The Preaching of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus (Fourth Century)

Christianity changed considerably in the fourth century with the conversion of Constantine, who made Christianity legal and opened the door toward its accommodation with society. Worship developed rapidly through extensive building projects, the development of liturgies, the observance of the Christian year, the creation of the lectionary, and the contributions of music and the arts. In this setting, preaching took on the characteristics of Roman rhetoric and became considerably more formal. Among the Greek Christians of the time, several stand out as exceptional preachers, especially Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus—collectively called the Cappadocians—and John Chrysostom, who will be treated in the next entry.

Basil the Great (329–379)

Basil the Great possessed all possible advantages. His family was rich and of high social position in Pontus and, from his grandparents down, had been remarkable for piety. Two of his brothers became bishops, one of them the famous (Gregory of Nyssa); and his older sister (Macrina), who powerfully influenced him, founded and presided over a monastery. His father, a distinguished rhetorician, gave him careful instruction from childhood. At school, he surpassed all his fellow pupils. Then he studied at Constantinople, taught by Libanius, the most famous teacher of rhetoric in that age, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. Afterward, he went to Athens, where his fellow students included Julian (afterward emperor and apostate), and Gregory Nazianzus, his early friend. Gregory tells us in a well-known funeral eulogium (Oration 43) that when he heard Basil was coming to Athens he gave the students so high an opinion of his abilities and eloquence that they consented, as a special distinction, to exempt Basil from the species of hazing to which new students were always subjected.

Thus he had every advantage—good breeding, and all pious and inspiring home influences, careful early training, then life in the great capital city (giving knowledge of the world) and afterward at the chief seat of learning in that age, Athens, with the ablest instructors and the most gifted fellow students. There his intellect disciplined, and his taste cultivated by the study of classic philosophy and oratory, and yet his Christian feeling ever warmed anew by the sympathy and example of his intelligent and devout kindred at home. He died when less than fifty years old, but his life was crowded with religious and literary labors.

Basil’s Preaching

As a preacher, Basil shows greater skill in the construction of discourses than any Christian orator who had preceded him. He usually extemporized, but he knew how to put a sermon together, or to make it grow in a natural manner. The chief excellency of his preaching is in the treatment of moral subjects. He had a rare knowledge of human nature, and you may notice that among all the changes of preaching in all the ages, two branches of knowledge possess a universal and indestructible interest: deep knowledge of human nature, and deep knowledge of Scripture. Basil shows wonderful power in depicting the various virtues, and still more remarkable skill in tracing the growth and consequences of leading vices.

Basil’s style has the faults of his age, but taking just one discourse at a time, you feel that you are dealing with a great mind, a noble character, a deeply devout and truly eloquent preacher.

Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389)

Gregory Nazianzus, the friend and fellow student of Basil, was doubtless at that time considered the most eloquent of all preachers until Chrysostom became known. Very ambitious and enjoying the finest educational opportunities, Gregory was especially a student of eloquence and was a man of imaginative and passionate nature. He was the first great hymn-writer, and his hymns became exceedingly popular in the Greek church. Yet it has been justly said that his poetry is too oratorical, and his oratory too poetical. You may notice that few great preachers have written even a single good hymn, and no great hymn-writer has been very eminent as a preacher unless Gregory is the exception, or Ephraem the Syrian. So more generally as to oratory and poetry: The oratorical and the poetic temperament seem closely related, yet are remarkably distinct. An orator may derive very great benefit from studying poets, but many preachers are damaged by failing to understand the difference between the poet’s office and their own. Imagination is the poet’s mistress, his queen; for the orator, she is the handmaid, highly useful, indeed absolutely needful, but only a handmaid. And splendor of diction, which for the poet is one chief end, is for the orator only a subordinate means.

But the very faults of Gregory’s style, according to our taste, were high excellencies in the estimation of his contemporaries. His extravagant hyperboles, perpetual effort to strike, and high-wrought splendor of imagery and diction, were accounted the most magnificent eloquence, and perhaps did really recommend the truth to some of his hearers. Thus while the patriarch of Constantinople, he preached five discourses (still extant), which are said to have done much in curing Arianism there, and which procured him the surname of Theologos, discourser on the deity of Christ.