Editing Gregory of Nyssa (section)

==Background==
The [[Book of Acts]] depicts that on the [[Day of Pentecost]] there were visiting Jews who were "residents of ...[[Cappadocia]]"<ref>Book of Acts, 2:9</ref> in attendance. In the [[First Epistle of Peter]], written after AD 65, the author greets Christians who are "exiles scattered throughout…Cappadocia". There is no further reference to Cappadocia in the rest of the [[New Testament]].

[[Early Christianity]] arose in Cappadocia relatively late, with no evidence of a Christian community before the late second century AD.<ref name="vd1">Van Dam 2003, p. 1</ref> [[Alexander of Jerusalem]] was the first bishop of the province in the early to mid-third century, a period in which Christians suffered persecution from the local Roman authorities.<ref name="vd1" /><ref name="BRILL127">Mateo Seco & Maspero, p. 127</ref> The community remained very small throughout the third century: when [[Gregory Thaumaturgus]] acceded to the bishopric in c. 250, according to his namesake, the Nyssen, there were only seventeen members of the Church in Caesarea.<ref>Watt & Drijvers, p. 99</ref>

Cappadocian bishops were among those at the [[First Council of Nicaea]]. Because of the broad distribution of the population, rural bishops (χωρεπίσκοποι) were appointed to support the [[Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia|Bishop of Caesarea]]. During the late fourth century, there were around 50 of them. In Gregory's lifetime, the Christians of Cappadocia were devout, with the veneration of the [[Forty Martyrs of Sebaste]] and [[Saint George]] being particularly significant and represented by a considerable monastic presence. There were some adherents of heretical branches of Christianity, most notably Arians, [[Encratites]] and [[Euchites|Messalians]].<ref name=BRILL127-8>Mateo Seco & Maspero, pp. 127-8</ref>