Group of early Christian chaplains
The
Cappadocian Fathers
, also traditionally known as the
Three Cappadocians
, were a trio of
Byzantine Christian
prelates, theologians and monks who helped shape both
early Christianity
and the monastic tradition.
Basil the Great
(330?379) was
Bishop of Caesarea
; Basil's younger brother
Gregory of Nyssa
(c. 335 ? c. 395) was
Bishop of Nyssa
; and a close friend,
Gregory of Nazianzus
(329?389), became
Patriarch of Constantinople
.
[1]
The
Cappadocia
region, in modern-day
Turkey
, was
an early site of Christian activity
.
The Cappadocians advanced the development of early
Christian theology
, for example the doctrine of the
Trinity
,
[2]
: 22
and are highly respected as saints in both
Western
and
Eastern
churches.
Biographical background
[
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]
An older sister of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa,
Macrina
, converted the family's estate into a monastic community. Basil the Great was the oldest of Macrina's brothers, the second eldest being the famous Christian jurist
Naucratius
.
[3]
Another brother,
Peter of Sebaste
, also became a bishop. Their maternal grandfather had been a martyr, and their parents,
Basil the Elder
and
Emmelia of Caesarea
are also recognized as saints.
Theological contributions
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]
The Trinity
[
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]
The fathers set out to demonstrate that Christians could hold their own in conversations with learned Greek-speaking intellectuals and that Christian faith, while it was against many of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle (and other Greek philosophers), was an almost scientific and distinctive movement with the healing of the soul of man and his union with God at its center?one best represented by monasticism. They made major contributions to the definition of the
Trinity
finalized at the
First Council of Constantinople
in 381 and the final version of the
Nicene Creed
, finalised there.
They made key contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity and to the responses to
Arianism
and
Apollinarianism
.
[2]
: Chapter 1
Subsequent to the
First Council of Nicea
,
Arianism
did not simply disappear. The Council of Nicea had asserted that the Son was of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. The semi-Arians taught that the Son is of like substance with the Father (
homoiousios
) as against the outright Arians who taught that the Son was not like the Father, but had been created, and was therefore not God. So the Son was held to be
like
the Father but not of the same essence as the Father.
The Cappadocians worked to bring these semi-Arians back to the orthodox cause. In their writings they made extensive use of the (now orthodox) formula "one substance (
ousia
) in three persons (
hypostaseis
)".
[2]
: 66
The relationship is understandable, argued Basil of Caesarea, in a parallel drawn from
Platonism
:
any three human beings are each individual persons and all share a common universal, their humanity.
The formulation explicitly acknowledged a distinction between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (a distinction that Nicea had been accused of blurring), but at the same time insisting on their essential unity.
Thus Basil wrote:
In a brief statement, I shall say that essence (ousia) is related to person (hypostasis) as the general to the particular. Each one of us partakes of existence because he shares in ousia while because of his individual properties he is A or B. So, in the case in question, ousia refers to the general conception, like goodness, godhead, or such notions, while hypostasis is observed in the special properties of fatherhood, sonship, and sanctifying power. If then they speak of persons without hypostasis they are talking nonsense,
ex hypothesi
; but if they admit that the person exists in real hypostasis, as they do acknowledge, let them so number them as to preserve the principles of the
homoousion
in the unity of the godhead, and proclaim their reverent acknowledgment of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the complete and perfect hypostasis of each person so named. ?Epistle 214.4.
Basil thus attempted to do justice to the doctrinal definitions of Nicea while at the same time distinguishing the Nicene position from
modalism
, which had been
Arius
's original charge against
Pope Alexander
in the Nicene controversy. The outcome was that Arianism and semi-Arianism virtually disappeared from the church.
Women and Mariology
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The Cappadocians held a higher view of women than many of their contemporaries.
[4]
Some scholars suggest that
Macrina
was an equal in the group, and therefore ought to be recognized as "The Fourth Cappadocian."
[5]
They contributed to the development of
Marian theology
and incipient
Marian devotion
; all three men affirmed the doctrine of the
perpetual virginity
which was at that time subject to criticism from some circles. Gregory of Nyssa taught that she took a vow of Virginity, and was perhaps the first theologian to associate the
burning bush
typologically with Mary, in his
Life of Moses
. The Cappadocians affirmed the title
Theotokos
more than 50 years before it became central to the Nestorian controversy. Gregory of Nazianzus asserted that "if anyone does not believe the holy Mary to be Theotokos, he is without the Godhead." Both Gregories were early witnesses to the understanding of Mary as "
virgin earth
", and the contemplation of "the venerable womb of the Virgin" as the place wherein God united "the two natures in one." This language, which particularly abounds in Gregory of Nyssa, anticipated the
Council of Ephesus
and Marian theologians like
Proclus
, Gregory of Nazianzus' successor in the Archepiscopate of Constantinople. Furthermore, Nazianzus taught that Mary was pre-purifed in soul and body prior to the conception of Jesus. Moreover, he bears witness to the earliest known prayer to Mary from the Patristic literary corpus, relating how a virgin prayed to Mary to help her overcome temptation, showing the ascetic matrix that was the context of early Marian devotion vis-a-vis the perpetual virginity.
[6]
The roots of Marian invocation may therefore be associated with Nazianzus' Nicene circle in Constantinople. Gregory of Nyssa also presents the earliest record of a
Marian apparition
, associating it with
Gregory the Wonder Worker
in the middle of the third century.
[7]
While the Cappadocians shared many traits, each one exhibited particular strengths. Scholars note that Basil was "the man of action", Gregory of Nazianzus "the orator" and Gregory of Nyssa "the thinker".
[8]
See also
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References
[
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]
- ^
"Commentary on Song of Songs; Letter on the Soul; Letter on Ascesis and the Monastic Life"
.
World Digital Library
. Retrieved
6 March
2013
.
- ^
a
b
c
McGrath, Alister
(1998),
Historical Theology
, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
ISBN
0-63120843-7
- ^
Gregory of Nyssa
(1916).
Life of Macrina
. Translated by
W.K. Lowther Clarke
. London:
SPCK
.
- ^
Beagon, Philip (May 1995), "The Cappadocian Fathers, Women, and Ecclesiastical Politics",
Vigiliae Christianae
,
49
(2), Brill: 165?166,
doi
:
10.1163/157007295X00167
,
JSTOR
1584393
- ^
Pelikan, Jaroslov
(1993).
Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism
. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 9.
ISBN
0300062559
.
- ^
O'Carroll, Michael (2000).
Theotokos : a theological encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary
. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 71, 160?162.
ISBN
1-57910-454-1
.
OCLC
47771920
.
- ^
Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory (2010-04-15).
Life and Works (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 98)
. CUA Press. pp. 41?87.
ISBN
978-0-8132-1198-5
.
- ^
Quasten, Johannes
(1962),
Patrology
, vol. 3, Utrecht-Antwerp: Spectrum Publishers, pp. 204, 236, 254,
ISBN
0-87061086-4
, as quoted in Børtnes, p. 10
Sources
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]