Vigils Reading – St Gregory of Nyssa

ON PURITY OF HEART

From a commentary by St Gregory of Nyssa

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Now the divine nature, as it is in itself, according to its essence,

transcends every act of comprehensive knowledge, and it cannot be approached

or attained by our speculation. Mortals have never discovered a faculty to

comprehend the incomprehensible; nor have we ever been able to devise an

intellectual technique for grasping the incomprehensible. For this reason the

great Apostle calls God’s ways unsearchable, teaching us that the way that leads

to knowledge of the divine nature is inaccessible to our reason; and hence none

of those who have lived before us has given us the slightest hint of

comprehension suggesting that we might know that which in itself is above all

knowledge.

Yet the Lord does not deceive us when he promises that the pure of heart

shall see God; nor does Paul deceive us when he teaches that no one has seen

God nor can see Him. The Lord does not say that it is blessed to know something

about God, but rather to possess God in oneself: Blessed are the clean of heart,

for they shall see God. And this teaches us that the one who purifies his heart of

every creature and of every passionate impulse will see the image of the divine

nature in his own beauty. So too in this short sentence the Word, I think, is

giving us the following advise: All you mortals who have within yourselves a

desire to behold the supreme Good, when you are told that the majesty of God is

exalted above the heavens, that the divine glory is inexpressible, its beauty

indescribable, its nature inaccessible, do not despair at never being able to

behold what you desire. For you do have within your grasp that degree of the

knowledge of God which you can attain. For, when God made you, Hr at once

endowed your nature with this perfection: upon the structure of your nature He

imprinted an imitation of the perfections of His own nature, just as one would

impress upon wax the outline of an emblem. But the wickedness that has been

poured all over this divine engraving has made your perfection useless and

hidden it with a vicious coating. You must then wash away, by a life of virtue, the

dirt that has come to cling to your heart like plaster, and then your divine beauty

will once again shine forth.

It is just like those who look at the sun in a mirror. Even though they

cannot look up directly at the heavens, they do see the sun in the mirror’s

reflection just as much as those who look directly at the sun. So it is, says our

Lord, with you. Even though you are not strong enough to see the light itself, yet

you will find within yourselves what you are seeking, if you would but return to

the grace of that image which was established within you from the beginning.

For the Godhead is all purity, freedom from passion, the absence of all evil. And

if you possess these qualities, God will surely be within you. When your mind is

untainted by any evil, free of passion, purified of all stain, then will you be

blessed because your eye is clear. Then because you have been purified you will

perceive things that are invisible to the unpurified. The dark cloud of matter will

be removed from the eye of your soul, and then you will see clearly the blessed

vision within the pure brilliance of your own heart. And what is this vision? It is

purity, holiness, simplicity, and other such brilliant reflections of the nature of

God; for it is in these that God is seen.