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Christology and Exegesis in the Cappadocians*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Donald F. Winslow
Donald F. Winslow
Affiliation:
Associate professor of historical theology in the Philadelphia Divinity School
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Extract

When, after their decade of studies in Athens, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus returned to Cappadocia, one of the first things they did was to compile a collection of the exegetical works of Origen and publish them under the title Philokalia. This fact might lead the historian to conclude that Basil and Gregory subscribed to, or at least were in sympathy with, the allegorical method of exegesis. But such is hardly the case, for in their later writings (and this holds true for the third member of the Cappadocians, the younger Gregory of Nyssa) there can be discovered no one prevailing approach to the interpretation of scripture. Allegory is indeed used, and often, but so too we find typological and anagogical exegesis, as well as frequent examples of naive literalism. That the Bible formed the basis of theological reflection for the Cappadocians can in no way be denied, but that they held to any particular style or styles of exegesis cannot be demonstrated.

Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 389 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1971

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References

1. Oration 29.18, 30.1, and passim. Text: Barbel, J., ed., Gregor von Nazians: Die fünf theologischen Reden (Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1963), pp. 160, 170.Google Scholar

2. Mason, A. J., The Five Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899), p. xix.Google Scholar

3. Oration 29.19; Barbel, op. cit., p. 160.

4. Oration 37.2. Text: Migne, PG, 36, col. 248C.

5. Oration 29.20; Barbel, p. 164.

6. Ibid., 21; Barbel, p. 168.

7. Nor was Gregory by any means the last to use it. Such exegetical interpretation is found throughout the patristic era. See, for instance, Wilken, R. L., “Tradition, Exegesis, and the Christological Controversies,” Church History, 34, 2 (06 1965), pp. 123–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. De decretis 3.14; Migne, PG, 25, col. 440C.

9. Contra Arianos 3.26; Migne, PG, 26, col. 380B.

10. Ibid., 3.37; Migne, PG, 26, col. 401C-404B.

11. Epistle 102. Text: Migne, PG, 37, col. 201B. Because the major anti-Apollinarian correspondence of Gregory belongs more to the MS tradition of Orations, Gallay has left it out of his recently published critical edition: Saint-Grégoire de Nazianze: Lettres (Paris: Société d' édition ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1964).Google Scholar

12. It is difficult to believe that Gregory's argument here against the Apollinarians was to his advantage; it is less difficult, in fact, to imagine that he was actually responding, somewhat emotionally, to their just criticisms of his own (prior) position by merely hurling the accusation back to them.

13. Holl, Karl, Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem Verhältnis zu den grossen Kappadoziern (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1904), p. 182.Google Scholar

14. Wiles, M. F., “Soteriological Arguments in the Fathers”, Studia Patristica, IXGoogle Scholar, (Cross, F. L.), Texte und Untersuchungen, 94, (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966), pp. 321–325.Google Scholar

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16. Oration 31.4, 6; Barbel, 224, 228; Cration 34.12; Migne, PG, 36, col. 252C.

17. Oration 28.17; Barbel, p. 96.

18. Stephan, Leo, Die Soteriologie des Hl. Gregor von Nazianz (Vienna: Missionsdruckerei St. Gabriel, 1938), p. 38Google Scholar; see also Ruether, R., Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 130.Google Scholar

19. Oration 45:22; Migne, PG, 36, col. 653B.

20. Catechetical Oration, 16 and 27; Srawley, J. H., ed., The Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), pp. 69 and 103.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., 16 and 32; Srawley, pp. 69 and 116.