scholarly journals Listy Ojców Kapadockich do kobiet

Vox Patrum ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 123-146
Author(s):  
Jolanta Dybała

The letters of the Cappadocian Fathers serve as part of the evidence that in the early Church correspondence of its leaders played an essential role in ensuring its proper functioning. Among the addresses of the epistles of Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa we find a few women. They came from diverse backgrounds. Some of them devoted their lives to the service of God, others were lay people. This article seeks to present a part of the bishops’ corres­pondence and answer questions concerning its female audience. The letters were divided into three groups: 1) consolatory ones; 2) parenetic ones; 3) and the rest of them, that because of their thematic variety were grouped together.

1974 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Kopecek

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.


This chapter examines the theologies of salvation of the Cappadocian Fathers—Basil of Caesarea, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus. The theology of the Cappadocians, though with disagreements among the members at points, is relatively unified under the ideas of the believer’s salvation being collective, that it is our nature that is saved.


Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber

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.


1997 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Methuen

In her discussion of the life of Macrina (ca. 327–79), the sister of Gregory of Nyssa, Susanna Elm comments upon Macrina's decision to treat the death of her fiancé as if it were the death of a husband. Inasmuch as this decision became a reason for her not to (re)marry, Macrina took on “a new social role: the virgin widow.” Elm's casual remark points to a remarkable failure among a number of commentators to take account of the ambiguities inherent in the title “widow” (Greek χήρα, Latin vidua). While acknowledging the existence of an order of widows, scholars have also widely assumed that the terms χήρα and vidua can be equated to the modern term “widow,” that is, a woman who has survived her husband. The discussion of Christian widows, and especially enrolled widows, has accordingly focused primarily upon the function and often the age of these women. If scholars mention the marital status of such women at all, their discussion is generally directed toward the question of second marriages. I shall argue, however, that it is in fact misleading to assume that a widow must have been married previously and that in the earliest centuries of the Christian church, there is evidence not only for the existence of “virgin widows” but also for the problems that these women posed for some church leaders.


Author(s):  
Anthony Cordingley

This chapter expands upon the Christian themes introduced in the previous chapter. It identifies intertextual discourse with the Psalms, Early Church Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine and certain neo-Platonists. It explores the importance of desert mysticism and notions of ascesis within the novel, and links this with multiple allusions to the inward turn or practised indifference of seventeenth-century Rationalists, notably Malebranche and Geulincx, and Quietists such as Fénelon, or the philosophy of Spinoza. How It Is is then argued to be Beckett’s most sustained engagement with Geulingian ethics. When Beckett draws on mysticism, Rationalism, Occasionalism and the conceptualisation of freewill in each, he is shown to thematize artistic originality and the agency of narrative voice, its relationship to the authorial voice.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 531-545
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram

The aim of the article is to show the specificity of the fundamental fight in the soul and in the life of man between pride and humility as it is seen in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers and John Chrysostom. In the opinion of the Greek Fathers of the 4th century pride is the root of all sin. It destroys all good fruits in the Christian spiritual development, whereas humility enables and protects spiritual growth. Arguing against the here­tics of their time, mainly against the Arians, the Cappadocian Fathers (especially Gregory of Nazianzus) made particular attention to the theologians’ pride, cha­racterized by the lack of respect for the mysteries of God and being proud that is without moderation in talking about God. Gregory of Nyssa pointed out the perversity of the vice of pride: the arbitrary exaltation leads finally to the great unwanted humiliation and even to fall into the sin. John Chrysostom em­phasized the paradoxical risk characteristic of the process of spiritual fight: one can brag because of owned humility and enjoy it. Then even true humility can imperceptibly transform into pride and become its source. Therefore the righteous people should avoid the pride and seek humility with more care than sinners.


Lumen et Vita ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Carlo Calleja

The aim of this paper is to understand what might effectively serve to exhort the practice of the virtue of solidarity with the socially alienated. Three orations on lepers: one by Gregory of Nazianzus, and two by Gregory of Nyssa, will be studied. The methods used to engender the virtue of solidarity with the lepers in these orations will be analyzed. Redefining classical Greek virtues in a Christian theological framework; sensitizing the listeners by appealing to emotions through the use of concrete examples; attempting to restore alienated kinship by retrieving kinship language; and encouraging a tangible encounter with lepers prove to be important elements. How the Gregorys appealed to non-Christians will also be considered. I conclude that through these three orations, the Gregorys teach us that the conviction to cultivate the virtue of solidarity is inculcated by engaging closely with those whose identity appears different from one’s own.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 463-475
Author(s):  
Józef Naumowicz

In giving different allegorical meanings to the „garments of skins” (Gen 3:21) given to man after the Fall (mortality, corporeality, carnal mentality, animality, passions), the patristic authors tried not only to describe the effects of the sin of the first people, but also and above all to show what God did to ensure that the consequences of the Fall did not last forever and that a return to paradise might be possible. What most interested them was the meaning of these garments in the history of salvation. So Irenaeus of Lyon formed the concept of these garments as an antidote or medicine for sin, a concept developed later by the Cappadocian fathers. Gregory of Nyssa emphasized the fact that they permitted the preservation of man’s freedom and other characteristics of his having been formed in the image of God (rationality). In short, they were given in order to open a road for man to God, to make possible a return to paradise. Even if they signify the effects of the fall of man, which effects can be held to be burdensome and trying, they are not an expression of the Creator’s anger and punishment, but rather deliverance for man and a chance of salvation. They can at most be considered as „a divine way of punishing”, which is ultimately „a manifestation of mercy” (Gregory of Nazianzen).


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document