This article locates Gregory of Nazianzus\u27s Poemata de seipso in the Classical historiographical tradition by comparing their historical meta-narrative to Herodotus\u27 and Thucydides\u27. It then embarks on a case study of Poem 34, On Silence During Lent, closely analyzing the poem in light of recent narratological work on Herodotus\u27 project. Like the Herodotean text, Gregory\u27s piece reveals a variety of hermeneutical possibilities while simultaneously making the audience aware of the histor\u27s compositional processes. The histor who emerges is a salvific and cosmological presence that focalizes the divine, thereby serving as an example of proper human/ divine relations. The poem would transform its audiences into focalizers of the divine in their lives by similar analytical and compositional processes as those of the histor who focalizes the divine in his text. This pedagogy is for Gregory the devotional responsibility of a priest
