The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Sixth Commandment: You shall not be unchaste
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Fifth Commandment
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Third and Fourth Commandments
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod 20:7), swearing an oath falsely because of some worldly thing, or out of human fear, or shame, or for personal gain. For a false oath is denial of God.
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4. One day of the week you shall ‘keep holy’ (Exod. 20:8). Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Second Commandment
2. “You shall not make an image of anything in the heavens above, or in the earth below, or in the sea” to which St Gregory Palamas adds: in such a way that you worship these things and glorify them as gods. In the KJV, Exodus 20:4-5 gives “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them”. I mentioned the iconoclast movement which took this commandment without its qualifier. Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - First Commandment
How did the incarnation of Christ transform the Ten Commandments of the Mosaic Law? How does Christianity incorporate the basic moral framework of the Torah? These questions are central to the notions of reconciliation and reintegration that I have presented before (follow the "reintegration" and "reconciliation" tags in the sidebar), because they lay out the most fundamental virtues that one must cultivate in order to live in accordance with the Christian faith. One of the most contemplative and introspective traditions of Christianity, the Orthodox hesychast movement, has given us a profoundly pastoral summary of Christian moral teaching, that weaves together “worldly” codes of conduct and finer theological positions.
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Gregory of Nyssa - Apokatastasis (Pt 5)
Part 5: Apokatastasis
Gregory uses a word related to apokatastasis, which is anakephalaiosis ("recapitulation", "summary"), to describe the final reintegration of all things in Christ at the end of time. The implicit consequence is that individual beings will not return to God isolated from each other, but all together, as one. Just as we all fell as one in Adam, we will return as one in Christ — it is worth noting that the same idea is a major theme of Martines de Pasqually’s Treatise on the reintegration of beings. Gregory refers to the following passage of he Scriptures as the proper definition of apokatastasis:
“For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive.” (1Cor 15:21-22)
As we have seen with Origen, Gregory considers that evil has no existence of its own, and that even hell’s fires are purifying and educational, and not eternal. Interestingly, the Byzantine position up until the end of the Renaissance was that nothing evil can come from God, not even punishment. Hell and all suffering, are the result of our own actions, and are inflicted on us by ourselves. Materiality and hell are quite simply varying degrees of severity in our education resulting from an essentially benevolent energy of God: divine judgement “operates by separating good from evil and pulling the soul towards the fellowship of blessedness.” (On the soul and the resurrection, 7). Therefore, no spiritual being will be denied the possibility of redemption:
"When, over long periods of time, evil has been removed and those now lying in sin have been restored to their original state, all creation will join in united thanksgiving, both those whose purification has involved punishment and those who never needed purification at all." (Catechetical Oration 26).
Important points are to be made here about how difficult it is to rejoin our original state: it will only happen “over long periods of time”; note the future tense used in 1Cor 15:22. Indeed, according to Gregory, there is no blanket forgiveness of all our sins, contrary to what universalism is sometimes accused of; although everyone can recognise the path to salvation, that walk has to be walked. Nobody will be saved without going through repentance, cleansing and forgiveness, although everyone is given the possibility of doing it, specifically since Jesus-Christ. Moreover, as one may understand from the infinite desire and migration expected of us, there is no such thing as a saved / damned duality, or at least not until the end of times, given the permanent possibility of yet another prevarication. Indeed, recognising Christ as our saviour is only the first step towards salvation, which is our reintegration. For Gregory, the process leading to our restoration is far more progressive. As detailed earlier, every stage reached on the way is part of an ongoing journey:
“The final goal of our journey is restoration [apokatastasis] to our original state or likeness to God. Just as the corn grows and puts forth green shoots which include the husk, grain, stem and the plant’s various segments without our assistance, the edible fruit attains maturity through all these stages. In a similar fashion we await the goal of blessedness.” (Concerning Those Who Have Died, J.51).
The same principles apply on a more cosmological level:
“Creation consists of a spatial extension; the succession of phenomena which constitutes time is contained in the aeons, but the anterior nature to these aeons escapes any opposition composed of a before or after… One might say that creation in its entirety is produced according to a regular succession is measured by the extension of aeons. If anyone elevates his spirit through the succession of aeons all the way to the principle of engendered things, his search will be circumscribed by the condition of these same aeons.” (Against Eunomius, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers).
Gregory acknowledges no real existence to either evil or matter, in a position misleadingly reminiscent of modern day mereological nihilism. Matter will therefore cease to be a reality, albeit subjective, at the final reintegration. The resurrected body is thus one made “from the same elements, but not with its present coarse and heavy texture, but subtler and lighter.” One may paraphrase his wording by saying that matter as we experience it is only the temporary manifestation of “subtler and lighter” essences. At the end of time, the physical – and animal – generation of humans will simply end with time:
“Now seeing that the full number of men pre-conceived by the operation of foreknowledge will come into life by means of this animal generation, God, Who governs all things in a certain order and sequence, since the inclination of our nature to what was beneath it (which He Who beholds the future equally with the present saw before it existed) made some such form of generation absolutely necessary for mankind, therefore also foreknew the time co-extensive with the creation of men, so that the extent of time should be adapted for the entrances of the pre-determined souls, and that the flux and motion of time should halt at the moment when humanity is no longer produced by means of it; and that when the generation of men is completed, time should cease together with its completion, and then should take place the restitution of all things, and with the World-Reformation humanity also should be changed from the corruptible and earthly to the impassible and eternal.” (On the Making of Man, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, p.412).
The theory of generation of souls that Gregory presents here in which all souls are emanated once and for all, and then the passage of time slowly ticks by like a count-down must be taken for nothing more than for illustrative purposes, since in Gregory’s mind, as we have seen, the concept of time is specific to diastema:
Nonetheless, the final restoration is ineluctable. It is only due to our exile and prevarications that the end of times may seem overdue or highly remote. In God’s eye, however, the end is nigh:“And He Who made all these things is the Only-begotten God Who made the ages. For if the interval of the ages has preceded existing things, it is proper to employ the temporal adverb, and to say “He then willed” and “He then made”: but since the age was not, since no conception of interval is present to our minds in regard to that Divine Nature which is not measured by quantity and by interval is present to our minds in regard that Divine Nature which is not measured by quantity or by interval, the force of temporal expressions must surely be void.” (Against Eunomius, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, p.211).
“So keep on watching, because you don't know on what day your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42);
“The end of everything is near; so be sensible and clear-headed for the sake of your prayers.” (1Peter 4:7)
Gregory of Nyssa - Migration and Virtues (Pt 4)
Part 4: Migration and Virtues
The tension caused by our awareness of our entrapment in time and space, and by our glimpses of a spiritual life beyond and above it, give us the desire to seek further, and urges the soul to set on a journey towards eternal goodness:
“Because true goodness is clearly opposed to that which is not good, we are faced with a contradiction. It follows that persons who separate themselves from that which is not beautiful become attached to true beauty which constantly and at all times remains good. Such a gesture has nothing to do with the temporal order; rather, the good always preserves its own integrity. The human soul migrates towards this good from its corporeal existence after it has exchanged the present good for another one that is impossible to see clearly because we are burdened by this fleshly existence. However, we can have a notion [of this change] and draw a certain parallel between it and a possible withdrawal from that knowledge which pertains to this present life. No longer does corporeal existence weigh us down nor are we influenced by the weight of opposing elements, for this struggle within our human constitution is equally distributed and maintains our health.” (Concerning Those Who Have Died, J.34. )
Indeed, St Gregory likens the movement of the soul towards God to an upwards migration, leaving behind the weight of its present, “fleshy existence”:
“Let us now attend to the words ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ and ‘What advantage is to man in his labor under the sun?’ In my opinion these words represent a soul stripped of its present condition here below when it migrates to the life it yearns after. If a person pursues life’s nobler aspects, he views his earlier condition in a harsh light and despises his present experience in comparison to what he has discovered.” (Commentary on Ecclesiastes, J.291).
The return of our human nature to its original state, as St Gregory writes, can only be accomplished if his desire of things more spiritual is greater than his enjoyment of his present state:“Persons who believe their origin lies in heaven call themselves heavenly. As Paul says, they have migrated to the heavenly way of life and resemble the heavenly [Christ].” (Against Apollinarius, J. 145).
“Although the stage attained [of letting the Word enter one’s heart] is indeed greater than what a person had earlier, this stage does not limit his good; rather, the limit of his achievement becomes a beginning for the discovery of higher blessings. The person rising never stands still. He moves from one beginning to another, for the beginning of even greater blessings is never limited. The desire of a soul thus rising never remains in its knowledge, but by an ever greater desire, it moves onwards. The soul thus progresses through higher realms towards the unbounded.” (Commentary on the Song of Songs, J.247).
An important aspect of Man’s migration to God is that it is a perpetual process, in which previous experiences are less important than those ahead. Indeed, when guided well, our reconciliation with God is a gradual and directional evolution towards God:
“All heavenly bodies that receive a downward motion [...] are rapidly carried downwards of themselves, provided that any surface on which they are moving is graded and sloping and that they meet no obstacle to interrupt their motion. Similarly, the soul advances in the opposite direction lightly and swiftly moving upwards once it is released from the sensuous and earthly attachments, soaring from the world below up towards the heavens. And if nothing comes from above to intercept its flight, seeing that it is of the nature of Goodness to attract those who raise their eyes towards it, the soul keeps rising ever higher and higher, stretching with its desire for heavenly things ‘to those that are before,’ as the Apostle tells us, and thus it will always continue to soar ever higher. Because of what it has already attained, the soul does not wish to abandon the heights that lie beyond it. And thus the soul moves ceaselessly upwards, always reviving its tension for its onward flight by means of the progress it has already realised. Indeed, it is only spiritual activity that nourishes its force by exercise; it does not slacken its tension by action but rather increases it. This is the reason why we say that the great Moses, moving ever forwards, did not stop in his upward climb. He set no limit to his rise to the stars. But once he had put his foot upon the ladder of which the Lord had leaned, as Jacob tells us, he constantly kept moving to the next step; and he continued to go ever higher because he always found another step that lay beyond the highest one that he had reached.” (The life of Moses, in From Glory to Glory, Jean Danielou and Herbert Musurillo, New York, 1961, pp.57-8).
This spiritual evolution stands in contrast with evolution in the material realm, in which its directionality is necessarily cryptic. Why cryptic? Extrapolating from Origen’s and St Gregory’s theosophy, it appears to me that the motor of apokatastasis is man’s soul. Thus, if the root of evolution in its material and spiritual manifestations is immaterial, this cause will remain entirely hidden from the material eye. Yet, the spatial imagery that St Gregory uses in order to describe spiritual growth rests upon a moral implication. As such, behavioural implications of spiritual evolution must arguably influence evolution in every realm, in time. Indeed, the practice in our everyday lives of virtues is, according to Gregory, the true essence of our migration:
“Everything considered earthly, dumb, and speechless joins the sound of its own chords to the great voice of the heavenly choruses. The stretched chords in such an instrument are steadfastness and immovability before evil in every virtue. The virtues unite the cymbal’s pleasing harmony with chords when the sound of cymbals arouses our eagerness for the divine choir. To me this signifies the union of our nature with the angels. ‘Praise the Lord with the sound of cymbals.’ I understand this as the union of the angelic [nature] with the human when our human nature attains its original state and gives forth that sweet sound in union with others in thanksgiving.” (Commentary on the Inscriptions of the Psalms, J.66).
Gregory of Nyssa - Contemplation and Desire (Pt 3)
Part 3: Contemplation and Desire
As we have seen previously, Gregory of Nyssa taught that man must leave his current predicament and make his way towards God. However, this requires him to abandon complacency and self indulgence, to leave behind his old ways and to remain constantly vigilant -
“But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.” (Mt 24:43)
But how can one summon enough strength to practice the virtues and reach the purity that are required for walking the narrow path of reconciliation?
“There is a wide interval between those who have been purified, and those who still need purification. For those in whose life time here the purification by the laver has preceded, there is a restoration to a kindred state. Now, to the pure, freedom from passion is that kindred state, and that in this freedom from passion blessedness consists, admits of no dispute.” (In The Great Cathechism)
Therefore,
“if we must describe the masonry, then let incorruptibility and impassability mould the house which justice and freedom will adorn. Let humility and patience shine in another part of the house along with piety befitting God. Let love, the noble craftsman, fashion all these virtues in a marvellous way.” (Commentary on Ecclesiastes, J.325.)
In other words, the object of man’s desire, and love, is God’s Wisdom rather than his own:
“And so it is equally reasonable that he who is enamoured of wisdom should hold the Object of his passionate desire, Who is the True Wisdom; and that the soul which cleaves to the undying Bridegroom should have the fruition of her love for the true Wisdom, which is God.”
And what better way would there be, if one desires to become a temple for God’s Wisdom, than to follow Christ’s example of ‘detachment’ from sin and ‘immutability’ in virtue?
The bishop of Nyssa considered that our desire to resemble Christ is born from the contemplation and the perception (theoria) of infinite Good. And God being infinite, that desire itself must be infinite:“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.” (On Perfection, J.206)
“Since, then, those who know that is good by nature, desire participation in it [God as absolute virtue], and since this good has no limit, the participant’s desire itself necessarily has no stopping place but stretches out with the limitless. […]
“Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype. […]
“This truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see, rekindle his desire to see more. Thus, no limit would interrupt growth in the ascent to God, since no limit to the Good can be found nor is the increasing of desire for the Good brought to an end because it is satisfied.” (Life of Moses, pp. 31, 114, 116; translation by Malherbe and Ferguson).
“We need an unceasing desire for higher things, which is not content to acquiesce in past achievements; we ought to count it a loss if we fail to progress further.” (On the Beatitudes, p.130)
In addition to sight, St Gregory uses another worldly metaphor to convey his thought of ‘theoria’, the perception of God: the scent of the divine – an imagery that was to become popular amongst kabbalists of the middle ages with regards to the immolation of the sacrificial lamb (holocaust). Whereas the fumes of the holocaust attract the divine to earth, it is the opposite movement that St Gregory has in mind, although both lead to the same goal:
“I will take up again what I said at the start of this homily: let no one who is passionate, fleshly and still smelling of the foul odour of the old man [2 Cor 2:16] drag down the significance of the divine thoughts and words to beastly, irrational thoughts. Rather, let each person go out of himself and out of the material world. Let him ascend into paradise through detachment, having become like God through purity. Then let him enter into the inner sanctuary of the mysteries revealed in this book [the Song of Songs]. […] The souls, therefore, draw to themselves a desire for their immortal bridegroom and follow the Lord God, as it is written [Hos 11.10]. The cause of their love is the scent of the perfume to which they eternally run; they stretch out to what is in front, forgetting what is behind. “We shall run after you toward the scent of your perfumes.” (Commentary of the Song of Songs, J.25, J.39).
Again, one sees that infinite desire can lead to eternally migrating away from the “foul odour of the old man” and towards the ‘scent of the perfumes’ of the ‘bridegroom’.
Gregory of Nyssa - Exile & “diastema” (Pt 2)
Part 2: Exile & “diastema”
A characteristic of our fallen human condition is its separation from God, by which process, divine unity is broken. St Gregory develops the notion of “diastema” which has the connotation of a standing apart, an extension or an interval. When applied to theology, it implies a separation existing on the side of creation which has a beginning (arche) and end (telos), and thus temporal limitations of our present existence. It can therefore be understood as a temporal, thus temporary, exile:
“All our notions are bound by time; they attempt to transcend their proper limits but cannot. Intervals of time constitute all our thoughts as well as the thought content. Yet we have learned to seek and to cherish that which transcends all creation.” (Commentary of Ecclesiastes, 412).
However, “diastema” does not apply in any way to God, since no division nor succession can apply to Him:
“Every measure (diastema) of distance that we could discover is beneath the divine nature: so no ground is left for those who attempt to divide this pretemporal and incomprehensible being by distinctions of superior & inferior.” (Against Eunomius, J.79.5, 52).
“Those who draw a circular figure in plane geometry from a centre to the distance (diastema) of the line of circumference tell us there is no definite beginning to their figure; and that the line is interrupted by no ascertained end (diastema) any more than by any visible commencement.” (Against Eunomius, J.218.1, 4).
It is therefore in Creation only that temporal and spacial “separation” are found. In fact, “diastema” is omnipresent throughout every aspect of our material universe thereby becoming a defining characteristic of any alienation from God. Indeed, that separation also exists in our mind, because of our own mode of projecting temporal boundaries on the world, whereby we inherently insert mental “gaps” between us and God. This, in turn, burdens us with the intellectual awareness of our alienation from God and from the immediateness that characterises the God’s Presence of God:
In contrast to our incorporeal but temporal intellect, our soul is by nature spiritual, thus timeless and incorporeal, and therefore is more to the likeness of God, breaching that “infernal circle” of the mind’s “separateness”:“For seeing that human life, moving from stage to stage, advances in its progress from a beginning to an end, and our life here is divided between that which is past and that which is expected, so that the one is the subject of hope, the other of memory; on this account, as, in relation to ourselves, we apprehend a past and a future in this measurable extent, so also we apply the thought, though incorrectly, to the transcendent nature of God; not of course that God in his own existence leaves any interval (diastema) behind, or passes on afresh to something that lies before, but because our intellect can only conceive things according to our nature, and measures the eternal by a past and a future, where neither the past precludes the march of thought to the illimitable and infinite, nor the future tells us of any pause or limit of his endless life.” (Against Eunomius, J.360.16, 296).
“What is the divinity which the soul resembles? It is not the body, [it] lacks form, likeness, quality, figure, depth, place, time and anything else which resembles material creation; rather, once all these attributes are stripped away, the soul reveals its nature which is spiritual, immaterial, invisible, incorporeal and unchangeable. If we contemplate the stamp of the archetype, the soul necessarily conforms itself according to that image. The soul is recognised by its characteristics, that is, as being immaterial, without form, spiritual and incorporeal.” (Concerning those who have died, 41).
Indeed, God
“[…] is simple by nature, immaterial, without quality, magnitude, composed of nothing, circumscribed by no form […]” (On the Making of Man, 209.50).
Thus, Man comprises at the same time the material, the temporal (intellectual) and the spiritual – a spark of the divine. As St Gregory writes, Man
Therefore, in St Gregory’s mind the “diastema” does not preclude Man from transcending his material temporal limitations, on the contrary:“extends from the first to the last and is one image of Him Who is.” (On the making of Man, 406).
“In this life we can apprehend the beginning and the end of all things that exist, but the beatitude that is above the creature admits neither end nor beginning, but is above all that is connoted by either, being ever the same, self-dependent, not travelling on by degrees from one point to another in its life...For increase has no place in the infinite, and that which is by its nature passionless excludes all notion of decrease.” (Against Eunomius, 257).
This explains why man, however immersed in his material senses he may be, always has the potential to see, and desire the perpetual presence of the divine, and thus be reconciled with God. As we shall see later, desire is what can pull man from his earthly bonds, and set him on the path to reconciliation.
Gregory of Nyssa - An introduction (Pt 1)
Part 1: An introduction
Over the next few weeks, I will be posting and discussing translations of certain passages of St Gregory of Nyssa’s writings, that develop and explain the themes mentioned in this introduction. So stay tuned!
For now, let me introduce this extraordinary Father, and some of the main axes of his teaching.
His life
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, was born circa 335 into a pious and saintly family – his grandmother, mother, father, brothers and sisters have all been recognised as saints. Although he set off to become a teacher, he accepted to be appointed Bishop of Nyssa (a small town in Cappadocia, in modern day Turkey) in 372, at the demand of his brother, Basil the Great. He had an influential role in the Early Church, notably during the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381, and in fighting various heresies such as Arianism. However, along the way he met much opposition to his ministry, which resulted in a period of exile. The death of the main supporter of his ministry his brother Basil and of his sister Macrina came as profound setbacks to his vocation as well. However, his influence was such that he was given the title “Father of the Fathers” at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787.
His main influences
Saint Gregory’s own influences are of course to be found in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures, in illustrious predecessors such as Origen (regarding the final restoration of all things in Christ, apokatastasis), and his brother Basil. Basil, along with Gregory of Nazianzus, shaped Gregory’s view of the Holy Trinity, in that he considered each hypostasis to inherently imply the other two. Other influences can be found in Neoplatonism (Plotinus in particular, regarding the infinity of God). Thus, although his primary source, the Bible, was Semitic, he was fully immersed in the Hellenistic culture.
Differences with Origen
One of the main differences between St Gregory and Origen is in the unknowability of God. Unlike Origen (who in this was closer to Platonism), St Gregory held the view that God is infinite, and therefore cannot be defined. Indeed, he considered that if God was not limitless, he would therefore be limited by something greater than him, which is impossible. The direct corollary of God’s infinity is that He cannot be fully comprehended nor defined, and thus, cannot be reached. As we shall see, this has major implications when considering reintegration of all things in God.
Building upon Origen’s teachings, St Gregory provided a conceptual framework for bodily matter by placing its ontological transformation under the responsibility of the soul’s migration towards and away from God: the further we are from God, the denser the walls of our material prison.
St Gregory also went further than Origen regarding evil: since evil has no real existence, its “relative” existence will be annihilated at the end of time, through the purifying action of hell. Actually, in St Gregory’s mind, evil and Satan are not adversaries of God but of man. He compared purification by the fire of hell to the chemical purification of gold by fire, and to a muddy rope that is cleaned when passed through a small hole.
Preliminary doctrinal elements
St Gregory’s theosophy can be better understood in the light of three major notions: (i) the realisation that our immersion in the physical world requires us to work relentlessly at our reconciliation with God, thereby migrating from our current state towards God; (ii) God being infinite, he is eternally out of reach, thus our divinisation, i.e. the process through which one progresses on the path to God, is perpetual by nature; (iii) following Origen, all things are to be restored in Christ (apokatastasis), however only with their own accord.
Origen of Alexandria, reintegration and inferences on evolution
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