Herald of the Word: Gregory of Nazianzus Evoking Christ

Herald of the Word: Gregory of Nazianzus Evoking Christ' is a study of Gregory's speaking of Jesus Christ with particular attention to its autobiographical features. When Gregory speaks of Christ, he does so through reflection on his own life. His rhetoric, which frequently includes mixture terms to describe the Incarnation, evokes the blending not only of divinity and humanity in Jesus, but also of the Savior's life with his own. The intermingling in Gregory's baptismal union with the Word incarnate fosters his personal devotion and public proclamation of the mystery of Christ. When we attend to this context, we gain a fuller and more vibrant picture of Gregory's Christology than what has previously been drawn. Eight chapters guide our study. Chapter 1 puts Gregory's Christology in perspective by reviewing modern scholarship, traditions that hail Gregory as a doctrinal authority, and sources for Gregory's thought. Chapter 2 then argues that Gregory's love for the logos reveals his encompassing Christological view of such topics as classical literary form, philosophy, rhetoric, Scripture, and the Trinity. Attending to Gregory's ways of writing about himself, Chapter 3 highlights the frequent evocation of Christ in his autobiographical poetry. Chapter 4 elucidates the distinctive significance of Gregory's mixture language for how he understands the mystery of his own humanity and the mystery of Christ's Incarnation which saves him. Chapter 5 studies Gregory's most renowned Christological text, Ep. 101, within the complex set of issues sparked by the Apollinarian controversy. Gregory's celebration of the mysteries of Christ and of his own incorporation in them is examined in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 highlights the significance of his attention to the blend of Christ and himself for the Church's ministry at his time. Chapter 8 briefly summarizes the dissertation and states four theses of what can be gained by this exploration for ministry today. This exposition demonstrates the fundamentally autobiographical basis of Gregory's Christology, in order to enrich the long-disputed quest to understand his perplexing teaching on Christ. The study thus offers a key to open up a new view of Gregory's contribution to the Christian reflection on Jesus.