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Focuses on Basil of Caesarea as both a key figure in the developments of these years and as a key example of wider theological shifts. Shows how Basil slowly developed towards his mature theological position, distinguishing between God’s unity at the level of ousia and the distinctions between the persons at the level of idiomata. Also considers developing the use of hypostasis, his pneumatological reserve and the continuing presence of older terminologies in his thought. Also argues that Basil is not guilty of the subordinationism that has frequently been seen in his formulations.

Chapter 5 is the first of two chapters on Basil of Caesarea. It has two principal sections. First, it outlines Basil's views about religious language generally. For Basil, theological terms applied both to created reality and to God mean the same thing in the two cases, although they need to be purified in order to apply appropriately to God. Hence, when God is called ‘Father’ or ‘powerful’, it is not that the terms mean differently than they ordinarily do in their common usage, but that the theologian must strip from them all connotations of materiality, temporality, limitation, and so forth. This enables Basil to reject Eunomius' claim that all theological terms are equivalent to ‘ingenerate’. A second section examines five distinctions Basil draws within theological epistemology. Basil uses these to classify language, to help define the doctrine of the Trinity, and to parse out in precise ways what humans can and cannot know about God. It is argued that, for Basil, there is growth in theological knowledge associated with practices of asceticism. Basil refuses reducing the richness of Christian vocabulary to a single term, ‘ingenerate’.

The introduction provides an orientation to Gregory's' life and works within his multiple contexts. It covers Gregory's family, childhood, education, training in biblical study and Greek philosophical rhetoric; his pioneering, moderate form of monasticism as a “middle path” between solitude and public service; his strong influence by Origen and complicated relationship with Basil; his theological and ecclesiastical leadership as a priest and bishop; his central role in the consolidation of the Trinitarian faith and the pro‐Nicene movement in Constantinople; and his retirement, literary corpus, and the distinctive character of the Theological Orations. In addition, it offers a summary narrative of the mid‐fourth‐century theological controversies, in which Gregory played a key part—with attention to Marcellus of Ancyra, the Council of Nicaea 325, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Basil of Ancyra, George of Laodicea, Melitius of Antioch, Damasus and the Western synods, Eunomius and the Heterousians, the Homoiousians, the Pneumatomachians, the homoian regimes of Constantius and Valens, the synod of Antioch in 372, the religious policy of Theodosius, and other church councils; an account of the negative effects of the Antiochene schism, and a reconstruction of the Council of Constantinople 381.

Chapter 6 is the second of two chapters on Basil of Caesarea. The chapter first focuses on the way Basil reclaims the idea that at least some theological terms are devised through human conceptualization. Through conceptualization, we refine our thinking without suggesting that the object being thought about is inherently more complex. Hence, conceptualization can be used for thinking about God and developing more nuanced concepts of God without this implying that God is not simple. For Basil, ingeneracy is itself a concept devised through conceptualization. A second section examines Basil's account of the simple divine essence. For Basil, Father and Son share in this essence in the sense that they share a common formula of being. That is, titles such as ‘light’ and ‘life’ are applied equally and in the same sense to both. Basil views these titles as inherent in the divine nature in the way propria are inherent in mundane natures. Basil attempts to explain how this can be true without thinking of the divine attributes as parts of the essence, that is, as essential complements. A final section examines how Basil's account of simplicity influences his exegesis of disputed biblical texts, focusing on John 14:28.

In conclusion, this book highlights the distinctive character of Gregory's theological and ecclesiastical achievement through a detailed comparison with his key predecessors and contemporaries and an account of his pervasive influence in later Christian tradition. It identifies Gregory's deep indebtedness to Origen—arguably the greatest among Origen's later disciples—and his strong reliance on the work of the Cappadocian patron saint, Gregory Thaumaturgus, particularly in the area of Christology. On the basis of detailed textual analysis, it argues for Gregory's independence of the work of Athanasius and Didymus the Blind, even as he made use of Athanasius' reputation for his own work in Constantinople. It then accounts for Gregory's substantial, and heretofore unrecognized, use of Apollinarian concepts, even as he opposes Apollinarius on a central point of soteriology. Shedding further new light, it identifies the major differences between Gregory's work and that of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, who have previously been assumed to agree with one another on most matters of theological importance. Finally, it highlights Gregory's magisterial achievement as a representative of the Eastern Trinitarian tradition of Asia Minor that was based in the thought of Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea and symbolized in the Dedication Council of Antioch in 341, in distinction from the doctrine of Athanasius and the West, while also showing Gregory's accord with Damasus and the Italian synods as the pro‐Nicene representative in Constantinople.

This chapter places Basil of Caesarea's fourth‐century famine relief activities within the broader spectrum of the history of famine relief and the physiology of starvation. It summarizes what is known of his response to the famine of 368–69 ce and compares his sermon “In time of famine and drought” with a sixth‐century famine chronicle by Ps. Joshua the Stylite and Philagathos's eleventh‐century sermon on famine, considering these three texts in light of modern medical and sociological studies on starvation and hunger typology. Basil's texts from the famine crisis show him exercising a priest–bishop's politics of power, by evoking vivid images of the destitute compared with mourning infants, by insisting that the hungry are suffering unjustly, and by demanding grain donations as both a ceremonial gift exchange and an act of redemptive almsgiving.

This chapter looks at how Christian and classical patterns of benefaction interacted in the moral authority and writings of three major Christian thinkers: Basil of Caesarea, civic patron, bishop, and founder of a famous hostel for the destitute, the Basileiados; Ambrose of Milan, who adapted many of Basil's themes and diatribes on almsgiving for a Latin audience; and Jerome, the fierce advocate of a radical asceticism. Old and new patterns generated controversy over the proper form of Christian generosity towards the poor on the part of bishops, virgins, and lay patrons. Partly in response to such controversy, leading churchmen revised an older moral philosophy to stress the cooperative nature of Christian almsgiving and its superiority over pagan ethics.

The Cappadocian texts on poverty include an economic construct of the poor as fiscal body, defining themselves according to their penury and being defined as currency and inflationary debt. This chapter considers Basil of Caesarea's homilies 6 and 7, appealing to those with wealth, Gregory of Nazianzus's poem “Adversus opem amantes,” Basil's two sermons on Psalm 14 concerning justice, usury, and debt, Gregory of Nyssa's sermon “Against Usury,” Ambrose of Milan's dependence on Basil in his sermon on Tobit, and the exegetical use of texts on the biblical patriarch Joseph's grain policy in Egypt. These texts illustrate Basil's dominant concern for civic justice and social economic reform to solve the problem of poverty in the community.

While it would be inaccurate to claim that the Greek patristic corpus explicitly addressed the procession of the Spirit from the Son (positively or negatively) as later theology would understand it, the writings of the Greek fathers do contain important trinitarian principles, later used by both East and West in their respective theologies of the procession. Particularly important for the East were the anti-Eunomian writings of the Cappadocian fathers, the Council of Constantinople’s creedal affirmation that the Spirit proceeded (ejkporeuvesqai) from the Father, and the anti-Sabellian polemic. Yet alongside these traditional themes there was also in the Greek fathers (e.g., Cyril of Alexandria) an effort to establish an eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit, leading many of the fathers to speak in terms that the West believed supported the Latin doctrine.

Discusses the life and career of Basil as bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and his role in early monasticism. In the constant disagreements amongst the bishops of Asia Minor, Basil supported the Nicene Creed and the asceticism of Eustathius of Sebaste. His letters on canon law became authoritative and he laid down rules for monks and nuns. However, his plans for filling all the sees of Cappadocia with pro‐Nicene bishops were hampered by the division of the province into two by the emperor Valens. Basil also wrote with authority on moral problems, the liturgy, festivals, and relics of martyrs. But his ‘supreme quest’ for church unity was ruined by the schism at Antioch, where two Nicene groups refused to worship together.

The bulk of this chapter deals with the issue of divine relationality in the two treatises mentioned in the chapter title. As corollaries to this, I also study what I call Gregory’s theology of humanity’s exile and homecoming, with special attention to Gregory’s view of divine freedom and the issue of gender language in reference to the Holy Trinity. In his concept of divine relations, Gregory of Nyssa does not differ significantly from such patristic predecessors as the Alexandrian theologians (Origen, Dionysius, Alexander, Athanasius) or his brother, Basil of Caesarea. Moreover, all of them seem to be influenced by Aristotle’s category of relation that they apply to God. Thus, a father is both the name of a person and also points to a son—a reality that is different from the father but has the same nature.

Begins by considering Basil’s theological work against the background of his attempts at alliance-building in Asia Minor, in the eastern provinces, and with the West. Often, Basil faced constant setbacks and the perception that his attempts to secure his own power base were as important as any higher motive. Considers the pro-Nicene theology of Ephrem the Syrian, presenting him not as an isolated figure but as offering a distinctly pro-Nicene theology directly parallel to those found in Greek and Latin authors. Then discusses the author’s use of pro-Nicene over and against other terminologies, and ends with a consideration of Theodosius’s accession.

In a recent article, Roy Gibson has underscored the differences between ancient letter collections and their modern presentations. The latter, Gibson shows, tend to arrange letters in chronological order, subordinating the question of the collection’s original form and purpose to the interests of the modern biographer. The corpus of letters of Basil of Caesarea exemplifies Gibson’s theme well. When, in 1730, the Benedictine editors of St. Maur imposed order on the seeming incoherence of the arrangement in the manuscripts available to him, they did so by placing the letters in a putative chronological order. All subsequent editions and translations have followed suit, and thus the study of Basil’s letters has served a largely biographical purpose. This chapter disentangles, as much as possible, the original collection or collections of Basil’s letters from the modern reception of them. There is evidence for the circulation of small collections of Basil’s letters during his lifetime, collections arranged by addressee for purposes ranging from apologetic to polemical. This chapter examines the history of the collection’s formation, arrangement, and content.

This chapter examines three disputed elections, with the aim of demonstrating the interplay between the various forces at work in an election discussed earlier in the book. The cases were chosen for a variety of reasons. First, they are all elections to metropolitan sees. The significance of this has been touched upon — the Nicene mechanism, such as it was, did not provide for this type of election. Secondly, they are all informative and revealing, given the variety of protagonists and factors involved. Finally, in each of the three cases, the chapter untangles the evidence to show that these elections were by no means legitimate.

The Conclusion recapitulates the book's argument and argues that the achievement of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa in transforming divine simplicity has ongoing relevance for Christian theology. It addresses both ancient and contemporary objections which posit that divine simplicity is incompatible with God acting in the world. The contemporary objection, as formulated by Christopher Stead, presents God's action as portrayed in scripture as an embarrassment for the philosophical theory of divine simplicity. However, the conclusion argues that both ancient and modern objections to the idea of a simple God acting in the complex world rest upon similar assumptions about ‘God’ and ‘world’ which the Cappadocian brothers help Christian theology to overcome. Basil and especially Gregory show the Christian tradition how to speak of God's action in the world as fully reflective of God's simple nature and its characteristic attributes or propria. The Cappadocian brothers thus are still relevant to how theologians construe the God‐world relation. Finally, the chapter attends to questions that remain unanswered, such as how divine simplicity as conceived by the Cappadocians is fully compatible with divine freedom.

Basil of Caesarea, a theologian-bishop like Athanasius, helped forward the Cappadocian formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity by inferring that since the Holy Spirit transforms lives, he is as important as the Father and the Son. Basil wrote On the Holy Spirit in about 375, amid the protracted and complex trinitarian controversies of the 4th century, whose third quarter focused on the dignity of status of the Holy Spirit. This chapter highlights Basil's pastoral concerns: to stimulate his flock's growth in Christian piety, especially as effected in worship, through engaged understanding of the Trinity; to use the experience of spiritual transformation in support of the equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son; to legitimate Episcopal authority to develop church practices that promote proper knowledge of the truth and goodness of God; and to set forth the pastoral responsibilities of theology.

The Introduction defines divine simplicity and theological epistemology. The latter is distinguished from religious epistemology, which asks, ‘On what grounds is someone's holding a certain belief justified?’ Theological epistemology starts from beliefs about God held by religious people and asks, ‘In what sense does the believer attribute these to God?’ The doctrine of divine simplicity, according to which God's unity precludes a diversity of parts or attributes, raises problems for theological epistemology. Divine simplicity forces theologians to explain how divine attributes are predicated of God without introducing composition, complexity, or, most importantly, contradiction into God. In referring the various scriptural portrayals of God to a simple entity, early Christians attempted to explain how these can be coherent and consistent. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa are unique in their approach to these ideas. They steer a median course between the identity thesis, according to which God's attributes are identical with God, and radical apophaticism, which says that no attribute can properly be ascribed to God. Basil and Gregory view divine attributes as propria, unique identifying characteristics inherent in the divine nature, but not identical with its essence. Attention is given to Christopher Stead's interpretation of Basil and Gregory.