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St. Gregory Thaumaturgus
Acknowledged Writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus

TrinityEcclesiology

Acknowledged Writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus · c. 250–270 AD

1h 39m read

Ante-Nicene

A collected set of Gregory Thaumaturgus's acknowledged writings, including his creed, canonical epistle, and shorter authentic pieces.

Table of Contents

1A Declaration of Faith 2Chapter I 3Chapter II 4Chapter III 5Chapter IV 6Chapter V 7Chapter VI 8Chapter VII 9Chapter VIII 10Chapter IX 11Chapter X 12Chapter XI 13Chapter XII 14Canon I 15Canon II 16Canon III 17Canon IV 18Canon V 19Canon VI 20Canon VII 21Canon VIII 22Canon IX 23Canon X 24Canon XI 25For Eight Years Gregory Has Given Up the Practice of Oratory, Being Busied with the Study Chiefly of Roman Law and the Latin Language 26He Essays to Speak of the Well-Nigh Divine Endowments of Origen in His Presence, into Whose Hands He Avows Himself to Have Been Led in a Way Beyond All His Expectation 27He is Stimulated to Speak of Him by the Longing of a Grateful Mind. To the Utmost of His Ability He Thinks He Ought to Thank Him. From God are the Beginnings of All Blessings; And to Him Adequate Thanks Cannot Be Returned 28The Son Alone Knows How to Praise the Father Worthily. In Christ and by Christ Our Thanksgivings Ought to Be Rendered to the Father. Gregory Also Gives Thanks to His Guardian Angel, Because He Was Conducted by Him to Origen 29Here Gregory Interweaves the Narrative of His Former Life. His Birth of Heathen Parents is Stated. In the Fourteenth Year of His Age He Loses His Father. He is Dedicated to the Study of Eloquence and Law. By a Wonderful Leading of Providence, He is Brought to Origen 30The Arts by Which Origen Studies to Keep Gregory and His Brother Athenodorus with Him, Although It Was Almost Against Their Will; And the Love by Which Both are Taken Captive. Of Philosophy, the Foundation of Piety, with the View of Giving Himself Therefore Wholly to that Study, Gregory is Willing to Give Up Fatherland, Parents, the Pursuit of Law, and Every Other Discipline. Of the Soul as the Free Principle. The Nobler Part Does Not Desire to Be United with the Inferior, But the Inferior with the Nobler 31The Wonderful Skill with Which Origen Prepares Gregory and Athenodorus for Philosophy. The Intellect of Each is Exercised First in Logic, and the Mere Attention to Words is Contemned 32Then in Due Succession He Instructs Them in Physics, Geometry, and Astronomy 33But He Imbues Their Minds, Above All, with Ethical Science; And He Does Not Confine Himself to Discoursing on the Virtues in Word, But He Rather Confirms His Teaching by His Acts 34Hence the Mere Word-Sages are Confuted, Who Say and Yet Act Not 35Origen is the First and the Only One that Exhorts Gregory to Add to His Acquirements the Study of Philosophy, and Offers Him in a Certain Manner an Example in Himself. Of Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude. The Maxim, Know Thyself 36Gregory Disallows Any Attainment of the Virtues on His Part. Piety is Both the Beginning and the End, and Thus It is the Parent of All the Virtues 37The Method Which Origen Used in His Theological and Metaphysical Instructions. He Commends the Study of All Writers, the Atheistic Alone Excepted. The Marvellous Power of Persuasion in Speech. The Facility of the Mind in Giving Its Assent 38Whence the Contentions of Philosophers Have Sprung. Against Those Who Catch at Everything that Meets Them, and Give It Credence, and Cling to It. Origen Was in the Habit of Carefully Reading and Explaining the Books of the Heathen to His Disciples 39The Case of Divine Matters. Only God and His Prophets are to Be Heard in These. The Prophets and Their Auditors are Acted on by the Same Afflatus. Origen's Excellence in the Interpretation of Scripture 40Gregory Laments His Departure Under a Threefold Comparison; Likening It to Adam's Departure Out of Paradise. To the Prodigal Son's Abandonment of His Father's House, and to the Deportation of the Jews into Babylon 41Gregory Consoles Himself 42Peroration, and Apology for the Oration 43Apostrophe to Origen, and Therewith the Leave-Taking, and the Urgent Utterance of Prayer