Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/424

 ity as the religion of the state. Gregory encouraged the reading of the Holy Scriptures, both of the O. and N. T. He wrote letters to St. James of Nisibis, requesting him to compose homilies on faith, love, and other virtues. In 325 Gregory is said to have been summoned to the council of Nicaea, but, being himself unable to go, sent his son, who brought back the decrees for the Armenian church. The venerable patriarch greatly rejoiced on reading them, and exclaimed, "Now let us praise Him Who was before the worlds, worshipping the most Holy Trinity and the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and ever, world without end, Amen," which words are said after the Nicene Creed in the Armenian church (Malan. p. 327, n.). After filling the country with churches and ministers, schools and convents, he retired in 331 to lead a solitary life among the caves of Manyea in the province of Taran, having previously consecrated his son Arisdages bishop in his stead. Gregory died in the wilderness 332, and the shepherds, finding his dead body without knowing whose it was, erected over it a cairn of stones.

The Bollandists have printed Agathangelos and other Lives of Gregory. Acta SS. viii. Sept. pp. 295–413; Basil. Men. Sept. 30, in Migne, ''Patr. Gk. cxvii.; Le Quien, Or. Chr.'' i. 1355, 1371. In honour of her founder the Armenian church has been called the Armeno-Gregorian. Saint-Martin (Mém. sur l᾿Arménie, i. 436) and Langlois (Historiens, ii. 387) date his consecration 276.

[L.D.]

Gregorius (8), the Cappadocian, appointed by Arianizing bishops at Antioch in the beginning of 340—not, apparently, of 339, as the Festal Index says, and clearly not at the Dedication Festival in 341 as Socrates says (ii. 20)—to supersede Athanasius in the see of Alexandria. A student in the schools of Alexandria, he had received kindness from Athanasius (Greg. Naz. Orat. xxi. 15). He arrived on Mar. 23 (cf. Fest. Ind.), Athanasius having retired into concealment. That Gregory was an Arian may be inferred from his appointment. Athanasius says, in an encyclical letter of the time, that his sympathy with the heresy was proved by the fact that only its supporters had demanded him, and that he employed as secretary one Ammon, who had been long before excommunicated by bp. Alexander for his impiety (Encycl. c. 7). Athanasius tells us that on Good Friday, Gregory having entered a church, the people shewed their abhorrence, whereupon he caused the prefect Philagrius publicly to scourge 34 virgins and married women and men of rank, and to imprison them. After Athanasius fled to Rome, Gregory became still more bitter (Athan. Hist. Ar. 13). We hear of him as "oppressing the city" in 341 (Fest. Ind.). Auxentius, afterwards Arian bp. of Milan, was ordained priest by him (Hilar. in Aux. 8). The council of Sardica, at the end of 343, pronounced him never to have been, in the church's eyes, a bishop (Hist. Ar. 17). He died, not by murder, as Theodoret says (ii. 4) through a confusion with George, but after a long illness (Fest. Ind.), about ten months after the exposure of the Arian plot against bp. Euphrates—i.e. c. Feb. 345. This date, gathered from Athanasius (Hist. Ar. 21) is preferable to that of the Index, Epiphi 2 = June 26, 346.

[W.B.]

Gregorius (12) Baeticus, St., bp. of Eliberi, Elvira, or Granada, c. 357–384; first mentioned as resisting the famous Hosius of Cordova, when under the persecution of Constantius Hosius gave way so far as to admit Arian bishops to communion with him. This must have been in or before 357, the year of Hosius's death. At the council of Ariminum Gregorius was one of the few bishops who adhered to the creed of Nicaea, and refused to hold communion with the Arian Valens, Ursacius, and their followers. Our authority for this is a letter to Gregorius by Eusebius of Vercellae from his exile in the Thebaid (printed among the works of St. Hilary of Poitiers, ii. 700, in Migne, Patr. Lat. x. 713). Eusebius there acknowledges letters he had received from Gregorius, giving an account of his conduct, and commends him highly for having acted as became a bishop. Gams, however (Kirchengesch. ii. 256–259, 279–282), maintains that Gregorius was one of the bishops who fell into heresy at Ariminum, and further identifies him with the Gregorius in the deputation sent by the council to Constantius and headed by Restitutus of Carthage, who assented to and subscribed an Arian formula of belief at Nice, in Thrace, Oct. 10, 359, and held communion with the Arian leaders, Valens, Ursacius, and others (St. Hilary of Poitiers, ex Opere Historico Fragmentum 8, in Migne, Patr. Lat. x. 702).

Gregorius is generally supposed to have been one of the leaders of the schism originated by Lucifer of Cagliari. This theory is supported by the terms of praise applied to him by the Luciferians Faustinus and Marcellus in their Libellus Precum ad Imperatores (c. 9, 10, 20, 25, 27, in Migne, Patr. Lat. xiii. 89, 90, 97, 100, 102); and also by the way St. Jerome, in his Chronicle under the date 374= 370 (in Migne, Patr. Lat. xxvii. 695), couples him with Lucifer of Cagliari, saying that the latter with Gregorius a Spanish, and Philo a Libyan, bishop, "nunquam se Arianae miscuit pravitati." Florez, however (Esp. Sagr. xii. 121), maintains that no certain proof of this theory exists. Gams, on the other hand (op. cit. ii. 310–314), maintains that even before the death of Lucifer, Gregorius was the recognized head of the sect. On the authority of the Libellus Precum, c. 25, he considers that Gregorius, after Lucifer's return from exile in 362, visited him in Sardinia; and he identifies with Gregorius the bishop mentioned in c. 63 as at Rome under the assumed name of Taorgius, and as having consecrated one Ephesius as bp. of the Luciferians there, an event which he dates between 366 and 371. From the Libellus Precum and the Rescript of Theodosius in reply addressed to Cynegius, Gregorius was apparently alive in 384. In none of the above passages is his see mentioned, as he is called only episcopus Hispaniarum or Hispaniensis, but it is supplied by St. Jerome, ''de Vir. Illust. c. 105 (Hieron. Op. ii. 937, in Migne, Patr. Lat. xxiii. 703) Opinions have been much divided as to the book de Fide'', attributed to him by Jerome. The Bollandists (Acta SS. Ap. iii. 270) say "etiamnum latet." It was formerly supposed to be the de Trinitate now ascribed