This book examines the cult of the martyrs in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Chapter 1 analyzes the complex rituals of the panegyris, the martyr festival, as a transformative event by which the faithful experience the martyr’s holiness. How they employ the martyrs in preaching, in organizational protocols, in Scriptural exegesis, and in their call to Christian morality all show their own profound devotion to martyr piety and their evangelical zeal in promoting the cult of the martyrs. Chapter 2 examines the Cappadocians’ ... More

This book examines the cult of the martyrs in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Chapter 1 analyzes the complex rituals of the panegyris, the martyr festival, as a transformative event by which the faithful experience the martyr’s holiness. How they employ the martyrs in preaching, in organizational protocols, in Scriptural exegesis, and in their call to Christian morality all show their own profound devotion to martyr piety and their evangelical zeal in promoting the cult of the martyrs. Chapter 2 examines the Cappadocians’ deployment of rhetorical description, ekphrasis, to advance the cult of the martyrs ritually, spiritually, and materially. Gregory of Nyssa’s ekphrasis for St. Theodore incited the faithful to participate in ritual transformation. Such materiality is brought to bear in Nyssen’s other ekphrasis describing difficulties in building a martyrium. The chapter compares Nyssen’s martyrium to the extant ruins of the martyrium of St. Philip in Hierapolis, giving an imaginative glimpse at the spectacular structures the Cappadocians funded. Chapter 3 introduces the Cappadocians and their families through a discussion of the ways kinship occurred in fourth-century Cappadocia: marriage and birth, monasticism, and martyr piety. Kinship obligations provided the means for the Cappadocians to successfully claim certain martyrs as their ancestral kin and to turn some of their family members into martyrs within a few years of their deaths. Chapter 4 deals with the Cappadocians’ utilization, manipulation, and preaching about both genders in their martyr panegyrics that contrasts sharply with their articulation of gender in their family panegyrics.