The Cappadocians

I'm going to bore you with more church history now (the following is summarized from Justo Gonzalez and primary sources.

The Cappadocians receive a lot of attention from the East for their philosophical language, articulation of Trinitarian doctrine and Greek, and, in the case of Gregory of Nyssa, mysticism. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa were brothers, and Gregory of Nazianzus was a mutual friend. Together, they wrote against Arianism in the late 300's and advanced the cause of Nicene faith.

Basil of Caesarea's chief nemesis was Eunomius, who was one of the intellectually more formidable of the Arians. Eunomius had published at least one treatise on Christ arguing for his inferiority to God. In particular, he argued that unbegottenness is the essence of God, that generation is unbecoming of God, and that furthermore generation by its nature cannot be eternal. Basil's riposte was well-thought and can be briefly summarized: A negative property cannot be God's essence. God's essence is not a negation, but is being. Furthermore, he points out the crudity of Eunomius' arguments concerning generation, showing that by "generation," Christians certainly do not mean anything crude, material, or sensory. Rather, by this term an eternal relation is meant.

Basil's greatest contribution to Christianity was the formula "one ousia, three hypostases." Although Tertullian had earlier in Latin used "one substantiva, three personas," this did not translate well into Greek. Thus Basil's formula was a first in the Greek world and provided a clear path between Arianism and Sabellianism. He also argued subtly and ably for the divinity of the Holy Spirit without using belligerent, aggressive language so as to win those not yet convinced. We can also credit him for changing the liturgical formula "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, in the Holy Spirit" to "...together with the Holy Spirit." This language was later reflected at the Council of Constantinople.

Gregory of Nazianzus attacked the Arian culture of theological disputation, because anyone and everyone could debate any point of theology in the lecture hall, turning theology into more of a public, sporting philosophical enterprise. Rather, theology should be limited to the intelligent and virtuous (intelligence alone does not make a theologian--sorry, Tillich) and to subjects about which we can know. Gregory also responded to Arian rhetoric and exposed numerous logical fallacies. Some of his most significant thought is in asserting that the Trinitarian names are names of relation, not essence or action. Thus he avoids a purely economic Trinity, Tritheism or Arianism, and even manages to avoid making his concepts incomprehensible to everyone else.

Gregory of Nyssa is probably my least favorite of the Cappadocians, primarily because of his love of pagan philosophy. He was highly influenced by Origen and centers everything on free will and somehow manages to wind up in universalism via his negation theory of evil (this can be found in his Life of Moses, for example). His idealism led to weird assertions such as that all men are as much the same essence as the three divine Persons, the difference being that the divine Persons shared operations as well. He was also a relatively early advocate (although the Protoevangelium of James might predate him) of the Unbroken Hymen of Mary. From my cursory readings, he appears to be highly influential in Orthodox thought.

So the last is my own thought, should you have survived this long-winded post (That's a singular "you." If you linked a post of mine on your blog, I wouldn't mind). Basically, I think the Cappadocians are highly overrated. Nazianzus was the best of the lot. However, the three of them together gave birth to the purely philosophical notion of theology. Reading them is like chewing Platonic sawdust. Their theology is largely mixing up some proof-texts with endless teasing out of philosophical definitions and logical consequence. They argued well, and they came up with some great language, but ultimately, they failed to address one big question:

"Why should I care?"

This is where they sort of get off the Athanasian train. Athanasius can't stop talking about salvation, redemption, sanctification, providence, revelation--in other words, what it means for us. For the Cappadocians, it's more about just having the right ideas in your head. That doesn't mean they never connect it to practical matters of salvation, but they spend an awful lot of time in the world of ideas. This tendency has never departed Orthodox theology, where the practical consequence of a whole pile of high-minded language about theosis and perichoresis is "Follow the church fasting and purity regulaions," and serious theology is doing something like writing 200 pages on what a hypostasis is.