The Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes by Gregory of Nyssa

First published:De oratione dominica and De beatitudinibus, last quarter of the fourth century c.e. (English translation, 1954)

Edition(s) used:The Lord’s Prayer, The Beatitudes, translated and annotated by Hilda C. Graef. Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1954

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Exegesis; homilies; instructional manual; meditation and contemplation

Core issue(s): Asceticism; the Beatitudes; the Bible; contemplation; devotional life; peace; prayer; repentance

Overview

Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop in Nyssa, Cappadocia (central Turkey), wrote five homilies on the Lord’s Prayer and eight homilies on the Beatitudes to guide his readers to a deeper understanding of these biblical passages and make them aware of the importance of prayer and the value of striving to lead a better Christian life. In his homilies on the Lord’s Prayer, he states that the soul is made in God’s image and that image remains although it has lost its original beauty. Therefore, one should therefore pray in accordance with the dignity of that image. A prayer of request (proseuche) is proper only after making a vow (euche) of an acceptable spiritual gift. Christ, by instructing us to address God as Father, set a high standard.

In the Lord’s Prayer, according to the homilies of Gregory of Nyssa, when “hallowed be Thy name” is said, the person praying is hallowed by affirming that God’s name is not to be blasphemed. “Thy kingdom come” is said not because we think that God should become king. We say those words because as slaves to death and the impulses of the flesh, we need the Kingdom of God to come as our only means of escape from the power of corruption. “On earth as it is in heaven” asks that the peace, obedience, and freedom from evil enjoyed by the angels may also be on earth. “Our daily bread,” asks for what we need and nothing that we do not need. “Give us this day” means that we should not be troubled about tomorrow, for God provides what is needed in its time. Forgiving our debtors allows us to imitate the divine nature.

In sum, Gregory of Nyssa says, the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we are made in God’s image and can still call on God as Father. Just as we ask God to be good and just and merciful toward us, so too must we be toward our neighbor. We should not think like the Pharisee that we are personally free from sin. The corrupt world’s effect on our corrupt nature makes our own sinning inevitable. Thus we pray, “Lead us not into temptation” and “Deliver us from evil.” These words mean the same: We ask to be released from the corruption and temptation of the devil and this world.

The Beatitudes show a path upward, like the rungs of a spiritual ladder, according to Gregory of Nyssa. He explains that “poverty of spirit” is a lack of diabolical treasures and a voluntary humility, a standard that Jesus himself demonstrated. Poverty of spirit is also material poverty, for material riches are burdens in the striving for the holy life.

Why are the meek blessed, since the saints are fighters, and Saint Paul encourages running the good race and fighting the good fight? asks Gregory of Nyssa, Properly understood, meekness is a slowness in moving toward baseness. It is impossible not to be affected by the passions, but the Lord calls for meekness before the passions as a just and attainable standard.

Most would see mourning as misery, Gregory of Nyssa says, but the mourning of true repentance, although painful, is a blessing just as many medicines cause pain in their healing. This does not mean that a perpetual state of pain in healing is good. It must also be remembered that “they shall be comforted.” Rather, mourning represents the painful awareness that something good is missing from life, just as one who has had a glimpse of true sunlight is not satisfied with the filtered light and shadow of a cave. Those who hunger and thirst are blessed if they hunger for salvation and thirst to do the will of God.

Gregory of Nyssa goes on to say that the obvious meaning of being merciful and obtaining mercy is practicing mutual charity, for mercy is a compassion toward those who suffer. When the Beatitudes say, “they shall obtain mercy,” the future tense is significant, for it suggests that the reward for mercy is reserved for later times: God will be merciful toward us at the Last Judgment if we are merciful now. Further, because we have fallen into the slavery of sin, it would be right that we pity ourselves. If we do not, it is because we are insensitive to our own malaise.

The pure of heart shall see God, but “no one has seen God.” How can both teachings be true? Gregory of Nyssa asks. The Word teaches that the pure of heart will see God, but who can be pure of heart? Does this not hold out a reward for what is impossible? The Lord does not command the impossible, he answers. Rather, saints do see God, but in his energies, not his essence. Also the Beatitudes point to what happens to the person who strives for purity of heart. In doing this, that individual strips away the sordidness from human nature and can thus see the God within the self.

Gregory of Nyssa notes that “sonship” itself is the reward for peacemaking. The reward is so profound because the virtue, peacemaking, is required for the enjoyment of all other goods. The peacemaker, who heals the infirmities of the soul, is superior to the healer of infirmities of the body. However, perhaps the greatest peacemaker is the one who pacifies not others but his own mind and body so that they are truly one. Finally, those suffering persecution for justice’s sake are blessed because they use the evil directed against them to get closer to God. The bishop asks us to compare what we lose with what we will gain.

Christian Themes

Gregory’s homilies on the Lord’s Prayer belong to the early Christian tradition of reflecting on the meaning, manner, and efficacy of prayer, especially the prayer that Jesus taught to his disciples. The homilies on the Beatitudes belong to the tradition of spiritual ascent and the ladder of perfection, which are featured prominently in the Christian ascetic tradition. Both sets are also important witnesses to the Christian patristic tradition of spiritual, allegorical, and often mystical interpretation of Scripture.

These homilies are products of the ongoing blending of Hellenic natural philosophy with biblical revelation in the early Christian centuries. Gregory exemplifies the ways that many Church Fathers, educated in the Greco-Roman intellectual tradition, made use of the concepts and language of secular culture to present Christianity not only as understandable within the Hellenic tradition as well as through Judaism but also as the solution to problems unsolved by Greek philosophy. Chief among these is the doctrine of the Incarnation, which gave humanity the means of recovering the glories of its own nature made in God’s image but rendered useless by sin.

Also visible in Gregory are elements of the Christian tradition undistorted by the Augustinian determinism that had dominated the West. Gregory urges his audience, for example, to realize this latent dignity when approaching the Lord in prayer as Father and to act on that realization. Gregory also reminds his audience of the fundamental freedom of the human soul despite its entrapment in a corrupt world. For Gregory, the fires of Hell must be the result of one’s own choice to separate oneself from God. They are not the result of anything God has done. Gregory’s understanding of human excellence (arete) and his notion of the meaning of blessed (makarios) show the skillful blending of Greek and Hebraic concepts.

Sources for Further Study

Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Presence and Thought: An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa. Translated by Mark Sebanc. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995. Works on the premise that Gregory is the most successful translator of ancient Hellenic philosophy and spirituality into the Christian context.

Drobner, Hubertus R., and Albert Viciano, eds. Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Beatitudes—An English Version with Commentary and Supporting Studies, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 52. Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2000. Provides a translation of homilies on the Beatitudes with commentary by many scholars on individual aspects of Gregory’s perspective.

Laird, Martin. Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith. Oxford Early Christian Studies series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Related to the homilies on the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes as they both help their audience understand how God is and is not known by the human mind.

Meredith, Anthony. Gregory of Nyssa. Early Church Fathers series. New York: Routledge, 1999. Offers an accessible introduction to Gregory’s environment and basic teachings. Includes representative passages from Gregory’s theological, philosophical, and devotional writings.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993. Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Aberdeen, 1992-1993. Studies the presence of Greek philosophical concepts within the writings of the three Cappadocians (Saint Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa).