Better Recognize: Anagnorisis in Gregory of Nazianzus's First Invective against Julian

Gregory famously composed the book-length Or. 4 after Julian’s death not only to ensure that Julian be remembered as “the Apostate” throughout posterity, but also to stake a claim to his own share in Greek logoi. One of Gregory’s strategies for pressing this claim was to perform, like the trained rhetor he was, an overwhelming mastery of Greek literature and philosophy. This paper explores an episode in the oration in which Gregory constructs a tragic vignette marked by a recognition scene with Euripidean coloring. The episode in question, in which Christian soldiers under Julian’s command are tricked into committing an act of idolatry, plays an important role in Gregory’s demonstration of his claim to the classical tradition. Moreover, it is also a representative example of Gregory’s compositional method, as he weaves classical motifs together with elements drawn from one of the most markedly “dramatic” moments in Biblical literature.