“the guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures, seems to me in very…”

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

Gregory of Nazianzus · The Orations, and Select Letters · NPNF2 VII, Oration II, 16

Gregory defending his flight from ordination, and giving the pastoral tradition its most quoted phrase two centuries before Gregory the Great put it at the head of the Pastoral Rule.

How this is known

These words were matched, word for word, against this project’s own copy of the volume cited.

NPNF’s note here calls this the original of Gregory the Great’s "ars artium est regimen animarum".

Read in Browne & Swallow, NPNF series 2 vol. 7 (1893) · Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow

Also by

Gregory of Nazianzus every saying recorded of this person, and their page