ABSTRACT
The five Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus represent at once Gregory’s public response to his theological opponents as well as the most sustained and systematic presentation of his own Trinitarianism. They begin with an explicit address to the “Eunomians,” the Neo-Arian followers of Eunomius of Cyzicus. Composed on the eve of the Nicenes’ return to power in Constantinople after forty years in the ecclesiastical wilderness, the Theological Orations are presented as a vade mecum for a community still under persecution.
This chapter demonstrates how the set of Theological Orations constitute a response to another handbook compiled for a different theological community under persecution: the Syntagmation of Aetius. This short text begins with an address by Aetius to his persecuted “Anomoean” followers and takes the form of a list of questions and answers for use in theological disputes. Gregory’s orations should be read in conjunction with the Syntagmation, as Gregory responds point-for-point to the concerns raised by Aetius and positions himself against the followers of Eunomius, the disciple and successor of Aetius himself.
Finally, in juxtaposing the Theological Orations with the Syntagmation, this study sheds further light on the composition of Gregory’s target audience. Gregory knew that many who were “wolves” at the moment would one day be counted not only among his sheep but also among his shepherds, as he himself put it in another oration (Or. 33.15). Gregory’s dialogue with the Syntagmation suggests that his presentation of the Theological Orations as an address to the Eunomians was no mere rhetorical artifice, but that he was in fact addressing and attempting to win over the same community that had been the recipients of Aetius’s treatise a generation before.
