The Cappadocian Fathers

Cappadocia is what we would now call Turkey.  These three men and one woman are to be credited for defining Christianity.  I will spend separate posts on each of them.  This post is just an introduction to them. St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and Macrina the Younger.  Macrina was a nun who shaped the theological and ascetical formation of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, her brothers.      

 

Reinforced

 Yesterday, I posted When Death Isn't Death.  The message was that baptism is a new birth in a new life of Christianity. This morning I was reading St. Basil's book, On the Holy Spirit (Cap. 15, 35, 127-130) and he was writing about when death isn't death.

Baptism is part of God's plan for bringing us back to Him, after Adam and Eve broke the relationship we were meant to have with God.  

To attain holiness, then, we must not only pattern our lives on Christ's by being gentle, humble and patient, we must also imitate Him in His death...

We imitate Christ's death by being buried with Him in baptism...it means, first of all, making a complete break with our former way of life, and our Lord said this cannot be done unless a man is born again.

I think of some of my "cloistered brothers" who not only were baptized as infants but also undergo another baptism of conversion when they renounce their evil ways and follow Jesus.  This is their choice as adults.  Their former lives are dead.  Now with Christ they are living.