HistoricalChristian.Faith

Gregory of Nazianzus on the Old Testament Canon

Dates: c. 389 AD (the canon list is the verse poem Concerning the Genuine Books of Divinely Inspired Scripture [Carmina dogmatica I.1.12], a didactic poem composed in his retirement years at Cappadocia, c. 383–389; Gregory c. 329–390, "the Theologian," one of the Cappadocian Fathers and briefly archbishop of Constantinople) · Wikipedia
Verdict on the deuterocanon: NO — a strict Hebrew-sized canon, narrower than most. Gregory versifies the Old Testament for a friend and the disputed Greek books are simply not there: no Tobit, no Judith, no Wisdom of Solomon, no Sirach, no Maccabees. His list runs even shorter than his neighbours' — it omits Esther entirely, fixing the total at twenty-two "corresponding to the number of the Hebrew letters." He warns "let not extraneous books seduce your mind. For many malignant writings have been disseminated." An Eastern Hebrew-canon witness of a piece with his cousin Amphilochius of Iconium, alongside Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and Epiphanius. And yet his own orations cut the other way: the same Gregory quotes Judith as "the Scripture," cites the Wisdom of Solomon with "as it is written," and presses Baruch as a proof-text for the Incarnation against the Arians — the familiar list-versus-usage strain, here in its starkest form, since no Father on this timeline drew a leaner list.

Claims & evidence

The twenty-two books — "corresponding to the number of the Hebrew letters"

Casting the canon as a teaching poem for a friend, Gregory opens by charging him to rehearse "the divine oracles" and to refuse the books that fall outside the list, then recites the Old Testament book by book and seals it with the Hebrew-letter count:¹

The divine oracles should always on the tongue and in the mind be rehearsed… But let not extraneous books seduce your mind. For many malignant writings have been disseminated. Accept, o friend, this my approved number. These are all twelve of the historical books, of the most ancient Hebrew wisdom: First there is Genesis, then Exodus, Leviticus too. Then Numbers, and the Second Law. Then Joshua and Judges. Ruth is eighth. The ninth and tenth books [are] the acts of Kings, and [the eleventh is] Chronicles. Last you have Ezra. The poetic books are five: Job being first, then [the Psalms of] David; and three of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Canticles and Proverbs. And similarly five of prophetic inspiration. There are the Twelve written in one book: Hosea and Amos, and Micah the third; then Joel, and Jonah, Obadiah, Nahum also, and Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, Haggai, then Zechariah, and Malachi. All these are one. The second is of Isaiah. Then the one called as an infant, Jeremiah, Then Ezekiel, and the gift of Daniel. I count therefore, twenty-two of the ancient books, corresponding to the number of the Hebrew letters.

The structure is the familiar Eastern one: twelve historical books (with Ruth folded after Judges, the paired books of Kings counted with Chronicles, and "Ezra" standing for Ezra–Nehemiah), five poetic, and five prophetic (the Twelve Minor Prophets as a single book, then Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel). The result is the protocanonical Hebrew canon — the same boundary Cyril and Athanasius draw on this timeline, and the near-twin of his cousin Amphilochius's verse list.

The deuterocanon is absent

Counted out against the disputed books, the verdict is plain: no Tobit, no Judith, no Wisdom of Solomon, no Sirach, no Maccabees — the very Greek books a Septuagint-sized canon would carry are nowhere in the poem.¹ Nor, unlike Cyril's Jeremiah, is the list even softened by a folded-in Baruch or Epistle of Jeremiah: Gregory names "Jeremiah" alone. And the warning that frames the recitation is aimed at exactly this surplus — "let not extraneous books seduce your mind. For many malignant writings have been disseminated" — so that the "approved number" is offered as a fence against the books outside it.

Narrower than his neighbours — Esther omitted entirely

Gregory's list is stricter even than the other Hebrew-canon Fathers on one protocanonical book: it omits Esther altogether. Where Cyril counts Esther as his twelfth book and Amphilochius appends it as a book "some approve," Gregory does not name it at all — his enumeration runs from Genesis to Daniel without it, and lands on twenty-two precisely because Esther is left out.¹ In this he tracks Athanasius, whose festal list likewise drops Esther from the canon proper. A Father this sparing — declining even a protocanonical book that the rest of the Eastern tradition kept — plainly left no room for Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, or the Maccabees, none of which he so much as mentions.

Yet the disputed books still do the work of Scripture in his orations

Set against the leanest list on this timeline, Gregory's actual practice is the classic list-versus-usage strain — sharper here than anywhere, precisely because the catalogue is so strict. The same Theologian who fences his "approved number" against "extraneous books" reaches, in the orations, for books his twenty-two omit — and quotes them as prophecy, as Scripture, and as a proof of the Incarnation.

Baruch, a proof-text for the Incarnation against the Arians. In the Fourth Theological Oration, arguing that certain Old-Testament words name not the Father but the incarnate Son, Gregory adduces Baruch 3:36–38 and rests his case on its closing clause:²

This is your God; no other shall be accounted of in comparison with Him… after this did He show Himself upon earth, and conversed with men. This addition proves clearly that the words are not used of the Father, but of the Son; for it was He Who in bodily form companied with us, and was in this lower world.

This is the sharpest tension of all: a book wholly absent from Gregory's verse catalogue is here made to carry the weight of a doctrinal proof against the Arians, the "addition" of v. 38 turned into a decisive Christological argument. The very text his list will not name, his theology cannot do without.

Judith, called "the Scripture." In the Second Oration on Easter, allegorizing the Exodus plagues, Gregory writes:³

and Egypt mourns the first-born of her own reasonings and actions which are also called in the Scripture the Seed of the Chaldeans removed, and the children of Babylon dashed against the rocks and destroyed.

The phrase "the Seed of the Chaldeans" is drawn from Judith 5:6 (Israel's forebears reckoned "of the seed of the Chaldeans"), and Gregory introduces it with the bare formula "in the Scripture" — the same word he reserves for the canon — for a book his poem never names.

The Wisdom of Solomon, cited "as it is written." In the Second Theological Oration, pressing the truth that God pervades and fills all things, Gregory pairs Jeremiah and Wisdom under a single citation formula:⁴

And how shall we preserve the truth that God pervades all things and fills all, as it is written—Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord—and, The Spirit of the Lord fills the world?

The clause "The Spirit of the Lord fills the world" is Wisdom 1:7. Gregory yokes it to Jeremiah 23:24 under one "as it is written," granting the disputed book exactly the scriptural standing of the prophet beside it — though Wisdom is nowhere in his five "poetic" books.

Sirach, a charge to honour both parents. In the oration on the equality of the marriage law, rebuking a legislation that bore hard on women, Gregory clinches the duty owed equally to mother and father with Sirach 3:9:⁵

The blessing of a father strengthens the houses of children, but the curse of a mother uproots the foundations.

He follows it at once with "See the equality of the legislation" — treating the words of Ben Sira as the divine law's own ruling, exactly as he would Proverbs.

The Maccabees, among the martyr-exemplars. Finally, in the funeral oration for Basil, Gregory ranges the seven Maccabean martyrs alongside the canonical heroes of endurance — the three children in the fire, Jonah in the whale, Daniel in the lions' den:⁶

I pass by the rest, the three young men bedewed in the fire, the fugitive prophet praying in the whale's belly, and coming forth from the creature, as from a chamber; the just man in the den, restraining the lions' rage, and the struggle of the seven Maccabees, who were perfected with their father and mother in blood, and in all kinds of tortures.

This last is the weakest of the five — an edifying example, not a Scripture-formula — but it places the story of 2 Maccabees 7 on a level with Daniel and Jonah, and Gregory thought the Maccabean martyrs worthy of a whole homily of their own (Oration 15).

None of this overturns his formal verdict: he did draw the twenty-two-book line, and drew it tighter than anyone. But it shows what "outside the list" meant in practice — read, quoted, and pressed into doctrine. Because Gregory's catalogue is the leanest on the timeline, the gap between his list and his usage is one of the clearest single-Father instances of the wider pattern weighed on the "did the early church reject the deuterocanon?" argument page.

Notes

• A canon in verse, paired with Amphilochius. The poem's striking literary form — the Scripture canon set out as didactic verse — is shared in this era only with the Iambics for Seleucus of Amphilochius of Iconium, Gregory's cousin and fellow associate of Basil. The two poems form a tight Cappadocian testimony to the shorter Old Testament, fixing the books "one by one" so a pupil "may learn them clearly" rather than by any conciliar decree — the characteristic fourth-century Eastern mode.
• How the count reaches twenty-two. Gregory groups the books so that Ruth attaches to Judges, the two books of Kings (1–2 Samuel + 1–2 Kings) go with Chronicles, Ezra stands for Ezra–Nehemiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets count as one. With Esther omitted, the historical, poetic, and prophetic groups total exactly twenty-two — the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, the same numerological frame Cyril, Athanasius, and Jerome use, though their lists keep Esther and reach twenty-two by a different reckoning.
• The New Testament is treated elsewhere. The same poem goes on to list the New Testament books, where Gregory's catalogue famously omits the Apocalypse — a matter belonging to the New-Testament-canon question, not the deuterocanon, and so not pressed here.
• A genuinely strict witness. Among the Hebrew-canon Fathers gathered on this timeline, Gregory's is the leanest Old Testament: no deuterocanon, no bundled Baruch, and not even Esther. He is the cleanest available counter-witness to a Septuagint-sized canon — though, like the rest of the Eastern circle, he read his Scriptures from the Greek Bible that also carried the books he leaves off the list.
• List and usage do not line up. Gregory is sometimes named flatly among the "rejecters" of the deuterocanon, and his poem is indeed the strictest exclusion on the timeline. But his orations quote the very books the poem omits as Scripture — Baruch as a proof of the Incarnation, Judith as "the Scripture," the Wisdom of Solomon "as it is written," Sirach as the divine law, and the Maccabees among the martyr-exemplars (see "Yet the disputed books still do the work of Scripture" above). The leanest list and the everyday use of the wider Greek Bible sit side by side in one Father — the sharpest single case of the fourth-century pattern of ranking by the Hebrew count while reading from the Septuagint.

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