Funeral Oration on Meletius

Contents

1. 851Gregory mourns Meletius as a new apostle whose death leaves the church orphaned in a time of heretical war, contrasting this funeral speech with the wedding joy of an earlier gathering.
2. 853Gregory turns the earlier wedding joy into lament, pictures the church as a wrecked ship that has lost its helmsman, and asks the hearers to weep with the mourners as Egypt wept for Jacob.
3. 855Gregory praises Meletius in the words used of Job, mourns Antioch's loss of its head, and compares him to the ark of the covenant with all its contents.
4. 857Gregory contrasts the costly burial gifts with the dead bones they hold, likens the church of Antioch to a bereaved widow, and recalls Meletius's virtues and his three exiles during which the church kept faith with him.
5. 859Gregory recalls how Meletius blessed the church as Christ blessed the wedding at Cana, then laments his death with the words of Jeremiah and of Psalm 137, applied to the confusion of heresy.
6. 861Gregory checks his grief: Meletius now stands before God as a priest within the veil, freed from the body like a bird from the snare, and Gregory tells the bearers of his body to report the vast funeral procession at Constantinople.
7. 863Gregory ends by mentioning the emperor's grief and asking the bishops to comfort the mourners with the spiritual wine of the word.