Nazianzen Contra Sophistas. Notes on the Genre and Structure of Oration 27

This article reevaluates the genre and structure of the “First Theological Oration” (or. 27) of Gregory of Nazianzus. At stake in understanding these aspects of the speech is our sense of its actual tone and tenor, and consequently its place in the rhetorical “program” of Gregory’s Constantinopolitan orations. Because it is not written as an “invective” (ψόγος), as is often claimed, or. 27 may admit of a more dialogic reading than previous interpreters have allowed. By attending more closely to Gregory’s use of traditional language, the role of his syntax in disclosing the structure of the speech, and the ways in which traditional editorial conventions have sometimes obscured this structure, this article recasts or. 27 as chiefly an exercise in protreptic (προτροπή). Moreover, it suggests that or. 27 is evidence that a spirit of dialogue, and not of contempt, is likely to have typified Gregory’s rhetorical stance toward his opponents in Constantinople, prior to the autumn of 380.