally endorsing classical learning so long as it was accompanied with care. Basil, Ad adoles- centes. 22. Tertullian, himself a trained rhetorician, is known for proffering “what has Athens to do with Jerusalem; what concord is there between the academy and the Church?” Terutllian, De praescriptione haereticorum 7. There is a large corpus of literature on the subject of Christians and classical learning. See for example, Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961); Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966). For a more directed study of Gregory, see Robert Gregg, Con- solation Philosophy: Greek and Christian Paideia in Basil and the Two Gregories (Cam- bridge: The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975). 23. Athanasius, Vita Antoni 72-74. On the arguments for the authenticity of Antony’s letters, see Samuel Rubenson, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995). For more on Athanasius’s reasons for presenting an illiterate Antony, see David Brakke, “The Spirituality and Politics of the Life of Antony,” in his Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) 201-272. 220 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS educated clergy was equally practical.24 One of the cleric’s chief responsibilities, in Gregory’s eyes, was the dissemination of orthodox doctrine. To the extent that a priest or bishop failed to proclaim the Gospel clearly, he failed as a spiritual director.25 To be sure, Gregory argues, orthodoxy is more important than rhetorical flourish, but one needs to be able to explain the finer points of faith with clarity.26 And while he did not believe that education or rhetorical skill would enhance an individual’s opportunity for salvation, he insisted that both were required of the clergy.27 By identifying rhetorical skill and intelligence as two of the characteristics of authority, Gregory confirms the importance of education as a pre-requisite for leadership. Given the state of education in the Greco- Roman world at the time, Gregory is, in effect, confining pastoral leadership to the aristocracy.28 Though this perspective may run counter to modern sensibilities, such assumptions about leadership were common- place in antiquity and prevalent among the Christian hierarchy in the post-Constantinian Church.29 What distinguished Gregory’s vision of authority from others in the initial generations after Constantine was that he insisted upon a second component – asceticism. For all of his eccentricities, Gregory was typical of a growing number of bishops in the late fourth century – a well born country aristocrat who shied away from most of the privileges and symbols of wealth that the Greco-Roman world valued.30 The turn to asceticism, curiously enough, may have afforded Gregory, and many like him, with even greater access to power and authority than pagans of equal financial means could have enjoyed. Indeed, it was precisely because Gregory had possessed but ostensibly abandoned the luxurious life that he understood himself to be worthy of leadership.31

24. See Neil McLynn, “Gregory Nazianzen’s Basil: The Literary Construction of a Christian Friendship,” Studia Patristica 37 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001) 178-193. 25. Gregory, Or. 2.36. 26. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 262-329. 27. Ibid. 28. Gregory is not claiming that salvation is reserved for the nobility but he is sug- gesting that the demands of leadership are such that only those who have the advantages of wealth and education are sufficiently prepared. Gregory’s predilection for an elite rul- ing class is born out by at least one letter that expressed concern about a former slave being raised to the episcopate. Gregory, Ep. 79 (PG 37.149-153). 29. See Rapp, “Elite Status of Bishops.” 30. Gregory, Basil, John Chrysostom, and Paulinus of Nola are just a few notable men of privilege who forsook secular careers to pursue the life of asceticism and eventu- ally a position of leadership in the Church. 31. On his willingness to accept the responsibility of leadership, see Or. 2. 77. Describing his own renunciation, Gregory writes: “there was in addition the moderation LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 221

To be sure, Gregory’s ascetic experience was not as physically demanding as some others.32 He did not spend his life in the desert or perched upon a pillar; he did not subject himself to the rigorous fasting or poverty of other famous ascetics.33 But Gregory did strive for a level of meditation achieved only in seclusion. The opening lines of his Apolo- gia de fuga, well describe his desire for retreat (ânaxÉrisiv) and stillness (™suxía).34 According to Nazianzen, the escape from the world enables the contemplation of God – what he calls “true philosophy.” For him, understanding the scriptures depends upon isolation and stillness.35 “Only the pure can understand He who is pure.”36 Thus, education and clerical rank without purification and contemplation do not guarantee a successful ministry; a precise understanding of Christian truth required asceticism. Also in the Apologia, our author distinguishes between those who lead and those who are led. “For the perfection of the church, [the leaders should be those] who surpass the majority in virtue and nearness to God, performing the functions of the soul in the body and of the nous of the soul.”37 The spiritual director is distinguished from his community by his virtue and his nearness to God – for Gregory, that nearness was achieved only by way of ascetic purity.38 Later in the same oration he notes:

of anger, the curbing of the tongue, the shielding of the eyes, the constraint of the stom- ach, and the trampling of glory which is based in the material world. I may be rash, but I will declare that in these things I was not inferior to many.” 32. While it is true that Gregory did not forsake all of the privileges of wealth (e.g. he maintained his family estate in Arianzum after the death of his parents) as had some of his contemporaries, it would be wrong to suggest that he was not ascetic. He was tem- perate, chaste and eschewed expensive clothing and other luxuries that would have accompanied his social rank. Moreover, he consistently encouraged his congregations and correspondents to do the same. See, for example, Or. 14, which emphasizes the blessings of poverty. 33. Gregory’s poem, De animae suae calamitatibus, offers some insight into some of his ascetic practices (e.g. fasting, prostrations, night-long vigils, and humble bedding and clothing), which he contrasts to disciplines of more extreme renunciation. Gregory, De animae suae calamitatibus vv. 125-160. 34. Gregory, Or. 2.6. 35. Gregory, Or. 2.39. 36. Ibid. 37. Gregory, Or. 2.3. The reference to the nous’ direction of the soul is based upon the Platonic understanding of the tri-part soul, where the nous serves as the rational fac- ulty. The image appears elsewhere in Greek patristic literature. 38. Gregory repeats this position a few chapters later when he states, “he should know no limits in goodness or spiritual progress, and should focus on those [spiritual] things that he still lacks rather those that he has already attained.” Gregory, Or. 2.14. 222 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS

A man must himself be cleansed, before cleansing others; himself wise that he might make others wise; become light and then give that light; draw near to God so that he might lead others; be sanc- tified that he might sanctify; possess the hands of leadership that he might lead.39 Gregory is the first to offer such an overt bridging of the ascetic and institutional pastoral traditions. To justify such a controversial position, he turned to the Scriptures. Identifying St. Paul’s pastoral leadership, Gregory emphasized the Apostle’s combination of learning and asceticism. He supercedes carnal things; he rejoices in the things of the spirit; he is not ignorant of knowledge but claims to see through a mirror darkly. He is bold in the spirit and attacks his body, as though it were an opponent. What is the lesson? … Not to be proud of earthly things, or puffed up by knowledge or excite the flesh against the spirit.40 Paul has knowledge, but equally important, he has purged himself of the carnality of the world. Gregory offers dozens of similar examples where the saints of the Old and New Testaments provided successful leadership to their communities, for precisely this reason.41 Oration 6, De Pace, is an interesting complement to the Apologia. Both stem from a schism in Nazianzus circa 362, initiated by his father’s signing of a Homoian creed.42 By the time of the sixth oration, Gregory had managed to mollify the monks who had broken away and the homily marks the reunion of the community. The oration illustrates Nazianzen’s skill as an orator trained in subtlety.43 He begins by explaining that his initial delay to respond to the crisis was the consequence of his cultivation of the ascetic life. By stressing his own renunciation, Gregory achieves two things: he assuages the monastic party by adopting their ideals as his own, but at the same time, he cleverly critiques them for stepping beyond the boundaries of their supposed practice. In other

39. Gregory, Or. 2.71. 40. Gregory, Or. 2.55. 41. Gregory, Or. 2.50-70. 42. Gregory’s father, Gregory the elder, was the bishop of Nazianzus and ordained his son to the deaconate a few months before the Apology. It is likely that the elder Gre- gory subsequently signed a Homoian profession of faith that conformed to the Council of Rimini’s in 359. Following the ordination but prior to this event, the younger Gre- gory fled to Basil’s monastic retreat at Annesoi, only to return once he learned of the schism. The Apologia, therefore is simultaneously a justification for his flight and an expression of Gregory’s vision of Christian leadership. 43. In one skillful turn, he acknowledges his father’s error but delicately chastens the monks for rejecting the authority of their bishop. Gregory, Or. 6.10-11, 13-14. LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 223 words, if Gregory, as a cleric, is unwilling to enter into the fray of a theological dispute because he is too engrossed in the life of contemplation, the monks should be all the more reticent to do so.44 Susana Elm has recently shown that when Gregory presents his virtual succession to his father’s See in his sixth oration, he describes it as a logical progression from a simplistic to a more sophisticated form of leadership. Indeed, in De Pace, Gregory dismisses his father’s doc- trinal failures (i.e. the signing of the Homoian creed) as a naïve mis- take of a simplistic and pious old man.45 He offers similar explanations in the funeral oration for his father (Or. 18.8) and in his poem De vita sua (v. 53). According to Elm, the challenges of the post-Constantin- ian Church required a more refined form of leadership. For Gregory, the missing element was ascetic fulfillment. His retreat enabled him to cultivate the mastery of self and text that his father (both a married man and landowner) was unable to achieve.46 Asceticism not only provided Nazianzen with credibility among the monastic party, but the particu- lar form of his askesis (intellectual and contemplative) enabled him to develop his theological positions. Gregory plays the asceticism card to the greatest effect, however, in his theological contests and then later against those who forced his res- ignation in Constantinople.47 In the first of his theological orations, Gregory argues that one must be a master of meditation (qewría) and purified of body and soul before he may listen to a theological discourse.48 Naturally, the one who offers such a discourse should be all the more inclined to the ascetic life. The implication is that the neo-Arians who control the church in Constantinople are incapable of offering an

44. Gregory rhetorically turns a blind eye to their disobedience by describing it as an error of zealotry. Gregory, Or. 6.11. 45. Ibid. 46. See Elm, “The Diagnostic Gaze: Gregory of Nazianzus’ Theory of Orthodox Priesthood in his Orations 6 De Pace and 2 Apologia de fuga sua,” Orthodoxy, Christian- ity, History, ed. S. Elm, É. Rebillard and A. Romano (Rome: École française de Rome, 2000) 83-100, esp. 85-90. 47. When Gregory arrived in Constantinople in 379/380, the Church was con- trolled by the neo-Arians who had benefited from the support of previous emperors. Gregory took up residence with his cousin and transformed her estate into a church, the Anastasia, for the city’s Nicenes. Within a year’s time, the new emperor, Theodosius, threw his support behind Gregory and the Nicenes and Gregory was elevated to the patriarchate of Constantinople. Unwilling to bow to the political necessities of his office, Gregory resigned his position and retired to Nazianzus a short time later. 48. “Not to all men, because it is permitted only to those who have been exam- ined and who are already masters in meditation (qewría) and who have previously purified (kekaqarménwn) their soul and body, or who at the very least are in the process of purifying them.” Gregory, Or. 27.3. 224 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS accurate account of the doctrines of the Trinity, Christ and Holy Spirit precisely because they lack the most fundamental of the prerequisites for Christian leadership. It is no wonder that Arian teaching is flawed, Gregory reasons, their leaders have no basis for authority. As noted, Gregory became increasingly vocal about the failings of the episcopacy in his era. Each of his autobiographical poems decries the worldliness of bishops. In his De se ipso et de episcopis, Gregory critiques six episcopal officials, including Nektarios, the man who replaced him in Constantinople.49 According to Nazianzen, these men are mere politi- cians, insufficiently ascetic and incapable of theological discourse.50 The autobiographical poems were also designed to rehabilitate Gre- gory’s reputation in the capital.51 The attributes of spiritual authority that he espouses in the poems are precisely the attributes that he pos- sesses; the ignoble characteristics that Gregory mocks belong to Nektar- ios and other new-comers.52 Thus, when Gregory rebukes Nektarios’s lack of asceticism and nobility, the aging Cappadocian is, in part, draw- ing attention to his own virtues.53 Nektarios and those like him are incompetent because they are unable to transcend the material and social world around them. In all ways theirs will be the path of failure. Further evidence of Gregory’s criteria for spiritual authority exists in his funeral orations, especially those of his father, St. Basil, and St. Athanasius. These orations are highly stylized and historically un- reliable.54 Nevertheless, they offer the clearest view of Gregory’s ideas and ideals with respect to spiritual leadership.55 For our purposes, it is

49. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 397-710. 50. Ibid. Some of the charges he levies against them include: stage performance (vv. 397-404), horse racing (vv. 405-415), illegal business practices (vv. 415-431) and impurity (vv. 620-627). 51. See McGuckin, “Autobiography as Apologia.” 52. Elm draws a similar conclusion. Elm, “A Programmatic Life,” 423. 53. Gregory, De se ipso vv. 709-786. He defends the necessity of an ascetic bishop. McGuckin, “Autobiography as Apologia,” 175-176. See also his St. Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001) esp. 374-384. 54. Gregory’s funeral orations follow classical topoi for eulogy. This included both the content and the arrangement of that content. 55. The oration for the feast of St. Cyprian is a prime example. Gregory clearly confuses Cyprian of Carthage, who was martyred in 258, with Cyprian of Antioch who was supposedly martyred in 304. Though both were bishops, there lives are very differ- ent. Gregory conflates the two into a single Christian holy man worthy of veneration. For our purposes, it is Gregory’s reconstruction of Cyprian’s nobility and education that are the most telling. The reconstruction is clearly a trope, but it well conveys Gregory’s understanding for a Christian leader’s background. Gregory, Or. 24.6. Near the close of the oration, Gregory also notes Cyprian’s cultivation of asceticism following his conversion to Christianity. Gregory, Or. 24.13-14. LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 225 unimportant if the orations accurately report the facts about Basil’s or Athanasius’s life, what is most significant is that they reveal what Gre- gory wants his audience to think about the proper supervision of the Church. The oration for Gregory the elder is, perhaps, the most interesting because the younger Gregory must extol his father’s effectiveness as bishop, all the while knowing that he had failed the most important test – that of orthodoxy. Gregory achieves this by carefully subordinating his father’s role as Christian teacher and emphasizing his asceticism, faith and pastoral success among a group of rustic farmers.56 The eulogy does not ignore doctrine altogether. Gregory notes that while his father may not have been an articulate spokesman for the faith like “some of our modern wise men,” he was, nonetheless, a “father and teacher of Ortho- doxy.”57 And although he may have taken the “second place as orator, he surpassed all in piety.”58 In short, the elder Gregory is to be remembered for his renunciation, pastoral leadership and piety. It is the orations for Athanasius and Basil, however, where we find Gregory’s most pronounced statements on Christian leadership. Nazianzen begins the oration for Athanasius with a subtle distinction between the vast majority of Christians and those rare individuals who are able to transcend the world and attain qeÉsiv (deification). And it is this level of human-divine communion, more than anything else, that sig- nifies Athanasius’s spiritual authority. Moreover, Athanasius achieved that level of authority because he was, at once, doctrinally sound (identified by his meditation on the scriptures) and ascetically advanced (demonstrated by his attainment of pure contemplation). Gregory explains that Athanasius exemplified the model of the contemplative priest.59 In other words, he combined the active life of ministry with the contemplative life of the ascetic. The same was true of Basil. Nazianzen portrays both Athanasius and Basil as successful, or more specifically, as saintly bishops precisely because they struck the proper balance between the active and contemplative life. In his oration for St. Basil, Gregory recounts the late bishop’s many confrontations with the Arians. Noting Basil’s responsibility as bishop to articulate orthodox doctrine in the face of heresy, Gregory

56. The emphasis on asceticism is a particularly interesting turn given that he continued to live with his wife. Concerning Gregory the elder’s asceticism, see Or. 18.21-28; for his pastoral success, see Or. 18.16. 57. Gregory, Or. 18.16. 58. Ibid. 59. Gregory, Or. 21.19. 226 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS provides an interesting detail about his friend’s action. He writes, “after as long a period of contemplation and private spiritual meditation as was possible, in which he considered all human arguments and penetrated into the deep things of the Scriptures, [Basil] devised a draft of pious doctrine.”60 For Gregory, it is not Basil’s Athenian education or his authority as bishop but his successful life of contemplation that enabled him to refute heresy so successfully. What is more, Basil’s asceticism was not a means to an end; he transformed his contemplation into action: [Basil] added to his reasoning the assistance that comes from action; he paid visits, sent messages, consulted, instructed, reproved, rebuked, threatened, reproached, … he cultivated every type of assistance and procured from every source the specifics of the [spiritual] illness.61 Basil, like Athanasius, is a model bishop in Gregory’s eyes, because he combines ascetic meditation with priestly responsibility. Nazianzen was the first Christian bishop to emphasize a combination of these ideals. Recent trends in Early Christian studies have emphasized the self- fashioning and ambitious characteristics of many of the Church fathers.62 Some historians read Gregory’s comments about leadership as either an act of self-styling or as an attempt to rehabilitate his reputation in Con- stantinople after his retirement.63 It is true, that Gregory often asserted his ascetic credentials when his authority was challenged.64 But there are several reasons to believe that his comments about spiritual direction are more than self-justification or self-promotion. Instead, they constitute a new theory of Christian leadership. First, it is quite unlikely that the call for a more ascetic clergy in the 360s would have been a popular position; it is more likely that this would have met with a fair amount of derision. Nearly a generation after Gre- gory retired from Constantinople another asceticizing bishop, John Chrysostom, met with considerable resistance when he tried to impose a greater measure of renunciation among the clergy in Constantinople. While asceticism may have provided Gregory the moral higher-ground

60. Gregory, Or. 43.43. 61. Ibid. 62. Though he does not engage Gregory Nazianzen, Conrad Leyser has argued that the self-denial (or the rhetoric of self-denial) associated with asceticism provided many late ancient churchmen greater access to authority than men with similar means in previous generations might have achieved. See, for example, his treatment of Pope Gregory I in his Authority and Asceticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000) 160-187. See also Neil McLynn, Ambrose of Milan (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994). 63. See McLynn, “Gregory Nazianzen’s Basil,” 178-193. See also McGuckin, “Autobiography as Apologia.” 64. Some examples include: Or. 6. 3-6; 26.13; 32.12-14; 36.6. LEADERSHIP IN THE POST-CONSTANTINIAN CHURCH 227 in his personal contests, he did not pursue this policy because it was politically advantageous. Second, Gregory believed that askesis was an essential part of the Christian life. He persuaded many of his correspondents to abandon secular living.65 He consistently encouraged his congregations to fast, eschew luxury and give generously to the poor.66 And like John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory’s soteriology was dis- tinctively ascetic. His desire to ensure an ascetically trained clergy is con- sistent with everything else we know of his theology and ideals. But perhaps the clearest evidence that Gregory had thought through a constructive policy for Christian leadership is the way in which he spent his final years. With time, Gregory became more at peace with what had happened to him in Constantinople and he admitted that he had not been up to the challenge that the capital presented.67 In effect, he could not maintain a contemplative life in an environment torn by politics and vanity and so he chose a safer course, a life in retreat.68 But it was from this retreat that he put the finishing touches on his earlier orations, making clear the need for Christian leaders to combine administrative talents with ascetic purity and to balance the life of service with the contemplation of isolation. In effect, he was presenting an entirely new model for spiritual authority. With time, this became the dominant model for authority in the middle ages. This bridging of administrative and ascetic qualities made good pastoral sense then and it continues to offer us something today. As a true ascetic, Gregory’s idealized priest was above suspicion and he earned the admiration of the laity; as a well-educated nobleman, he was able to articulate Christian truths and lead with authority. To be sure, Gregory had possessed a measure of wealth and education that only a tiny per- centage of the population at that time could enjoy, but he also turned away from many of the advantages of his noble birth to pursue a life of contemplation and service.69 It is there, in the active/contemplative, that

65. For example, see Gregory, Ep. 11 to Gregory of Nyssa (PG 37.42-3) and Ep. 20 to his brother, Caesarius (PG 37.54-5). 66. See, for example, Gregory, Or. 11 and Or. 14. 67. Gregory, De vita sua vv. 1424-435. 68. Elm notes, however, that even this picture of Gregory is one of his own self- fashioning and to read it uncritically is to allow Gregory’s incredible skill to prevent ana- lytical reading. Elm, “A Programmatic Life,” 415. 69. In his autobiographical poem, De vita sua, Gregory implies that he turned down a position teaching rhetoric at the Academy when he left to pursue the life of monasticism. Gregory, De vita sua v. 257. 228 GEORGE DEMACOPOULOS we find the most original and compelling component of Gregory’s vision for spiritual leadership. For Gregory this active/contemplative was not simply someone who combined celibacy and administrative competence; rather it was someone who was uncommonly experienced in the mysti- cal traditions of the ascetic life and who willingly sacrificed his own contemplation for the service of others. Obviously, the return of the relics of St. Gregory to Constantino- ple provides an opportunity for the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics. It also provides an occasion for reflecting upon Gregory’s con- tribution to the pastoral theology shared by these communities. One thing that distinguishes the Orthodox and Catholics from other traditions is the continued commitment to a model of spiritual leadership that was cultivated in the late ancient period. This is not only a bridge between them but a source of inspiration and reflection in the face of the challenges of the twenty-first century. While many modern readers will not look favorably upon what they perceive to be Gregory’s exclusivity, there is far more to Gregory’s vision for pastoral leadership than a naïve defense of aristocracy and hierarchy. Gregory, in effect, guaranteed the viability of the Christian episcopate by establishing a rigorous screening process for election. He insisted that candidates be well educated, morally sound and committed to asceticism. As medieval and even recent history teaches us, maintaining these standards is often difficult. But the consequence for failing to keep them is devastating.

George Demacopoulos is assistant professor of Theology at Fordham University, in New York City. He is a specialist in historical theology of the late ancient and medieval periods. He is the author of Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming). Address: Dept. of Theology/Fordham University, 441 E. Fordham Rd., Bronx, NY 10458, U.S.A.