NOTES
CHAPTER XIV.
ST. BASIL AND ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUM. COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
PART I. A.D. 373-381.
Although St. Athanasius was now dead, God did not fail to raise up champions for the true faith. Three of the most famous of these were natives of Cappadocia—namely, Basil, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and his friend Gregory of Nazianzum. But although Gregory of Nyssa was a very good and learned man, and did great service to the truth by his writings, there was nothing remarkable in the story of his life; so I shall only tell you about the other two.
Basil and Gregory of Nazianzum were both born about the year 329. Basil was of a noble Christian family. Gregory's father had belonged to a strange sect called Hypsistarians, whose religion was a mixture of Jewish and heathen notions; but he had been converted from it by his wife, Nonna, who was a very pious and excellent woman, and, before his son's birth, he had risen to be bishop of Nazianzum.
The two youths became acquainted at school in Cappadocia, and, when they were afterwards sent to the famous schools of Athens, they grew into the closest friendship. They lived and read and walked together: Gregory says that they had all things common, and that it was as if they had only one soul in two bodies. Athens was an excellent place for learning all that the wise men of this world could teach, and therefore students flocked to it from distant countries. But it was a dangerous place for Christian young men; for the teachers were heathen philosophers, and knew well how to entangle them in arguments, so that many of the pupils, who did not rightly understand the grounds of their faith, were deceived into giving it up. Thus, at the very time when Basil and Gregory were at Athens, Julian was also there, sucking in the heathen notions which led to so much evil when he afterwards became emperor. But the two Cappadocians kept themselves clear from all the snares of "philosophy and vain deceit" (Coloss. ii. 8); and although they were the foremost of all the students in Athens for learning, and might have hoped to make a great figure in the world by their talents, they resolved to give up all worldly ambition, and to devote themselves to the ministry of the Church.