Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography

by Fr. John A. McGuckin
Paperback: 436 pages

St Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 390-391) is one of the most important theologians of the early Christian Church and one of the most learned men of his generation. This present study is the first critical analysis of the man, his writings and inner life in the English language. It offers an insight into the mind of one of the greatest champions of Nicene theology, and through his extraordinary personality, opens a window onto the world of late antiquity and the place of the Christian Church in it.

Alongside Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers. He worked to bring unity to a church deeply divided by the Arian crisis, and to demonstrate the perennial significance of the Nicene faith. He was the chief defender of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity of co-equal persons in God and an important Christological writer whose works were definitive for the Council of Chalcedon. The fathers of Chalcedon acclaimed him as "Gregory the Theologian," the title by which he has subsequently been known in the Church.