The Cappadocians

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521040549.030

Chapter 29 - The Cappadocians

from Part VI - THE GREEK CHRISTIAN PLATONIST TRADITION FROM THE CAPPADOCIANS TO MAXIMUS AND ERIUGENA

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Edited by

A. H. Armstrong

Book contents

Get access

Summary

St Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–79)

The Cappadocians inherited the Alexandrian Gnosis through Origen, though each departed from the position of their master, St Basil most of all. He was more interested in the moral and pastoral than in the philosophical implications of the Faith, distrusted allegory, and clung to the literal interpretation of Scripture, to which the pagan learning was to supply rational corroboration as required rather than combine with it to form a synthesis. Therefore, as was to be the case with the Aristotelian Christians, he made greater use of the physics of the pagans than of their metaphysics, and in his Homilies on the Hexaëmeron, intended as a scientific defence of the Mosaic account of creation, he drew chiefly on the current cosmology, meteorology, botany, astronomy and natural history.

As a consequence, the Christian theory of creation assumed certain pagan features, of which the most important were the implied identification of the Platonic Demiurge with Yahweh, the Aristotelian division of the universe into the supralunar and sublunar spheres, and the notion of a universal harmony (συμπαθεια): ‘Although the totality of the universe is composed of dissimilar parts, he binds it together by an indissoluble law of friendship into one communion and harmony, so that even the parts that from the positions they occupy seem most distant from one another are yet shown to be united by the universal sumpatheia.’

Nature is the work of God, who created her in time, or rather created time in the process of creating her. Matter is a part of creation, for if it were uncreated God would have been dependent upon it for bringing his plan to fruition; and if matter were independent of God there would not be that reciprocity between agent and patient which is everywhere apparent.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy , pp. 432 - 456

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521040549.030 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anonymous Commentator on St John's Gospel Ed. Hausmann, K.. Paderborn, 1930.Google Scholar

Armstrong, A. H., The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Cambridge, 1940) –5. See above, p. 435.Google Scholar

Balthasar, H. Urs, Présence et pensée (Paris, 1943).Google Scholar

Balthasar, H. von.Présence et pensée: Essai sur la philosophie religieuse de Grégoire de Nysse.Paris, 1942.Google Scholar

Baudry, , Le Problème de l'origine et de l'éternité du monde dans la philosophie grecque de Platon à l'ère chrétienne (Paris, 1931), p. ; below, p. 496.Google Scholar

Bernardi, J., ‘La date de l'Hexaemeron de s. Basile’, Studia patristica, 111 (1961).Google Scholar

Bréhier, É, Les Idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1925).Google Scholar

Brehier, É., Les Idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1925).Google Scholar

Daniélou, J., ’La typologie de la semaine au ive siècle’, Recherches de science religieuse, xxxv (1948).Google Scholar

Danielou, J., ‘La notion de confine (μηθóριος) chez Grégoire de Nysse’, Rech. de sc. relig., XLIX (1961).Google Scholar

Danielou, J., Platonisme et théologie mystique (ed. 2, Paris, 1953).Google Scholar

Daniélou, J.Platonisme et théologie mystique, 2nd edn. Paris, 1953.Google Scholar

Edelstein, L., ‘The physical system of Posidonius’, American Journal of Philology’, LVII (1936), p., considers that its importance for Posidonius has been overrated.Google Scholar

Giet, S., ‘Saint Basile a-t-il donné une suite aux homélies de l'Hexaéméron?’, Recherches de science religieuse, XXXIII (1946) –58;Google Scholar

Giet, S., Paris, 1950 (Sources chrét. 26).Google Scholar

Gronau, K., Poseidonios und die jüdisch-christliche Genesisexegese (Leipzig, 1914);Google Scholar

Ivanka, E., ‘Die Quelle von Ciceros De natura deorum ii 45–60 (Poseidonios bei Gregor von Nyssa)’, Archivium philologicum (1935).Google Scholar

,Johannes Scottus EriugenaAnnotationes in Marcianum, ed. Lutz, C.. Cambridge (Mass.), 1939.Google Scholar

,Johannes Scottus EriugenaCommentary on Boethius, ‘Deconsolatione Philosophiae iii met.9’, ed. Silvestre, H., in Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique, 17 (1952).

,Johannes Scottus EriugenaExpositiones super Ierarchiam caelestem iii–vii, ed. Dondaine, H. F., in Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 18 (1951).

,John PhiloponusDe aeternitate mundi contra Proclum, ed. Rabe, H.. Leipzig, 1899 (reprinted 1964).Google Scholar

,John PhiloponusDe opificio mundi, ed. Reinhardt, G.. Leipzig, 1897.Google Scholar

,Leontius The HermitSolutio argumentorum Severi, PG 86. 2. 1916ff.

Mason, A. J., The Five Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge, 1899).Google Scholar

Muckle, J. T., ‘The doctrine of St Gregory of Nyssa on Man as the Image of God’, Medieval Studies, VII (Toronto, 1945), 59, 60;Google Scholar

,Nicephorus of ConstantinopleContra Eusebium et Epiphanidem, ed. Pitra, J. B., Spicilegium solesmense (Paris, 1852–8), I; IV.

Nyss, Greg.. Contra Eunomium, 11 (XII/XIII), 255 (Migne, Patrologia Graec 45. 996D, 1 300, 29) (references in brackets following the Migne, Patrologia Graec reference are to volume, page and line of Jaeger's edition, Leiden, 1960).

Plagnieux, J.Saint Grégoire de Nazianze théologien.Paris, 1951.Google Scholar

Plaignieux, J., Saint Grégoire de Nazianze théologien (Paris, 1951).Google Scholar

,Pseudo-DionysiusDe caelesti hierarchia, ed. and tr. Roques, R., Heil, G., Gandillac, M. (Sources Chrétiennes). Paris, 1958.

Basil, Homiliae in Hexaëmeron, ed. and tr. Giet, S. (Sources Chrétiennes). Paris, 1950.

Basil, On the Holy Spirit, ed. and tr. Pruche, B. (Sources Chrétiennes). Paris, 1947.

,St Gregory NazianzenOrationes 27–31 (Orationes theologicae), ed. Mason, A. J.. Cambridge, 1899.Google Scholar

,St Gregory of NyssaDe Vita Moysis, ed. and tr. Daniélou, J. (Sources Chrétiennes). Paris, 1956.

,St Gregory of NyssaOratio catechetica, ed. Srawley, J. H.. Cambridge, 1903.Google Scholar

,St Gregory of NyssaWorks, ed. Jaeger, W., Langerbeck, H., etc. Leiden, 1952–, in progress.Google Scholar

,St Maximus Confessor ‘Gnostic Century’, in Epifanović, S. L., Materials to serve in the Study of the Life and Works of S. Maximus Confessor.Kiev, 1917.Google Scholar

,St Maximus ConfessorAscetic Life and Centuries on Charity, tr. and annotated by Sherwood, P.. Westminster (Mld) and London, 1955.Google Scholar

Tatakis, B.‘H συμβολή τῆζ καππαδοκίαζ στὴ (The contribution of Cappadocia to Christian Thought). Athens, 1960.Google Scholar

Trouillard, , La Procession plotinienne (Paris, 1955).Google Scholar

Valentinus, , Gospel of Truth, Codex, Jung ed. Malinine-Puech-Quispel (Zurich, 1956): ‘They cast ignorance from them as they would sleep… they abandon (the phantoms of sensual experience) as they would a nocturnal dream.’Google Scholar

Völker, W.Gregor von Nyssa als Mystiker.Wiesbaden, 1955.Google Scholar