CHRISTIAN AND NEOPYTHAGOREAN CYNICISM. - Of the existence of Christian Cynics we have testimony from Julian the Apostate (Or., VI and VII), who combats them, from St. Augustine (De civ. Dei, XIX, 19) and from St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who made bitter experience of them in the person of Maximus of Alexandria. According to a notice of St. Jerome (De vir. illustr., 127), none other than this Maximus is the Heron of Alexandria whom the XXVth oration of St. Gregory praises, but the name was changed by another's hand so as not to place the Saint in contradiction with what he had narrated of his false friend in the Contra Maximum and in the De vita sua. A Neopythagorean Cynic, on the other hand, is Sallustius (5th century), in whom all the most characteristic traits of early Cynicism reappear.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: For the sources and the detailed bibliography, cf. Überweg, I, pp. 159-70, 6264. For the fragments n. v. F. W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum, II, Paris 1860, pp. 359-395; a collection of the principal fragments down to Oenomaus in German translation is found in W. Nestle, Die Sokratiker, Jena 1923, pp. 9-151; in Italian v. R. Mondolfo, Il pensiero antico, Rome 1920, 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 van Naz. u. sein Verhältniss zum Kynismus, in Theol. Stud. u. Krit., 67 (1894), pp. 314-39; A. Caspari, De Cynicis qui fuerunt aetate imperatorum Romanorum, Chemnitz 1896; J. Geffeken, Kynika u. Verwandtes, Heidelberg 1909; R. Helm, in Pauly-Wissowa, XII, coll. 3-24.

Carlo Diano

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Christian and Neoplatonic Cynicism

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