Summary

The Cappadocian school is a circle of like-minded persons with whom the Golden Age of Patristics is linked. The circle's founders were the greatest Christian thinkers in the second half of the fourth century St Basil the Great, St Gregory the Theologian and St Gregory of Nyssa. In science they have been called 'the great Cappadocians' because of the province of Cappadocia in the East Asia Minor where their bishoprics were located. Besides them, there also were St Amphilochius of Iconium, St Peter of Sebaste, St Macrina the Younger, etc; and it was at various times connected with a number of outstanding figures of the epoch, namely: Libanius of Antioch, St Ephraem Syrus, St John Chrysostom, Deaconess Olympias.

St Basil the Great (c. 330–379 AD) and St Gregory the Theologian (326–389) got a splendid education in Athens, where they shared their studies with the future Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate; then they studied the Bible and Origen's works on their own, living in a hermitage. Later on St Basil became Bishop of Caesarea, the then metropolis of Cappadocia, and consecrated St Gregory, who wanted to lead a solitary existence, Bishop of Sasima against his will. St Basil's younger brother, the second Gregory (c. 335–394 AD) became Bishop of Nyssa. The time after the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) was a period of acute dogmatic contradictions, and St Basil's main task was to consolidate the Orthodox teaching for which purpose one needed to have worked out a generally accepted set of philosophical and theological terms. The Cappadocians used to be called the Neo-Nicenes for their commitment to the Nicene Creed and, at the same time, an innovative approach to language; as well as the Neo-Alexandrians for their following the main principles of the Alexandrian school after St Athanasius the Great.

The Cappadocian school set itself a goal of creating precise doctrinal formulae which should not be reconsidered after their acceptance by the General Council and be the basis for a further development of theological thought. By so doing, Theology was for the first time acquiring certain signs of an exact science which allowed it to be laid into the foundation of the intellectual culture of Europe. The Ancient Church recognised St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian as 'great Fathers and Doctors/ along with Chrysostom. Already in the early period of their studying Origen's works the Cappadocians displayed a critical attitude towards initial Alexandrian ideas, retaining only those ones that were not contrary to Orthodoxy. Further on, St Basil made some revisions to allegorical Hermeneutics adjusting them to the requirements of the Antiochene school. Being more faithful to the rules of symbolic exegesis, St Gregory of Nyssa wrote an inimitable commentary on The Song of Songs that he, in accord with Origen, considers as a mystic poem. St Gregory also shared his idea of Apocatastasis, but only as a mere possibility without any connection whatsoever with the cyclical world view which was alien to all the representatives of the Cappadocian school.

Along with the Bible, the Cappadocian Fathers regarded the oral Tradition highly, as containing in itself certain 'mysteries' (Bas. Spir. 29, 71). The third criterion of Truth of utmost importance, along with the Holy Writ and Tradition, is catholicity. Gradual recognising the sense in the disclosure of all the powers of the Church catholic personality was considered to be an important principle of cognition: thus, for instance, the Old Testament, according to St Gregory the Theologian, had been such a light that was 'adequate for the powers of recipients... hiding the truth and mystery of the great Light' (Or. 40). The attitude of the Cappadocian school representatives towards lay culture is highly complex. In his famous Instruction for Youths on How to Use Works by Pagan Writers St Basil the Great spoke in support of Christians using Ancient Philosophy. He claimed that the unity of school doctrines serves to affirm Christianity, whereas contradictions among them serve to overthrow them (Hom. 22, Hex. 1). St Gregory of Nyssa urged Christians 'to amass the riches of pagan culture/ including Ethics, Physics, Geometry, Astronomy, and Dialectic (Vita Mos. 360). It was suggested to rely upon 'general notions' (κοιναὶ ἔννοιαι), i.e., to a certain extent, transcendental ideas which all the people can understand by intuition. At the same time Philosophy should not take the place of faith, 'simple and without sophisms' (Bas. Spir. 6, 13).

St Basil the Great divided all the 'propositions' (δόγματα) accepted by reason into 'moral' (ὴθικούς), 'physical' (φυσικούς), and 'mystical' or 'contemplative' (ὲποπτικούς); taken together, they become the soul's garment, the fabric of which is borrowed from different sources (Psal. 44, 10). Moral laws were considered by the Cappadocians as a heritage of the whole mankind, but their fulfilment was admittedly possible only after the advent of Grace. St Basil presents cognition of nature in his Hexaemeron (that is, [a Work] of Six Days) as a field of competing natural philosophical hypotheses that can become clear in terms of the world view only through mystical dogmata. Finally, the latter ones are dimly seen by philosophic reason, but they are given per se only in Orthodox Theology. The place of Philosophy in the structure of cognition of the Cappadocian school can be defined as auxiliary.

The Cappadocian school doctrine of the Trinity that later became its chief achievement was based on a biblical foundation with the employment of philosophic terminology. Being increasingly discontent with the Neo-Platonist emanationism, the Cappadocians chose the way of an exact distinction of the terms 'essence' (ούσία) and 'hypostasis' (ύπόστασις), which St Athanasius had not yet used. They were charged with tritheism, but the Neo-Nicene doctrine prevailed at the Second Oecumenical Council in Constantinople (381 AD). Having deepened the generally accepted notion of 'person' (πρόσωπον) with the idea of 'hypostasis', the great Cappadocians arrived at the dialectical disclosure of the dogma of the Trinity 'without division and without confusion,' reconciling contradictory views of triunity in the unfathomable nature of the Godhead that is beyond the grasp of the mind. The human thought needs to constantly move in order to comprehend this object of faith: 'Hardly have I thought about the One when I light up with the Three; hardly have I divided the Three when I am exalted to the One' (Greg. Naz. Orat. 40, 41). The dialectic doctrine of the Trinity has become a triumph of philosophical and theological thinking that has overcome the static nature of pagan ideas of the Absolute. The absolute subject and object are not just confused, which would mean unconsciousness of the One, but their relations are described as 'sameness in otherness and otherness in sameness' (ταυτὸν ὲν έτερότητι καὶ ἔτερον ὲν ταυτότητι). Here has fully developed the Christian idea of God's autonomy from the world: having in Himself 'complete otherness without confusion' (Greg. Naz. C. Eun. 1, 22), God does not need the world as His object and makes it only due to His goodness.

God's autonomy is closely connected with human freedom, the latter always being doubtful in the ancient world view, including Origen's system. In his treatise Making of Man, an essential anthropological work in Patristics, St Gregory of Nyssa points out that the human nous (mind) is mysteriously in the image of God's mind. That means that the very first principles of freedom are firmly anchored in the infinity of God-likeness; in this connection their realisation leads towards eternal and non-finite consequences. Life is a school where all the human dispositions are on probation, finding here their full disclosure and accomplishment. Having been created in the image of God, the person has also to acquire His likeness which is in the good use of the gift of being in order 'to imitate the heavenly well-being on earth' (Bas. Hom. 21). The congruity of man with God allowed the Cappadocians to converge theological truths with philosophic ideas, at the centre of which was Anthropology. Thus, according to St Gregory, God's image in man in the proper sense of the word is the nous (mind) that is simple and, 'revealing itself in each sense, can grasp things.' The mind, however, is made in the image of Logos. If the Logos were different from God, the human mind either would not be simple or rather would not be similar to God. But since these two conditions are observed, hence the Son is the perfect image of the Father (Greg. Nyss. Hom. op. 6).

This perception of the whole world as 'a school and place of the education of the human souls' (Bas. Hex. I) had a profound impact on the unique features of the Cappadocian school as an informal institute of the patristic epoch. Around it, creative thought was in full swing, its chief aim was to let nothing in Church doctrine be blurred and, by so doing, to enhance the unity of Christendom as much as possible. The famous maxim of St Gregory the Theologian – 'we are not claiming victory, but our brethren's return, the separation with whom rends our hearts apart' – has entered a great number of polemical works as an example of the Orthodox approach towards doctrinal controversies. The Cappadocians turned out to be founders of the mature Byzantine Theology which carried out a synthesis of the Alexandrian and Antiochene principles and provided a further translation of ancient cultural achievements in the multitude of forms of Christian civilisation.