St. Gregory of Nyssa

 

I have always loved the works of St. Gregory of Nyssa ever since I read The Life of Moses in the “Classics of Western Spirituality” edition.  One of the very first great texts on mystical theology in the history of Christianity, The Life of Moses affected me deeply as a young person.  I remember writing out the lines from it, “He should not inflict upon his soul a heavy and fleshy garment of life, but by the purity of his life he should make all the pursuits of life as thin as the thread of a spider web,” and carrying it with me everywhere.  All of Gregory’s works shine with such a serene and optimistic vision; they seem filled with sunlight and fire and a sense of the grandeur of God and the cosmos.  At the center of his thought is the belief that humanity is made in the image of God, with all the profound implications that this principle carries with it.  Child and sibling of saints and scholars, Gregory lived among a “new humanity” in the making.  His optimism about human destiny was both shaped and reinforced by the struggle against Arianism—Christ’s true divinity and full humanity were at the center of his hope for a redeemed world. For Gregory, we humans were created to partake in divine goodness in the same way that fish were meant to live in water or birds in the air.  (He denounced slavery and the oppression of the poor by the rich in his writings because slavery and oppression were not compatible with our “purple”—that is, royal—status as heirs to the fullness of the kingdom of God.)  Life, reason, wisdom, and immortality were given to us so that we might be true images of God.  Gregory compares human beings to a painting that captures something of the spirit of the model—our attributes are given by God in likeness to Himself. That we are now bemused, weak, mortal, and prone to selfish weakness, as well as suffering, does not change our true destiny. Christ’s incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit among us has accorded to all the opportunity to become children of God. Though humanity has become distorted, it can—and, as Gregory underscores repeatedly, will—be fully restored and healed.