The three great Capadoccians

Because of their extraordinary importance for theology and the church, Basil the Great, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa, and his fellow student Gregory of Nazianzus were given the honorary title “the three great Cappadocians.” They were part of a newly emerging stratum of ecclesiastical leadership, or one that came to the fore more prominently in the course of the fourth century, after the so-called Constantinian shift. They were drawn from families that not only had already been part of the Christian faith for generations but also had actively contributed to the shaping of ecclesiastical life. They belonged to the prosperous and influential upper strata of society and, commensurate with this, had enjoyed an excellent education, which predestined them to engage in the standard public careers of rhetor, lawyer, or statesman.

The grandfather, on the mother’s side, of the two brothers, Basil and Gregory, had suffered martyrdom during the Diocletian persecution. Their grandmother on the father’s side, St. Macrina the Elder, was a student of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the famous bishop of Neocaesarea, to whom her nephew, Gregory of Nyssa (presumably named after him) left a memorial in a sermon. During the persecution, she and her husband had to flee into the mountains for seven years. As a wealthy landowner, her husband, St. Basil the Elder, was part of the senatorial nobility. Her mother, St. Emmelia, also came from a wealthy Cappadocian family; her brother was a bishop. Besides Basil and Gregory, another three of the ten siblings devoted themselves to the ecclesiastical or ascetic life: their oldest sister, St. Macrina the Younger, who had an enduring influence upon her brothers’ lives; Naucratius, who died in his younger years; and St. Peter, their youngest brother, who was bishop of Sebaste.

The family of Gregory of Nazianzus likewise had been Christian for three generations on his mother’s side. She owned estates in nearby Arianzus, and Gregory’s father, St. Gregory the elder, had preceded him as bishop of Nazianzus. The church also venerates his mother, Nonna, as well as two of his three siblings, Gorgonia and Caesarius, as saints. His cousin, St. Amphilochius, became bishop of Iconium and is considered by many to be the “fourth great Cappadocian.”

All three of the “great Cappadocians” turned their backs on their secular careers, not intending to exchange them for ecclesiastical ones but, rather, to devote themselves to an ascetic life of solitariness in the radical following of Christ. All three, however, were called to the episcopal office because, on the basis of their background and education, they possessed the qualifications not only for political but also for ecclesiastical leadership, especially considering that, beginning with the second half of the fourth century, bishops increasingly also assumed public, administrative roles. All three of them gained their individually shaped importance: Basil as an outstanding ecclesiastical politician, Gregory of Nazianzus as a rhetor and theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa more as a philosophical thinker. The first two, together with Athanasius and John Chrysostom, have been reckoned among the “four great teachers of the Eastern church” since the Breviary of Pius V in 1568 and, together with Athanasius, are revered as the “three hierarchs” for their pioneering work on the Trinitarian dogma. By contrast, Gregory of Nyssa is somewhat of an outsider.

That the Cappadocians do not represent a regional phenomenon in the recruitment of leadership personalities in the church of the time can be seen in the Western church from the family of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, as well as Augustine and his mother, St. Monica, who attracted a circle of friends in the spirit of monasticism, which ultimately became a major source for the North African episcopate.

The details of the chronology of Basil’s life, to whom was already attributed. the title “the Great” during his lifetime, cannot be precisely determined in all its parts, and it is currently being discussed once again. He was born ca. 329/330 as

the eldest son(?)^[1] of ten siblings and initially was taught in the classical disciplines by his father, whereas he received his instruction in the Christian faith from his grandmother Macrina. As a student of Gregory Thaumaturgus, she embedded (Origen’s) Alexandrian theology in him. In keeping with the current custom of delaying baptism until adulthood, he did not receive baptism. After attending the school of rhetors at Caesarea (beginning in 343?), where he first met Gregory of Nazianzus, he sought out the most famous teachers and places of training, in keeping with his family’s status and financial ability. In Constantinople he was with Libanius (346-350?), with whom he later corresponded (Ep. 335-359); at the academy in Athens he heard the famous rhetors Prohairesius and Himerius, became acquainted with Julian, the later emperor, and met Gregory of Nazianzus again, with whom he enjoyed a lifelong friendship from this point on and whose life he was to influence significantly, both spiritually and in matters of ecclesiastical politics. After his return from Athens (3562), he briefly taught rhetoric in Caesarea, but he relinquished this occupation and devoted himself fully to a radical Christian, ascetic lifestyle. He was baptized, became a lector, sold all of his possessions, and used the proceeds to fund the support of the poor. The welfare of the “lowly person,” especially in the context of contacts with the authorities, was to remain one of his primary concerns and areas of engagement throughout his life.

After his educational travels to study in the monastic centers in Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt, he settled on one of the family estates called Annesi, on the river Iris in the province of Pontus, together with Emmelia, his mother; Macrina, his sister; and Naucratius, his brother. There a monastic community gathered around him, serving as a model for the founding of future communities. He also developed there his ascetic program and wrote the first two rules laying the foundation for his work as the “father of Eastern monasticism” (cf. ch. 8.1.B). Together with Gregory of Nazianzus, he compiled the _Philocalia, an anthology of Origen’s writings, at this time. For the reasons outlined in the introduction, it was not to be Basil’s lot to conclude his life in monastic seclusion, all the more so since, from 364 on, both the Nicene and the Homoiousian churches were increasingly pressured by Emperor Valens’s Homoean religious policy (cf. part 3.I.D). These churches urgently needed highly qualified and influential church leaders, and so in 364 Basil yielded to his friends’ urging and was ordained a priest in Cappadocian Caesarea. In 359/360 he had already participated in a synod in Constantinople, but later on he had a falling out with Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, and returned to solitude.

According to his theological conviction, Basil at that time belonged to the Homoiousians, who were inclined toward the Nicene position but strictly rejected the emperor’s Homoean confession. Already when he was a presbyter, he assumed in practice the leadership of the bishopric because Bishop Eusebius was

hardly up to the extremely difficult ecclesiastical-political situation. At the same time, he also began to pursue the two goals that were to determine the rest of his life: combating the Homoean policy of the state, and the reunification of the Eastern (Homoiousian) churches with Nicea and Rome. This was the purpose of the synods in Lampsacus (364) and Tyana (366), as well as of the resistance against Valens (365) by the city of Caesarea.

In the fall of 370 he succeeded Eusebius as bishop of Caesarea, which at the same time also made him metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Cappadocia and exarch of the political diocese of Pontus. The authorities, who had already opposed his election because of his public anti-Homoean position, continued their pursuit to force him to align himself with them, in 372 even with the personal efforts of Emperor Valens, albeit without success. On the basis of a panegyric by Gregory of Nazianzus (_Or. Bas. 43.46-53), this hagiographically noted resistance by Basil was brought to the emperor’s attention and cannot be denied as historical fact. It may have to be evaluated, however, in a completely different way, for Valens not only did not depose Basil but also in 372/373 assigned him to avisitation to Armenia. This cannot be explained on the grounds of Basil’s social and politically powerful position alone but suggests a correspondingly high regard and goodwill on the part of the emperor. In 372 Basil did indeed have to accept a painful shrinking of his ecclesiastical province because of the division of the province of Cappadocia, but he responded by increasing the bishoprics and appointing brothers, relatives, and friends to be bishops (Gregory of Nazianzus in Sasima, his brother Gregory in Nyssa, and Amphilochius in Iconium).

Especially after the death of Athanasius (373), his main concern continued to be the strengthening of ecclesiastical communion with Rome, particularly by ending the Antiochene schism. Even if he was not entirely successful in these endeavors by the time he died on January 1, 379,^[2] he nevertheless contributed substantially, in the few years of his episcopate, as an outstanding and renowned leader of the Cappadocian church and far beyond, to the theological and ecclesiastical-political solution that emerged immediately after his death, because of the death of Valens (August 9, 378) and the assumption of power by Emperor Theodosius (January 19, 379)^[3].

Basil has left behind an extensive wealth of writings, which is worth knowing as a whole. These works are consistently focused on practical ecclesiastical life and reflect his own life and work: the famous Ad adolescentes, to the young on how they may benefit from Hellenistic literature; several (exegetical) homilies and letters; his rules on ascetic life; and his two major dogmatic treatises, against Eunomius and on the Holy Spirit. The so-called liturgy of Basil, the current form of which originated in the sixth century, at its core goes back to his reforms of Caesarea’s liturgy.

In his Apologia, written in 360/361, Eunomius of Cyzicus had justified and defended his anomoean theology of the Trinity. Basil probably came upon this

very persuasive and hence dangerous work quite early and realized the necessity of a careful response, which he provided in 363/364 in Contra Eunomium, composed of three books (the so-called fourth and fifth books are not Basil’s). Each of the three books deals with one person of the Trinity; Basil’s method was to go through Eunomius’s text meticulously, cite the essential paragraphs verbatim, and then refute them one by one.

After two introductory paragraphs, in which Basil unmasks the dishonest intentions of Eunomius, bk, 1 first dismisses the main thesis, that the Father’s attribute of being αϒεννητοϛ refers to his substance and that the Son’s substance as the begotten one therefore has to be different from the Father’s. That the Father and the Son, rather, have to be equally eternal can be seen from the contradictions in Eunomius’s doctrine of time itself, when he asserts that the Son is creature but begotten “before all time.” Book 2 continues this argument by taking the Son’s creatureliness and the arguments asserted for it by Eunomius ad absurdum. “Begotten” does not mean that the Son once did not exist, nor does it have anything to do with passions (παθη), since the latter would imply that God is mutable. Consequently, the Holy Spirit should not be viewed as a creation of the Son. Book 3 therefore distinguishes the differences between the three divine persons on the level of sequence and honor but not of substance. As for the Holy Spirit, it is precisely the names “Holy Spirit” and “Paraclete” that demonstrate the Spirit’s divine nature.

Ten years later, from late 374 to late 375, Basil wrote a treatise specifically on the Holy Spirit, addressed to Amphilochius of Iconium, who apparently had made such a request. The thirty chapters together do not show any systematic structure but rather revolve around the main theme, namely, that the Holy Spirit is worthy of the same honor as the Father and the Son, which points to his consubstantiality with them. The first and last chapters frame the tractate in the form of a letter. The treatise is structured in three parts, each building upon the other. Chapters 2-5 begin with the theological issue; Basil had been criticized by the Pneumatomachians (a term he himself uses to designate them, although it is not possible to determine with certainty whether he already has a specific party in mind) that the doxology he used in the liturgy, “with the Holy Spirit” (συν τώ πνευματι τώ αϒιω), instead of the traditional formulation “in the Holy Spirit” (συν τώ πνευματι τώ αϒιω), inappropriately accords the Holy Spirit the same honor as the Father and the Son. As a first step in response, chs. 6-8 explain the όμοτιμια of the

Father and the Son, which among orthodox Christians is uncontested and consistent with their όμουσια. Finally, chs. 9-30, whose structure is subject to a variety of interpretations in its details, substantiate the doctrine of the three hypostases on the same level by safeguarding the μουαρχια of the one God. The evidence provided appeals to the witness of Scripture, the baptismal formula, and the Holy Spirit’s part in the creation and in the plan of redemption. The oneness of nature with the Father and the Son therefore entitles the Holy Spirit to the same titles and honors as are accorded them.

In the history of theology, ch. 29 has gained particular importance because here Basil for the first time specifically applies the method of “the evidence of the Fathers” (argumentum patristicum). Although the church from the beginning, and increasingly so during the dogmatic disputes of the fourth century, appealed to the well-established witness of tradition, Basil here adduces for the first time the opinions of a whole range of church fathers in support of his argumentation or, more specifically, of the use of συν in the doxology. Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria (at the Council of Ephesus in 431) continued this method; it has been perpetuated since then until the present and continues to have validity by safeguarding a historically and dogmatically critical appreciation of the material. This method is not a mere stringing together of arbitrarily selected patristic citations without evidential value.

The corpus of letters by Basil numbers 368; thirty-six or thirty-eight of them were not written by him, however. In keeping with general ancient practice, Basil’s collection of letters also contains fifteen or seventeen letters addressed to

him, namely, by Libanius (336, 338, 340, 341, 345, 346, 349, 352, 354, 355, 357, 358), Apollinaris of Laodicea (362 and 364), Gregory of Nazianzus (367), and Emperor Julian (39 and 40). The authenticity of the latter two is under discussion, however; in the case of Ep. 39, the question is whether it is addressed to Basil, and in the case of Ep. 40, whether Julian can be its author.

Inauthentic letters that are part of his correspondence, that is, those not written by Basil and also not addressed to him, include the following: 8, 16, 38(?), 41-45, 47, 166, 167, 169-171, 189, 331, 342, 343, 347, 348, 360, 365, and 366.

Epistulae 10, 342, 347, and 348 are also found in the corpus of letters of his youngest brother, Gregory of Nyssa, numbered 21, 28, 26, and 27, but they do belong to Basil (cf. II.B.1).

The Maurists (Benedictines of St. Maur) divided the corpus into three major chronological parts: Ep. 1-46, before Basil’s consecration as bishop (357-370); 47-291, during his episcopacy (370-379); and 292-365, representing letters that cannot be dated with precision. Johannes Quasten (Patrology 3:220-26) organizes the letters into eight groups:

A list of Basil’s most important partners in correspondence, encompassing the entire Roman Empire, illustrate most impressively the scope and extent of his letter writing:

In addition, there are a number of letters addressed to unnamed bishops, priests, monks, magistrates, groups of them, and entire congregations; they demonstrate the extent to which Basil brought influence to bear not only upon particular situations but also structurally upon public life, ecclesiastical policy, and teligious life:

There is no addressee for the following letters: 35-37, 77, 78, 85, 87, 88, 101, 117, 165, 191, 209, 213, 249, 270, 273, 275, 285, 287-289, 298, 301, 305, 307-310, 314-320, 322, 326, 327, 330-332.

This overview alone shows clearly what a treasure trove Basil’s letters offer regarding his person and personal relationships, his politics and ecclesiastical policies, his pastoral and social activities, and his theology and spirituality. Furthermore they also present excellent examples of fine epistolary form and exemplary style. His friend Gregory of Nazianzus praises him in Ep. 51 as an expert in the field, and his teacher Libanius considered him to be of even greater quality in epistolary skills than himself and wrote to him so (Ep. 338):

Two individuals had a decisive impact on the life of Gregory of Nyssa: Macrina, his eldest sister, who inspired him and his brothers concerning the ascetic life, and Basil, his older brother, whom he calls his “father and teacher” several times in his works. The extent to which these honorary titles can be adduced to determine the concrete data of Gregory’s life remains uncertain, it is true, for his writings contain very few datable references; external attestations are scarce, and to date there is no in-depth modern, scholarly biography of Gregory. What may be considered as certain is that his father died in Gregory’s childhood and Basil, his older brother, assumed a certain leadership role. How much younger Gregory was and whether he had been his student in the technical sense when Basil was teaching in Caesarea ca. 356 have to remain open issues.

It is generally assumed that Gregory was born between 335 and 340. Although he did not attend any of the famous schools in Caesarea, Constantinople, or Athens, as did his brother Basil and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus, he acquired a thorough familiarity with rhetoric, philosophy, and the general knowledge of his time, as his works indicate, to the extent that, after he had first become a lector, he preferred to work as a public rhetor. Many passages in his writings give evidence of meticulous observation of his environment and human behavior patterns, as well as in-depth scientific, especially medical, knowledge. On the basis of

a remark in De virginitate 3 stating that he could no longer be blessed with the fruits of virginity, it is generally assumed that Gregory was married (to Theosebeia?), although there is no further information to corroborate this.

When the province of Cappadocia was divided in 372 and the ecclesiastical province over which Basil presided as metropolitan in Caesarea was thereby severely weakened, Basil, in order to strengthen the Nicene party, responded by increasing the number of bishoprics and appointing brothers and friends as bishops in the remaining province, Cappadocia Prima. Among these was Gregory, whom he appointed to Nyssa, an insignificant little place between Caesarea and Ancyra. The period of his episcopate divides conspicuously into two very different segments. The break came in 379, that is, the year in which Basil, his brother, and Macrina, his sister, died and in which the ecclesiastical-political situation radically changed in favor of the Nicenes when Emperor Theodosius took office. It remains unclear, however, what specific reasons account for the reversal. In any case, Gregory’s initial seven years as bishop were marked by many difficulties. Basil complained about Gregory’s naivete in ecclesiastical-political and interpersonal matters (Ep. 58 and 100) and in 375 refused to send him to Rome with a delegation to negotiate, because he was “completely inexperienced in ecclesiastical matters” (Ep. 215). Indeed, in these years Gregory appears to have been so inept that the Homoean opposition in Nyssa succeeded in deposing and exiling him in 376 under the pretence of misappropriation of church property and irregularities associated with his appointment as bishop. He was able to return only on August 9, 378, after the death of Emperor Valens.

In 379, however, the scene changed radically, Gregory suddenly emerged as a sought-after and influential ecclesiastical politician, as a significant theologian ‘on the current dogmatic issues, as a respected speaker, preacher, and exegete; until his life’s end, he maintained close relations with Constantinople, the capital, and with the imperial household. At synods in Antioch (379) and Constantinople (381, 382, 383, and 394), he was among the most prominent participants. The synod of Antioch (379) appointed him to make a visitation to the diocese of Pontus; in Ibora and Sebaste he guided the selection of new bishops and, to his surprise, was himself elected as the metropolitan in Sebaste. He succeeded in regaining his mobility, however, by appointing Peter, his younger brother, as bishop. At the second (a later enumeration) ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381, he delivered an address entitled De deitate adversus Evagrium, important for dogmatics. After the death of Meletius, the chairman of the council, he was given the honorable task of delivering the funeral oration. After the council, according to the imperial law confirming the resolutions of the councils (Codex theodosianus 16.1, 3), he was reckoned among the “regular bishops,” that is, among those who represented the standard of orthodoxy. In 381 he traveled to the Roman province of Arabia and to Jerusalem on behalf of the council in order to settle disputes there. To the synod in Constantinople of 383 he delivered the address De deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti. The imperial court’s special appreciation of him can be seen in the invitation he received to deliver the funeral oration for Princess Pulcheria who died in 385 and for Empress Flacilla. The information

about Gregory’s life ends with his entry in the list of the participants at the synod in Constantinople in 394; from this it may well be assumed that he died shortly thereafter.

For reasons still to be examined more closely, Gregory, especially in the Western church, has not attained the same importance as the two other “great Cappadocians.” Yet the large number of extant manuscripts of his works, as well as translations into Latin and especially Syriac, help us to recognize the admiration and dissemination of his body of thought. In the twentieth century, Gregory became one of the best-researched church fathers because Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, the famous classical philologist, entrusted the critical edition of his works to Werner Jaeger, his student, precisely because of Gregory’s remarkable style. He began in Berlin together with Giorgio Pasquali and, after his work at Harvard University (1939), consulted a multitude of international fellow experts. since his death in 1961, the task is continued partly in Frankfurt (Hermann Langerbeck, Hadwig Horner) and partly by the Gregor-von-Nyssa Institut in Münster; since 1969 some international colloquia have met at three- or four-year intervals.

Although Gregory of Nazianzus was not the first to give poetic form to theological material and Christian themes, he was the first to write a fully developed, extensive poetic oeuvre of 17,000 verses that is unmatched in Greek patristics. His Carmina, most of which he wrote after his return from Constantinople, in the secluded leisure that he enjoyed at Arianzus until his death, are composed of didactic poems, hymns, elegies, and epigrams in their traditional meters, from which Gregory does not deviate on the whole, namely, the hexameter, distich, and iambic. He deals with dogmatic, moral, autobiographical, and lyrical themes, with the explicit intent (Carmina 2.1.39) of using the poetic form to proclaim the Christian message more pleasantly and more attractively and to provide a comparable Christian expression alongside Hellenistic poetry. With the quality of his poems, Gregory decisively refutes the former polemic charge that Christians lacked education and comparable literature.

Recently Christus patiens, the drama handed down under Gregory’s name, has again been defended as authentic by André Tuilier and Francesco Trisoglio^[12], without sufficient reasons, to be sure, as Bernhard Wyss^[13] counters so aptly. It may be dated to the twelfth century.