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 there being only 17 Christians in the whole region (Greg. Nys. Vita Thaum.; Migne, Patr. Gk. xlvi. 954). The extraordinary success of the episcopal labours of the young missionary and the romantic details with which later hands embellished them secured for him the well-known title of Thaumaturgus. This repute cannot be set down as exclusively due to the credulousness of the age, for as Lardner (Cred. ii.42, § 5) remarked, besides Gregory of Nyssa, such writers as Basil, Jerome, and Theodoret distinguished him, as above others, "a man of apostolic signs and wonders" (cf. Dr. J. H. Newman, Essays on Miracles, p. 263). No light is thrown upon his thaumaturgic renown by his extant writings, which are conspicuous for their philosophic tone, humility, self-distrust, and practical sense. He must have been a man of singular force of character and weighty judgment. Heretics claimed the sanction of his name for their speculations, thus indirectly revealing the confidence in which he was held by all parties.

Gregory (originally Theodorus) stated that his father died and he himself passed through a remarkable spiritual crisis in his 14th year. He attributed the change of sentiment to "the Divine Logos, the Angel of the counsel of God, and the common Saviour of all." He left it, however, doubtful in what precisely the change consisted. His mother having suggested the pursuit of rhetoric, he was advised to study specially Roman law and become an alumnus of the celebrated school of jurisprudence at Berytus in Syria. His sister needed an escort to Palestine to join her husband in his high position under the Roman governor at Caesarea. The young Gregory and his brother Athenodorus took this opportunity to travel. "My guardian angel" (says he) "on our arrival at Caesarea handed us over to the care and tuition of Origen," and the brothers, abandoning their journey, remained there under the personal spell of the teacher for five years. The mental processes by which Gregory was led to Christ throw considerable light on the mind of Origen and the methods of Christian education in the 3rd cent. These details are preserved in a panegyric on Origen, which before leaving Caesarea the young student pronounced to a great assembly in the presence of his master. They differ in several particulars from the account of Gregory of Nyssa (Greg. Nys. Vita Thaum.; Migne, Patr. Gk. vol. xlvi. pp. 893–958). According to Gregory's own statements (Orat. de Orig. c. vi.), Origen enticed his pupils first to the study of philosophy, which he recommended as a duty to the Lord of all, "since man alone of all creatures is deemed by his Creator as worthy to pursue it." "A thoughtful man, if pious, must philosophize," says he, so "at length, like some spark lighting on our soul, love was kindled and burst into flame within us, a love to the Holy Logos, the most lovely object of all, Who attracts all to Himself by His unutterable beauty." "only one object seemed worthy of pursuit, philosophy and the master of philosophy, this divine (θεῖος) man." His love to Origen was like that of Jonathan for David. Gregory praises Origen for his Socratic discipline, and for the way in which his teacher probed his inmost soul with questions, pruned his native wildness and repressed his exuberance. He was taught to interrogate his consciousness, and critically to investigate reasonings and the meanings of words. Origen accustomed his pupils first to the dialectic method of inquiry, and then, in Aristotelian fashion, fed them to contemplate the "magnitude, the wondrousness, the magnificent, and absolutely wise construction of the world." He seems to have followed (strangely enough) the order of the sciences in Comte's classification of the branches of human knowledge. Thus, he began with "the immutable foundation of all, geometry, and then" (says Gregory) "by astronomy he lifted us up to the things highest above us." He reduced things to their "pristine elements," "going over the nature of the whole and of each several section," "he filled our minds with a rational, instead of an irrational, wonder at the sacred oeconomy of the universe and the irreprovable constitution of all things." These words and much more that might be quoted from the Panegyric are a strange comment on the thaumaturgic actions freely attributed to Gregory. Morals followed physics, and emphasis is laid by Gregory on the practical experience by which Origen desired his pupils to verify all theories, "stimulating us by the deeds he did more than by the doctrines he taught." He urged the study of Grecian philosophy for the direct culture of their moral nature. The end of the entire discipline was "nothing but this: By the pure mind make thyself like to God, that thou mayest draw near to Him and abide in Him." Origen advised Gregory to study all the writings of the philosophers and poets of old, except the Atheists, and gave reasons for a catholic and liberal eclecticism, and, with a modern spirit, disclaimed the force of prejudice and the misery of half-truths and of fixed ideas, and the advantage of "selecting all that was useful and true in all the various philosophers, and putting aside all that was false." Gregory says of his master: "That leader of all (ἀρχηγὸς πάντων) who speaks in undertones (ὑπηχῶν) to God's dear prophets and suggests to them all their prophecy and their mystic and divine word, has so honoured this man Origen as a friend as to appoint him to be their interpreter." Evidently to Gregory the gift of interpretation was as much a divine charisma as prophecy itself. So great were the joys thus placed within his reach that he adds with rapture, "He was truly a paradise to us, after the similitude of the Paradise of God." He regrets his departure from Caesarea, as Adam might bewail his expulsion from Eden, having to eat of the soil, to contend with thorns and thistles, and dwell in darkness, weeping and mourning. He says, "I go away of my own will, and not by constraint, and by my own act I am dispossessed, when it is in my option to remain."

The influence of Origen's teaching upon Gregory and Athenodorus is confirmed by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 30), who adds that "they made such improvement that both, though very young, were honoured with the episcopate in the churches of Pontus."

Gregory of Nyssa describes Gregory of Neocaesarea as spending much time in Alexandria,