Philip Schaff · 17 of 60
Gregorius Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Cæsarea. About A.D. 270.
Gregory, surnamed the Great or Thaumaturgus, i.e., the Wonderworker (from his supposed power of miracles), was a pupil and admirer of Origen (on whom he wrote an eloquent panegyric), and Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea in Pontus (from about 240 to 270), which he changed from a into a Christian city. He took a prominent part in the Synod of Antioch (A.D. 269), which condemned the errors of Paul of Samosata, and issued a lengthy creed. He was held in the highest esteem, as we learn from Basil the Great, his successor in office (De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 29, § 74, where he is compared to the apostles and prophets, and called a 'second Moses'), and from Gregory of Nyssa (Vita Gregorii). The following creed ( ἔκθεσις πίστεως κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν Γρηγορίου ἐπισκόπου Νεοκαισαρείας ) was, according to the legend related by Gregory of Nyssa a hundred years later, revealed to him by the Apostle John in a vision, at the request of the Virgin Mary. It is somewhat rhetorical, but more explicit on the doctrine of the than any other ante-Nicene creed, and approaches in this respect the Symbolum Quicunque. The Greek text in Gallandi, Vet. PP. Bibl. p. 385; in Mansi, Tom. I. p. 1030, and Hahn, p. 97. Hahn gives also two Latin versions, one by Rufinus. Two other creeds ascribed to him are not genuine. An English translation of his writings by S. D. F. Salmond, in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. XX. (Edinb. 1871).
