Gregory of Nyssa: “The Lord of Hosts the Lord, He is the King of Glory!” Thursday, May 24 2012

The very thought of this day’s festival is great enough in itself, but the Prophet David hath much inflamed our joyful enthusiasm by the Psalms.

This noble Prophet hath, as it were, gone out of himself, as though the body were a weight duller than his spirit could bear.

He joineth company with the Powers of heaven, and telleth what they said when they went with the Lord heavenward, and cried in tones of command to those Angels who work on earth, and by whose heralding the Birth of the Incarnate One had been proclaimed:

Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in (Ps. 23:7,9).

He, Who containeth all things, is everywhere, but for the sake of them which receive Him, He is pleased to make Himself a local Presence which hath bounds.

Not only did He become a Man among men, but when conversing among Angels, He alloweth that title also to be given Him.

The gatekeepers therefore ask Who is this King of glory? and it is answered them that He is The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle”.

He is the Lord, Whose work it had been to fight him who held mankind in bondage, and to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14) that now that dark enemy was trampled down, and man had had won for him freedom and peace.

The keepers run to the gates, and bid the doors unfold, that the Lord may enter in, to take again the glory which He had there among them before.

But when they see Him clad in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3), they know Him not, even Him Who is red in His apparel, because that He hath trodden alone the winepress of human pain, and the blood is sprinkled upon His garments.

Therefore they cry again to their fellows that bear Him company: Who is this King of glory? And they answer them no more The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle but The Lord of hosts the Lord, Whose Own are become the kingdoms of the world the Lord, Who hath made Himself the Head of all things the Lord, Who hath made all things new (Apoc. 21:5), He is the King of glory!

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): Discourse on the Ascension, from Mattins of Wednesday in the Octave of the Ascension in the Old Breviary @ http://lzkiss.net/cgi-bin/horas/brevi.pl.

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Gregory of Nyssa: Saving the Lost Sheep Tuesday, May 1 2012

This was the sum of our calamity, that humanity was exiled from the good Father, and was banished from the Divine oversight and care.

Therefore He Who is the Shepherd of the whole rational creation, left in the heights of heaven His unsinning and supramundane flock, and, moved by love, went after the sheep which had gone astray, even our human nature.

For human nature, which alone, according to the similitude in the parable, through vice roamed away from the hundred of rational beings, is, if it be compared with the whole, but an insignificant and infinitesimal part.

It was impossible that our life, which had been estranged from God, should of itself return to the high and heavenly place.

Therefore, as St Paul says, He Who knew no sin is made sin for us, and frees us from the curse by taking on Him our curse as His own.

And, having taken up and…“slain” in Himself “the enmity” which by means of sin had come between us and God—(in fact sin was “the enmity”)—and having become what we were, He through Himself again united humanity to God.

For having by purity brought into closest relationship with the Father of our nature that new man which is created after God, in Whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, He drew with Him into the same grace all the nature that partakes of His body and is akin to Him.

And these glad tidings He proclaims through the woman, not to those disciples only, but also to all who up to the present day become disciples of the Word

—the tidings, namely, that man is no longer outlawed, nor cast out of the kingdom of God, but is once more a son, once more in the station assigned to him by his God, inasmuch as along with the first-fruits of humanity the lump also is hallowed.

“For behold,” He says, “I and the children whom God hath given Me.”

He Who for our sakes was partaker of flesh and blood has recovered you, and brought you back to the place whence ye strayed away, becoming mere flesh and blood by your sin.

And so He from Whom we were formerly alienated by our revolt has become our Father and our God.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): Against Eunomius, 12,1.

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Gregory of Nyssa: Moses Entered Into the Darkness and There He Saw God Sunday, Mar 11 2012

“Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 20:21).

Moses entered into the darkness and there he saw God.

What does this signify? This present account seems in a way to con­tradict that of the first theophany.

Then God appeared in light, but now he appears in darkness.

Yet we must not imagine this to be at variance with our normal experience of spiritual con­templation.

By this statement the text teaches us that religious knowledge is first experienced as light.

All that is seen to be opposed to religion is darkness, and darkness vanishes when we receive the light.

But the more the mind advances and by ever increasing and more perfect application attains an intellec­tual comprehension of realities and approaches contemplation, the more clearly it sees that the divine nature is invisible.

Having left behind all appearances, not only those perceived by the senses but also those the intellect seems to see, it plunges ever deeper within itself, until by spiritual effort it penetrates to the invisible and the unknowable, and there it sees God.

This is the true knowledge of what is sought.

This is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by a kind of darkness.

This is why John the contemplative, who had penetrated this luminous darkness, said that no one had ever seen God, declaring by this negation that the divine essence is beyond the reach not only of men but of every rational nature as well.

And so, when Moses had advanced in knowledge he declared that he saw God in the darkness, or in other words that he recog­nized that the Divinity is essentially that which transcends all knowledge and which no mind can apprehend.

The text says: Moses entered into the darkness where God was.

What God? He who has made the darkness his covering, as David declared, who had himself been initiated into the divine mysteries in that same sanctuary.

When Moses arrived there, he was taught by word what he had formerly learned from darkness, so that, I think, the doctrine on this matter may be made more firm for us by the witness of the divine voice.

The divine word at the beginning forbade that the Divine be likened to any of the things known by men, since every concept which comes from some comprehensible image constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): The Life of Moses, 2.162-66; from the Monastic Office of Vigils, Friday of the Second Week in Lent, Year 2.

 

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Gregory of Nyssa: The Word Unites Humanity to God Methodically, Step by Step Thursday, Dec 29 2011

How should we interpret the words, Behold he comes, leaping over the mountains (Song of Songs 2:8)?

Perhaps they foresee the divine plan, spoken of in the Gospel and foretold by the prophets, whereby the Word of God became visible to us by his coming in the flesh.

See, there he stands, looking through the windows, peeping through the lattices (2:9).

The Word unites humanity to God methodically, step by step.

First he enlightens us through the prophets and the precepts of the law; for we take the prophets to be the windows admitting the light and the network of the law’s commands to be the lattice.

Through both of these steals the brilliance of the true light.

Afterward comes the full illumination when by union with our nature the true light shines upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

First the light of the ideas contained in the prophets and the law shines upon the soul through windows and lattices apprehended by our minds, filling it with a desire to see the sun in the open air. Then the desire is fulfilled.

Rise up my companion, my fair one, my dove, and come (2:10). How much the Word teaches us in these few words!

We watch him leading the bride to the heights along the ascending path of virtue, as though up a flight of steps.

First he sends her a ray of light through the windows which are the prophets and the lattice which is the precepts of the law, calling her to approach the light and to become beautiful as she takes on in the light the form of a dove.

Then when she has taken on as much of the divine beauty as she can, as though she had not yet received any part in it, he draws her once again from the beginning toward the supreme Beauty in which she is to share.

As a result her desire becomes more intense the further she advances toward what is continually being revealed to her.

Moreover, because of the surpassing greatness of the blessings she is always receiving by his grace who surpasses all, she seems to be making the journey for the first time.

And so, after she has risen the Word again says ‘Rise’ and after she has come he says ‘Come’.

One who has thus risen never lacks the opportunity to rise further and one who is running toward the Lord never reaches the end of the space available for the divine race.

We should always be rising and those whom the race is bringing close to the goal should never stop.

Each time the Word says ‘Rise’ and ‘Come’ he gives the power to ascend to still loftier heights.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): Homily 5 on the Song of Songs (Jaeger 6, 140-159); from the Monastic Office of Vigils for December 31st, Year 2

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Gregory of Nyssa: The Name of Christ Shares in Our Soul, Words and Life’s Activities so that Holiness may be Constantly Kept Thursday, Aug 11 2011

A Christian has three characteristics: deed, word and thought. First among these is thought.

Reason is the beginning of every thought; next comes speech which reveals one’s mind by words. Action is third in order after thought and word, bringing thought to realization.

[...] It does us well to be carefully attentive so that our thoughts, words and deeds may participate in Christ’s lofty names.

Paul says that everything not proceeding from faith is sin (Rom 14.23); as a result, he clearly states that every word, deed or thought which does not look to Christ is contrary to him; whatever does not partake of light nor life shares in darkness or death.

If any word or thought according to Christ is contrary to the good, that which is manifested through these three elements becomes clear: whoever separates himself from Christ does not belong to him, whether in thought, deed or in speech.

[...] How, then, should the person worthy of Christ’s great name behave? What can he do except to always discern his thoughts, words and deeds, and to see whether or not they are of Christ or are alien to him?

Much skill is needed here for discernment. Anything effected, thought or said through passion has no association with Christ but bears the adversary’s mark; smearing the soul’s pearl with passion as if with mud, it corrupts the precious stone’s brightness.

But a state free from every passion looks to the author of detachment, Christ.

He who draws to himself thoughts as from a pure, incorruptible fountain will resemble the prototype as water drawn into a jar resembles water gushing from a fountain.

[...] In my judgment this is the perfection of the Christian life: the name of Christ…shares in our soul, words and life’s activities so that the holiness praised by Paul (1Thess 5.23) may be constantly kept in the entire body, mind and spirit with no admixture of evil.

If anyone says that the good is difficult to attain…, my response is that a person who does not lawfully strive in a contest cannot be crowned (1Tim 2.5)….

Without an opponent there is no crown, for victory against oneself is lacking if there is no weakness.

Hence, let us struggle against our nature’s mutability as though against an adversary; wrestling with our reason makes us victors not by casting it down but by not consenting to the fall.

[...] No one should lament his mutable nature; rather, by always being changed to what is better and by being transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor 3.18), let him so be changed.

[...] Perfection consists in never stopping our growth towards the good nor in circumscribing perfection.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): On Perfection, translation originally published in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, vol. 29, 4 (Brookline, Mass., 1984), pp.349-79.

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Gregory of Nyssa: Moses, Friendship with God, and the Summit of Perfection Wednesday, Mar 9 2011

History relates that Moses, the servant of God, died at the Lord’s command and no one knew his burial place. His sight was not dimmed nor his face touched by decay.

We learn from this that after his many labours Moses was judged worthy of the exalted title, ‘Servant of God’, which is the same as saying that he was above all earthly concerns.

No one can serve God without rising above every worldly preoccupation.

This was also for him the consummation of his life of virtue, brought about by the word of God.

The history calls this death, but it was a death in which he still lives, for no burial followed it, no monument was built. It left his sight undimmed and his face untouched by corruption.

Moses had achieved the highest possible perfection. What more trustworthy witness of this could we find than the voice of God, which said to him: I have loved you more than all others.

Moses was called the friend of God by God himself.

Moreover, because he would rather have perished with all the people than have lived without them, he begged God by his favour toward himself to pardon those who had sinned.

He thus checked God’s anger against the Israelites, for God withdrew his condemnation so as not to grieve his friend.

All these things are clear evidence and proof that the life of Moses reached the summit of the mountain of perfection.

[...] It is time now for you, my generous friend, to study the model carefully.

The lessons we have learned from our spiritual contemplation of historical happenings you must apply to your own life, so that you may be loved by God and become his friend.

True perfection does not consist in abandoning a life of sin as a slave might for fear of punishment; nor in doing good in the hope of receiving a reward.

Expecting the virtuous life to yield a profit would be making it a matter of trade and commerce

[...] No, it seems to me that to be perfect we must look beyond even the hoped-for blessings which we have been promised are stored up for us.

Our only fear should be the loss of God’s friendship, and the only honour or pleasure we covet should be that of becoming God’s friend.

You can attain such perfection – and I know that you will attain it abundantly – if you raise your mind to the majesty of God.

The gain will surely be shared by all in Christ Jesus.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): The Life of Moses, 2.313-14, 319-21 (Sources Chrétiennes 1:131-135); from the Monastic Office of Vigils for Saturday of the Second Week in Lent, Year 1

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Gregory of Nyssa: We shall be Blessed with Clear Vision if we Keep our Eyes Fixed on Christ Tuesday, Feb 22 2011

We shall be blessed with clear vision if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, for he, as Paul teaches, is our head, and there is in him no shadow of evil.

Saint Paul himself and all who have reached the same heights of sanctity had their eyes fixed on Christ, and so have all who live and move and have their being in him.

As no darkness can be seen by anyone surrounded by light, so no trivialities can capture the attention of anyone who has his eyes on Christ.

The man who keeps his eyes upon the head and origin of the whole universe has them on virtue in all its perfection.

He has them on truth, on justice, on inorruption and on everything else that is good, for Christ is goodness itself.

The wise man, then, turns his eyes toward the One who is his head, but the fool gropes in darkness.

No one who puts his lamp under a bed instead of on a lamp-stand will receive any light from it.

People are often considered blind and useless when they make the supreme Good their aim and give themselves up to the contemplation of God, but Paul made a boast of this and proclaimed himself a fool for Christ’s sake.

The reason he said, We are fools for Christ’s sake was that his mind was free from all earthly preoccupations.

It was as though he said, “We are blind to the life here below because our eyes are raised toward the One who is our head”.

And so, without board or lodging, he travelled from place to place, destitute, naked, exhausted by hunger and thirst.

When men saw him in captivity, flogged, shipwrecked, led about in chains, they could scarcely help thinking him a pitiable sight.

Nevertheless, even while he suffered all this at the hands of men, he always looked toward the One who is his head and he asked:

What can separate us from the love of Christ, which is in Jesus? Can affliction or distress? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger or death?

In other words, “What can force me to take my eyes from him who is my head and to turn them toward things that are contemptible?”

He bids us follow his example: Seek the things that are above, he says, which is only another way of saying: “Keep your eyes on Christ”.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): Homily on Ecclesiastes, 5, from the Office of Readings for Monday of the 7th week of Ordinary Time @ Crossroads Initiative.

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Gregory of Nyssa: The Lord of Glory Allows Nothing Dishonourable to Share in His Glory Sunday, Jan 30 2011

According to the prophetic word (Ps 57.4) men were alienated through sin from the life-giving womb and wandered from this womb in which they have been formed.

They now speak lies instead of the truth.

Because Christ received the first fruits of our common nature through his soul and body, he made it holy and kept it in himself as unmixed and uncontaminated with any evil.

By offering the first fruits of our common nature through incorruptibility to the Father of incorruptibility, he might draw all those of the same kin and race (Eph 1.5) and adopt the disinherited and God’s enemies to share his divinity.

Just as purity and detachment united the dough’s first fruit with the true Father and God, we, the mass of dough, should cling to the Father of incorruptibility by imitating the mediator’s detachment and immutability as far as possible.

We will be the crown of the Only-Begotten God made from precious stones, having became his honor and glory through our lives.

Paul says “You have made him a little less than the angels” (Heb 2.7-9) through death’s sufferings.

After having transformed those of a thorny nature which resulted from sin, Christ fashioned a crown for himself through the dispensation of his death.

He changed the thorn into honor and glory by his suffering.

Christ bore the world’s sin and received on his head a crown woven from thorns in order to make a crown of honor and glory.

There is no small danger of finding a burr and thorn resulting from an evil life which was then inserted in the Lord’s crown by union with his body.

The righteous voice says “How did you get in here without a wedding garment” (Mt 22.12)? How were you, a thorn, woven with those fixed to my crown through honor and glory?

“What accord has Christ with Belial? What has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What fellowship has light with darkness” (2Cor 6.15)?

That these words might not reprove us, we must be attentive for warding off every thorny deed, word and thought.

Then we might crown the head of the universe as the Lord’s valuable possession by having our honour and glory through a pure, detached way of living, for the Lord of glory allows nothing dishonourable to share in his glory (1Cor 2.8).

Thus the person who does not accept anything unseemly and abominable both interiorly and exteriorly sets the Lord of glory over himself – not dishonour – for he is the Lord both in substance and in name.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): On Perfection, translation originally published in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, vol. 29, 4 (Brookline, Mass., 1984), pp.349-79.

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Gregory of Nyssa: Communion in the Name of Christ Friday, Dec 3 2010

Our good Lord Jesus Christ offered us fellowship in his name so that anything else we can name is of no profit to us….

One name is worthy of our belief, the one by which we are called Christians.

Once we have received this favor from above, we must first consider the greatness of this gift….

When we call upon the Lord of the universe in our prayers, we are including such a meaning in our minds, for we believe we are piously calling upon him by this name while contemplating it.

By assuming this name as a teacher and guide for our lives, we will learn to manifest progressively – through the determination of our lives – how we should act.

We will have the blessed Paul for a sure guide whose example will clarify the object of our inquiry.

Of all persons he is exceptionally noteworthy: he understood who Christ is and those requirements needed by the person named after him.

Paul spoke of what he himself had accomplished and accurately imitated him in a manner to show the Lord expressed in his own person.

By careful imitation Paul became a model, so that no longer is Paul perceived as living and speaking, but Christ lives in him.

He who had well perceived his own good said so well, “You seek proof that Christ is speaking in me” (2 Cor 13:3), and that “I live no longer; Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
Paul’s words show us the significance of Christ’s name when saying that he is the power and wisdom of God.

But he also called Christ: peace; inaccessible light where God dwells; sanctification, redemption, the great high priest and Pasch, propitiation of souls;

splendor of glory, stamp of God’s substance and maker of the ages; spiritual food and drink, rock, water, foundation of faith, chief cornerstone;

image of the great and invisible God, head of his body the Church, first-born among many brothers;

mediator of God and of men, only-begotten Son crowned with glory, the principle of created beings which he, the beginning, said about himself (Col 1:18).

Christ is the beginning, king of righteousness, king of peace and in addition to these, king of all things with his infinite power of lordship; he has many other names which cannot be easily numbered.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): On Perfection, translation originally published in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, vol. 29, 4 (Brookline, Mass., 1984), pp.349-79.

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Gregory of Nyssa: No Longer Do We Live For Ourselves But For Him Who Acquired Us Tuesday, Aug 17 2010

Christ as our redemption who gave himself as a ransom for us teaches that just as he granted us immortality by becoming a kind of payment for each soul, he made as his own those he redeemed from death through life (1Tim 2.6).

If we have become servants of him who redeemed us, we look to him who rules over us; no longer do we live for ourselves but for him who acquired us when he exchanged his life (1Cor 6.20).

No longer are we masters of ourselves but he who purchased us is the Lord of his own possessions and we are his own property.

Therefore, the law of our life is his governing will. While death held us in its grasp, the law of sin prevailed (Rom 8.2); since we have become the possession of life, our mode of living must conform to his governing authority.

In this way we will not deviate from the will of life and never again fall subject through sin to our souls’ wicked tyranny which I call death.

Consideration of these things unites us to Christ provided that we are attentive to Paul who calls him the Pasch (1 Cor 5.7) and high priest (Heb 4.14).

Christ the Pasch was truly sacrificed for us, but the priest offering sacrifice to God is no other than Christ himself: “He gave himself for us as an offering and sacrifice” (Eph 5.2).

Christ who gave himself as an offering and the sacrifice became the Pasch and presented himself to God as a sacrifice: living, holy, acceptable, and a spiritual worship (Rom 12.1).

However, this kind of sacrifice must no longer conform to the present age but must be transformed by the renewal of one’s mind for proving what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom 12.2).

God’s good will is not manifested in the life of the flesh unless the flesh is sacrificed according to the spiritual law; the flesh’s prudence is inimical to God and is not subject to his law (Rom 8.7).

While the flesh is alive – for it is to be sacrificed through a living victim by the mortification of our bodily limbs (Col 3.5) which bring about passions – it is impossible for the acceptable, perfect will of God to be accomplished without impediment in the life of believers.

By understanding Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice with his own blood, Paul teaches that we all may become a propitiatory sacrifice by purifying our souls through the mortification of our limbs.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): On Perfection, translation originally published in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, vol. 29, 4 (Brookline, Mass., 1984), pp.349-79.

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