INTRODUCTION.

I. THE THEOLOGICAL ORATIONS.

The five orations presented here do not contain an exact indication of their date, but there is no doubt they were delivered while their author was in charge of the Church of Constantinople. Discourses given at Nazianzus or Caesarea would likely have been colored by specific local allusions, whereas those delivered in the capital take on a universal character. The first of these orations appears to reflect the busy and varied life of a great city, with its theaters and exhibitions, its markets, and its social gatherings. At Constantinople, Gregory was called upon more than anywhere else to preach dogmatic sermons. The very purpose for which he was summoned to that city was to revive the nearly extinct cause of Catholicism refers to the Nicene orthodoxy as opposed to Arianism there. We may well believe that these orations represent the supreme effort of Gregory’s public teaching in Constantinople.

Accordingly, the date must fall within the three years from 379 to 381. Gregory entered Constantinople at the end of 378 or early in 379, and he left during the General Council of 381.

¹ Tillemont IX, note xxiii.