CHRISTIAN AND NEOPYTHAGOREAN CYNICISM. — Evidence for the existence of Christian cynics is furnished by Julian the Apostate (Or., VI and VII), who attacks them, St Augustine (De civ. Dei, XIX, 19) and St Gregory of Nazianzus, who had bitter experience of them in the person of Maximus of Alexandria. According to a report by St Jerome (De vir. illustr., 127), it was this same Maximus who is the Heron of Alexandria praised in Oration XXV of St Gregory, but the name was changed by another hand so as not to put the Saint in contradiction with what he had narrated about his false friend in the Contra Maximum and in De vita sua. Neopythagorean cynicism, on the other hand, is represented by Sallustius (5th cent.), in whom we recognize all the most characteristic traits of early Cynicism.
CINISMO CRISTIANO E NEOPITAGORICO
BIBL.: For the sources and detailed bibliography, cf. Überweg, I, pp. 150-70, 62*-64*. For the fragments, see F. W. A. Mullach, Fragments philosophorum Graecorum, II, Paris 1860, pp. 259-395; a collection of the principal fragments up to Ennomus in German translation is found in W. Nestle, Die Sokratiker, Jena 1923, pp. 9-15; in Italian, see R. Mondolfo, Il pensiero antico, Rome 1929, pp. 156-63, and P. Lamanna, Antologia filosofica, I, Florence 1945. General treatments: J. Bernays, Lucian u. die Kyniker, Berlin 1879; J. R. Asmus, Gregor von Naz. u. sein Verhältnis zum Kynismus, in Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 67 (1894), pp. 314-39; A. Caspar, De Cynicis qui fuerunt aetate imperatorum Romanorum, Chemnitz 1896; J. Geffcken, Kynika u. Verwandtes, Heidelberg 1900; R. Helm, in Pauly-Wissowa, XII, cols. 3-24.