Gregory of Nazianzus is my favorite Cappadocian father.  That probably makes me a nerd, but I love Gregory’s brilliant and biting polemical rhetoric.  His thoughts, conclusions, and arguments about the Trinity make my head spin and my imagination take flight.  Most of all, there are ways he seems to be a kindred spirit, of like temperament.  He prefers the quiet, studious life of contemplation and monasticism but was called to the priesthood, and eventually the episcopate, against his will.  Consequently, Gregory’s thoughts on the role of theology in the priesthood are fascinating, particularly in his second oration, “In Defense of his Flight to Pontus.”

In this oration, Gregory explains the reasons he fled from his own ordination, though he eventually let duty compel him to return and took his place in the ranks of the clergy.  In the course of his defense, he lays out his understanding of just what a priest is, and by the time he is done, it’s no wonder why he fled: he describes quite a daunting vocation.

One of the primary images he uses to describe the role of the priest is that of a “doctor of souls.” He admonishes the reader to be careful to understand that to be a doctor of souls is much more difficult than to be one of bodies, for the soul is remarkably more complex than the body.  The stakes are also much higher, for the direction of a person’s soul is of eternal significance, rather than the body, which is only temporal.  He writes, “The guiding of man . . . seems to me in very deed to be the art of arts and science of sciences” (2.16).  One of the reasons for this is simply that people are not usually open about their sins, and the ones who are probably won’t listen to the one who tries to help them.  Moreover, the correction of these sins, once the priest has correctly “diagnosed” them, must be perfectly tailored to the sinner.  There is no one method that will heal every person.  Some need praise, others blame; some need doctrine, others examples; some private admonitions, others public rebuke (2.29-32).  It is important to note that for Gregory, the work of the pastor is always soteriological.  The pastor diagnoses and helps to set the parishioner free from sin, though of course, only Christ has done the saving work.

One of the most important tools the priest has for his or her (for Gregory it was only ‘his’) work, then, is theology.  In fact, Gregory describes the “distribution of the Word” as the most important task of the priest (2.35).  Speaking the Word to the people enabled both the diagnosing and the curing of sin.  Gregory speaks of those who have erred in regard to truth and piety and have not done God’s will.  For many of them, their error is not from a blatant disregard for truth or some deliberate choice but because they simply did not know God’s will.  These people have great zeal but no depth.  Gregory claims that it is the priest’s job to teach the people.  Similarly, it is the priest’s job to contend on God’s behalf against those who “speak unrighteousness against the most High” and oppose sound doctrine (2.41).  Not that God is not capable of defending God’s self, but that the priest ought to contend for God’s name against those who would slander it lest any person be led astray by false doctrine.  Theology was largely for the purpose of fighting heresies, though it was not solely for the purpose of fighting heresies.  Gregory makes it clear that the priest’s job is also to replace these heresies and false ideas with the correct ones (2.14).  In this, theology has a constructive purpose.  The priest preaches the transformative word of God which brings about a change in the people and draws them ever closer to God.

Thus, for Gregory, every priest must be remarkably well trained in theology.  They need to be capable of warding off any potential or actual heresies, of knowing which portions and how much of the Word to distribute to people, of paying attention to the eternal significance of the priest’s position, and of speaking about theology well—no easy task, Gregory assures us.  The priest must first be made pure and clean and draw near to God in order that he or she may then lead others into the presence of God, which is the point.

As an undergraduate, I was a TA for a course titled “Introduction to Theology and Ministry,” which was designed to introduce students to basic theological concepts and the way they are important for ministry.  It was primarily freshmen and sophomores, and the one frustrated phrase I heard repeatedly was “Why do we have to learn all this theology?  I just want to go DO ministry!” At the divinity school, it can seem as though theology’s importance for ministry is a given, but the issue is addressed by so many professors—I have yet to have a class that does not make at least passing reference to this point—that I must wonder if we still fail to understand just how essential this time of theological training is.

I might even challenge Gregory a bit.  He focuses far more in this oration on theology as a fight against the powers of evil than on its positive function.  I might argue, however, that theology is also constructive.  Pastors have a responsibility to preach the gospel, to preach the Word that is Christ and that does transform.  It is a word of hope and of grace, not merely a sword to wield against heretics.  Gregory ultimately returned to his post out of a sense of duty.  I wonder if a better reason could have been that the responsibility doesn’t finally rest with us but on the grace of Christ.

It seems as though a more robust understanding of the pastor’s vocation would go a long way toward reshaping our understanding of what we are doing here with our studies.  Is the pastor just a comforting presence during moments of crisis, the person who speaks some thoughts about living well on Sunday mornings, someone to pray at meals and official occasions?  Or is the pastor one who daily contends with Satan to wrest her parishioners out of his hands, who works toward a specific eschatological goal, who contends against heresies, who preaches the Word of hope that leads to eternal life, who daily tells her people the truth that grace is large, whose job is to “provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God, and to watch over that which is in His image, if it abides, to take it by the hand, if it is in danger, or restore it, if ruined, to make Christ to dwell in the heart by the Spirit: and, in short, to deify, and bestow heavenly bliss upon, one who belongs to the heavenly host” (2.22)?  If it’s the latter, how important our studies become!  And in this case, it’s no wonder Gregory fled.  In fact, when I think of this responsibility, I consider a flight of my own.

Samantha L. Miller is a first-year M.Div. candidate at Duke Divinity School.