St Gregory Thaumaturgus Before leaving Palestine

[Mary Naeem]

St Gregory Thaumaturgus

Before leaving Palestine, Gregory delivered, in presence of Origen, a public farewell oration in which he returned thanks to the illustrious master he was leaving. This oration is valuable from many points of view. As a rhetorical exercise it exhibits the excellent training given by Origen and his skill in developing literary taste and the amount of adulation then permissible, towards a living person, in an assembly composed mostly of Christians and Christian in temper. It contains, moreover, much useful information concerning the youth of Gregory and his master’s method of teaching. A letter of Origen refers to the departure of the two brothers but it is not easy to determine whether it was written before or after the delivery of this oration. In it, Origen exhorts his pupils, to bring the intellectual treasures of the Greeks to the service of Christian philosophy and thus imitate the Jews, who employed the golden vessels of the Egyptians to adorn the Holy of Holies