Gregory Nazianzen in the Service of Humanist Social Reform

Abstract

In 1539 Sébastien Gryphius, noted humanist printer of Lyon, published a French translation of Sermon Fourteen of Gregory Nazianzen, περί ϕιƛοπτωχίαs or De amore pauperum. It was entitled De la cure, et nourrissement des Pauvres, Sermon du Benoist sainct Gregoire Nazanzene, surnommé par excellence Theologien and it was the first of Gregory's works to be printed in French. Though the edition is included in Baudrier's Bibliographie lyonnaise, it has so far escaped the notice of specialists working on Gregory Nazianzen. What is important about the edition, however, is not that it is a bibhographical ‘first,’ but that it reveals some new dimensions of humanist interest in the early Fathers of the Church.Of the three known copies of La cure et nourrissement des Pauvres, one is in the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, where it is bound with another work printed by Gryphius in 1539, La Police de l’aulmosne de Lyon; a second belonged to Baudrier and was also bound with La Police de Vaulmosne; and the third is at the Archives de la Charité et de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon.