The Cappadocian Mothers: Deification Exemplified in the Wirings of Basil, Gregory, and Gregory by Carla D. Sunberg (review)

As Thomas A. Noble, Research Professor of Theology at the Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, points out in his foreword to Carla D. Sunberg's Cappadocian Mothers: "Patristics has become a passionate interest among many Western evangelicals over the past few decades. Many self-styled 'conservatives' have come to see that learning from our Christian past cannot stop at the Reformation," and it has also become evident that Patristics encompasses more than the writings of Augustine (x). Sunberg's book, an introductory overview of largely traditional themes and interpretations, contributes to just such an engagement of a particular modern Christian community with "strong women of a distant age and culture" (ibid.) by presenting how the Cappadocian Fathers wrote about the women in their lives. Specifically, Sunberg wishes to recover how these women, whom she calls the Cappadocian Mothers, shaped the lives and theology of the three Cappadocians. More to the point, because "theosis: to become like God or union with God" (15) was central to Cappadocian theology, Sunberg asks "whether theosis is possible for women," given that, she argues, Cappadocian theology was so deeply informed by these women. Indeed, she points out that the Cappadocian Fathers and these Mothers lived "what was later known as the Domestic Ascetic Movement" (74), and the Fathers all wrote that it was their mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and wives who taught them Christianity and how to lead a Christian life. As Sunberg is fully aware, it is impossible to disentangle the influence of the Cappadocian Mothers on the Fathers and vice versa, but she thinks that the presence and influence of so many women "led them to the formulation of an optimistic eschatology for men and women." Women can and do represent models of theosis for men and women alike, which has the practical consequence that these women also had significant roles within ministry (188–89).

After an overview of scholarship on women and gender and a discussion of the difficulties involved in retrieving women's voices from ancient sources, Sunberg first provides an overview of the relevance and meaning of theosis in the Cappadocians' writings, concluding that "the life of the individual was to be completely and entirely devoted to the service of God" (73). The second part of the book then addresses the role of theosis for asceticism in the Cappadocians to demonstrate that "the theological thought of the Cappadocians and their concept of deification was heavily infused with the feminine, especially in regard to understanding virginity as a goal to becoming a Bride of Christ" (95). Here, she demonstrates how the female in Cappadocian theology transcends gender to become both male and female, an important argument at the time and now (ibid.). In Chapters 5 and 6, Sunberg addresses the individual women as they emerge in the Cappadocian writings: Emmelia, Macrina the Elder and Younger, Theosebia, Nonna, Gorgonia and the Fallen Virgin, the addressee of Basil's Letter 46; here Sunberg follows Silvas' reconstruction (99). All these women, some married, others virgins, one a fallen virgin later restored again to the community, are eikones, "the mortal image of the immortal," through progress toward the divine, and hence not bound by gendered notions; rather, they become images of all humanity (121 and 131). While she devotes a lengthy discussion to Macrina the Younger as the perfect model virgin, Sunberg's emphasis is rather on Macrina the Elder, Emmelia, and Theosebeia, in whose description she sees the most relevant models for actual practice in religious communities today (155), as mothers, spiritual guides, and also ministers with sacramental roles (171). Sunberg's volume is a passionate plea for hope, hope for marriage, "hope for women in ministry and leadership, and ultimately, . . . the future hope of being united with Christ" (189).