ThisOration belongs to the year a.d. 373.  A series of disasters had befallen the people of Nazianzus.  A deadly cattle plague, which had devastated their herds, had been followed by a prolonged drought, and now their just ripened crops had been ruined by a storm of rain and hail.  The people flocked to the church, and finding S. Gregory the elder so overwhelmed by his sense of these terrible misfortunes that he was unable to address them, implored his coadjutor to enter the pulpit.  The occasion gave no time for preparation, so S. Gregory poured out his feelings in a discourse which was in the fullest sense of the words ex tempore.  Its present form, however, as Benoît suggests, may be due to a later polishing of notes taken down at the time of delivery.