Letters

Contents

Reading pages: 21–55 · 57–93 · 95–139 · 141–181 · 183–219 · 221–265 · 267–311 · 313–355 · 357–387

1. 21Gregory apologizes to Basil for not joining him in the monastic life, offering to share their time between them; the opening of the next letter is lost.
2. 23The end of Gregory's teasing reply to Basil about city and country, and a letter to Evagrius thanking him for praise of his son, whom Gregory taught the fear of God.
3. 25Gregory teases Basil about his retreat in Pontus, mocking its gloom, narrow road, gullies, thorns, cliffs, and roaring river.
4. 27Gregory finishes his mockery of Basil's river and retreat, then begins a second teasing letter on its roofless hut and starvation fare.
5. 29Gregory recalls the meagre food and hard labour of his stay with Basil in Pontus and their rescue by Basil's mother.
6. 31The end of a letter to Basil recalling their shared work in Pontus, and the start of a letter urging Gregory's brother Caesarius to leave service at Julian's court.
7. 33Gregory tells Caesarius of their father's distress and the danger to their mother, and warns that at Julian's court he must either be humbled or harm his soul.
8. 35In the scan this page repeats the text of the next page (col. 37), in praise of a governor.
9. 37Gregory wishes he could praise a capable governor in a full speech, but his resolve to keep away from public speaking holds him back like a horse at the barrier.
10. 39Gregory praises the pagan governor's eloquence, justice, and incorruptibility, and especially his integrity in serving the emperor while loving his homeland.
11. 41The end of the letter to the governor, praying he may join the persecuted rather than the persecutors; then a rebuke to Gregory for leaving his office as reader to become a teacher of rhetoric.
12. 43Gregory ends his rebuke with a prayer for his friend's return; then he teases Nicobulus for mocking his small wife Alypiana, whose worth lies in her soul and prayer.
13. 45The end of Gregory's teasing letter about Nicobulus's small wife; then a request to a family friend to help Nicobulus in a lawsuit.
14. 47Gregory asks a friend to protect relatives troubled over a purchase of land; then he welcomes Lollianus home and commends his cousins Helladius and Eulalius to him.
15. 49Gregory protests to Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea that he cannot accept honours for himself while Eusebius insults Basil, and urges him to treat Basil fairly.
16. 51Gregory defends his frank letter to Eusebius as spiritual rather than insolent, then submits to him and offers to come and help the Church against its attackers.
17. 53Gregory urges Basil to be reconciled with Bishop Eusebius, who is now well disposed, and to come at once because heretics threaten the Church.
18. 55Gregory urges his brother Caesarius, saved from danger, to give himself to God and leave the world, and hopes to celebrate his deliverance with him.
19. 57Two letters, to Sophronius and to Caesarius, recommending young Amphilochius, accused of wrongdoing in a money matter, and pleading his innocence and simplicity.
20. 59The end of a recommendation of Amphilochius; then Gregory asks the orator Themistius to help Amphilochius, quoting Plato on philosophy and power; then begins a joking letter to Amphilochius's father.
21. 61Gregory playfully asks Amphilochius the elder for vegetables to entertain Basil, then complains of how few arrived and threatens to withhold grain.
22. 63The end of a letter commending a friend to Amphilochius's hospitality; then Gregory, after reflecting on the instability of fortune, tells Sophronius that his dead brother Caesarius's estate is being plundered.
23. 65Gregory begs Sophronius, out of friendship for the dead Caesarius, to stop the plundering of his estate, saying the shame matters more than the money.
24. 67Gregory consoles his sick friend Philagrius, urging him to treat his illness as a school of philosophy and to despise the body.
25. 69The end of a note about books lent to Philagrius; then Gregory praises Philagrius for bearing his illness as a philosopher, letting the body suffer while the soul stays with God.
26. 71Gregory urges Philagrius to bear his illness like the Stoics, Anaxarchus, Epictetus and Socrates, and like Job, making weakness the material of virtue.
27. 73Gregory defends Philagrius against critics who blame him for working at his affairs while ill, telling him to take counsel with himself and God.
28. 75Gregory recalls how, while he expounded the psalm about the prosperity of the wicked, the sick Philagrius rose and thanked God for his suffering.
29. 77Gregory, ill himself, says he rejoices to teach endurance by bearing illness with thanks; then he asks Philagrius, for the sake of their common fatherland, to help the rhetor Eudoxius.
30. 79Gregory commends the son of the rhetor Eudoxius to the orator Themistius, asking him to help the young man make his name and living by eloquence.
31. 81The end of a letter commending a friend; then the heading of Gregory's letter to Basil the Great.
32. 83Gregory declines Basil's summons to Caesarea; then, in his father's name, he writes to the Church of Caesarea that the choice of a bishop concerns the whole Church.
33. 85Gregory the Elder commends Basil to the Church of Caesarea as the one man fit to be its bishop against the heretics, and refuses to take part if faction decides.
34. 87Gregory the Elder begs Eusebius of Samosata to come to Caesarea after the death of its bishop Eusebius, to help give the Church an orthodox shepherd.
35. 89The end of the appeal to Eusebius of Samosata; then Gregory the Elder rebukes the bishops of the province for summoning him late and casts his vote for Basil.
36. 91The end of the letter to the bishops; then Gregory greets Eusebius of Samosata, whose arrival has comforted the widowed Church of Caesarea, with a string of biblical praises.
37. 93Gregory ends his greeting to Eusebius of Samosata, explaining why he did not come with his father; then he congratulates Basil on becoming bishop but explains why he will not hurry to Caesarea.
38. 95Gregory protests to Basil that he has never thought little of him, extolling him as the voice of the world, then, in a new letter, hears that Basil is being troubled by envious men in power.
39. 97Gregory trusts that Basil's philosophy will carry him above the insults and offers to come and share them.
40. 99Gregory protests to Basil, who has accused him of ingratitude, that he has only realized late how he was used, and lists what others say of Basil's treatment of him.
41. 101Gregory refuses to take up arms for Basil against Anthimus of Tyana over Sasima, asks only for quiet, and ends bitterly that he has learned not to trust friends.
42. 103Gregory answers Basil's charge of sloth by praising inactivity; then he begins an account of Anthimus's visit to Nazianzus and his pressure over Sasima.
43. 105Gregory tells Basil how he resisted Anthimus, who left accusing him of siding with Basil, and protests at Basil's haughty treatment of him.
44. 107The end of Gregory's advice to Nicobulus on letter-writing: little ornament, few figures, and above all naturalness, like the eagle who did not think himself beautiful.
45. 109The end of a letter asking Nicobulus for a return for the letters sent him; then Gregory explains that in the collection of letters he places Basil's before his own.
46. 111The end of a letter of consolation; then Gregory, after a frost has ruined his vines, asks a woman benefactor for wine for the workmen building a church wall.
47. 113Gregory tells Basil that many doubt their orthodoxy, and begins to recount how at a dinner a monk denied that Basil and Gregory were orthodox.
48. 115The monk charges that Basil, unlike Gregory, does not openly call the Holy Spirit God; Gregory defends Basil's reserve as a prudent economy in dangerous times.
49. 117The end of Gregory's account of the dinner: the company rejected his defence of Basil's reserve; he asks Basil how far to go in calling the Spirit God.
50. 119The end of a letter promising Basil help; then Gregory tells Basil he is eager to join him in the struggle for the truth but must stay with his sick mother, and asks for his prayers.
51. 121Gregory urges the heirs of a dead woman to pay her bequest to the church gladly and in full, laying up treasure in heaven.
52. 123A short note to Amphilochius the elder; then Gregory, grieving for his own father, protests against Amphilochius's charge that he betrayed his son, who had been made bishop against his father's wish.
53. 125Gregory explains to Amphilochius the elder that he had tried to consult him in time and was then kept away by his father's death, and that he too was overruled by their common friends.
54. 127Gregory consoles the exiled Eusebius of Samosata: others have their homeland and throne, but they have the city above and Christ, and God will not abandon right doctrine.
55. 131The end of a letter to Eusebius of Samosata; then Gregory asks the tax assessor Julian not to blame him for a family quarrel, to fulfil his promise to the poor, and to exempt Gregory's clergy from the tax register.
56. 133Gregory, too ill to come, urges the assessor Julian to treat the tax equalization as his service to God and to choose honest fellow workers.
57. 135Gregory, prevented by illness from meeting the former governor Eutropius, asks him to forgive him and to console him by letters.
58. 137Gregory thanks a friend in high office for his instructive letter and asks him not to neglect his friends even amid public affairs.
59. 139The end of a letter of encouragement to the exiled Gregory of Nyssa; then a short note telling Vitalian that Gregory will write more often if he rids himself of bad company.
60. 141The end of Gregory's consolation to Gregory of Nyssa on Basil's death: only his friend's company, in which Basil is seen as in a mirror, can console him.
61. 143Gregory urges a bishop to forgive those who wronged them, citing Phinehas, Moses, Nineveh, Manasseh, and Christ's refusal of vengeance.
62. 145Gregory continues: God himself punishes slowly and gives room for amendment, so the bishop should pardon the offenders for the sake of the poor, the monks and the virgins who plead for them.
63. 147Gregory urges a newly baptized man whose wife and daughter were wronged not to seek the offender's blood under Roman law but to forgive, leaving him to God.
64. 149Gregory rebukes the noblewoman Simplicia, who praises his dead father but claims as her slave the man his father ordained bishop.
65. 151Gregory explains that the ordination was made at the people's unanimous request for a neglected district, and offers a fair settlement of Simplicia's claim.
66. 153Gregory offers to try the bishop on any charge, slave or not, and warns Simplicia not to appeal to the civil courts or to oppose the Spirit.
67. 155Gregory comforts Gregory of Nyssa, distressed by his constant travels: like the sun and the planets, his movement is for the good of many.
68. 157The end of a letter thanking an official for a favour, commending young Euphemius and the deacon Fortunatus, who carries the letter.
69. 159A playful invitation to a festival of prayer, finding ways to admit a guest whose status or dress might otherwise exclude him.
70. 161Gregory tells a friend that, weary of quarrelling bishops, he is withdrawing, and that he is not bound to a Church that was never his.
71. 163The end of a letter asking a prosperous friend to share his friends' burdens; then Gregory complains to Bishop Bosporius of Colonia that he has been slighted.
72. 165The end of a letter; then Gregory, at peace in retirement, commends Pancratius to Nectarius, his successor at Constantinople.
73. 167The end of a letter; then Gregory longs to see Sophronius again, tells Amazonius he bears everything except separation from friends, and begins a note to Leontius.
74. 169Gregory tells Leontius his illness freed him from the bishops' quarrels; then congratulates a prefect of Constantinople and regrets his own brief time there; then greets Heracleianus.
75. 171Gregory asks the town council to exempt the poor deacon Theotecnus, who serves the martyrs' shrine, from the tax on trades; then he praises Homophronius's retirement.
76. 173Gregory thanks Gigantius for his invitation and his orthodoxy, rejoicing that he was made a herald of the Trinity, but illness and winter keep him from coming.
77. 175Gregory writes to Cledonius, who looked after the Church of Nazianzus, protesting that the Apollinarians are stealing his flock and falsely claiming that he shares their views.
78. 177Gregory challenges the Apollinarians' claim to have been received by the Western synod, and sets out the faith: one and the same Christ, God before the ages and at the end also man, with anathemas against those who deny Mary is Theotokos.
79. 179Gregory's anathemas continue: against two Sons, against a Christ indwelt only by grace, against refusing worship to the Crucified, and against adoptionism; Christ is one, of two natures.
80. 181Gregory rejects the view that Christ has put off his flesh: he will return in the body, as seen at the Transfiguration.
81. 183Gregory argues that Christ assumed a complete human nature, mind included, since the whole of Adam fell and the whole must be saved; intelligible realities can coexist without crowding one another.
82. 185Gregory answers the objection that two perfect things cannot coexist: the human mind, perfect in its own order, is subordinate to God, as a torch is absorbed in a bonfire.
83. 187Gregory argues that the mind, which first sinned in Adam, most needed salvation and so was assumed by Christ; the Apollinarians misread “the Word became flesh”.
84. 189Gregory explains that “the Word became flesh” names the whole man by a part, as Scripture often does, and means that Christ took up our condition, as he is said to have become sin and a curse.
85. 191Gregory rejects the Apollinarians' expectation of a restored Judaism and their graded Trinity (great, greater, greatest), confessing Father, Son and Spirit as one in nature, essence and power.
86. 193Gregory ends his first letter to Cledonius, mocking the Apollinarians' new psalms; in a second letter he declares he holds the faith of Nicaea, adding that the Holy Spirit is God.
87. 195Gregory tells Cledonius to hold communion only with those who confess the Spirit as God and one Son, not two, and explains how the Apollinarians use orthodox words with a different sense.
88. 197Gregory shows how the Apollinarians misread “the mind of Christ”, “he became man” and “in the likeness of men”, at times making Christ's flesh gross and carnal, at times a mere appearance.
89. 199Gregory explains why Damasus condemned Vitalius's confession, and ridicules the Apollinarian slogan “not a God-bearing man but a flesh-bearing God”, as if the faith were only thirty years old.
90. 201Gregory turns the Apollinarians' charge back on them: they themselves divide Christ's human and divine acts, yet accuse him of dividing the union; he insists he longs for peace.
91. 203Gregory again commends young Euphemius to Palladius; then he brings the widow Philumena before the governor Olympius, asking him to help widows and orphans.
92. 205Gregory ends his plea for Philumena; then, too ill to come, he asks Olympius to deal gently with a man named Paul who has been brought before him.
93. 207Gregory explains to friends the Lenten silence he has undertaken: it teaches measure in speech, tames anger, and teaches silence by example.
94. 209Gregory, keeping his Lenten silence, invites Eulalius to share their disciplines; then he writes to the judge Celeusius, rebuking him for not fasting and for putting on shameful shows.
95. 211Gregory tells the fable of the chattering swallows rebuked by the silent swans, to answer a critic of his Lenten silence: swans sing when jackdaws are silent.
96. 213Gregory, ending his silence, plans to visit a community and answer those who misread him; then he tells a friend he longs to speak with him, offering his first words to the Word.
97. 215Gregory, after many Easters, longs to leave the Egypt of this life for the promised land, and asks his correspondents to give his Church a bishop chosen by the Spirit.
98. 217The end of an invitation to a church festival, and a note excusing Gregory, ill in stormy weather, from attending.
99. 219Gregory, ill and at the hot springs, asks the governor Olympius to punish the Apollinarians, who have set up a bishop of their own at Nazianzus in defiance of the imperial laws.
100. 221Gregory asks the governor to release his nephew Nicobulus, who is in poor health and nurses Gregory, from the burden of running a station of the public post.
101. 223The end of a letter commending a disabled man; then Gregory, bedridden, begs a governor to release the deacon Eugenius, accused because of his connection with one Rhegianus.
102. 225Gregory declines the emperor's summons to a synod: he has never seen a synod end well, and his illness keeps him at home.
103. 227The end of a letter asking an official to confirm to the emperor that Gregory is too ill to attend the synod.
104. 229Gregory asks Saturninus, a Christian official, to write to him and to help bring the new synod to a peaceful settlement.
105. 231Gregory urges an official to reconcile the divided Churches, having himself withdrawn like Jonah to calm the storm; then he asks the Gothic general Modarius to work for peace at the synod.
106. 233Gregory commends the soldier Theodore, the bearer of the letter, to the general Modarius.
107. 235The end of a letter about the neglected Church of Nazianzus; then Gregory writes to a newly appointed bishop, explaining that he had left Nazianzus because he was never its bishop and was ill.
108. 237Gregory explains that, under pressure and with the Church in danger, he has given way and will care for Nazianzus for the present.
109. 239The end of a plea for a deserter; then Gregory pleads with the governor Olympius not to strip Diocaesarea of its rank as a city after a riot, letting the city itself beg for its life.
110. 241Gregory asks the governor to punish the guilty but pardon the city of Diocaesarea, whose citizens rioted in grief at losing its status, for the sake of all its people and its church.
111. 243The end of Gregory's plea for Diocaesarea; then a further letter begging Olympius to spare the town councillors and others implicated in the riot.
112. 245Gregory asks a governor to remit the rest of the punishment of Leontius, a former presbyter, for the sake of God and the clergy.
113. 247Gregory tells the governor he opposes the divorce; then he writes to the father, refusing to help ratify the divorce sought by a father for his daughter: the Church's law forbids it, and he will believe the daughter only when she can speak freely.
114. 249Gregory, having often asked favours for others, now hesitantly asks one for his own family.
115. 251The end of a letter; then Gregory asks Asterius to protect his nephew Nicobulus, accused because of what his young slaves had done.
116. 253Gregory again asks Asterius to help Nicobulus, apologizing for his many letters: harbours are for the storm-tossed and medicine for the sick.
117. 255The end of a letter ordering an inquiry into an injury charged against a deacon; then Gregory commends the deacon George to Asterius; then begins a letter to Nectarius.
118. 257Gregory commends George to Nectarius; then he appeals to the metropolitan bishop for help, since the Church of Nazianzus is without a bishop and the Apollinarians are active.
119. 259Gregory threatens to announce publicly that Nazianzus needs a bishop; then he tells Bosporius he will no longer be deceived and will withdraw to God; then he praises Olympius after his term of office.
120. 261Gregory laments the departure of the governor Olympius, under whom his province had prospered, and wishes him a greater office.
121. 263Gregory praises Asterius as the governor's indispensable helper, like Iolaus to Heracles; then he tells Bishop Theodore bitterly that he will trouble him no more about church affairs.
122. 265Gregory asks Theodore to look after Nicobulus's sons, who have come to the city to learn shorthand, and to lodge them near the church.
123. 267Gregory asks a bishop to protect the dedicated virgin Eugenia in a dispute over a legacy left by her nurse, and promises to accept his judgment.
124. 269Gregory insists that the case concerns him too, since Christ is not divided, and asks the bishop to judge with him and defend his weakness.
125. 271Gregory tells a bishop that George, who broke a written oath, has been brought to repentance, and asks him to impose a penance whose length matches his compunction.
126. 273The end of a letter urging a bishop to fight for the Trinity; then Gregory rebukes a grieving friend for mourning without philosophy, urging the middle way between insensibility and excess.
127. 275Gregory ends his consolation: the Christian lives elsewhere, counting only vice grievous and only virtue and closeness to God sweet.
128. 277Gregory commends young Nicobulus to Helladius, bishop of Caesarea, asking him to introduce him to good teachers and to shape his character.
129. 279Gregory commends the presbyter Sacerdos to two friends; then he asks Bishop Amphilochius to pray for him and loose his sins when he consecrates the Eucharist.
130. 281Gregory thanks Helladius for his Easter letter and gifts, and asks him to pray that he may either keep the feast again or pass to the true feast in heaven.
131. 283Gregory congratulates the prefect Postumianus, a Christian before he took office, and urges him to bring the Churches to peace at the coming synod.
132. 285Gregory urges the rhetor Eudoxius, son of his old friend, to write to him and to take good care of Nicobulus's sons, whom he is teaching.
133. 287Gregory teases Eudoxius for not writing, perhaps out of pique at some lampoons, and again entrusts young Nicobulus to his teaching.
134. 289The end of a letter to Eudoxius; then another urging him, by the Athenian custom of letting the young choose their craft, to follow philosophy, to which he is suited by nature.
135. 291Gregory lists the signs that Eudoxius is suited to philosophy rather than rhetoric, and urges him to leave behind the empty glory of this life.
136. 293Gregory urges Eudoxius to choose God above all, since the prize of virtue is to become god and to be lit by the light of the Trinity.
137. 295Gregory praises a young man who lives as a philosopher without professing it; then he commends a learned friend to the general Saturninus.
138. 297Gregory announces that Eulalius has been made bishop of Nazianzus, and answers objections that a bishop cannot be ordained in the lifetime of another: Gregory was bishop of Sasima, not Nazianzus.
139. 299Gregory asks a bishop to stop Helladius's hostile interference over Nazianzus, explaining that illness alone made him ask the bishops of his country to give the Church its own bishop.
140. 301Gregory asks that Bishop Bosporius, accused of false doctrine in a dispute over parishes, be judged fairly; the following letter to Amphilochius is unreadable in the scan.
141. 303Gregory asks Nectarius of Constantinople to settle the dispute over parishes himself and not let Bishop Bosporius's orthodoxy be tried in the civil courts.
142. 305The end of the letter to Nectarius; then Gregory asks a powerful friend to help his widowed niece, harassed by her relatives, quickly.
143. 307The end of a letter reproaching a rhetor for failing to write a funeral speech and promising to believe his praise of young Nicobulus when he sees it; then Gregory commends Nicobulus to the sophist Stagirius.
144. 309Gregory answers a sophist who complains that young Nicobulus was sent to his rival Stagirius: it was the boy's and his father's choice.
145. 311Gregory rebukes the quarrelling sophists, grown men who trade insults like rams and set a bad example to their students, and blames the audiences who applaud them.
146. 313Gregory, abused by a sophist he had admonished, says he minds less the abuse than the suspicion that he did not act out of friendship.
147. 315Gregory urges a sophist to treat young Nicobulus well and to stop the war of tongues with his rival, which teaches the young vice.
148. 317Gregory congratulates a friend on the marriage of a second daughter, excusing his absence by illness and offering his prayers as his wedding gift.
149. 319Gregory commends to a governor the orphaned sons and widow of the elder Nicobulus, whose house is under attack after his death.
150. 321The end of a plea for orphans; then Gregory consoles Gregory of Nyssa on the death of Theosebia, praising her as the boast of the Church.
151. 323Gregory ends his tribute to Theosebia, hoping not to be long separated from his friend in death; then he asks the governor Nemesius not to fine his relative Valentinian.
152. 325Gregory asks Nemesius, as judge or as friend, to remit Valentinian's fine of two horses, adding that the man has also suffered an accident.
153. 327The end of the plea for Valentinian; then Gregory regrets that Nemesius, now at leisure, cannot visit him, and hopes he will become a Christian; then a note complaining that Nemesius passed by without stopping.
154. 329The end of a letter asking Nemesius at least to write; then the heading of Gregory's letter to Nectarius against the Apollinarians.
155. 331Gregory complains to Nectarius that Arians, Macedonians and Eunomians trouble the Church, but worst of all the Apollinarians, whose pamphlet teaches that Christ's flesh existed in heaven before the ages.
156. 333Gregory reports that Apollinarius denies Christ a human mind and makes the Godhead itself mortal, and urges Nectarius to persuade the emperor to withdraw the Apollinarians' right of assembly.
157. 335Gregory protests to a kinsman who has settled women next to his retreat at Karbala: in effect he is driven out, and he warns him to respect the martyrs' shrine there.
158. 339The end of a letter, perhaps proposing a marriage alliance, in which Gregory offers his family's faithfulness and prays God to guide the decision.
159. 341Gregory sternly rebukes a young man of good family who is squandering his estate on women and has carried off virgins consecrated to God.
160. 343Gregory, too ill to come, commends to the official Jacob the widow Simplicia, wife of the late Alypius, who must travel to plead for her orphaned children.
161. 345Gregory asks an official, a kinsman of Alypius's family, to help the widow of Alypius in caring for her orphans.
162. 347Gregory asks a friend abroad to send back a lady who supports him; then he asks Cyriacus to protect the estates that support the poorhouse run by Sacerdos.
163. 349Short letters to a young monk: to possess God and be possessed by him is the first good; and he must endure the trials he should have expected when he took up the ascetic life.
164. 351Gregory consoles Sacerdos, removed from his work for the poor: let him practise another philosophy of contemplation and not, like an untrained colt, be thrown by trouble.
165. 353Gregory invites a young monk who has quarrelled with Sacerdos to come and accept his mediation; then he rebukes him frankly for acting first and deliberating afterwards.
166. 355Gregory explains that his rough letter was meant to train, not frighten, the young monk, welcomes his wish to meet, and urges reconciliation with Sacerdos.
167. 357Gregory urges the young monk to resist the devil's first assault; then he asks Bishop Helladius to restore Sacerdos to his work, or at least leave him the care of his monastery.
168. 359Gregory begs Helladius to lay aside his anger against Sacerdos and treat him as a son; then, in a further letter, he sends Sacerdos himself to answer the charges.
169. 361Gregory, too ill to attend a gathering at Sacerdos's monastery, encourages the community and asks that Sacerdos bear his trial with philosophy and keep serving the bishop.
170. 363A badly damaged page of a letter of consolation, apparently on deaths in the family of Thecla, urging acceptance of God's economy.
171. 365Gregory consoles a grieving woman: remembering God turns pain to joy, and those who chose the ascetic life expected affliction, not prosperity.
172. 367Gregory ends his consolation, urging the grieving woman to be an example of endurance, and prays to see her again.
173. 369Gregory asks the general Hellebichus to release from military service Mamas, a soldier's son who has become a reader in the Church.
174. 371Gregory rejoices that the deacon Evagrius is advancing in the ascetic life, and that through him he has gained a new friend.
175. 373Gregory celebrates the marriage that joins his family with a friend's; then, absent through illness from Eusebius's daughter's wedding, he sends a blessing from the Psalms as his wedding song.
176. 375Gregory, uninvited to a wedding, sends his advice that Christ be present and that Christian weddings be dignified; then he warns Ablabius against becoming a mere sophist.
177. 377Gregory playfully asks the official Olympianus to return the volume of Aristotle's letters lest it look like a bribe, and asks him to write in return.
178. 379The end of a letter about books bought for a price; a note to Libanius in a mother's name sending him her son; a note to Macedonius returning a psalm-singer; and the beginning of a letter consoling the community of Leucadius on his death.
179. 381Gregory consoles the monks and virgins of Leucadius's community: they should rejoice, and keep his memory alive by copying his virtues in one another; then a short note to Epiphanius.
180. 383Gregory rouses an old friend from long silence, recalling their former circle; then congratulates an official whose travels on army supply have brought him before the emperor.
181. 385After the opening words of a letter that Migne does not print, Gregory gives Basilissa a list of precepts for the Christian life: self-control, justice, contentment and thankfulness to Providence.
182. 387Gregory ends his precepts to Basilissa: true wealth is needing little, and a woman's proper adornment is modesty, dignity and self-control.