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ST See also: born of See also: noble and wealthy See also: pagan parents at Neocaesarea in See also: Pontus, about A.D
.
213
.
His See also: original name was See also: Theodorus
.
He took up the study of See also: civil See also: law, and, with his See also: brother See also: Athenodorus, was on his way to Berytus to See also: complete his training when at Caesarea he met See also: Origen, and became his pupil and then his convert (A.D
.
233)
.
In returning to See also: Cappadocia some five years after his conversion, it had been his original intention to live a retired ascetic See also: life (Ens
.
H.E. vi
.
30), but, urged by Origen, and at last almost compelled by Phaedimus of See also: Amasia, his metropolitan, neither of whom was willing to see so much learning, piety and masculine energy practically lost to the See also: church, he, after many attempts to evade the dignity, was consecrated
See also: bishop of his native See also: town (about 240)
.
His episcopate, which lasted some See also: thirty years, was characterized by See also: great missionary zeal, and by so much success that, according to the (doubtless somewhat rhetorical) statement of See also: Gregory of Nyssa, whereas at the outset of his labours there were only seventeen Christians in the city, there were at his See also: death only seventeen persons in all who had not embraced See also: Christianity
.
This result he achieved in spite of the Decian persecution (250-251), during which he had felt it to be his duty to absent himself from his diocese, and notwithstanding the demoralizing effects of an irruption of barbarians (Goths and Boranians) who laid waste the diocese in A.D
.
253–254
.
Gregory, although he has not always escaped the See also: charge of Sabellianism, now holds an undisputed place among the fathers of the church; and although the turn of his mind was See also: practical rather than speculative, he is known to have taken an energetic See also: part in most of the doctrinal controversies of his See also: time
.
He was active at the first See also: synod of See also: Antioch (A.D
.
264–265), which investigated and condemned the heresies of See also: Paul of Samosata; and the rapid spread in Pontus of a Trinitarianism approaching the Nicene type is attributed in large measure to the See also: weight of his influence
.
Gregory is believed to have died in the reign of Aurelian, about the See also: year 270, though perhaps an earlier date is more probable
.
His festival (semiduplex) is observed by the See also: Roman Catholic Church on the 17th of See also: November
.
For the facts of his biography we have an outline of his early years in his eulogy on Origen, and incidental notices in the writings of See also: Eusebius, of See also: Basil of Caesarea and See also: Jerome
.
Gregory of Nyssa's untrustworthy See also: panegyric represents him as having wrought miracles of a very startling description; but nothing related by him comes near the astounding narratives given in the Martyrologies, or even in the Breviarium Romanum, in connexion with his name
.
The See also: principal See also: works of Gregory Thaumaturgus are the Panegyricus in Origenem (Eli 'S2pis4in v aavr7yupLK6r X6yos), which he wrote when on the point of leaving the school of that great master (it contains a valuable minute description of Origen's mode of instruction), a Mlietaphrasis in Ecclesiasten, characterized by Jerome as " See also: short but useful "; and an Epistola canonica, which treats of the discipline to be undergone by those Christians who under pressure of persecution had relapsed into paganism, but desired to be restored to the privileges of the Church
.
It gives a See also: good picture of the conditions of the time, and shows Gregory to be a true shepherd (cf. See also: art PENANCE)
.
The "EaG€osr 7rierewr (Expositio fidei), a short creed usually attributed to Gregory, and traditionally alleged to have been received by him immediately in vision from the apostle See also: John himself, is probably authentic
.
A sort of Platonic
See also: dialogue of doubtful authenticity " on the impassivity and the passivity of See also: God " in See also: Syriac is in the See also: British Museum
.
See also: Editions: Gerhard Voss (See also: Mainz, 1604), Fronto Ducaus (See also: Paris, 1622), See also: Migne, Patr
.
Graec. x
.
963 . See also: Translations: S
.
D
.
F
.
Salmond in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vi.; Lives, by Pallavicini (See also: Rome, 1644); J
.
L
.
Boye (See also: Jena, 1709); H
.
R
.
See also: Reynolds (Dict
.
Chr
.
Biog. ii.); G
.
Kruger, Early Chr
.
Lit . 226; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. vii . (where fullSee also: bibliographies are given)
.
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