Gre

for the many and great miracles wrought by him.* gory's parents were Gentiles." As soon as Origen saw Gregory (when a youth), and his brother Athenodorus, he neglected no means to inspire them with a love of philosophy, as a foundation of true religion and piety. Of Origen they learned logic, physics, geometry, astronomy, ethics. He encouraged them in reading of all sorts of ancient authors, poets, and philosophers, whether Greeks or barbarians, restraining them from none but such as denied a Deity or a Providence, from whom no possible advantage could be obtained." From Gregory of Nyssa, in Cappadocia, who flourished about a hundred years after this Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dr. Lardner transcribes the most material things of his life. Nyssen says, that Gregory studied secular learning for some time at Alexandria, where there was a great resort of youth from all parts for the sake of philosophy and medicine. Our young Gregory was even then distinguished by the sobriety and discretion which appeared in his conduct. "A lewd woman having been employed by some idle people to disgrace him by indirect but impudent insinuations, his reputation was vindicated in a remarkable manner, for the woman was immediately seized with such horrible fits, as demonstrated them to be a judgment of heaven: nor was she relieved from the demon that had taken possession of her, till Gregory had interceded with God for her, and obtained the pardon of her fault." This miracle occurred while Gregory was yet a heathen-" his family however, was rich and noble." His ordination to the

Christian ministry, it seems, took place even before his conversion to Christianity. "Phedimus, Bishop of Amasea, knowing the worth of this young man, and being grieved that a person of such accomplishments should live useless in the world, was desirous to consecrate him to God and his church;" but "Gregory was shy of such a charge, and industriously concealed himself from the bishop, whose

* Lardner, vol. i. p. 243. I punctiliously give the words of Lardner, that the reader may see with what a grace this rational Socinian grapples with miracles which he cannot believe, and dare not deny.

+ This philosophy, which we meet with at every turn, as always constituting the basis of the Christian religion; this Alexandria, always the centre and nursery of this philosophy; these congresses of lazy pedants in universities, where young men are to be trained, and broken in to the business of becoming impostors themselves in their turn, are matters, at the least infinitely suspectable. Honesty never needed them! Compare p. 314 and 319, in this DIEGESIS. Justin, Melito &c. all professors in like manner of this Eclectic philosophy.

design he was aware of. At length, Phedimus, tired of his fruitless attempts to meet Gregory, and being blessed with the gift of foreknowledge, consecrated him to God, though bodily absent, assigning him also a city which till that time was so addicted to idolatry, that in it, and in all the country round about, there were not above seventeen believers. Gregory was then at the distance of three days journey. He only desired of him by whom he had been ordained, a short time to prepare himself for the office, nor had he courage to undertake the work of preaching, till he had been informed of the truth by revelation. And while he was engaged in deep meditation, he had a magnificent and awful vision in his chamber." The Virgin Mary, and St. John the beloved disciple, appeared to him, "encompassed also by a bright light too strong for him to look upon directly. He heard these persons discourse together about the doctrines in which he desired to be informed, and he perceived who they were, for they called each other by name; and the Virgin desired that John the Evangelist would teach that young man the Mystery of Piety, and he replied, that he was not unwilling to do what was desired by the mother of our Lord. John then gave the instruction he wanted, which, when they had disappeared, Gregory wrote down. According to that faith he always preached; and left it with his church as an invaluable treasure, by which means his people from that time to this, were preserved from all heretical pravity."

Then follows the stupendous miracle, which I find quoted in Middleton's Free Inquiry, which I here abridge as much as possible:

The holy Gregory, in travelling to take possession of his bishopric, was overtaken by a storm and benighted, so that for shelter he was obliged to spend the night in one of the heathen temples; in consequence of which, when the priest came to perform their idolatrous rites the next morning," he was answered by the demon, that he could no more appear in that place, because of him who had lodged there the foregoing night. The priest greatly enraged at this, pursued Gregory, and threatened to inform the magistrates against him; but Gregory told the priest, that" God had given him such divine power, that "he could expel demons from any place and re-admit them as he saw fit and as a demonstration of such power, he took a slip of paper and wrote upon it the words' Gregory

to Satan: Enter" This paper being laid upon the altar, and the accustomed Paganish rites performed, the demon appeared as usual; which so convinced the Pagan priest of the superior power possessed by Christians, that he left the service of Satan, and became a minister of Jesus Christ, and was afterwards one of Gregory's deacons.But some doubts still remaining, Gregory wrought another evident miracle-at his command a large heavy stone lying before them, moved as if it had life, and settled itself in the place Gregory directed.".

A

Again, there were two brothers at variance with each other, whom Gregory could by no means reconcile. certain lake was the matter in dispute. When they were about to decide the cause by arms, Gregory went to the lake the night before, and at his prayers it was dried up; so that there was no lake left for them to contend for.

Again :-"The river Sycus often overflowing, to the great damage of the neighbouring country, at the desire of the people who suffered by its inundations, Gregory prescribed its proper limits, which it never passed afterwards."

"After his return to Neocæsarea, Gregory cured a young. man possessed of a demon; and a great many people were delivered from demons, and released of their diseases by only having a piece of linen brought to them, which had been breathed upon by him."

After these, and several other maryellous relations of the same sort, and some trifling objections started against them, it is of importance that the reader should be aware, that it is none other than the judicious and learned Dr. Lardner himself, who is driven to the distress of having to

say

"I do not intend to deny that Gregory wrought miracles; for I suppose he did, as I shall acknowledge more particularly by and bye. Nevertheless, there is no harm in making these remarks, if they are just, or in showing that Nyssen's relations are defective, and want some tokens of credibility with which we should have been mightily pleased.”

Gregory's works are, a panegyrical oration in praise of Origen, pronounced in 239, still extant, and unquestionably his. Dupin says that it is very eloquent, and that it may be reckoned one of the finest pieces of rhetoric in all antiquity—a paraphrase of the book of Ecclesiastes, and that self-same creed or copy of the faith which we may

believe he copied immediately from the dictation of St. John.

"His history, as delivered by authors of the fourth and following centuries, particularly by Nyssen, it is to be feared, has in it somewhat of fiction; but," adds Dr. Lardner-(yes, they are the very words of Lardner himself)"there can be no reasonable doubt made but he was very successful in making converts to Christianity in the country of Pontus, about the middle of the third century; and that beside his natural and acquired abilities, he was favoured with extraordinary gifts of the spirit, and wrought miracles of surprising power. The plain and express testimonies of Basil and others, at no great distance of time and place from Gregory, must be reckoned sufficient grounds of credit with regard to these things. The extraordinary gifts of the spirit had not then entirely ceased; but Gregory was favoured with such gifts greatly beyond the common measure of other Christians or bishops at that season. Yet, as St. Jerom intimates, it is likely that he was more famous for his signs and wonders than his writings."*

With respect to Gregory's appointing anniversary festivals and solemnities in honour of the martyrs of his diocese, (as I have already given the important passage from Mosheim, in the chapter of Admissions,†) Dr. Lardner contends against it, that he is "unwilling to take this particular upon the credit of Nyssen; because this childish method of making converts appears unworthy of so wise and good a man as Gregory. Nor is it likely that those festivals should be instituted by one who had the gift of miracles, and therefore a much better way of bringing men to religion and virtue." See all these passages, purporting to be from Dr. Lardner's immortal work on the Credibility of the Gospel History, in his first volume, under the article St. Gregory of Neocæsarea. I have selected this Life of Pope Gregory the Wonder-worker, not so much to show the picture as the painter; and to set before my readers a demonstration of the important and consequential fact, that the ablest and most rational advocate of Christianity, is, in its vindication, driven on the necessity of using a sort of language which, on any other theme than that, he

*His writings are not to be disparaged, since they afford the clearest evidence of the genuineness of his miracles, by proving that he was no conjuror. + See DIEGESIS, p. 48.

would have been ashamed of. We see the most eminent of all writers on the Christian evidences, driven to the God-help-us of subscribing to a belief in the most ridiculous and contemptible miracles, rather than he will accept, even from his own authorities, the clear and natural solution of the difficulty-even that he who was ordained a Christian bishop, while yet he continued a Pagan, should have owed his success in converting others to the same - slide-the-butcher system which had been so successfully practieed on himself; that is, letting them continue Pagans all the while, only calling them Christians.

From the short notice which Socrates has of this Father, it should seem that the Holy Ghost was somewhat premature in his gifts to Gregory, since he got possession of the power of working miracles before he became a convert to the Christian faith: "being yet a layman, he wrought many miracles, he cured the sick, chased away devils by his epistles, and converted the Gentiles and Ethnics unto the faith, not only with words, but by deeds of a far greater force."*

ST. CYPRIAN, A. D. 248.

Bishop of Carthage.

Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus was an African, who was converted from Paganism to Christianity, in the year 246, and suffered martyrdom in the year 258. So that the greatest part of his life was spent in heathenism. Cyprian had a good estate, which he sold and gave to the poor immediately upon his conversion. His advancement to the highest offices of the church was strikingly rapid; he was made presbyter the year after his conversion, and bishop of Carthage, the year after that. And let it not seem invidious to state, what may be a characteristic truth, in the words of Dr. Lardner himself, "The estate which Cyprian had sold for the benefit of the poor, was by some favourable providence restored to him again." He was bishop of a most flourishing church, the metropolis of a province, and neither in fame nor fortune a loser by his conversion.

There can be no just grounds to disparage the renown of his martyrdom: which though unquestionably dis* Socrates Scholast. lib. 4, c. 22.