Patristic Pastoral Theology: Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine of Hippo

For you I am a bishop; but with you I am a Christian.
– St. Augustine of Hippo¹

For that which He has not assumed He has not healed;
but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.
– St. Gregory the Theologian²

What can the patristic era offer twenty-first century pastoral theology and ministry, specifically as it pertains to the work of the New Evangelization? Can the writings of the Church Fathers — a period more than a millennium detached from our current ecclesial and socio-cultural milieu — offer contemporary Catholics a theological-pastoral framework to fulfill the Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19)?³

The answers to such questions may be less obvious to those with modern sensibilities, even within the walls of Catholicism and specifically within theological faculties. There are strands of modern pastoral theology which operate more like a pseudo-psychology that resembles something more like social work and philanthropic altruism, devoid of theological and doctrinal substance. Andrew Purves notes that modern pastoral theology, in both Catholicism and Protestantism, has taken a decisive shift in vision, scope, and content since the 1950s: “The discipline has moved in a distinctly clinical, psychotherapeutic, or, more generally, social-scientific direction rather than a theological or doctrinal direction.”⁴ This practically manifests into a form of pastoral care reduced to a mere horizontal dimension. It is what St. John Paul II described as shrinking the Christian pastoral vision to “merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being” whereby a “gradual secularization of salvation” has taken place.⁵ Pastoral ministry becomes separated from Christ, from a life of grace, leaving the Holy Spirit with nothing to do.

However, the bifurcation between theology and ministry was virtually nonexistent in the patristic period. For the Church Fathers, there was an organic unity between theology, scripture, spirituality, and pastoral ministry. They understood that Divine Revelation grounded and guided the Church’s mission and care for souls. The Fathers legitimately testify to the discipline of “pastoral theology” par excellence.

With that said, this article will compare the pastoral theologies of Saints Gregory Nazianzus (“the Theologian”) and Augustine of Hippo. Christopher Beeley claims that Gregory is one of the “foremost pastoral theologians of the early Church”⁶ and “the premier patristic teacher on pastoral ministry, equalled only by Augustine in the Latin West.”⁷ Gregory’s initial reflections on pastoral ministry strongly influenced another Gregory some 230 years later, forming the basis of Pope St. Gregory the Great’s magnum opus, the Liber Regulae Pastoralis (the Book of Pastoral Rule).⁸ The focus of this article will be to explore two specific texts that articulate and form the basis of their pastoral theologies: Gregory’s Oration II: In Defence of His Flight to Pontus,⁹ and Augustine’s Sermon 46: On Pastors.¹⁰ These texts will form the foundation for dialogue with their wider theological works. Specifically, there will be a particular focus on how Gregory and Augustine understand and utilize Scripture to form their respective pastoral theologies.

Historical Background 

Gregory of Nazianzus begins his oration with a memorable and yet bizarre confession: “I have been defeated, and own my defeat [῞Ηττημαι͵ καὶ τὴν ἧτταν ὁμολογῶ].”¹¹ This opening admission poetically encapsulates the agonizing tension between his longing for the contemplative life and his reluctant acceptance of ecclesial office. Despite his unwillingness to accept the pastoral office, Gregory was ordained to the priesthood against his will, “thrust into the midst of a life of turmoil by an arbitrary act of oppression”¹² Gregory then sporadically departs in “flight” to Pontus to escape his supposedly coerced situation. After coming to his senses and to a realization of his pastoral duty to care for his people, Oration II follows Gregory’s return from monastic retreat in Pontus. His oration, therefore, is a defense of his fainthearted flight to Pontus, arguing by means of a treatise of the seriousness of the pastoral office — an office which is not for the fainthearted. Gregory thus hits two birds with one stone; the oration is a significant contribution to pastoral theology while revealing the “insights into the heart and soul of the person who would be pastor, and of the difficulties of the office.”¹³ Given the utter seriousness of the pastoral office, Gregory deemed himself unqualified, and to his eyes, justifiably so.

Augustine’s sermon, On Pastors (46), has less of a biographical focus. According to Lawrence Porter, the sermons were given to an assembly of bishops and laity at about 409 or 410, with the Donatist controversy looming in the background in North Africa.¹⁴ The Donatists believed that priests needed to be morally faultless and that the sacraments were only valid if the minister were in a state of grace. Also informing his view on pastoral ministry were his polemical disputes against the heresies of Manichaeism and Pelagianism. Each of these three heresies had a direct influence on Augustine’s thought of what a pastor is and what kind of person would be suitable for pastoral office. For example, Augustine argued against Faustus the Manichaean using Scripture, alluding to the sinfulness of both Peter and Moses as evidence that one could be a pastor and not be perfect at the same time:

But that after this sin Peter should become a pastor of the Church was no more improper than that Moses, after smiting the Egyptian, should become the leader of the congregation. In both cases the trespass originated not in inveterate cruelty, but in a hasty zeal which admitted of correction. In both cases there was resentment against injury, accompanied in one case by love for a brother, and in the other by love, though still carnal, of the Lord. Here was evil to be subdued or rooted out; but the heart with such capacities needed only, like good soil, to be cultivated to make it fruitful in virtue.¹⁵

Despite this qualification, Augustine will be vehemently assertive in stressing the holiness of the pastor and the grave seriousness of assuming pastoral office in his two sermons on pastors.

Scripture and Hermeneutics 

Since the focus of this article is to explore both the Eastern and Western traditions through Gregory and Augustine, naturally we would find some hermeneutical differences regarding their respective approach to Scripture. Our focus will be to explore how the aforementioned texts engage with Scripture rather than address their wider hermeneutical approach as such.

In Oration II, Brian Matz notes that there are 508 biblical citations in this oration spread across 117 paragraphs.¹⁶ Whether it is through biblical language, images or allusions, Matz rightly concludes that Gregory’s pastoral theology is deeply scriptural, such that it almost seems that Scripture is doing the work for him.¹⁷ As Matz writes: “the words of the Bible establish his main point; his own words merely add further depth of insight from his culture.”¹⁸ As it will be made clear, there is a symbiotic relationship between the witness of Scripture and the pastoral office that could be applied to one’s current day. Beeley says that for Gregory, there is a “basic continuity that exists between the economy of salvation recorded in the Scriptures and the work of the Christian priest in the contemporary Church [. . .] the whole of God’s saving work — from the Law and the prophets to Christ’s incarnation, passion, and resurrection — ‘intends’ the pastoral ministry of the Church.”¹⁹

Augustine’s sermon On Pastors offers a more straightforward approach to Scripture. Its liturgical setting is clear: Augustine is offering a homiletic reflection of what was “just heard in the reading.”²⁰ The passage read was from Ezekiel 34, where the prophet rebukes the false shepherds of Israel who “feed themselves” rather than their sheep. Augustine will use this to provide a scathing commentary on the dignity and seriousness of the pastoral office, specifically the office of bishop. Augustine’s engagement with Scripture tends to be more “homiletic, epistolary, and discursive”²¹ often using scripture to “prove or illustrate a preoccupying point of interest, be it the refutation of a heresy, the demonstration of a spiritual Christian life, or a historical-philosophical point.”²² And yet, in Sermon 46, Augustine encourages an allegorical reading of Scripture, using the Song of Songs to articulate the pastoral relationship between Christ and His pastors (bridegroom) and the Church (bride).²³ Furthermore, he exhorts pastors to listen to Scripture because “practically every page tells of nothing but Christ, and the Church spread through the whole world.”²⁴

Augustine’s exhortations have a strong moral focus, often linked to participation in the sacraments and life of the Church.²⁵ Wendy Mayer describes this approach as the “psychagogic method” — often embraced by Augustine and John Chrysostom.²⁶ The Greek word for psychagogy — ψυχαγωγία from ψυχή (“soul”) and ἄγω (“lead”) — literally means “soul leading” or “soul guidance.” Within the ancient Greek tradition, psychagogy was a kind of “soul-therapy,” the art of influencing and guiding the soul. As David Rylaarsdam writes: “psychagogy refers to a mature person’s leading of neophytes in an attempt to bring about moral reformation.”²⁷ Augustine’s hermeneutical approach is therefore a pastoral-theological point in itself: essential to pastoral ministry is to engage with the Scriptures to bring about a moral end; to “lead the soul.” And yet the question remains: to lead the soul where? And to what specific end? This is where we turn to Gregory and Augustine and what they conceive to be the goal of pastoral ministry proper.

The Goal of Pastoral Ministry: Theosis and Salvation

Gregory esteemed pastoral ministry with the utmost importance. In Oration II, he writes: “For the guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures, seems to me in very deed to be the art of arts and science of sciences [τέχνη τις εἶναι τεχνῶν͵ καὶ ἐπιστήμη ἐπιστημῶν].”²⁸ This line would be taken up two centuries later in Pope St. Gregory the Great’s Liber Regulae Pastoralis (Book of the Pastoral Rule) which was the most widely read book on pastoral theology for over one thousand years.²⁹ Gregory the Great’s most famous line of the work echoes Gregory of Nazianzus in the opening lines of the Pastoral Rule: “No one presumes to teach an art till he has first, with intent meditation, learnt it. What rashness is it, then, for the unskilful to assume pastoral authority, since the government of souls is the art of arts!”³⁰

Gregory of Nazianzus understands pastoral ministry as the most supreme art: τέχνη τις είναι τεχνών. Beeley describes τέχνη as a “distinctive art or craft with its own method and sense of expertise, a science or profession based on a discreet body of knowledge (επιστήμη).”³¹ In contrast to the physician of bodies (II.16), Gregory says that the physician of souls is “more laborious” because of the “nature of its subject matter, the power of its science, and the object of its exercise.”³² Why? Because pastoral ministry is “concerned with the soul, which comes from God and is divine [τὴν ἐκ Θεοῦ καὶ θείαν], and partakes of the heavenly mobility.”³³ It is not within the scope of this article to address the intellectual genealogy of this theological-anthropological view and its possible roots in Stoicism and Neo-Platonism. Nevertheless, for Gregory, the goal of pastoral ministry is clear, the end in view between these two “forms of healing [θεραπειῶν τέλη]” is that the physician of the soul has a greater “scope”:

But the scope of our art is to provide the soul with wings [τῇ δὲ τὸ προκείμενον πτερῶσαι ψυχὴν], 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 [Θεὸν ποιῆσαι], and bestow heavenly bliss upon, one who belongs to the heavenly host.³⁴

In contrast to some modern goals of pastoral care which express a more horizontalized expression through personal well-being and “spiritual therapy” as its goal, it is clear that Gregory offers us a more elevated understanding of “therapy” [θεραπειῶν τέλη] orientated towards its proper eschatological and soteriological end. That is, pastoral ministry is directed towards the theological idea of “theōsis” or “divinization.” Gregory’s offers us further insights on this matter in several orations. In his first Easter Oration (I.5), he exhorts his listeners: “Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God’s for His sake, since He for ours became Man.”³⁵ In his second Easter Oration (45.3), he says that God purifies us “to make us like God [θεοειδεῖς ἐργάζηται]; so that, when we have become like Himself, God may, to use a bold expression, hold converse with us as God [Θεὸς θεοῖς]; being united to us, and known by us.”³⁶

For Gregory, the goal is to become a “real unspotted mirror of God and divine things.”³⁷ Pastoral ministry is an extension of salvation history. Pastoral ministry is a participation in the saving plan of God as revealed in the Scriptures. As Gregory says: “This is why the new was substituted for the old, why He Who suffered was for suffering recalled to life [. . .] This is the reason for the generation and the virgin, for the manger and Bethlehem . . .” (II.24). All these events of Scripture are to be applied in a real applicative way through the ministry of the pastor: “This is all part of the ‘training’ from God for us, healing us from the fall and availing us to the tree of life (II.25).”³⁸

Augustine also has an eschatological and soteriological vision, but that is less explicit in Sermon 46. The focus is not on theosis as salvation but still on salvation nonetheless, with the focus on judgment and the consequences of bad shepherding. Augustine is warning his listeners of what the consequences are for when shepherds lead their sheep astray. There will be judgment for the pastor and the sheep;³⁹ there will be reward and salvation for those who follow Jesus Christ;⁴⁰ and therefore one must be wise because the devil wants everyone to go astray.⁴¹

The focus on judgment is clear, mentioned 27 times in Sermon 46. It is tied to the Augustine’s psychagogical approach to ministry, exhorting his listeners to a virtuous moral life. According to Paul Kolbet, Augustine’s pastoral duties as bishop, administrator, preacher, dispenser of sacraments, disputing with heretics, offering personal guidance and social-welfare, allowed him to develop a “sophisticated pastoral theory in which these ministries of care could be understood as various expressions of more fundamental convictions regarding the soul’s cure.”⁴² Augustine’s moral focus grounds his pastoral mission: shepherds must nurse their sheep to good “health”⁴³ for the sake of their salvation. This is what was classically known in the patristic period as the cura animarum ­— the cure of souls.⁴⁴

Pastoral ministry is directed toward the salvation of the flock. This leads us to ponder one of Augustine’s more well-known distinctions between the identity of a Christian and the identity of the bishop: “Being Christians is for our sake; being in charge is for yours. It is to our advantage that we are Christians, only to yours that we are in charge.”⁴⁵ Augustine’s distinction informs the Church’s current sacramental understanding of Holy Orders as indicated by the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Holy Orders and Matrimony . . . are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God.⁴⁶

Augustine also expresses this reality again in his sermon on the anniversary of his ordination (340), which was quoted in Lumen Gentium 31: “What I am for you terrifies me; what I am with you consoles me. For you I am a bishop; but with you I am a Christian. The former is a duty; the latter a grace. The former is a danger; the latter, salvation.”⁴⁷

“Terror” is a constant theme when Augustine reflects on his pastoral office. Because the goal of ministry is “salvation” and if a pastor leads their flock astray, that will mean judgment and the eternal fire, then Augustine exhorts his fellow bishops to ponder Ezekiel 34 with “fear and apprehension.”⁴⁸ He is fearful because he knows what is at stake, and he knows that there are “bad shepherds” who look after themselves rather than the sheep.⁴⁹ Thus, unless a bishop really takes his role seriously, then he is also culpable for judgment. Augustine, therefore, rightly proclaims: “It’s we bishops, it seems, who have got to worry.”⁵⁰

The Perilousness of the Pastoral Office

Gregory is also apprehensive of the gravity of his pastoral responsibility. Because “the interests at stake” are greater, then no one should accept it rashly.⁵¹ He also fears judgment if he were to fail to lead the Lord’s flock.⁵² Thus, Gregory is apologetic, considering himself unqualified “to rule a flock or herd, or to have authority over the souls of men.”⁵³ Just as a medical doctor needs experience and practice to be duly qualified, so too does the pastor — a doctor of souls — must be qualified through holiness and virtue.⁵⁴ And yet, holiness in itself does not necessarily qualify a person for ministry: “although a man has kept himself pure from sin, even in a very high degree; I do not know that even this is sufficient for one who is to instruct others in virtue.”⁵⁵ Indeed, holiness is a necessary foundation, for a man must himself be cleansed before cleansing others.⁵⁶ But those called to the pastoral office must know how to “rule over men” which seems “far harder.”⁵⁷ This is partly due to the office of spiritual physician being concerned with “the hidden man of the heart”⁵⁸  to “heal their own passions and sicknesses.”⁵⁹ For Gregory, this is not for the fainthearted: “a much greater thing is the power to heal and skilfully cleanse those of others, to the advantage both of those who are in want of healing and of those whose charge it is to heal.”⁶⁰

Augustine takes a more sarcastic approach in articulating the difficulty and seriousness of the pastoral office. In his sermon at the ordination of a bishop, Augustine lampoons those who desire the title of bishop naïvely:

“I want to be a bishop; oh, if only I were a bishop!” Would that you were! Are you seeking the name, or the real thing? If it’s the real thing you’re seeking, you are setting your heart on a good work. If it’s the name you’re seeking, you can have it even with a bad work, but with a worse punishment.⁶¹

Augustine’s sarcasm has an undertone of insecurity because the pressure of the pastoral office can easily tempt one to compromise the truth for the sake of popularity. He targets himself and those in the pastoral office who excuse the sinful behavior of their flocks to win their favor, jeopardizing their salvation. Such pastors feed only themselves, and not their sheep:

Far be it from us, therefore, to say to you, “Live how you like, don’t worry, God won’t destroy anyone; only keep the Christian faith. He won’t destroy what he has redeemed [. . .] Great is the mercy of God, which can pardon everything . . .”

If we bishops start saying that sort of thing we shall no doubt draw far bigger crowds into our congregations. Even if there are some people who may feel we are not on the right track when we say such things, still we offend only a few and win the favor of the many. But if we do this and speak not the words of God, not the words of Christ but our own, we shall be shepherds feeding ourselves, not the sheep.⁶²

Augustine’s insights on pastoral ministry were taken up by Pope St. Paul VI in his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi on the Church’s mission of evangelization. In it, Paul VI echoes and references Augustine’s insight that the Church must:

preach not their own selves or their personal ideas, but a Gospel of which neither she nor they are the absolute masters and owners, to dispose of it as they wish, but a Gospel of which they are the ministers, in order to pass it on with complete fidelity.⁶³

Pastoral Wisdom for the New Evangelization

Gregory’s Oration II is full of pastoral wisdom. Biblically grounded, Gregory understands that the pastoral office is to follow in the footsteps of Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10). This means a pastor must “know properly the souls of his flock” and “guide them according to the methods of a pastoral care which is right and just, and worthy of our true shepherd.”⁶⁴ A pastor must discern the ‘place and time and age and season’ in his pastoral work.⁶⁵ A pastor must avoid an aggressive proselytism, where they must “tend the flock not by constraint but willingly” (cf. 1 Peter 5.2).⁶⁶ He understands that formation is best when a soul is still fresh and malleable, “like wax not yet subjected to the seal.”⁶⁷ Gregory understands that each individual soul is different and therefore requires specific care and guidance:

Some are led by doctrine, others trained by example; some need the spur, others the curb; some are sluggish and hard to rouse to the good, and must be stirred up by being smitten with the word; others are immoderately fervent in spirit . . .⁶⁸

One can see how modern pastoral terminologies such as “dialogue” and “accompaniment” are rooted in Gregory’s own pastoral wisdom. Without compromising on truth and the sacred duty to proclaim, nevertheless a pastor must adapt himself and his words to the needs of the flock.⁶⁹ Furthermore, Gregory anticipated the kind of cultural accomodationism and correlationism that characterizes many post-Vatican II pastoral approaches. Gregory argued against a cultural compromise that masks itself as dialogue, corrupting the word of truth and doctrine with “what is common and cheap, and debased, and stale, and tasteless, in order to turn the adulteration to our profit and accommodate ourselves to those who meet us.”⁷⁰ Gregory offers us a litany of biblical figures as witnesses to his pastoral insights: Paul (52–56), Hosea (57), Micah (58), Joel (59), Habakkuk (60), Malachi (61), Zechariah (62–63), Daniel and Ezekiel (64–66), Jeremiah (67) etc. In summary, although Gregory views the pastoral office with trepidation, a pastor must rely on the providence of God. For ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit who “arms the gentle warrior, as one who is able to wage war in a good cause.”⁷¹

There is less pastoral advice given by Augustine in Sermon 46, On Pastors. One could find a wealth of pastoral wisdom from many other sermons, as well as Book IV of De doctrina Christiana on the art of preaching.⁷² Nevertheless, On Pastors is a vehement defense on the necessity of preaching the truth. Pastors must indeed worry about the one who strays,⁷³ and thereby provide ‘bandages of consolation.’⁷⁴ Augustine is clear that virtue and character are of the utmost importance, because the sheep have a fragile proclivity to “stick instead to shepherds who aren’t shepherds, who feed themselves and not the sheep.”⁷⁵ He warns pastors who keep silent: “Do you see how dangerous it is to keep silent? He dies, and rightly dies; he dies in his own wickedness and sin.”⁷⁶

Conclusion: What Is Not Assumed Is Not Healed

Gregory, in his Epistle (101) to Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius, said: “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.” This aptly sums up the pastoral vision of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. A pastor is a physician of souls, and to be restored to health is to be restored to union with God which leads to theosis. Likewise, Saint Augustine of Hippo also has a soteriological aim, but his emphasis is on the immediate, moral concerns of his flock. This brief overview of the two works by Gregory and Augustine offers us a snapshot of patristic pastoral theology representative of the Eastern and Western Christian traditions — an integrated symphony between theology and pastoral practice, between ministry and soteriology, between truth and mercy. Pastors and evangelizers today would greatly benefit from the holistic pastoral vision of the Gregory and Augustine. For when the organic unity between scripture and pastoral ministry is upheld, then the proper scope of its vision necessitates that the cura animarum is truly the τέχνη τις εἶναι τεχνῶν͵ καὶ ἐπιστήμη ἐπιστημῶν, the art of arts and science of sciences.