Humanity as icons of divine love

From a homily by Gregory of Nyssa

This is the blessedness of the pure of heart: in seeing their own purity, they see the divine Archetype mirrored in themselves.

Those who look at the sun in a mirror, even if they do not look directly at the sky, see its radiance in the reflection just as truly as those who look directly at the sun's orb. It is the same, says the Lord, with you. Even though you are unable to contemplate and see the inaccessible light, you will find what you seek within yourself, provided you return to the beauty and grace of that image which was originally placed in you. For God is purity; he is free from sin and a stranger to all evil. If this can be said of you, then God will surely be within you. If your mind is untainted by any evil, free from sin, and purified from all stain, then indeed you are blessed, because your sight is keen and clear. Once purified, you see things that others cannot see. When the mists of sin no longer cloud the eye of your soul, you see that blessed vision clearly in the peace and purity of your own heart. That vision is nothing else than the holiness, the purity, the simplicity, and all the other glorious reflections of God's nature, through which God Himself is seen.

It is quite a task indeed to write a single syllable after quoting glorious words such as these! :)

My love for the patristic writings has increased with age - even if it seems an unusual development in a medievalist. The Cappadoccians, of whom Gregory is perhaps the most prominent, lived in an era following the conversion of Constantine, and one in which 12 church councils took place within 23 years. I often need to remind myself, steeped in post 1000AD history as I am, of the world at the time - and that the magnificent Cappadoccians were not preaching to packed churches, but largely in the midst of paganism. (I wonder if any of those around them understood them at the time?) Many ascetics had taken off for the desert - to be criticised, sometimes with justification (it could be a way to avoid military service and taxation...), as a burden on right-thinking people who had to end up being their support. Many a nut case had taken off in this manner, and Gregory's brother, +Basil of Caesarea, stressed an antidote of combining social concern, common monastic life, care for the poor, and manual labour as a way of true charity and balance in the ascetic vocation.

The unknowability of God was stressed by Plato, Philo, and Clement of Alexandria – what distinguished Basil (Synod of Constantinople, 360) is less the idea than its use. He had to defend himself against charges of agnosticism – and develop a distinction between incomprehensible being and the comprehensible activity of God.

Now, why do I combine Basil's treatment of monastic life (which Benedict himself would urge his monks to read centuries later) with his brother's wonderful words on our being 'mirrors'? I suppose because I always see a white-hot passion in the Cappadoccians' writings. The unknowability of God was not the pathway to a dark cloud, but an awareness that there is little that we can know of the divine nature - without this preventing our transformation.

It is regrettable that, for many centuries, there was far too much stress on avoiding hell, and those such as Calvin had a pessimism about our nature that made it seem we were basically wicked. Redemption was viewed as salvation from hell fire - rather than as the burning fire of love I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Our weakness and sinfulness tarnish the mirror somewhat... and I'm beginning to learn (well, perhaps I always knew deep down, but I'm a romantic, and we do not become practical until our later years) that the life of prayer, which one hopes disposes oneself for transformation, often boils down to what Basil set forth (even if one does not live in a monastery.) It is largely 'going through the motions,' admitting the limitations of one's own vision, and turning one's will in the right direction.

This, I hasten to add, is more than enough to fill three lifetimes...

Unless one has been hopelessly corrupted by the 'self esteem crowd,' I suppose that most of us have some awareness of our weakness. Yet I am seeing, more and more, that there are far more rampant, and often crippling, distractions (to borrow my spiritual director's apt term) in our lives than blatant sin. The education of the will, as it were, seems to consist in much 'going through the motions' regardless of the distractions at hand.

My current distraction being frustration at wanting to say much and writing so poorly tonight that I'd best get off to recite Compline...