Gregory Nazianzen was, by his own account, born about 330, at Arianzus, a village near Nazianzus, in Cappadocia, not far from Cæsarea. His father, whose name also was Gregory, and who had originally belonged to the heathen sect of Hypsitarians, worshippers of the Most High, but also of the fire, like the Persians, and keepers of the Jewish Sabbath and the law of the purity of meats, had, chiefly through the influence of his pious wife Nonna, become a convert to Christianity about the time of the great Nicene Council (325), and four years later was raised to the dignity of Bishop of Nazianzus. Formed to piety by domestic example, Gregory was at an early age sent to Cæsarea in Palestine, where the study of eloquence then flourished. He next attended the schools of Alexandria, and subsequently (about 348 to 358) of Athens, where he met Basil the Great, then also a young student, and became his most intimate friend. At the same time there studied at Athens Julian, later emperor and apostate, and there is no doubt that the three often met and had friendly discussions on the subjects of their common studies; although Gregory, even at that time, angured no good for Julian, who exhibited signs of 'an unsettled and arrogant mind.' Gregory, having made brilliant progress in eloquence, philosophy, and sacred literature, returned to Nazianzus, and in 360 received baptism at the hands of his own father, consecrating to God, at the same time, all 'his goods, his glory, his health, his tongue, and his talents;' and, in order to be still more able to pursue a life of austere devotion, he took up his abode with Basil in the desert near the river Iris, in Pontus. Recalled by his father, Gregory was ordained priest, but afterwards fled. Being recalled a second time, he returned to Nazianzus, assisted his father in the ministry, and preached to the people. In 371 or 372 St Basil, who in the meantime had become Bishop of Cæsarea, prevailed upon him to accept the see of Sasima, a small town in Cappadocia. But he had scarcely taken possession of his new dignity, when, overcome again by his innate repugnance to public life, he retired, a bishop without a bishopric, to Nazianzus, where he stayed until the death of his father in 374. He then went into a monastery at Seleucia, which, however, after the death of the Emperor Valens (378), he was induced to leave, in order to undertake the charge of a small Nicene congregation in Constantinople, where until then Arianism had held undisputed sway. Gregory was after a short time, when his erudition and eloquence became conspicuous, elected archbishop, upon which the Arians became so exasperated that his very life was in danger. Gregory, although upheld by Pope Damasus and the Emperor Theodosius, preferred resigning his see voluntarily, 'in order to lay the storm, like another Jonah, although he had not excited it.' He went back to Nazianzus, and took up his solitary abode near Arianzus, where, after some years of a most ascetic life, he died in 389. His ashes were conveyed to Constantinople, and thence, during the Crusades, to Rome. His day is, with the Latins, the 9th of May. His character and temper, ardent and enthusiastic, but at the same time dreamy and melancholy, hard, but also tender, ambitious and yet humble, and all his instability and vacillation between a life of contemplation and of action, are vividly depicted in his writings. These mostly serve the great aim of his life—to uphold the integrity of Nicene orthodoxy against the heresies of the Arians and Apollinarists. The merits of his writings are very unequal, sometimes rising to sublime flights of poetical genius, and displaying classical elegance and refinement, at other times redundant, pedantic, and heavy with far-fetched similes. Yet Gregory may fairly be pronounced one of the first orators and most accomplished and thoughtful writers of all times. His surviving works consist chiefly of about 45 sermons, 243 letters, and 407 poems (dogmatic and moral poems, prayers and hymns, autobiographic and historical poems, epitaphs, and epigrams). The poems were separately printed in a beautiful Aldine edition at Venice in 1504. The first edition of his complete works appeared at Basel in 1550, folio. All the earlier editions were set aside by the great and long-delayed edition that appeared under the auspices of the Benedictines, in 2 vols. (Paris, 1778-1842). The first volume was finally edited by Clemencet; the second by Caillou. His separate works have frequently been edited, and partly translated into different tongues.
See monographs by Ullmann (1825; Eng. trans. 1851; 2d ed. Gotha, 1867) and by A. Benoit (Paris, 1876); and Montaut's Revue critique (1878).