The Cappadocian Fathers and Civic Patriotism

1974 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Kopecek
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cappadocian Fathers

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.

The Social Class of the Cappadocian Fathers

1973 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Kopecek
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social History ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Class Membership ◽  
The Past ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cappadocian Fathers

Although the past two decades have shown signs of scholarly interest in the social history of fourth- and fifth-century Christianity, especially among British scholars, much remains to be done before a synthetic reconstruction will be justified. Among the tasks to be completed is the determination of the social class backgrounds of the later empire's Christian clergy. For if these backgrounds can be established, it will be possible to investigate how extensively they influenced the clerics' thought and action. Unfortunately, the determination of social origins in antiquity is not always a straightforward enterprise. This is particularly true in the case of the Cappadocian Fathers, whose social class membership is the topic of the present essay.

The Cappadocians and their Christian Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-71
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Abstract Theory ◽  
Christian Philosophy ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Cappadocian Fathers

This chapter offers an in-depth analysis of the philosophy underlying the teaching of the so-called Cappadocian fathers. After an introductory overview of their historical and intellectual background in the trinitarian controversy of the fourth century, the chapter initially turns to Basil of Caesarea. He introduced a distinctive terminological and conceptual framework to articulate his proposal for a solution to the trinitarian controversy. Philosophically, it is geared towards grammar and logic; it is therefore called the ‘abstract’ dimension of the Cappadocian theory. All three Cappadocians accept this abstract theory. Subsequently, the chapter turns to Gregory of Nyssa who in his cosmological and trinitarian writings develops a corresponding theory geared towards physics and ontology. It will be referred to as the ‘concrete’ dimension of Cappadocian philosophy. These two are conceived as complementary but their difference introduces a conceptual tension into the Cappadocian theory.

Initial Validation of the Social- Class Identity Dissonance Scale

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary L. Nelson ◽  
Kelly L. Huffman ◽  
Stephanie L. Budge ◽  
Rosalilla Mendoza
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Initial Validation ◽  
The Social

Doing Bodhisattva’s Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The State ◽  
Ho Chi Minh City ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
The Social

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.

POLIVARIABILITY OF THE BASTARD MOTIF IN THE SHORT STORIES BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT: CHARACTER IN SEARCH OF SELF-IDENTIFICATION

2018 ◽  
pp. 20-27
Author(s):  
Oksana Galchuk
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Guy De Maupassant ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
Role Of It ◽  
Structural Methods

The theme of illegitimacy Guy de Maupassant evolved in his works this article perceives as one of the factors of the author’s concept of a person and the plane of intersection of the most typical motifs of his short stories. The study of the author’s concept of a person through the prism of polivariability of the motif of a bastard is relevant in today’s revision of traditional values, transformation of the usual social institutions and search for identities, etc. The purpose of the study is to give a definition to the existence specifics of the bastard motif in the Maupassant’s short stories by using historical and literary, comparative, structural methods of analysis as dominant. To do this, I analyze the content, variability and the role of this motive in the formation of the Maupassant’s concept of a person, the author’s innovations in its interpretation from the point of view of literary diachrony. Maupassant interprets the bastard motif in the social, psychological and metaphorical-symbolic sense. For the short stories with the presentation of this motif, I suggest the typology based on the role of it in the structure of the work and the ideological and thematic content: the short stories with a motif-fragment, the ones with the bastard’s leitmotif and the group where the bastard motif becomes a central theme. The Maupassant’s interpretation of the bastard motif combines the general tendencies of its existence in the world’s literary tradition and individual reading. The latter is the result of the author’s understanding of the relevant for the era issues: the transformation of the family model, the interest in the theory of heredity, the strengthening of atheistic sentiments, the growth of frustration in the system of traditional social and moral values etc. This study sets the ground for a prospective analysis of the evolution the bastard motif in the short-story collections of different years or a comparative study of the motif in short stories and novels by Maupassant.

Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morwenna Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Active Response ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Shared Practice ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Applied Arts

Ancient authors commonly compared writing with painting. The sculpting of the soul was a common philosophical theme. This book takes its starting-point from such figures to recover a sense of ancient authorship as craft. The ancient concept of craft (ars, technē) spans ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art and practical or applied arts. It unites the beautiful and the useful. It includes both skills or practices (like medicine and music) and productive arts like painting, sculpting, and the composition of texts. By using craft as a guiding concept for understanding fourth-century Christian authorship, this book recovers a sense of them engaged in a shared practice which is both beautiful and theologically useful, which shapes souls but which is also engaged in the production of texts. It focuses on Greek writers, especially the Cappadocians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa) and John Chrysostom, all of whom were trained in rhetoric. Through a detailed examination of their use of two particular literary techniques—ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia—it shows how they adapt and experiment with them, in order to make theological arguments and in order to evoke an active response from their readership.

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
First Time

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. This book offers for the first time a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy. It shows how it took its distinctive shape in the late fourth century and gives an account of its subsequent development until the time of John of Damascus. The book falls into three main parts. The first of them starts from an analysis of the philosophical project underlying the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. This philosophy, arguably the first distinctively Christian theory of being, soon becomes near-universally shared in Eastern Christianity. A few decades after the Cappadocians, all sides in the early Christological controversy take its fundamental tenets for granted. Its application to the Christological problem thus appeared inevitable. Yet it created substantial conceptual problems. Parts II and III of the book describe in detail how these problems led to a series of increasingly radical modifications of the Cappadocian philosophy. The chapters of Part II are dedicated to the miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, while Part III discusses the defenders of the Council from the early sixth to the eighth centuries. Through this overview, the book reveals this period as one of remarkable philosophical creativity, fecundity, and innovation.

Gender Norms and Household Labor: Time Use in the Context of Social Class Differentiation in Transitional China

2021 ◽  
pp. 048661342199044
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Zhun Xu
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Time Allocation ◽  
Rural Women ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Nutrition Survey ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Health And Nutrition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Transitional China

This paper studies the historical evolution of China’s gender relations through the lens of housework time allocation. In particular, we highlight the role played by social class and income. Drawing upon data from the Chinese Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that during the period 1991–2011, being a peasant or earning less than the spouse was increasingly associated with a higher share of housework. The market process appears to have indirectly improved the social status of women (most likely rural women) married to peasant husbands as measured by the former’s declining housework share. Such changes, however, have not challenged traditional patriarchal norms in the countryside and have even facilitated the rise of a new market-based patriarchy. Policy makers should empower women by tackling the different faces of patriarchy as a whole. JEL Classification: B51, J16, P16

Childhood Autism and Social Class: A Question of Selection?

1980 ◽  
Vol 137 (5) ◽  
pp. 410-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Wing
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Early Years ◽  
National Society ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
Class A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Autistic Behaviour ◽  
Childhood Psychoses

SummaryChildren with typical autism, other early childhood psychoses and severe mental retardation without autistic behaviour were identified in an epidemiological study in an area of South East London. The social class distribution of their fathers was examined and no significant differences were found between the groups, nor in a comparison with the general population of the area. Fathers of children with autism and related conditions referred to an out-patient clinic with a special interest in autism, mostly at their own request, and fathers joining the National Society for Autistic Children, were of higher social class than both the average for England and Wales and the fathers of the study children. Joining the NSAC during its early years, and keeping up membership were also linked with higher social class. The findings supported the view that reports of a social class bias in autism may be explained by factors affecting referral and diagnosis.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document