Ss Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus

Today is the feast of St Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church, the foremost champion of the true Faith during the great crisis caused by the heretic Arius in the 4th century. May 2nd is universally recognized to be the day of his death; there is a particular fittingness to celebrating him on this date, one week after the feast of St Mark the Evangelist, the founder of the See of Alexandria, as a sign of continuity between the Gospel and Nicene orthodoxy. The Roman Rite shares this arrangement with the Coptic calendar and the Byzantine, although in the latter, today is noted as the feast of the translation of Athanasius’ relics; his principal feast, which he shares with another Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor, St Cyril, is on January 18th. Likewise, the western Church keeps the feast of St Gregory of Nazianzus on May 9th, a week after Athanasius, as a sign that he inherited his mantle as the greatest theological writer in the controversies over the Trinity and Incarnation. His feast is also kept one week after Athanasius’ in the Byzantine Rite, on January 25th.

Ss Athanasius and Cyril, from the Menologion of Basil II, 985 AD: public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

St Athanasius was always known to the western Church from his Life of St Anthony, which was translated into Latin close to the time of death in 373; St Augustine mentions it in the Confessions. However, many of his most important theological works were not known to the West until the 15th century; in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, for example, St John Chrysostom is mentioned about 20 times more often. His feast does occur in western liturgical books of the pre-Tridentine period, but almost exclusively in France and Spain, and almost never before the later decades of the 15th century; it does not appear to have been kept at all in Rome.

Much the same holds true for St Gregory of Nazianzus. He was known to the West from the mentions of him in the writings of his student, St Jerome, e.g. in the well-known treatise On Virginity against Jovinian, and the book On Illustrious Men, in which he calls him “a most eloquent man.” But again, very little of his writing was translated into Latin, and he is mentioned by St Thomas even less often than St Athanasius. Before the Tridentine reform, his feast was kept almost nowhere outside Spain, and even there, only from the very beginning of the 16th century.

In 1568, when Pope St Pius V, fulfilling a request of the Council of Trent, published a revision of the Roman Breviary, both Saints were included not just as bishops and confessors, but also as Doctors of the Church, and at the highest of three grades of feasts. The same titles and rank were also given to Ss Basil the Great and John Chrysostom; among these four, only Chrysostom had been widely celebrated with a feast thitherto. Up to that point, the title “Doctor”, and the use of the liturgical texts associated with it, had been formally granted to only four Saints whose writings were always particularly influential in the West, Ss Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome.

In the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its traditional doctrines were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions, as the early Protestants often claimed. The pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserted the universality of those teachings which were held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent, and also held by the Eastern churches. The inclusion of St Thomas Aquinas among them then asserted the continuity in teaching between the patristic and medieval Church, also frequently denied by the Protestants. Three of these new Eastern Doctors also have special connections to Rome and the papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Gregorian Chapel in St Peter’s Basilica, built by Pope Gregory XIII to house the relics of his namesake of Nazianzus, which he translated here from the Roman church of Santa Maria in Campo Marzo in 1580.

Furthermore, these same Fathers are witnesses not just to Catholic teachings that the early Protestants rejected, but to others like the Trinity and Incarnation, which they not only accepted, but considered necessary for salvation. This was of course one of the strongest points in the Catholic Church’s favor during the controversies of the 16th century: if one accepts Athanasius, for example, as a witness to the doctrine of the Trinity, on what grounds does one reject him when he says, “So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ”? If one accepts Basil’s defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, on what grounds does one reject his teaching that “It is necessary to confess our sins to those whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted”? And more broadly, once the Fathers have been admitted as witnesses to the Christian Faith at all, one has in effect admitted a tradition, by which the teachings of some Christians in antiquity are recognized to be true, and those of others false, a further undermining of the original logical impossibility known as sola Scriptura.

There is an aspect of St Gregory of Nazianus’ career in particular which is less well known than his role as a theologian, and which should perhaps be better known today.

For most of the half century after the death of Constantine in 337, the Roman Emperors were supporters of Arianism, rather than of the orthodox faith. It should therefore not surprise anyone that the see of the imperial capital was dominated for most of that period by Arian bishops. However, with the death in 378 of the Emperor Valens, an enthusiastic persecutor of the orthodox, and the accession of Theodosius I, the tide began to turn strongly against the Arians. St Gregory, having retired some years earlier from a bishopric which he had been practically forced into, was then living a quiet and contemplative life in a monastery near Seleucia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, over 400 miles away from the capital. A number of Catholic bishops, anxious to reestablish the true faith in Constantinople, suggested that he come to the city, not as its bishop, but as a missionary; as with his earlier bishopric, he was prevailed upon to take up this new role only with the greatest reluctance.

The consecration of St Gregory of Nazianzus as a bishop, depicted in a manuscript of his writings copied out in Constantinople between 879 and 883. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Grec 510, f. 452r)

Gregory was accepted by almost none of the city’s clergy, and had access to none of its many churches; as Butler’s Lives of the Saints puts it, he was a bishop in Constantinople, but not the bishop of Constantinople. He therefore opened a small chapel attached to the house of a relative, which he called “Anastasis – the Resurrection”, a sign that it would become the place from which the true faith would rise again. His preaching, and especially the series of sermons on the Trinity, was in fact incredibly effective; more and more people were attracted by his eloquence, and his flock began to grow.

This brought with it many difficulties, of course, including persecution from the Arians and other heretics, which more than once came to physical violence, as well as calumnies and insults. At the Easter vigil during his first year in the city, the Arians broke into his church; Gregory himself was wounded, and another bishop present was killed. But among his many disciples, he would soon come to number not only St Jerome, but also Evagrius of Pontus, who would himself become one of the most influential theologians of the era.

The following year, Theodosius, newly baptized by an orthodox bishop, issued the Edict of Thessalonica, recognizing as the true faith “that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria.” Towards the end of the year, on arriving in Constantinople, he expelled the Arian bishop for refusing to embrace the Nicene confession of faith, and set Gregory in his place. It may seem that this victory was short-lived; within a few months, in the midst of every sort of intrigue and new acts of violence, Gregory obtained the emperor’s permission to resign his see and return to Nazianzus. But in point of fact, it did not matter. At the very moment when it seemed that heresy had triumphed in one of the most important and influential sees of Christendom, the true faith was reborn from a single place, and largely through the work of single man. Nor was this the first or last time such an event happened in the life of the Church. Let it therefore be an object lesson to us, never to despair over the sorry condition in which the Church finds itself in a particular time and place, including our own.

The Doctors of the Church in the Liturgy

Last week, it was announced that Pope Leo will soon declare St John Henry Newman to be a Doctor of the Church, raising the total number of Doctors to thirty-eight. St John Henry is the first Oratorian to be granted the title, the second Englishman, after the Venerable Bede, and the third cardinal, after Ss Bonaventure and Robert Bellarmine. (St Anselm, the eleventh Doctor, is often called “of Canterbury” because of the episcopal see he held, but he was Italian by birth, from the northern region of the Val d’Aosta.) He is also the first Doctor of the Church who converted from Protestantism.

A banner with an image of St Hildegard of Bingen, here called a prophetess, suspended from the façade of St Peter’s for the ceremony in which she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

It is often stated that the first four Doctors of the Church, Saints Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, were proclaimed as such by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298. It would be more accurate to say that the Pope formalized a long-established custom by ordering that their feasts be celebrated throughout the Latin Church with the same liturgical rank as those of the Apostles and Evangelists. Already in the 8th century, the Venerable Bede cites the four of them as “most outstanding” among the Fathers of the Church, and the “most worthy” sources for his commentary on the Gospel of St Luke, an assessment shared by many other writers in the following centuries. In art they are often associated with the four Evangelists; the medieval fondness for numerical symbolism in theology also tended to designate each one of them as the principal expounder of one of the four senses of the Sacred Scriptures. (See the introduction to the first volume of Henri Card. De Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, pp. 4-7.)

In the liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite, the four Doctors are also associated with the four Evangelists in the collections of homilies read at Matins, in which each appears as the principal (but by no means sole) commentator on one of the four Gospels. Broadly speaking, St Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, St Ambrose’s Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, and St Augustine’s Treatises on the Gospel of John are commonly read in all Uses of the Divine Office. St Mark rarely appears in the traditional Mass lectionary of the Roman Rite, but does provide the Gospel on the greatest feast of the year, Easter, and on the Ascension; on both of these days, the homily at Matins in most Uses is taken from St Gregory. Therefore, the first sense in which a Father might be called a Doctor was the frequent use of his writings in the Church’s public worship.

St Mark the Evangelist, with his traditional symbol, a winged lion, on the left, and on the right, St Gregory the Great and a book of his sermons. From the ceiling of the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona, Italy, by Bonfazio Bembo, 1452.

Of course, many other Fathers are frequently read in the Office; outside the Use of Rome, St Bede is foremost among them in the medieval breviaries. As he himself notes in the prologue to the commentary mentioned above, he often borrows from the earlier Doctors; his gathering of the best passages from earlier writers makes his commentaries ideal for use in prayer services. So much of Bede’s writing is taken almost word for word from other works that the medieval copyists of liturgical manuscripts often confused his writings with his sources, and accidentally added passages from the latter back into his texts.

Also prominent in the public prayer of the Church are the writings of Saints Leo the Great, Hilary of Poitier (especially in France), and Maximus of Turin. Bede, Leo and Hilary have all subsequently been made Doctors themselves; St Maximus, on the other hand, has been the object of almost no liturgical devotion, although he is noted in the Martyrology as a man “most celebrated for his learning and sanctity.” Indeed, his writings often appear in breviaries under the name of some other saint, usually Augustine. In the 13th century, many of the writings of St John Chrysostom were translated into Latin, and began to find their way into the Office; in the Roman Breviary of 1529, sermons by him are read on three of the four Sundays of Lent.

The Four Doctors of the Church, by Pier Francesco Sacchi, ca. 1516. Note that each is accompanied by a symbol of one of the four Evangelists.

The terms of Pope Boniface’s decree were carried over into the liturgical books of the Tridentine reform, which also added five other Doctors. Four of these were early Fathers of the Eastern church: Ss Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. (The third Cappadocian Father, Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa, has never been venerated liturgically by the Latin Church.) All of them appear in various pre-Tridentine liturgical books, but the feasts of Basil and Gregory are extremely rare. In the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its teachings were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions introduced by the “Romish Church”; the pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserts the universality of the teachings held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent. Three of them also have special connections to Rome and the Papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Chair of St Peter in the Vatican Basilica, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1655-61. The Doctors standing further from the chair and wearing mitres are Saints Ambrose and Augustine, those closer but without mitres are Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostom.

To this group, the Dominican Pope St Pius V added a new Doctor, his confrere St Thomas Aquinas. Like many great theologians of the medieval period, Thomas was frequently referred to as a Doctor both in liturgical contexts and elsewhere; thus we find the calendar of a 1477 Dominican Missal noting his feast day, “Thomas, Confessor and Doctor, of the Order of Preachers.” A famous story is told that during the process of his canonization, the devil’s advocate objected that he had worked no miracles, to which a cardinal replied “Tot miracula quot articula – there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the two Summas).” During the Council of Trent, his Summa Theologica was placed on the altar of the church alongside the Bible and the Decretals (the medieval canon law code, a copy of which was also burnt by Luther, along with his bull of excommunication.) Thus did the Council assert that its teachings, and those of the medieval tradition of both law and theology, were indeed in harmony with the teachings of Christ in the Gospel.

In 1588, Pope Sixtus V, a Franciscan and former vicar apostolic of his order, declared his confrere St Bonaventure, the contemporary of St Thomas, the tenth Doctor of the Church. Although another Franciscan, Duns Scotus, generally known as the “Subtle Doctor”, was far more influential at Trent, he had not been canonized; this emphasizes the fact that a Doctor of the Church in the formal sense must be recognized not only for his learning, but also for the sanctity of his life. Bonaventure had been canonized in 1472 by an earlier Franciscan Pope, Sixtus IV (more famously the builder of the Sistine Chapel), in whose honor Sixtus V had chosen his papal name. (Scotus was declared a Blessed in 1993.)

St Bonaventure shows the Saints to Dante, from Canto 12 of the Paradise of the Divine Comedy. The majority of figures pointed out in this passage are famous theologians: St Augustine, Hugh of St Victor, Peter Comestor, Chrysostom, Anselm, and Rabanus Maurus. (Manuscript illumination by Giovanni di Paolo, 1450)

In 1720, Pope Clement XI added a new Doctor of the Church, St Anselm of Canterbury. This may seem a strange choice, given the many more prominent Fathers of the Church such as Leo and Bede who had not yet received the title. The Catholic Encyclopedia points out that Anselm’s contribution to Scholastic theology is like the foundation of a building: hidden but necessary, and present to every part. It seems, however, that at the time, the creation of the first new Doctor in 140 years was not seen as a matter of any particular importance; it is not even mentioned in the official collection of Pope Clement’s acts, spanning a reign of over 20 years.

St Anselm was quickly followed by two other new Doctors; St Isidore of Seville, the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, was given the title in 1722 by Innocent XIII, and St Peter Chrysologus by Benedict XIII in 1729. After a break of 25 years, Benedict XIV, one of the Church’s greatest scholars of hagiography, bestowed the title on St Leo the Great, to whom more than any other of the Latin Fathers the honor was long overdue.

There then followed a pause of more than 70 years, until St Peter Damian was given the title in 1828 by Pope Leo XII; subsequently, almost every Pope has declared at least one Doctor. (The exceptions are Gregory XVI, St Pius X and the short-lived John Paul I.) Blessed Pius IX actually made three, including the first “modern”, St Alphonse Liguori (1696-1787), but the record is four each by Leo XIII and Pius XI. The former’s Doctors are all of the Patristic era (including another long overdue honor, to St Bede), while the latter recognized the fruits of the Counter-Reformation in two Jesuits, Ss Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius, balanced with a Dominican, St Albert the Great, the teacher of St Thomas.

Dante meets Ss Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great in Canto 10 of the Paradise, among the lovers of divine wisdom. Beneath them are Boethius, St Denis the Areopagite, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Paul Orosius, Solomon, St Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Richard of St Victor and Siger of Brabant. (Giovanni di Paolo, 1450. Note that Siger, the last figure on the right, who was regarded by many as a heretic, has been partly scratched out.)

The traditional Office of a Doctor is that of a Confessor Bishop or a simple Confessor, with a few proper features; namely, the readings of Matins, the responsory In medio Ecclesiae (borrowed from the Office of St John the Evangelist), and the antiphon of the Magnificat at both Vespers, O Doctor optime. The Missal of St Pius V contains a single Mass for Doctors, also called In medio Ecclesiae from its introit; but several of their feasts have their own propers or borrow them from other Masses. Many Saints have been informally recognized as Doctors within a particular place or religious order by the use of these texts on their feast days; In medio was sung by the Cistercians as the introit of St Bernard long before he was formally declared a Doctor in 1830, and several parts of the same Mass are used by the Dominicans on the feasts of St Dominic and the great canon lawyer St Raymond of Penyafort.

Over the last century, the title of Doctor has been devalued by overuse, as it has been extended to several Saints whose writings have little or no relevance to the theological or liturgical tradition of the Roman church which has granted them the title, and do not acquire such relevance from the granting of it. A perfect recent example of this is St Gregory of Narek, a figure of the highest importance to the church of his native Armenia, but almost totally unknown in the West. Obviously, this is not the case with St John Henry, and I strongly commend to our readers’ attention some recent articles on Dr Kwasniewski’s Substack, in which he explains that the newest Doctor’s writings are in many ways a guide out of the terrible theological crisis that has beset the Church since the beginning of the New Pentecost™. Sancte Joannes Henrice, ora pro nobis, et doce nos!

The famous portrait of Cardinal Newman made in 1881 by Sir John Everett Millais. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

St John Henry Newman to be Declared a Doctor of the Church

Less than an hour ago, the news was published on the Bolletino Vaticano that St John Henry Newman will be formally recognized as a Doctor of the Church. “On July 31, 2025, the Holy Father Leo XIV received in audience His Most Reverend Eminence Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints, in the course of which, the Holy Father confirmed the affirmative judgment of the Plenary Session of Cardinals and Bishops, the members of said dicastery, concerning the title of Doctor of the Universal Church, which will soon be conferred on St John Henry Newman, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, founder of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in England; born in London (UK), on February 21, 1801, died at Edgbaston (UK), on August 11, 1890.”

The famous portrait of Cardinal Newman made in 1881 by Sir John Everett Millais. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

With this decree, St John Henry becomes the 38th Doctor of the Church, the first Oratorian to be granted the title, the second Englishman, after the Venerable Bede, and the third cardinal, after Ss Bonaventure and Robert Bellarmine. (St Anselm, the eleventh Doctor, is often called “of Canterbury” because of the episcopal see he held, but he was Italian by birth, from the northern region of the Val d’Aosta.) He is also the first Doctor of the Church who converted from Protestantism.

The late and greatly lamented Fr Hunwicke repeatedly stated his belief that this honor would be conferred, and almost four years ago, on the new Doctor’s feast day (October 9th), he prophetically guessed at the name of the Pope who would confer it, and wrote,  “S John Henry had to wait for the election of Papa Pecci (i.e. Leo XIII) before he received proper honours (i.e. the cardinalate). May we hope for a Leo XIV? Subito!” Of course, this has been in process for a while, but nevertheless, I cannot think of any occasion on which a Pope declared a Doctor so early in his pontificate, so subito it has been indeed - feliciter!

St John XXIII on St Lawrence of Brindisi

Today is the feast of St Lawrence of Brindisi, who was born on the feast of St Mary Magdalene in 1559, and died on the same day at the age of sixty in 1619. Although his family was Venetian, he was born in the major port city of Brindisi, then in the Kingdom of Naples, far down Italy’s Adriatic coast. After entering the Capuchins at the age of 16, he studied at the University of Padua, then the major university of the Venetian Republic, and showed a remarkable facility for languages, learning several modern ones in addition to the languages of the Bible. He was instrumental in establishing the Capuchin Order, then still a fairly new branch of the Franciscans, in Germany as a bulwark against the further spread of Protestantism, but also in rallying the German princes against the Ottoman Turks. He was chaplain to the army, which he helped to organize, stirred to attack with a rousing address, and led in battle armed only with a crucifix in his hand.

Despite these and many other activities, including a period as the head of his Order, and despite the extreme austerity of Capuchin life and the full round of liturgical and devotional prayer, St Lawrence also found time to write hundreds of sermons, almost all in Latin, covering a very wide variety of topics, as well as a commentary on Genesis and some writings against Lutheranism. As is noted in the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints, when these writings were examined during his canonization process, it was said that “Indeed, he is fit to be included among the holy doctors of the Church.” This honor was bestowed upon him by Pope St John XXIII in 1959, the fourth centennial year of his birth, making him the 30th Doctor of the Church.

Here are a few interesting excerpts from the Apostolic letter Celsitudo ex humilitate, promulgated by Pope St John March 19th of that year, the feast of St Joseph, in which he expounds some of the reasons for making St Lawrence a Doctor. (Image courtesy of Toma Blizanac, via his blog, from the Monte dei Capuccini church in Turin, Italy.)

Oh, the inestimable affection of the love of Christ, Who never has never allowed Himself to be lacking to the Church, His Bride, and finds present remedies for the evils that are hurled against her. When the insane daring of the innovators rose up, and the Catholic name was attacked by hostile assaults, when the Faith was languishing in many places among the Christian people, and morals were in steep decline, He raised up Lawrence to defend what was under attack, to avenge what had been destroyed, and to promote that which was conducive to the salvation of all. And since wicked plagues are again being introduced, and men are being ensnared by the inventions of false beliefs and other corruptions, it is useful that this many be placed in a brighter light, so that the Christian faithful may be confirmed towards what is right by the glory of his virtues, and nourished by the precepts of his salutary teaching. Therefore, just as Rome boasts of Lawrence, Christ’s unconquered champion, who by the most dire torments which he suffered, increased the strength of the Church as She was rent by persecution, so Brindisi is held in honor for begetting another Lawrence, who strengthened Her by his zeal for religion and the abundance of his talents as she was afflicted by evil from within and from without. …

In this noble and excellent two things are especially outstanding: his apostolic zeal, and his mastery of doctrine. He taught with his word, he instructed with his pen, he fought with both. Not deeming it enough to withdraw into himself, and dedicate himself to prayer and study in the refuge of his monastery, and occupy himself only with domestic matters, he leaped forth as if he could not contain the force of his spirit, wounded with the love of Christ and his brothers. Speaking from many pulpits about Christian dogma, about morals, the divine writings, and the virtues of the denizens of heaven, he spurred Catholics on to devotion, and moved those who had been swallowed up by the filth of their sins to wash away their crimes, and undertake the emendation of their lives. … outside the sacred precincts, when preaching to those who those who lacked the true religion, he defended it wisely and fearlessly; in meetings with Jews and heretics, he stood as the standard-bearer of the Roman church, and persuaded many to renounce and foreswear the opinions of false teaching. …

In the three volumes called “A Sketch of Lutheranism” (Lutheranismi hypotyposis), this defender of the Catholic law, mighty in his great learning, seeks to disabuse the people of the errors which the heretical teachers had spread. Therefore, those who treat of the sacred disciples, and especially those who seek to expound and defend the catholic faith, have in him the means to nourish their minds, to instruct themselves for the defense and persuasion of the truth, and to prepare themselves to work for the salvation of others. If they follow this author who eradicate errors, who made clear what was obscure or doubtful, they may know they walk upon a sure path. (Pope St John continues, in the traditional manner of such documents, with a lengthy list of the praises other Popes before him have heaped upon St Lawrence.)

Ss Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus

Today is the feast of St Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church, the foremost champion of the true Faith during the great crisis caused by the heretic Arius in the 4th century. May 2nd is universally recognized to be the day of his death; there is a particular fittingness to celebrating him on this date, one week after the feast of St Mark the Evangelist, the founder of the See of Alexandria, as a sign of continuity between the Gospel and Nicene orthodoxy. The Roman Rite shares this arrangement with the Coptic calendar and the Byzantine, although in the latter, today is noted as the feast of the translation of Athanasius’ relics, and his principal feast, which he shares with another Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor, St Cyril, is on January 18th. Likewise, the western Church keeps the feast of St Gregory of Nazianzus on May 9th, a week after Athanasius, as a sign that he inherited his mantle as the greatest theological writer in the controversies over the Trinity and Incarnation. Also in the Byzantine Rite, his feast is kept one week after Athanasius’, on January 25th.

Ss Athanasius and Cyril, from the Menologion of Basil II, 985 AD: public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

St Athanasius was always known to the western Church from his Life of St Anthony, which was translated into Latin close to the time of death in 373; St Augustine mentions it in the Confessions. However, many of his most important theological works were not known to the West until the 15th century; in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, for example, St John Chrysostom is mentioned about 20 times more often. His feast does occur in western liturgical books of the pre-Tridentine period, but almost exclusively in France and Spain, and almost never before the later decades of the 15th century; it does not appear to have been kept at all in Rome.

Much the same holds true for St Gregory of Nazianzus. He was known to the West from the mentions of him in the writings of his student, St Jerome, e.g. in the well-known treatise On Virginity against Jovinian, and the book On Illustrious Men, in which he calls him “a most eloquent man.” But again, very little of his writing was translated into Latin, and he is mentioned by St Thomas even less often than St Athanasius. Before the Tridentine reform, his feast was kept almost nowhere outside Spain, and even there, only from the very beginning of the 16th century.

In 1568, when Pope St Pius V, fulfilling a request of the Council of Trent, published a revision of the Roman Breviary, both Saints were included not just as bishops and confessors, but also as Doctors of the Church, and at the highest of three grades of feasts. The same titles and rank were also given to Ss Basil the Great and John Chrysostom; among these four, only Chrysostom had been widely celebrated with a feast thitherto. Up to that point, the title “Doctor”, and the use of the liturgical texts associated with it, had been formally granted to only four Saints whose writings were always particularly influential in the West, Ss Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome.

In the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its traditional doctrines were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions, as the early Protestants often claimed. The pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserted the universality of those teachings which were held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent, and also held by the Eastern churches. The inclusion of St Thomas Aquinas among them then asserted the continuity in teaching between the patristic and medieval Church, also frequently denied by the Protestants. Three of these new Eastern Doctors also have special connections to Rome and the Papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Gregorian Chapel in St Peter’s Basilica, built by Pope Gregory XIII to house the relics of his namesake of Nazianzus, which he translated here from the Roman church of Santa Maria in Campo Marzo in 1580.

Furthermore, these same Fathers are witnesses not just to Catholic teachings that the early Protestants rejected, but to others like the Trinity and Incarnation, which they not only accepted, but considered necessary for salvation. This was of course one of the strongest points in the Catholic Church’s favor during the controversies of the 16th century: if one accepts Athanasius, for example, as a witness to the doctrine of the Trinity, on what grounds does one reject him when he says, “So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ”? If one accepts Basil’s defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, on what grounds does one reject his teaching that “It is necessary to confess our sins to those whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted”? And more broadly, once the Fathers have been admitted as witnesses to the Christian Faith at all, one has in effect admitted a tradition, by which the teachings of some Christians in antiquity are recognized to be true, and those of others false, a further undermining of the original logical impossibility known as sola Scriptura.

There is an aspect of St Gregory of Nazianus’ career in particular which is less well known than his role as a theologian, and which should perhaps be better known today.

For most of the half century after the death of Constantine in 337, the Roman Emperors were supporters of Arianism, rather than of the orthodox faith. It should therefore not surprise anyone that the see of the imperial capital was dominated for most of that period by Arian bishops. However, with the death in 378 of the Emperor Valens, an enthusiastic persecutor of the orthodox, and the accession of Theodosius I, the tide began to turn strongly against the Arians. St Gregory, having retired some years earlier from a bishopric which he had been practically forced into, was then living a quiet and contemplative life in a monastery near Seleucia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, over 400 miles away from the capital. A number of Catholic bishops, anxious to reestablish the true faith in Constantinople, suggested that he come to the city, not as its bishop, but as a missionary; as with his earlier bishopric, he was prevailed upon to take up this new role only with the greatest reluctance. (Pictured right: Icon of St Gregory of Nazianzus, by Andrej Rublev, 1408, originally in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow, now in the Tretyakov Gallery; Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Gregory was accepted by almost none of the city’s clergy, and had access to none of its many churches; as Butler’s Lives of the Saints puts it, he was a bishop in Constantinople, but not the bishop of Constantinople. He therefore opened a small chapel attached to the house of a relative, which he called “Anastasis – the Resurrection”, a sign that it would become the place from which the true faith would rise again. His preaching, and especially the series of sermons on the Trinity, was in fact incredibly effective; more and more people were attracted by his eloquence, and his flock began to grow.

This brought with it many difficulties, of course, including persecution from the Arians and other heretics, which more than once came to physical violence, as well as calumnies and insults. At the Easter vigil during his first year in the city, the Arians broke into his church; Gregory himself was wounded, and another bishop present was killed. But among his many disciples, he would soon come to number not only St Jerome, but also Evagrius of Pontus, who would himself become one of the most influential theologians of the era.

The following year, Theodosius, newly baptized by an orthodox bishop, issued the Edict of Thessalonica, recognizing as the true faith “that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria.” Towards the end of the year, on arriving in Constantinople, he expelled the Arian bishop for refusing to embrace the Nicene confession of faith, and set Gregory in his place. It may seem that this victory was short-lived; within a few months, in the midst of every sort of intrigue and new acts of violence, Gregory obtained the emperor’s permission to resign his see and return to Nazianzus. But in point of fact, it did not matter. At the very moment when it seemed that heresy had triumphed in one of the most important and influential sees of Christendom, the true faith was reborn from a single place, and largely through the work of single man. Nor was this the first or last time such an event happened in the life of the Church. Let it therefore be an object lesson to us, never to despair over the sorry condition in which the Church finds itself in a particular time and place, including our own.

The Doctors of the Church in the Liturgy

Yesterday, it was announced that Pope Francis will soon declare St Irenaeus of Lyon to be a Doctor of the Church, raising the total number of Doctors to thirty-seven. The Pope also stated that he will be called “Doctor Unitatis – Doctor of Unity”, a fitting recognition that there can be no unity in the Church apart from truth, since the Saint’s greatest contribution to the Church’s unity was his ferocious refutation of Gnosticism in the treatise Against the Heresies. But it must not be forgotten that Irenaeus also traveled to Rome to remonstrate with Pope St Victor I when the latter wished to suppress the tradition of those churches in Asia Minor that used a different system than Rome for the dating of Easter. “He fittingly admonished Victor that he should not cut off whole churches of God which observed the tradition of an ancient custom ... Thus Irenaeus, who truly was well named (i.e., because his name is derived from the Greek word for “peace”), became a peacemaker in this matter, exhorting and negotiating in this way in behalf of the peace of the churches.” (Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. Eccl. V. 24, 11 and 18)

A banner with an image of St Hildegard of Bingen, here called a prophetess, suspended from the façade of St Peter’s for the ceremony in which she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

It is often stated that the first four Doctors of the Church, Saints Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, were proclaimed as such by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298. It would be more accurate to say that the Pope formalized a long-established custom by ordering that their feasts be celebrated throughout the Latin Church with the same liturgical rank as those of the Apostles and Evangelists. Already in the 8th century, the Venerable Bede cites the four of them as “most outstanding” among the Fathers of the Church, and the “most worthy” sources for his commentary on the Gospel of St Luke, an assessment shared by many other writers in the following centuries. In art they are often associated with the four Evangelists; the medieval fondness for numerical symbolism in theology also tended to designate each one of them as the principal expounder of one of the four senses of the Sacred Scriptures. (See the introduction to the first volume of Henri Card. De Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, pp. 4-7.)

In the liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite, the four Doctors are also associated with the four Evangelists in the collections of homilies read at Matins, in which each appears as the principal (but by no means sole) commentator on one of the four Gospels. Broadly speaking, St Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, St Ambrose’s Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, and St Augustine’s Treatises on the Gospel of John are commonly read in all Uses of the Divine Office. St Mark rarely appears in the traditional Mass-lectionary of the Roman Rite, but does provide the Gospel on the greatest feast of the year, Easter, and on the Ascension; on both of these days, the homily at Matins in most Uses is taken from St Gregory. Therefore, the first sense in which a Father might be called a Doctor was the frequent use of his writings in the Church’s public worship.

St Mark the Evangelist, with his traditional symbol, a winged lion, on the left, and on the right, St Gregory the Great and a book of his sermons. From the ceiling of the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona, Italy, by Bonfazio Bembo, 1452.

Of course, many other Fathers are frequently read in the Office; outside the Use of Rome, St Bede is foremost among them in the medieval breviaries. As he himself notes in the prologue to the commentary mentioned above, he often borrows from the earlier Doctors; his gathering of the best passages from earlier writers makes his commentaries ideal for use in prayer services. So much of Bede’s writing is taken almost word for word from other works that the medieval copyists of liturgical manuscripts often confused his writings with his sources, and accidentally added passages from the latter back into his texts.

Also prominent in the public prayer of the Church are the writings of Saints Leo the Great, Hilary of Poitier (especially in France), and Maximus of Turin. Bede, Leo and Hilary have all subsequently been made Doctors themselves; St Maximus, on the other hand, has been the object of almost no liturgical devotion, although he is noted in the Martyrology as a man “most celebrated for his learning and sanctity.” Indeed, his writings often appear in breviaries under the name of some other saint, usually Augustine. In the 13th century, many of the writings of St John Chrysostom were translated into Latin, and began to find their way into the Office; in the Roman Breviary of 1529, sermons by him are read on three of the four Sundays of Lent.

The Four Doctors of the Church, by Pier Francesco Sacchi, ca. 1516. Note that each is accompanied by a symbol of one of the four Evangelists.

The terms of Pope Boniface’s decree were carried over into the liturgical books of the Tridentine reform, which also added five other Doctors. Four of these were early Fathers of the Eastern church: Ss Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. (The third Cappadocian Father, Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa, has never been venerated liturgically by the Latin Church.) All of them appear in various pre-Tridentine liturgical books, but the feasts of Basil and Gregory are extremely rare. In the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its teachings were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions introduced by the “Romish Church”; the pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserts the universality of the teachings held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent. Three of them also have special connections to Rome and the Papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Chair of St Peter in the Vatican Basilica, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1655-61. The Doctors standing further from the chair and wearing mitres are Saints Ambrose and Augustine, those closer but without mitres are Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostom.

To this group, the Dominican Pope St Pius V added a new Doctor, his confrere St Thomas Aquinas. Like many great theologians of the medieval period, Thomas was frequently referred to as a Doctor both in liturgical contexts and elsewhere; thus we find the calendar of a 1477 Dominican Missal noting his feast day, “Thomas, Confessor and Doctor, of the Order of Preachers.” A famous story is told that during the process of his canonization, the devil’s advocate objected that he had worked no miracles, to which a cardinal replied “Tot miracula quot articula – there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the two Summas).” During the Council of Trent, his Summa Theologica was placed on the altar of the church alongside the Bible and the Decretals (the medieval canon law code, a copy of which was also burnt by Luther, along with his bull of excommunication.) Thus did the Council assert that its teachings, and those of the medieval tradition of both law and theology, were indeed in harmony with the teachings of Christ in the Gospel.

In 1588, Pope Sixtus V, a Franciscan and former vicar apostolic of his order, declared his confrere St Bonaventure, the contemporary of St Thomas, the tenth Doctor of the Church. Although another Franciscan, Duns Scotus, generally known as the “Subtle Doctor”, was far more influential at Trent, he had not been canonized; this emphasizes the fact that a Doctor of the Church in the formal sense must be recognized not only for his learning, but also for the sanctity of his life. Bonaventure had been canonized in 1472 by an earlier Franciscan Pope, Sixtus IV (more famously the builder of the Sistine Chapel), in whose honor Sixtus V had chosen his papal name. (Scotus was declared a Blessed in 1993.)

St Bonaventure shows the Saints to Dante, from Canto 12 of the Paradise of the Divine Comedy. The majority of figures pointed out in this passage are famous theologians: St Augustine, Hugh of St Victor, Peter Comestor, Chrysostom, Anselm, and Rabanus Maurus. (Manuscript illumination by Giovanni di Paolo, 1450)

In 1720, Pope Clement XI added a new Doctor of the Church, St Anselm of Canterbury. This may seem a strange choice, given the many more prominent Fathers of the Church such as Leo and Bede who had not yet received the title. The Catholic Encyclopedia points out that Anselm’s contribution to Scholastic theology is like the foundation of a building: hidden but necessary, and present to every part. It seems, however, that at the time, the creation of the first new Doctor in 140 years was not seen as a matter of any particular importance; it is not even mentioned in the official collection of Pope Clement’s acts, spanning a reign of over 20 years.

St Anselm was quickly followed by two other new Doctors; St Isidore of Seville, the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, was given the title in 1722 by Innocent XIII, and St Peter Chrysologus by Benedict XIII in 1729. After a break of 25 years, Benedict XIV, one of the Church’s greatest scholars of hagiography, bestowed the title on St Leo the Great, to whom more than any other of the Latin Fathers the honor was long overdue.

There then followed a pause of more than 70 years, until St Peter Damian was given the title in 1828 by Pope Leo XII; subsequently, almost every Pope has declared at least one Doctor. (The exceptions are Gregory XVI, St Pius X and the short-lived John Paul I.) Blessed Pius IX actually made three, including the first “modern”, St Alphonse Liguori (1696-1787), but the record is four each by Leo XIII and Pius XI. The former’s Doctors are all of the Patristic era (including another long overdue honor, to St Bede), while the latter recognized the fruits of the Counter-Reformation in two Jesuits, Ss Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius, balanced with a Dominican, St Albert the Great, the teacher of St Thomas.

Dante meets Ss Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great in Canto 10 of the Paradise, among the lovers of divine wisdom. Beneath them are Boethius, St Denis the Areopagite, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Paul Orosius, Solomon, St Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Richard of St Victor and Siger of Brabant. (Giovanni di Paolo, 1450. Note that Siger, the last figure on the right, who was regarded by many as a heretic, has been partly scratched out.)

The traditional Office of a Doctor is that of a Confessor Bishop or a simple Confessor, with a few proper features; namely, the readings of Matins, the responsory In medio Ecclesiae (borrowed from the Office of St John the Evangelist), and the antiphon of the Magnificat at both Vespers, O Doctor optime. The Missal of St Pius V contains a single Mass for Doctors, also called In medio Ecclesiae from its introit; but several of their feasts have their own propers or borrow them from other Masses. Many Saints have been informally recognized as Doctors within a particular place or religious order by the use of these texts on their feast days; In medio was sung by the Cistercians as the introit of St Bernard long before he was formally declared a Doctor in 1830, and several parts of the same Mass are used by the Dominicans on the feasts of St Dominic and the great canon lawyer St Raymond of Penyafort.

In his highly influential scholarly treatise On the Beatification of the Servants of God (1734-38), Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV (1740-58), noted that “Ss Ignatius, Irenaeus and Cyprian, although they have the requisites of Doctors, are not honored as Doctors, but as Martyrs, since the Office of a Doctor is never separate from that of a Confessor.” (Lib. IV, pars secunda, cap 12.9 post med.) Irenaeus will thus be the first person traditionally honored as a martyr to be given the title of Doctor as well, and this in turn may well pave the way for doing the same with Ignatius and Cyprian, especially given that the latter is by far the most influential on Western theology.

However, there are solid reasons for doubting whether Irenaeus was in fact a martyr. Eusebius of Caesarea mentions him more than forty times in his Church History, citing him as an authority on the true Christian faith and on various heresies, but says nothing about his death. This is particularly significant because Eusebius gives the full text of an account written by the church of Lyon of a spectacular martyrdom that took place there in the year 177, in which St Pothinus, Irenaeus’ predecessor in that see, was killed along with several other people. (Hist. Eccl. V.1) Arguments from silence vary in strength from case to case, but it seems very likely that if Irenaeus were a martyr, Eusebius would have known that, and mentioned the fact to bolster even further his authority as a witness to the orthodox Faith. St Gregory of Tours, writing in the later 6th century, does refer to him as a martyr, but on the other hand, there are liturgical books as late as the 12th century that call him a confessor. The post-Conciliar calendar reform was, for once, respectful of the tradition despite the reasonable doubts about it, and kept him as a martyr.

The crypt of the church of St Irenaeus at Lyon. In 1562, the church was severely damaged by the Huguenots, who also destroyed the Saint’s relics, and played a game of soccer with his skull. After more destruction in the revolution, it was rebuilt in 1824, and the crypt renovated in 1863. Despite these vicissitudes, the crypt may still be regarded as one of the oldest religious buildings in France; relics of certain local martyrs were venerated there already in the later part of the 5th century. The church was originally dedicated to St John the Baptist. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Xavier Caré.)

Over the last century, the title of Doctor has effectively been devalued by overuse, as it has been extended to several Saints whose writings have little or no relevance to the theological or liturgical tradition of the Roman church which has granted them the title, and do not acquire such relevance from the granting of it. The most recent Doctor before Irenaeus, St Gregory of Narek, was a perfect example of this: a figure of the highest importance to the church of his native Armenia, but almost totally unknown in the West. In the case of Irenaeus, however, we see something of a reversion to a more traditional understanding of what it actually means to be a Doctor, since several passages from Against the Heresies are included among the Patristic readings of the Liturgy of the Hours.

On the other hand, there are many Doctors who have informal nicknames, as it were, such as St Thomas, the “Doctor Angelicus”, and St Bonaventure, the “Doctor Seraphicus.” However, these nicknames have never been a formal part of the Church’s liturgical tradition; it remains to be seen whether the proposal to call Irenaeus “the Doctor of Unity” will somehow be so formalized.

St John XXIII on St Lawrence of Brindisi

Yesterday, the feast of St Mary Magdalene, was the anniversary of the birth of St Lawrence of Brindisi in 1559, and of his death at the age of sixty in 1619; his feast is kept on the 21st. Although his family was Venetian, he was born in the major port city of Brindisi, then in the Kingdom of Naples, far down Italy’s Adriatic coast. After entering the Capuchins at the age of 16, he studied at the University of Padua, then the major university of the Venetian Republic, and showed a remarkable facility for languages, learning several modern ones in addition to the languages of the Bible. He was instrumental in establishing the Capuchin Order, then still a fairly new branch of the Franciscans, in Germany as a bulwark against the further spread of Protestantism, but also in rallying the German princes against the Ottoman Turks. He was chaplain to the army, which he helped to organize, stirred to attack with a rousing address, and led in battle armed only with a crucifix in his hand.

Despite these and many other activities, including a period as the head of his Order, and despite the extreme austerity of Capuchin life and the full round of liturgical and devotional prayer, St Lawrence also found time to write hundreds of sermons, almost all in Latin, covering a very wide variety of topics, as well as a commentary on Genesis and some writings against Lutheranism. As is noted in the revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints, when these writings were examined during his canonization process, it was said that “Indeed, he is fit to be included among the holy doctors of the Church.” This honor was bestowed upon him by Pope St John XXIII in 1959, the fourth centennial year of his birth, making him the 30th Doctor of the Church.

Here are a few interesting excerpts from the Apostolic letter Celsitudo ex humilitate, promulgated by Pope St John on March 19th of that year, the feast of St Joseph, in which he expounds some of the reasons for making St Lawrence a Doctor.

St Lawrence of Brindisi, from the Monte dei Cappuccini church in Turin, Italy; photo by Toma Blizanac, reproduced by permission.

Oh, the inestimable affection of the love of Christ, Who never has never allowed Himself to be lacking to the Church, His Bride, and finds present remedies for the evils that are hurled against her. When the insane daring of the innovators rose up, and the Catholic name was attacked by hostile assaults, when the Faith was languishing in many places among the Christian people, and morals were in steep decline, He raised up Lawrence to defend what was under attack, to avenge what had been destroyed, and to promote that which was conducive to the salvation of all. And since wicked plagues are again being introduced, and men are being ensnared by the inventions of false beliefs and other corruptions, it is useful that this many be placed in a brighter light, so that the Christian faithful may be confirmed towards what is right by the glory of his virtues, and nourished by the precepts of his salutary teaching. Therefore, just as Rome boasts of Lawrence, Christ’s unconquered champion, who by the most dire torments which he suffered, increased the strength of the Church as She was rent by persecution, so Brindisi is held in honor for begetting another Lawrence, who strengthened Her by his zeal for religion and the abundance of his talents as she was afflicted by evil from within and from without. …

In this noble and excellent two things are especially outstanding: his apostolic zeal, and his mastery of doctrine. He taught with his word, he instructed with his pen, he fought with both. Not deeming it enough to withdraw into himself, and dedicate himself to prayer and study in the refuge of his monastery, and occupy himself only with domestic matters, he leaped forth as if he could not contain the force of his spirit, wounded with the love of Christ and his brothers. Speaking from many pulpits about Christian dogma, about morals, the divine writings, and the virtues of the denizens of heaven, he spurred Catholics on to devotion, and moved those who had been swallowed up by the filth of their sins to wash away their crimes, and undertake the emendation of their lives. … outside the sacred precincts, when preaching to those who those who lacked the true religion, he defended it wisely and fearlessly; in meetings with Jews and heretics, he stood as the standard-bearer of the Roman church, and persuaded many to renounce and foreswear the opinions of false teaching. …

In the three volumes called “A Sketch of Lutheranism” (Lutheranismi hypotyposis), this defender of the Catholic law, mighty in his great learning, seeks to disabuse the people of the errors which the heretical teachers had spread. Therefore, those who treat of the sacred disciples, and especially those who seek to expound and defend the catholic faith, have in him the means to nourish their minds, to instruct themselves for the defense and persuasion of the truth, and to prepare themselves to work for the salvation of others. If they follow this author who eradicate errors, who made clear what was obscure or doubtful, they may know they walk upon a sure path. (Pope St John continues, in the traditional manner of such documents, with a lengthy list of the praises other Popes before him have heaped upon St Lawrence.)

Ss Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus

One week ago today was the feast of St Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church, the foremost champion of the true Faith during the great crisis caused by the heretic Arius in the 4th century. May 2nd is universally recognized to be the day of his death; there is a particular fittingness to celebrating him on this date, one week after the feast of St Mark the Evangelist, the founder of the See of Alexandria, as a sign of continuity between the Gospel and Nicene orthodoxy. The Roman Rite shares this arrangement with the Coptic calendar and the Byzantine, although in the latter, today is noted as the feast of the translation of Athanasius’ relics, and his principal feast, which he shares with another Patriarch of Alexandria and Doctor, St Cyril, is on January 18th. Likewise, in the Extraordinary Form, the western Church keeps the feast of St Gregory of Nazianzus on May 9th, a week after Athanasius, as a sign that he inherited his mantle as the greatest theological writer in the controversies over the Trinity and Incarnation. Also in the Byzantine Rite, his feast is kept one week after Athanasius’, on January 25th.

Ss Athanasius and Cyril, from the Menologion of Basil II, 985 AD: public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

St Athanasius was always known to the western Church from his Life of St Anthony, which was translated into Latin close to the time of death in 373; St Augustine mentions it in the Confessions. However, many of his most important theological works were not known to the West until the 15th century; in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, for example, St John Chrysostom is mentioned about 20 times more often. His feast does occur in western liturgical books of the pre-Tridentine period, but almost exclusively in France and Spain, and almost never before the later decades of the 15th century; it does not appear to have been kept at all in Rome.

Much the same holds true for St Gregory of Nazianzus. He was known to the West from the mentions of him in the writings of his student, St Jerome, e.g. in the well-known treatise On Virginity against Jovinian, and the book On Illustrious Men, in which he calls him “a most eloquent man.” But again, very little of his writing was translated into Latin, and he is mentioned by St Thomas even less often than St Athanasius. Before the Tridentine reform, his feast was kept almost nowhere outside Spain, and even there, only from the very beginning of the 16th century.

In 1568, when Pope St Pius V, fulfilling a request of the Council of Trent, published a revision of the Roman Breviary, both Saints were included not just as bishops and confessors, but also as Doctors of the Church, and at the highest of three grades of feasts. The same titles and rank were also given to Ss Basil the Great and John Chrysostom; among these four, only Chrysostom had been widely celebrated with a feast thitherto. Up to that point, the title “Doctor”, and the use of the liturgical texts associated with it, had been formally granted to only four Saints whose writings were always particularly influential in the West, Ss Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome.

In the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its traditional doctrines were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions, as the early Protestants often claimed. The pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserted the universality of those teachings which were held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent, and also held by the Eastern churches. The inclusion of St Thomas Aquinas among them then asserted the continuity in teaching between the patristic and medieval Church, also frequently denied by the Protestants. Three of these new Eastern Doctors also have special connections to Rome and the Papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Gregorian Chapel in St Peter’s Basilica, built by Pope Gregory XIII to house the relics of his namesake of Nazianzus, which he translated here from the Roman church of Santa Maria in Campo Marzo in 1580.

Furthermore, these same Fathers are witnesses not just to Catholic teachings that the early Protestants rejected, but to others like the Trinity and Incarnation, which they not only accepted, but considered necessary for salvation. This was of course one of the strongest points in the Catholic Church’s favor during the controversies of the 16th century: if one accepts Athanasius, for example, as a witness to the doctrine of the Trinity, on what grounds does one reject him when he says, “So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ”? If one accepts Basil’s defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, on what grounds does one reject his teaching that “It is necessary to confess our sins to those whom the dispensation of God’s mysteries is entrusted”? And more broadly, once the Fathers have been admitted as witnesses to the Christian Faith at all, one has in effect admitted a tradition, by which the teachings of some Christians in antiquity are recognized to be true, and those of others false, a further undermining of the original logical impossibility known as sola Scriptura.

There is an aspect of St Gregory of Nazianus’ career in particular which is less well known than his role as a theologian, and which should perhaps be better known today.

For most of the half century after the death of Constantine in 337, the Roman Emperors were supporters of Arianism, rather than of the orthodox faith. It should therefore not surprise anyone that the see of the imperial capital was dominated for most of that period by Arian bishops. However, with the death in 378 of the Emperor Valens, an enthusiastic persecutor of the orthodox, and the accession of Theodosius I, the tide began to turn strongly against the Arians. St Gregory, having retired some years earlier from a bishopric which he had been practically forced into, was then living a quiet and contemplative life in a monastery near Seleucia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, over 400 miles away from the capital. A number of Catholic bishops, anxious to reestablish the true faith in Constantinople, suggested that he come to the city, not as its bishop, but as a missionary; as with his earlier bishopric, he was prevailed upon to take up this new role only with the greatest reluctance. (Pictured right: Icon of St Gregory of Nazianzus, by Andrej Rublev, 1408, originally in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow, now in the Tretyakov Gallery; Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Gregory was accepted by almost none of the city’s clergy, and had access to none of its many churches; as Butler’s Lives of the Saints puts it, he was a bishop in Constantinople, but not the bishop of Constantinople. He therefore opened a small chapel attached to the house of a relative, which he called “Anastasis – the Resurrection”, a sign that it would become the place from which the true faith would rise again. His preaching, and especially the series of sermons on the Trinity, was in fact incredibly effective; more and more people were attracted by his eloquence, and his flock began to grow.

This brought with it many difficulties, of course, including persecution from the Arians and other heretics, which more than once came to physical violence, as well as calumnies and insults. At the Easter vigil during his first year in the city, the Arians broke into his church; Gregory himself was wounded, and another bishop present was killed. But among his many disciples, he would soon come to number not only St Jerome, but also Evagrius of Pontus, who would himself become one of the most influential theologians of the era.

The following year, Theodosius, newly baptized by an orthodox bishop, issued the Edict of Thessalonica, recognizing as the true faith “that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria.” Towards the end of the year, on arriving in Constantinople, he expelled the Arian bishop for refusing to embrace the Nicene confession of faith, and set Gregory in his place. It may seem that this victory was short-lived; within a few months, in the midst of every sort of intrigue and new acts of violence, Gregory obtained the emperor’s permission to resign his see and return to Nazianzus. But in point of fact, it did not matter. At the very moment when it seemed that heresy had triumphed in one of the most important and influential sees of Christendom, the true faith was reborn from a single place, and largely through the work of single man. Nor was this the first or last time such an event happened in the life of the Church. Let it therefore be an object lesson to us, never to despair over the sorry condition in which the Church finds itself in a particular time and place, including our own.

New Resource: Online Commentaries on the Mass Propers and Readings of the Usus Antiquior

Back in January 2014, I published an article at NLM entitled “Where Have All the Good Preachers Gone?” In it I noted the general dissatisfaction with shallow and rambling homilies and sermons, and pointed out that the Catholic Tradition is rich with models of excellent preaching. The article recommended three things: first, preaching about Scripture from Scripture, or at least leavening any subject preached on with copious citations of the Word of God; second, leaning heavily on the great exponents of Scripture and the theological masters: the Fathers and Doctors of the Church (not modern exegetes; at least not principally); third, integrating the doctrine, if not the words, of classic magisterial documents such as reliable papal encyclicals.

A subsequent article from January 2018, “Preaching from the Propers of the Mass — An Example from Ireland” noted that many great preachers in the old days, and many of the best resources from the healthy phase of the Liturgical Movement, took inspiration from the propers of the Mass: the antiphons, the orations, the lections, the prefaces, and so forth. A few still do (such as Dom Mark Kirby, many of whose homilies can be heard here), but the vast majority, as far as I can tell, simply ignore the texts of the liturgy, which are in fact among the richest texts, doctrinally and spiritually, to preach on.

Surely part of the reason for this neglect is that it is not always easy to find the time or acquire the library necessary to prepare such homilies. That is why I am extremely excited to announce a new web resource that places many classic commentaries on the usus antiquior Sunday and Holy Day Masses at preachers' (and laity's) fingertips: Sermonry.

For now, the website features commentaries from the Catena Aurea by St. Thomas, a work that itself draws upon over 80 Church Fathers (the majority of them Greek); the Haydock Bible; and Denzinger. Designer and programmer Patrick Hawkins intends to add more commentaries as time goes on, including Guéranger. Here is a description that Mr. Hawkins kindly sent to me:

Sermonry takes the propers of the Mass and puts traditional commentaries right next to them, in a way that’s easy to navigate and a pleasure to read. I think the site will be useful for two groups of Catholics: clergy and laity.
          My hope is that clergy will find this a useful resource when preparing homilies for Traditional Latin Masses for years to come. A priest to whom I showed an early version of the site worried that if every priest was using this resource, they’d all come up with the same homilies. But that’s unlikely. One priest might preach on the Introit; another, on the Gradual. A priest might preach on three different passages from a single Gospel over three consecutive years. These commentaries will support and enhance what a priest is already trying to do in the pulpit.
          For the laity, these commentaries can supplement and reinforce what they are receiving every Sunday from the liturgy. For myself I’ve noticed, especially with the Haydock, explanations of particular phrases and customs of the day make it easier to visualize what’s going on in a particular passage, aiding meditation. And having it all right there in one place, I’m not switching back and forth between 2 or 3 books, which helps with focus.
          Sermonry has a beta label on because it’s not yet complete. Adding commentaries is a time-consuming process. But what’s there is already useful, today. A priest relying on this for homily prep should find commentaries for Sundays and major feasts added a month in advance.

Anyone wanting progress updates can sign up on the email list here.

Questions? Address them to hello@sermonry.com.
On Facebook: https://facebook.com/sermonry
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/@sermonry

This strikes me as a brilliant use of technology in service of tradition. I hope many clergy and laity will take advantage of it. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins, for launching this project. We wish you great success with its development.