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 fame for the service of Christ. Probably also the profession he had undertaken proved increasingly distasteful to one of Gregory's sensitive and retiring disposition, and he may have been further discouraged by the small results of his exertions to inspire a literary taste among youths who, as he complains in letters to his brother Basil's tutor Libanius, written while practising as a rhetorician (Greg. Nys. Ep. 13, 14), were much more ready to enter the army than to follow rhetorical studies. He retired to a monastery in Pontus, almost certainly that on the river Iris presided over by his brother Basil, and in close vicinity to Annesi, where was the female convent of which his sister Macrina was the superior. In this congenial retreat he passed several years, devoting himself to the study of the Scriptures and the works of Christian commentators. Among these it is certain that Origen had a high place, the influence of that writer being evident in Gregory's own theological works. At Pontus, c. 371, he composed his work de Virginitate, in which, while extolling virginity as the highest perfection of Christian life, he laments that he had separated himself from that state (de Virg. lib. iii. t. iii. pp. 116 seq.). Towards the close of his residence in Pontus, 371, circumstances occurred displaying Gregory's want of judgment in a striking manner. An estrangement had arisen between Basil and his aged uncle, the bp. Gregory, whom the family deservedly regarded as their second father. The younger Gregory took on himself the office of mediator. Straightforward methods having failed, he adopted crooked ones, and forged letters to his brother in their uncle's name desiring reconciliation. The letters were indignantly repudiated by the justly offended bishop, and reconciliation became increasingly hopeless. Basil addressed a letter to his brother, which is a model of dignified rebuke. He first ridicules him with his simplicity, unworthy of a Christian, reproaches him for endeavouring to serve the cause of truth by deception, and charges him with unbrotherly conduct in adding affliction to one already pressed out of measure (Basil. Ep. 58 [44]).

In 372 (the year Gregory Nazianzen was consecrated to the see of Sasima) Gregory was forced by his brother Basil to accept reluctantly the see of Nyssa, an obscure town of Cappadocia Prima, about ten miles from the capital, Caesarea. Their common friend, Eusebius of Samosata, wrote to Basil to remonstrate on his burying so distinguished a man in so unworthy a see. Basil replied that his brother's merits made him worthy to govern the whole church gathered into one, but he desired that the see should be made famous by its bishop, not the bishop by his see (ib. 98 [259]). These words have proved prophetic.

Gregory's episcopate fell in troublous times. Valens, a zealous Arian, being on the throne, lost no opportunity of forwarding his own tenets and vexing the orthodox. The miserable Demosthenes [] had been recently appointed vicar of Pontus to do all in his power to crush the adherents of the Nicene faith. After petty acts of persecution, in which the semi-Arian prelates joined with high satisfaction, as a means of retaliating on Basil, a synod was summoned at Ancyra at the close of 375, to examine some alleged canonical irregularities in Gregory's consecration, and to investigate a frivolous charge brought against him by a certain Philocharis of having made away with church funds left by his predecessor. A band of soldiers was sent to arrest Gregory and conduct him to the place of hearing. A chill on his journey brought on a pleuritic seizure and aggravated a painful malady to which he was subject. His entreaties to be allowed to halt for medical treatment were disregarded, but he managed to elude the vigilance of the soldiers and to escape to some place of concealment where his maladies could be cared for. Basil collected a synod of orthodox Cappadocian bishops, in whose name he addressed a dignified but courteous letter to Demosthenes, apologizing for his brother's non-appearance at Ancyra, and stating that the charge of embezzlement could be shewn to be false by the books of the treasurers of the church; while, if any canonical defect in his ordination could be proved, the ordainers were those who should be called to account, an account which they were ready to render (ib. 225 [385]). Basil wrote also to a man of distinction named Aburgius, begging him to use his influence to save Gregory from the misery of being dragged into court and implicated in judicial business from which his peaceful disposition shrank (ib. 33 [358]). Another synod was summoned at Nyssa by Demosthenes 376, through the instrumentality of Eustathius of Sebaste. Still Gregory refused to appear. He was pronounced contumacious and deposed by the assembled bishops, of whom Anysius and Ecdicius of Parnasse were the leaders, and they consecrated a successor, whom Basil spoke of with scorn as a miserable slave who could be bought for a few oboli (ib. 237 [264], 239 [10]). Gregory's deposition was followed by his banishment by Valens (Greg. Nys. de Vit. Macr. t. ii. p. 192). These accumulated troubles utterly crushed his gentle spirit. In his letters he bewails the cruel necessity which had compelled him to desert his spiritual children, and driven him from his home and friends to dwell among malicious enemies who scrutinized every look and gesture, nay his very dress, and made them grounds of accusation. He dwells with tender recollection on the home he had lost—his fireside, his table, his pantry, his bed, his bench, his sackcloth—and contrasts it with the stifling hole in which he was forced to dwell, of which the only furniture was straitness, darkness, and cold. His only consolation is in the assurance that his brethren would remember him in their prayers (Greg. Nys. Epp. 18, 22). His letters to Gregory Nazianzen have unfortunately perished, but his deep despondency is shewn by the replies. After his expulsion from his see his namesake wrote that, though denied his wish to accompany him in his banishment, he went with him in spirit, and trusted in God that the storm would soon blow over, and he get the better of all his enemies, as a recompense for his strict orthodoxy (Greg. Naz. Ep. 142, t. i. p. 866). Driven from place to place to avoid his enemies, he had compared himself to a stick carried aimlessly