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The Cappadocian Fathers and Civic Patriotism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Thomas A. Kopecek
Thomas A. Kopecek
Affiliation:
assistant professor of religion and classics inCentral College, Pella, Iowa.
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Extract

In a recent article I argued that the famous Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century were by birth members of the eastern empire's municipal aristocracy, the so-called curial class. Libanius of Antioch, himself born of a curial family, indicates that this social class was characterized by three traditional values: civic patriotism, devotion to Greek paideia and a strong sense of the importance of family ties and tradition. The purpose of the present essay is to focus on the first and most important component of the threcfold “curial ideal” —that is, civic patriotism — and to investigate the extent to which this value of the social circles to which the Fathers belonged influenced their thought and action as clerics. Although Gregory of Nyssa, the youngest of the Cappadocian Fathers, was not at all immune to the influence of other curial values, our sources reveal little effect of civic patriotism upon his clerical activity. Therefore our study will concentrate on the older Cappadocians, Bishop Gregory the Elder of Nazianzus, his son Bishop Gregory of Nazianzus and Bishop Basil of Caesarea.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 293 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1974

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References

1. “The Social Class of the Cappadocian Fathers,” Church History 42 (1973): 453–466.Google Scholar

2. See Libanius, Orr. 11:133–141 and 14:5–8.

3. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Or. 18:12–17Google Scholar; see also Gallay, Paul, La Vie de Saint Grégoire de Nazianze (Paris and Lyon, 1943), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

4. On the date of Gregory the Elder's death, see Gallay, , La Vie de Saint Grégoire, p. 124.Google Scholar

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5. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Anth. Pal. 8:15.Google Scholar

7. Gregory the Younger clearly believed the church to be very beautiful. In a letter written to a governor of Cappadocia in A.D. 382 he speaks of “our love for its beauty” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. 141).

8. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Or. 18:39.Google Scholar

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.: “When there was a need of a priest, he provided one [that is, his son Gregory the Younger] at his own expense (oikothen).”

11. Gregory the Younger administered these estates for his father during the late 350s A.D. See Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Carm. 2:1:1, 143–164,Google ScholarCarm. 2:1:11, 265ff. and 312ff,Google Scholar and Carm. 2:1:3, 9–10,Google Scholar and compare Fleury, E., Hellénisme et Christianisme: Saint Grégoire de Nazianze et Son Temps (Paris, 1930), p. 103.Google Scholar

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13. Chrysostom, Dio, Soph. 40: 10.Google Scholar

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15. Compare Jones, , The Greek City, p. 736.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., pp. 236–237 and 248–250. Compare Dill, Samuel, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (Cleveland and New York, 1956), pp. 222–228, especially pp. 226–227.Google Scholar

17. See Libanius, , Orr. 11:133–138,Google Scholar 14: 7–8, and so on.

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19. Petit, p. 318.

20. Codex Theodosianus 15:1:3, 14–17, 20–21, 28, 31.Google Scholar

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22. Petit p. 345, has gathered from the writings of Libanius the names of no less than twelve provincial governors who were from curial families.

23. Ibid., p. 332.

24. For the date, see Gallay, , La Vie de Saint Grégoire, p. 123,Google Scholar with n.5.

25. Fleury, p. 253.

26. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Or. 17:13.Google Scholar

27. Ibid. 17:9.

28. I follow the literary analysis offered by Bernardi, Jean, La Prédication des Pères Cappadociens: Le Précateur et Son Auditoire (Paris, 1968), p. 122.Google Scholar

29. Fleury, p. 255.

30. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Ep. 141:5.Google Scholar

31. Fleury, p. 353.

32. See Gaflay, , LaVie de Saint Grégoire p. 222Google Scholar: “Dans une lettre écrite an nom de ses compatriotes (Lettre 141), Gregoire plaida leur cause.”

33. See ibid., pp. 13–16.

34. Gallay, Paul, ed. and trans., Saint Grégoire de Nazianze: Lettres (Paris, 1964 and 1967), 2:31 n. 3.Google Scholar

35. In a short, personal note to Olympius (Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. 142) which Gregory seems to have sent after his lengthy formal letter, the bishop appeals to the governor's Christianity somewhat more directly than in Ep. 141. We may conjecture that the earlier letter's patriotic arguments had not been as successful as Gregory had hoped.

36. Although Basil's paternal ancestors were from Pontus, his maternal ancestors were Cappadocians (Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Or. 43:3Google Scholar). Some of Basil's relatives still lived in Caesarea in the 370s A.D. (see Basil, , Ep. 137)Google Scholar. In fact, one of his uncles was a Cappadocian cleric (see Basil, , Epp. 58–60Google Scholar) and another was a lower-ranking Cappadocian cleric before Basil raised him to the episcopal see of Satala in Armenia Minor (Basil, , Epp. 102–103 and 122Google Scholar). Compare, in addition, Basil, , Epp. 51, 104Google Scholar and perhaps also 1.

37. Basil, , Epp. 74–76.Google Scholar

38. For a discussion of the curial displacements involved in the provincial division, see my article, “Curial Displacements and Flight in Later Fourth Century Cappadocia,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte (forthcoming).

39. Basil, Ep. 74: “épéstilan oûn opeigontes hēmâs hoi polîtai.” Since evidence in Libanius indicates that the expression “hoi polîtai” could be used to refer specifically to curials (see Petit, p. 25) and since Basil seems to have used it in this sense in his Ep. 15, we may presume that it was the curials who wrote to Basil Moreover, not only was th curia the only citizen body which could have sent a group letter but also the curials. as has been mentioned in our preceding paragraph, were the people most directly affected by the emperor's action.

40. Basil, , Ep. 76.Google Scholar

41. Jones, , Later Roman Empire, pp. 880–881.Google Scholar

42. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Epp. 47–50.Google Scholar Compare Gallay, , La Vie de Saint Grégoire, pp. 106–107.Google Scholar

43. Basil, , Ep. 76.Google Scholar

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46. Basil, Ep. 76.Google Scholar

47. Ibid.

48. Basil, , Ep. 75.Google Scholar

49. Basil, , Epp. 85, 88, 104 and 110.Google Scholar

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51. Basil, , Ep. 88.Google Scholar For a discussion of the historical context of this letter, see my essay, “Curial Displacements,” Historia (forthcoming).

52. A. H. M. Jones defines the negotiatores as those who made their living “by buying and selling or by charging fees” and cites evidence which reveals that this included craftsmen, merchants, moneylenders, fishermen, market gardeners and even prostitutes. See Jones, , Later Roman Empire, p. 431,Google Scholar with n. 52 of p. 1178.

53. Hinted at in the first sentence of Basil, , Ep. 88.Google Scholar

54. See ibid.

55. The curials had been relieved of this responsibility a mere ten years earlier, in A.D. 362. See Codex Theodosianus 13:1:4Google Scholar of March 13, 362.

56. Basil, , Ep. 88.Google Scholar

57. Basil, , Ep. 28Google Scholar.

58. Deferrari, Roy J., Saint Basil: The Letters (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1928), 2:149 n. 1.Google Scholar

59. Gregory, of Nazainzus, , Or. 43:44–51Google Scholar; Gregory, of Nyssa, , Contra Eunomium in Werner Jaeger, ed., Gregorii Nysseni Opera (Leiden, 1952) 1:62–70Google Scholar = PG 45:288–293; Basil, , Ep. 79,Google Scholar and so on.

60. The calumniators' explanation is hardly plausible, though it occasionally crops up in modern secondary sources. A. H. M. Jones' remark is to the point, “If he [Valens] had merely wished to injure Basil, he could have found much more summary methods of doing so,” The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2d rev. ed., Oxford, 1971), p. 184.Google Scholar

61. Basil, , Ep. 94.Google Scholar

62. Elias was appointed after the provincial division. Therasius was the governor at the time of the division. See Basil, , Ep. 77.Google Scholar

63. Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Or. 43:63.Google Scholar Joining the curials in their support of Basil were the Caesarean lower classes. When on one occasion after the provincial division the vicarius of the civil diocese of Pontica had threatened Basil with bodily harm, Basil was vigorously supported by the Caesareans who worked in the imperial small-arms factory and the imperial weaving-sheds. They took to the streets armed with whatever tool they had in hand in order to protect their bishop—and were joined by the women of the lower class (Gregory, of Nazianzus, , Or. 43:57)Google Scholar. It is interesting to note in passing that the workers employed in such imperial establishments as small-arms factories, weaving- sheds and mints tended to be rather rabid Christians, as is clear from passages in the historians Sozomen and Ammianus Marcellinus which relate to the time of Emperor Julian (see Sozomen, , Hist. Eccles. 5:15Google Scholar and Marcellinus, Ammianus, Res Gestae 22:11:9.Google Scholar

64. Theodoret, , Ep. 81.Google Scholar

65. See, for example, the discussions in Coster, Charles Henry, “Christianity and the Invasions: Synesius of Cyrene,” Late Roman Studies (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1968), pp. 218–268,CrossRefGoogle Scholar especially pp. 248–249 and pp. 254–255; see also Coster, , “Synesius, a curialis of the Time of the Emperor Aracius,” Late Roman Studies, pp. 145–182, especially pp. 169–172.Google Scholar

66. Jones, , Later Roman Empire, p. 766.Google Scholar