Local and Universal Citizenship in Works of the Cappadocian Fathers

Abstract

ABSTRACT The idea of citizenship (politeuma) was a useful way for the Cappadocian Fathers to talk about identity, and thus about belonging. A prestigious and long-running discourse in Christian and non-Christian culture, it was connected to notions of loyalty to a homeland (patris) or city (polis), and to membership in a community (politeia). These could be both temporal and local on the one hand, and spiritual and universal on the other. Both implied certain differing relationships between the individual and the community, and thus could be causes of tension. In the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers, these concepts assumed markedly antagonistic aspects. Although the phenomenon of martyr cults went some way towards marrying these two concepts of citizenship, they could also throw up tensions between local and universal themselves, indicating that this divergence remained a significant tension for the Cappadocians, and within fourth-century Greek Christianity more generally.