gregory of nyssa: homilies on the song of songs - Society of Biblical ...

INTRODUCTION xxxvii
rehearsed in detail, 79 invariably to make a single basic point. Commenting on
Song 3:1–4, Gregory makes the point in question by observing first that, in
the light <strong>of</strong> her previous ascents, the Bride ought to have attained “the hope
<strong>of</strong> the very highest good.” He then goes on to say that, even though she has
“received the object <strong>of</strong> her desire within [herself],” she is still “perplexed and
dissatisfied,” and he finally explains why:
we are taught plainly that the greatness <strong>of</strong> the divine Nature knows no
limit, and that no measure <strong>of</strong> knowledge sets bounds to a seeker’s looking—
bounds beyond which one who is reaching to the heights must cease to
move ahead. On the contrary, the intelligence that makes its course upward
by searching into what lies beyond it is so constituted that every fulfillment
<strong>of</strong> knowledge that human nature can attain becomes the starting point <strong>of</strong>
desire for things yet more exalted. 80
It turns out, then, that the “ascents” that lead the soul toward marriage
with God and toward that “likeness to God” that is “the limit that the virtuous
life approaches” 81 are successive approximations. In the Homilies—as
earlier in the De vita Mosis and the In inscriptiones Psalmorum—Gregory is
opposed to the very notion <strong>of</strong> a final, static perfection. Perfection consists in
unending transformations that lead to a goal that is reached in never being
fully attained. To his insistence upon the infinity <strong>of</strong> the Good (i.e., <strong>of</strong> God)
Gregory thus weds his equally firm belief that it is precisely in its mutability,
its capacity for infinite change for the better, that the human soul images and
thus participates in the divine way <strong>of</strong> being.
It is true enough, then, to say that Gregory in the Homilies follows Origen
in the latter’s estimate <strong>of</strong> the Song’s σκοπός. The aim <strong>of</strong> the Song is indeed to
present the way <strong>of</strong> love—desire—as that which draws people to chase after
the Word towards a “marriage” with the Divine, but Gregory introduces a
distinctive qualification into this tradition. He does not share the Platonist
distaste for that which is unlimited and therefore indefinable. As Plato himself
at least hinted, Gregory sees the ultimate Good as that which is “beyond
being” and therefore as infinite, beyond intelligibility. Hence he does not perceive
mutability or finitude simply as the source <strong>of</strong> evil. He clearly sees—or
wants to see—human perfection to consist in this unending change in the
79. For the longest <strong>of</strong> these, see homily 6, pp. 175–80 (Jaeger). See also, e.g., <strong>homilies</strong> 6, pp.
186–87; 9, pp. 279–81; and 11, pp. 319–20, 323–24.
80. Homily 6, pp. 179–180 (Jaeger); cf. homily 11, p. 320.
81. Homily 9, p. 271 (Jaeger).