INTRODUCTION.

It is possible, however, to come a little closer. The twenty-second and twenty-third Orations were certainly delivered at Constantinople about the middle of the year 379. At the end of the latter of those two Orations, Gregory promises to crush the serpent's eggs of heresy by “a stiff and solid argument.” There can be little doubt that he regarded his “Theological Orations” as the fulfillment of this promise. And in Oration XLII, in which Gregory took leave of Constantinople and the Council, he speaks of having already carefully dealt with the Scriptural texts around which the current controversies raged—a description which would well suit the Theological Orations, especially the fourth. Everything, therefore, points to the correctness of the conclusion that the Five Orations were delivered—and probably published in writing—in the year 380.

The first four are directed against the Eunomian heresy. Eunomius, whom Ullmann describes as “one of the most interesting heretics of the fourth century,” was a Cappadocian, like Gregory himself. He had been a disciple of Aetius, the true successor of Arius in the leadership of the heresy. Eunomius, who in 360 became Bishop of Cyzicus near Constantinople, infused an altogether new vigor into the Arian party, though at the cost of its disruption. He boldly took up the assertion of Arius, which prudence had allowed to be forgotten, that the Son of God was so far from being “of one substance” original: homoousion with the Father that He was not even “of like substance.” The Eunomian party assumed for its rallying cry the word ἀνόμοιος (unlike).