WRITINGS OF

GREGORY THAUMATURGUS.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

We are in possession of a considerable body of testimonies from ancient literature bearing on the life and work of Gregory. From these, though they are largely mixed with the marvelous, we gain a tolerably clear and satisfactory view of the main facts in his history and the most prominent features of his character. Thus, we have accounts of him, more or less complete, in Eusebius (Historia Eccles. vi. 30, vii. 14), Basil (De Spiritu Sancto, xxix. 74; Epist. 28, Num. 1 and 2; 204, Num. 2; 207, Num. 4; 210, Num. 3, 5—Works, vol. iii. pp. 62, 107, 303, 311, etc., edit. Paris. 1730), Jerome (De viris illustr. ch. 65; in the Comment. in Ecclesiasten, ch. 4; and Epist. 70, Num. 4—Works, vol. i. pp. 424 and 427, edit. Veron.), Rufinus (Hist. Eccles. vii. 25), Socrates (Hist. Eccles. iv. 27), Sozomen (Hist. Eccles. vii. 27), Evagrius Scholasticus (Hist. Eccles. iii. 31), Suidas in his Lexicon, and others of less importance. From these various witnesses we learn that he was also known by the name Theodorus, which may have been his original designation; that he was a native of Neo-Caesarea, a considerable place of trade and one of the most important towns of Pontus; that he belonged to a family of some wealth and standing; that he was born of heathen parents; that at the age of fourteen he lost his father; that he had a brother named Athenodorus; and that along with him he traveled from city to city in