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Oration VIII. Funeral Oration on his Sister Gorgonia.
1. In praising my sister, I shall pay honour to one of my own family yet my praise will not be false, because it is given to a relation, but, becaus
2. Yet it would be most unreasonable of all, if, while we refuse to regard it as a righteous thing to defraud, insult, accuse, or treat unjustly in a
3. Having now made a sufficient defence on these points, and shown how necessary it is for me to be the speaker, come, let me proceed with my eulogy,
4. Who is there who knows not the Abraham and Sarah of these our latter days, Gregory and Nonna his wife? For it is not well to omit the incitement
5. This good shepherd was the result of his wife’s prayers and guidance, and it was from her that he learned his ideal of a good shepherd’s life. He
6. From them Gorgonia derived both her existence and her reputation they sowed in her the seeds of piety, they were the source of her fair life, and
7. This is what I know upon these points: and therefore it is that I both am aware and assert that her soul was more noble than those of the East, a
8. In modesty she so greatly excelled, and so far surpassed, those of her own day, to say nothing of those of old time who have been illustrious for
9. The divine Solomon, in his instructive wisdom, I mean his Proverbs, praises the woman who looks to her household and loves her husband, contrastin
10. Here, if you will, is another point of her excellence: one of which neither she nor any truly modest and decorous woman thinks anything: but wh
11. Enough of such topics. Of her prudence and piety no adequate account can be given, nor many examples found besides those of her natural and spir
12. Who opened her house to those who live according to God with a more graceful and bountiful welcome? And, which is greater than this, who bade th
13. But amid these tokens of incredible magnanimity, she did not surrender her body to luxury, and unrestrained pleasures of the appetite, that ragin
14. O untended body, and squalid garments, whose only flower is virtue! O soul, clinging to the body, when reduced almost to an immaterial state thr
15. Oh! how am I to count up all her traits, or pass over most of them without injury to those who know them not? Here however it is right to subjoi
16. O remarkable and wonderful disaster! O injury more noble than security! O prophecy, “He hath smitten, and He will bind us up, and revive us, an
17. She was sick in body, and dangerously ill of an extraordinary and malignant disease, her whole frame was incessantly fevered, her blood at one ti
18. What then did this great soul, worthy offspring of the greatest, and what was the medicine for her disorder, for we have now come to the great se
19. Such was her life. Most of its details I have left untold, lest my speech should grow to undue proportions, and lest I should seem to be too gre
20. She had recently obtained the blessing of cleansing and perfection, which we have all received from God as a common gift and foundation of our ne
21. And now when she had all things to her mind, and nothing was lacking of her desires, and the appointed time drew nigh, being thus prepared for de
22. Yet what was I on the point of omitting? But perhaps thou, who art her spiritual father, wouldst not have allowed me, and hast carefully conceal
23. Better, I know well, and far more precious than eye can see, is thy present lot, the song of them that keep holy-day, the throng of angels, the h
ΛΟΓΟΣ Ηʹ.Εἰς τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἑαυτοῦ Γοργονίαν ἐπιτάφιος.
