CAPPADOCIAN FATHERS. - Cappadocia gave the Church of the fourth century some of its most eminent figures, bound to one another by their common homeland, by ties of kinship and friendship, and by a community of work: St. Basil and his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil’s intimate friend, and St. Amphilochius of Iconium, a star of lesser magnitude and cousin of the Nazianzen.
The doctrine of the Cappadocian Fathers is regarded by some as a compromise, especially in exegesis, between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools: in reality, it is difficult to discern in the Cappadocian Fathers a characteristic doctrinal orientation other than the common foundation of the orthodoxy of the fourth century, profoundly respectful of tradition and yet not alien to the speculative elucidation of revealed data. They dealt principally with Trinitarian and Christological doctrine.
Moreover, the three great Cappadocians display clearly marked personal tendencies and gifts. Basil emerges as a man of action and government, who plays a foremost role in defending Nicene orthodoxy even beyond his jurisdiction as metropolitan of Caesarea, and gives extraordinary impetus to Christian life, charity, and monasticism. Gregory of Nazianzus is the born orator, who moulds an elaborate theological thought into a classical form, conversant with all the resources of the art; he is the poet of delicate and profound vibrations, pervaded by an incurable longing for solitude and peace amid the struggles in which he is called to live. Gregory of Nyssa is the most speculative mind, who, in elaborating dogma, ventures into some excesses in an Origenist direction.