Cappadocian Fathers

wikipedia.org/wiki Cappadocian Fathers

The Cappadocian Fathers, also traditionally known as the Three Cappadocians, are Basil the Great (330–379), who was bishop of Caesarea; Basil’s younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395), who was bishop of Nyssa; and a close friend, Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389), who became Patriarch of Constantinople.[1] The Cappadocia region, in modern-day Turkey, was an early site of Christian activity, with several missions by Paul in this region.

The Cappadocians advanced the development of early Christian theology, for example the doctrine of the Trinity,[2]:22 and are highly respected as saints in both Western and Eastern churches.

Theological contributions

The fathers set out to demonstrate that Christians could hold their own in conversations with learned Greek-speaking intellectuals and that Christian faith, while it was against many of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle (and other Greek philosophers), was an almost scientific and distinctive movement with the healing of the soul of man and his union with God at its center—one best represented by monasticism. They made major contributions to the definition of the Trinity finalized at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the final version of the Nicene Creed, finalised there.

They made key contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity and to the responses to Arianism and Apollinarianism.

$12.37 paperback at amazon Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses (HarperCollins Spiritual Classics) Paperback

        Series: HarperCollins Spiritual Classics
        Paperback: 144 pages
        Publisher: HarperOne; unknown edition (February 28, 2006)
        Language: English
        ISBN-10: 0060754648
        ISBN-13: 978-0060754648
        

$2.99 for kindle The Life of Moses Kindle Edition by St. Gregory of Nyssa

0-8091-2112-3 0809121123

paulistpress.com Gregory of Nyssa Life of Moses transator Abraham Malherbe

        Published by Paulist Press
        ISBN 10: 0809121123 ISBN 13: 9780809121120
        

www.svspress.com review - Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses

<pre. Price: $21.95 SKU: PB-GRNYCW Publisher: Paulist Press ISBN: 0-8091-2112-3 Author: St. Gregory of Nyssa Translators: Abraham J. Malherbe & Everett Ferguson Size: 6x9 Pages: 208 </pre>

“Such an experience seems to me to belong to the soul which loves what is beautiful. Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived… And the bold request which goes up the mountains of desire asks this: to enjoy the Beauty not in mirrors and reflections, but face to face.” -Gregory of Nyssa, c.332-395

This great spiritual master of the fourth century was born as the general persecution of Christians was ending. One of the Greek Cappadocian Fathers (the other two were Gregory’s brother, St. Basil the Great, and their mutual friend, St. Gregory Nazianzen), Gregory has come to be regarded increasingly as the most brilliant and subtle thinker and most profound mystical teacher of the three. Whether or not one agrees with Jean Danielou who saw Gregory as the founder of mystical theology in the Church, there can be no doubt of Gregory’s major importance within the Christian tradition.

The Life of Moses has special significance because it reflects Gregory’s “spiritual sense” of the Scriptures. He maintained that the ultimate purpose of the Bible was not its historical teachings but its capacity for elevating the soul to God. Gregory saw the totality of the spiritual life as an “epektasis,” a continual growth or straining ahead, as in the words of St. Paul, “Forgetting the past, I strain for what is still to come.”

Gregory frames an immensely significant synthesis of the earlier Hellenistic and Jewish traditions in this work. He describes the spiritual ascent as taking place in three stages, symbolized by the Lord’s revelation of Himself to Moses, first in light, then in the cloud and finally, in the dark. This translation and introduction, winner of the Christian Research Foundation Award, has been expertly rendered by Professors Abraham Malherbe of Yale University and Everett Ferguson of Abilene Christian University.