St Gregory Of Nyssa, on the Beatitudes, and the Commandment, DO NOT ENVY

Today we will learn and reflect on the teaching of St Gregory of Nyssa,
who was the poet among the fourth century Cappadocian Church Fathers.
His beautiful series of sermons on the Beatitudes are referenced three
times in the Catholic Catechism, twice under the commandment DO NOT
ENVY.

At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used for this video, and my blogs
that also cover this topic. Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments, sometimes these will generate short videos of their own. Let us learn
and reflect together!

YouTube Video:
St Gregory of Nyssa On Beatitudes and Envy
https://youtu.be/xaqFTPgoDI0
NOTE: YouTube video corrections may not be
reflected on the slides, and the blog may differ
somewhat in content.
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St Gregory of Nyssa’s collection of sermons on the Beatitudes is quoted in the
Catholic Catechism’s discussion on the commandment, DO NOT ENVY. At first blush
that seems odd, the Beatitudes do not directly mention envy, but then ENVY is a
gateway sin that leads to all the other sins, and ENVY will likewise impede the
virtues of the Beatitudes.

.
What is a Beatitude? St Gregory of
Nyssa teaches us that “beatitude is a
possession of all things held to be
good, from which nothing is absent
that a good desire may want.”
What is the opposite of
Beatitude? “The opposite of
beatitude is misery, being tormented
unwillingly with painful sufferings.”

.
The man who loves relishes life, but the
man who envies is forever miserable in his
abundance, the man driven by envy never
has enough. The man who loves has an
inexhaustible treasure that never
diminishes no matter how much of it he
shares with his neighbor, the treasure of
“beatitude, an inexpressible beauty which
is the ultimate grace, wisdom, and power;
mighty above all else, lovable, unchanging,
rejoicing without end in infinite happiness.”
Those who love are forever happy, those
who envy wallow in their misery.

St Gregory of Nyssa
compares the
Beatitudes to the Holy
of Holies in the ancient
Temple of Yahweh. The
Holy of Holies is a
sacred space that is “of
purer holiness than the
sacred places around
it,” the Beatitudes are a
“gift surpassing hope,
grace transcending
nature.” Man is like
grass, yet “he is
received as a son of
God of the universe.”

Sermon on the Mount, by Cosimo Rosselli, painted 1482
The first Beatitude in Matthews reads,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.”
Lest we be misled that we should only care for the
poor in spirit, that we do not need to care for the truly
poor, this same Beatitude in Luke reads, “Blessed are
you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches
we should not deprecate
either version of this first
and most beautiful
Beatitude, “What then is
this poverty of spirit
through which we come to
possess the Kingdom of
Heaven? We know from
Scripture that there are two
kinds of riches, one
desired, the other
condemned. The riches of
virtue are to be pursued,
but material wealth is to be
rejected; for one saves the
soul, the other deceives the
senses.”
Sermon on the Mount in the Black Forest, by Rudolf Yelin, painted 1912

Commandment DO NOT ENVY
CCC 2546 "Blessed are the poor in spirit."
The Beatitudes reveal an order of happiness
and grace, of beauty and peace. Jesus
celebrates the joy of the poor, to whom the
Kingdom already belongs:
Quote from St Gregory of Nyssa’s Beatitudes:
The Word speaks of voluntary humility as
"poverty in spirit"; the Apostle gives an
example of God's poverty when he says:
"For your sakes he became poor."

What is poverty of spirit? St Gregory of
Nyssa teaches that “poverty of spirit is
voluntary humility.” Jesus is our living
example of voluntary humility, the “Apostle
tells us of the poverty of God when he
says, ‘Who for us became poor, being rich,
that through His poverty we might be
rich.’ “Humility should be like a “brother to
us who walk on the ground,” we who are
men made from dust and who will return
to the dust. “If you imitate God in what is
possible in your nature, you will yourself
have put on the blessed form.” Beatitudes, by Tissot, painted 1890's

.
St Gregory of Nyssa agrees with Plato that our effort is
required to climb out of the cave of ignorance described by
Plato and up the mountain of love. We need God’s grace,
but we also need to expend effort, praying without ceasing,
never taking our eyes off the face of Jesus.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, by Michiel Coxie, painted 1540’s. St Gregory of Nyssa warns
us, “Let no one imagine that
humility can be achieved
easily and without
effort. On the contrary,
humility requires more
effort than the practice of
any other virtue. Why?
Though man had received
good seeds, the chief of the
opposite seeds – the tares of
pride – sown by the enemy
of our life, took root while
man was sleeping.” Satan
fell because of pride, he
wants men to follow him
into the abyss.

With pathos in poetry St Gregory of Nyssa asks,
“What greater poverty is there for God than the
form of a servant? What is more than for the
King of creation to share in our poor nature?
The Ruler of rules, the Lord of lords puts on
voluntarily the garb of servitude. The Judge of
all becomes a subject of governors; the Lord of
creation dwells in a cave; He who holds the
universe in His hands finds no place in the inn,
but is cast aside into the manger of irrational
beasts.” Christ is our example of living in
humility.
Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles by
Meister des Hausbuches, 1475

. St Gregory of Nyssa asks,
who is that is poor in
spirit? “He who is given
the riches of the soul in
exchange for material
wealth, who is poor for
the sake of the spirit. He
who has shaken off
earthly riches like a
burden so he may lightly
be lifted up into the air,
as says the Apostle, ‘in
the cloud walking on
high together with God.’”

.
We in the modern world cannot as readily shed our
possessions, giving them to the poor, for if we do not
have a house we cannot readily live on the street and
be a benefit for anybody. We cannot beg for
sustenance like St Francis. But that does not mean
that we should center our lives on accumulating ever
bigger houses and faster cars and better toys and
more stuff.

The Parable of the Rich Fool by Rembrandt, 1627.
We must not be like the rich
man in the parable in Luke:
“The land of a rich man brought
forth plentifully; and he thought to
himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have
nowhere to store my crops?’ And
he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull
down my barns and build larger
ones; and there I will store all my
grain and my goods. And I will say
to my soul, Soul, you have ample
goods laid up for many years; take
your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’
But God said to him, ‘Fool! This
night your soul is required of you;
and the things you have prepared,
whose will they be?’ So is he who
lays up treasure for himself and is

Blessed are the poor.
CCC 1803 "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there
is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
Philemon 4:8
A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the
good. It allows the person not only to perform good
acts, but to give the best of himself. the virtuous
person tends toward the good with all his sensory and
spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it
in concrete actions.
St Nyssa’s Beatitudes quote:
“The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.”

St Gregory of Nyssa views the Beatitudes as a Ladder
of Divine Ascent to the heavens.
The next rung in the ladder is:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land.

There are many occupations, primarily the helping occupations, such as
those blessed to be teachers or nurses or social workers where meekness
and humility are not that incompatible with the responsibilities of the
job. But for those of us who unfortunately have chosen a more ruthlessly
competitive occupation in business where a profit must be made, or worse
as a soldier, the capitalist corollary to this Beatitude might be:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall be toast.
The world values power and success, and stomps on the meek, unless the
meek have inner strength and courage, and this was especially true in the
warrior cultures of the ancient world.
The only possible answer to this dilemma is not to ignore that it exists, but
to face it and live a godly life as best you can, realizing that living a life in a
sinful world means facing hard decisions and moral dilemmas. You also
have a moral obligation to provide for your family, so sometimes you cannot
be too meek.

Jesus realizes this in another puzzling
passage when he sends his disciples out
to spread the Word:
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into
the midst of wolves; so be wise as
serpents and innocent as doves.”
What does it mean to be wise as
serpents? What does it mean to be
meek? How can you be both?

We will not try to answer these puzzling questions
now. Here we will simply permit St Gregory of Nyssa to
teach us how he seeks the meaning of meekness.

The translator in footnote 21 notes that the Greek
word for meekness can also mean slowness or
sedateness. St Gregory of Nyssa has this second
meaning in mind when he teaches, “There is a great
tendency towards evil in nature, which is quick to turn
toward the worse.” But, “the habit that gives way to
these evil downward impulses only slowly and with
difficulty is called meekness.” Meekness is like the
love of St Paul that does not rejoice in wrongdoing but
rather rejoices in the truth.
St Gregory of Nyssa mentions envy in this discourse.
“Man’s character is divided into opposite impulses.
Wrath is opposed to gentleness, arrogance to
modesty; envy to wishing people well, and envy hates
a loving and peaceable disposition.”

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches, “Blessed are
those who are not easily turned towards the
passionate movements of the soul, but who
are steadied by reason.” “To boast of riches
or to be proud of one’s family, to have
regard to fame and to think of one’s self
above one’s neighbor, all these human
honors destroy and shame the honor of the
soul. No righteous man would thus defile
the purity of his soul. When humility is well
established, wrath will find no entrance into
the soul. If there is no wrath, our life will be
in a settled state of peace. This is true
meekness.”

The next rung of the ladder of the Beatitudes reads,
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

St Gregory of Nyssa observes,
“If one looks at this from the
point of view of the world, you
would say that these words
are ridiculous and argue like
this: If one calls blessed those
people whose life is spent
enduring all manner of
misfortune, it follows that
those who live without sorrow
or care must be miserable.”

Let us explore how St Gregory of
Nyssa ponders this Beatitude. Our
saint echoes St Paul, “there is more
than one kind of sorrow, the sorrow
of the world and the sorrow
brought about by God. The work
of worldly sorrow is death, whereas
the sorrow brought about by God
works in those afflicted with
repentance who desperately seek
salvation. For surely, if a soul
bewails its wicked life because it
feels its bad effects, such suffering
cannot be excluded from the
sorrow that is called blessed.”
Apostle Paul, by Rembrandt c. 1633

St Gregory of Nyssa continues,
“As the Apostle says, if people
indulge in a life of sin because they
no longer feel pain, they have
become truly paralyzed and are
dead to the life of virtue, for they
have no feeling for what they are
doing.” This reminds of the Catholic
distinction of mortal versus venial
sins, mortal sins are those sins that
damage our ability to Love God and
to love our neighbor.
The Conversion of Saint Paul, Caravaggio, painted 1600

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches us, “If a man has
been able to perceive the true good, and then
realizes the poverty of human nature, he will
certainly think the soul is in distress. For he will
consider that the present life is spent in sorrow,
because it is removed from this true good.”
“When Jesus calls mourning blessed, the
underlying sense seems to be that the soul
should turn to the true good and not immerse
itself in the deceits of this present life.”
We should mourn when we are not the persons
whom God wants us to be, for as God mourns
when we stray or fall short of the mark, so should
we mourn.

The next rung on the ladder of the Beatitudes is:
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after
justice, for they shall have their fill.”
Many translations render this as “Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness,”
which is similar to justice.

What is justice? St Gregory of Nyssa
observes that some thinkers say that
“justice is the disposition to distribute
equally to each, according to his worth.”
And this applies to judges who judge
fairly, judge according to truth,
punishing the guilty and making whole
the innocent.
What is the higher justice of the
Gospel? Our saint teaches us, “Whether
a man be rich or poor, servant or
master, whether he be of noble family
or a slave, no condition either increases
or decreases the quality of justice.”

REPEAT:
St Gregory of Nyssa provides us the example of the Parable of Lazarus.
In this parable, Lazarus begged at the gate of the rich man, who
sometimes gave him scraps from his table. When both Lazarus and the
rich man died, Lazarus was comforted in the bosom of Abraham, while
the Rich Man was tormented in the flames of Hell, begging Abraham to
send Lazarus across the unbridgeable chasm so he could merely touch a
wet sponge to his parched tongue.
As our saint teaches us,
“Lazarus had neither power nor authority, neither house nor table, nor
any other of the things in connection with which such justice is practiced
in this life.”

St Gregory of Nyssa provides us
the example of the Parable of
Lazarus, “Lazarus had neither
power nor authority, neither
house nor table, nor any other of
the things in connection with
which such justice is practiced in
this life.”
Our saint reminds us, “Jesus, who
had everything in common with
us except sin, did not think
hunger a sin.” This is what the rich
young man and many rich today
forget, when they blame the poor
for their poverty, that they would
be richer if only they worked
harder, then they only pay them
minimum wage, and complain.
Fresco of Lazarus and the Rich Man at the Rila Monastery.

What is hunger? We know of the physical hunger suffered by
Lazarus and the poor.
St Gregory of Nyssa teaches us “that we should be hungry for
our own salvation, that we should thirst for the Divine Will,
which is precisely that we should be saved.” “If a man has
desired the justice of God, he has found what is truly to be
desired.”
This translation of our beloved saint has used justice rather than
righteousness, and this usage reminds us that to be righteous
we must also be just towards the poor and hungry amongst us,
only then is justice been truly served.
Our saint continues, “the Word calls blessed the hunger of
those who desire justice,” including every form of virtue. “Thus
a man is equally blessed if he hungers for prudence, or
fortitude, or temperance, or anything else that comes under the
concept of virtue.”

St Gregory of Nyssa mentions
envy in this Beatitude as well:
“Some people covet glory, or
wealth, or prominence. Others
lap up envy like some noxious
food, and there are others (more
holy) who desire things whose
nature is good.” He continues,
“the Word calls blessed those
who hunger not without
qualification, but those whose
desire is directed toward true
justice.”

Those who hunger and thirst
for justice need never be
filled, the possession of
virtue “always offers its
disciples the fulness of its
delights. Therefore, God the
Word promises to those who
hunger for these things that
they shall be filled, and in
being filled their desire for
virtue will not be dulled but
rather kindled anew.”
Sermon on the Mount, Carl Bloch, painted 1877

Then we climb up to the next rung, where we are
assured: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
obtain mercy.”

St Gregory of
Nyssa compares
this climb of the
Beatitudes to the
ladder in Jacob’s
vision, “a ladder
stretching from
earth to the
heights of heaven,
with God standing
on it,” a climb
representing “an
unceasing desire
for higher things.”

When we climb this
ladder of the
Beatitudes, we need to
remember that as God
is merciful to us, so we
should be merciful to
our neighbor. This is
illustrated in the
parable of the king and
his wicked servant,
where the king forgives
a debt of thousands of
dollars to his servant,
yet that same servant
throttles another
servant because he
cannot repay a debt of
only a few dollars.
Depiction of the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. Photograph
of stained glass window at Scots' Church, Melbourne

Without mercy we cannot love our
neighbor as ourselves. As St
Gregory of Nyssa teaches us,
“unless mercy softens the soul, man
cannot heal the ills of his neighbor,
since mercy is the opposite of
cruelty.” The hard and cruel man
ignores those needing help,
whereas the merciful man by his
attitude is predisposed to show
sympathy to those who suffer or
who are needy.

“Mercy is the loving disposition
towards those who suffer distress…
For as unkindness and cruelty have
their origin in hate, so mercy
springs from love, without which it
could not exist. In mercy you will
find an intense loving disposition
combined with sorrow. Everyone,
friends and foes alike, seek a share
in a man’s good luck, but those
whose hearts are ruled by charity
want to share his misfortunes.”

“Mercy is intensified
charity.” Charity and love in
Scriptures are interchangeable.
“A man of merciful disposition
is truly blessed, since he has
reached the summit of
virtue.” “Mercy is a voluntary
sorrow that joins itself to the
sufferings of others,” just as we
should rejoice the successes of
our neighbor, so we should
also grieve at his losses.”

St Gregory of Nyssa again mentions envy
as being counter to this Beatitude as
well. If all men were merciful, if all men
were generous, if all men were kind,
there would be not hatefulness. “Envy
would be futile, hate would die out,
remembrance of injuries would be
banished along with lies, fraud, and war,
all of which are the offspring of
covetousness.” “Wrath is a bitter despot,
and so is envy,” and “greed surpasses all
tyrannies in venom.”

The rich should treat the poor with
mercy. “The rich man who fritters
away his life in luxuries and does not
show mercy to the poor in distress
before his gate has cut himself off from
mercy. When he asks for mercy he is
not heard, not because a drop of mercy
would diminish the great fountain of
Paradise, but because the drop of
mercy cannot mix with cruelty.”
“Mercy is the parent of kindness and
the pledge of charity, mercy is the bond
of all loving disposition.”

Then we climb up to the next rung, where we are assured:
“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.”

Moses is warned by God on the holy mountain when
he asks to see God’s face, “No man can see the Lord
and live.” Yet, as St Gregory of Nyssa observes, “to
see the Lord is eternal life,” “the man who does not
see God does not see life, and “God is promised to the
vision of those whose heart has been purified.” Having
climbed up to the Beatitude that proclaims, “Blessed
are the clean of heart, for they shall see God”, St
Gregory looks down the slopes of the holy mountain:
“When from the sublime words of the Lord
resembling the summit of a mountain I looked down
into the ineffable depths of His thoughts, my mind had
the experience of a man who gazes from a high ridge
into the immense sea below him.”
Moses descends from Mount Siniai with the Ten
Commandments, by Ferdinand Bol, painted 1662

“Mercy is intensified charity.” “A man
of merciful disposition is truly
blessed, since he has reached the
summit of virtue.” “Mercy is a
voluntary sorrow that joins itself to
the sufferings of others,” just as we
should rejoice the successes of our
neighbor, so we should also grieve at
his losses.”

Blessed are the clean in heart
CCC 2548 Desire for true
happiness frees man from his
immoderate attachment to the
goods of this world so that he
can find his fulfillment in the
vision and beatitude of God.
St Gregory of Nyssa’s Beatitudes
quoted:
"The promise [of seeing God]
surpasses all beatitude.... In
Scripture, to see is to
possess.... Whoever sees God
has obtained all the goods of
which he can conceive."

Our translation differs. “Now this promise of
seeing God is so great that it transcends the
utmost limits of beatitude. For what else could
one desire after such a good, since he possesses
all things in the One he contemplates? . . . The
man who sees God possesses in this act of
seeing all there is of the things that are
good.” St Gregory of Nyssa continues, “With
these we shall enjoy the everlasting Kingdom of
unceasing happiness.” This means we are to
pray without ceasing. “We shall see the true
light and hear the sweet voice of the Spirit, we
shall exult perpetually in all that is good in the
inaccessible glory.”
Transfiguration, by Raphael, painted 1520

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches us that just as we
seek bodily health, so we should seek spiritual
health by seeking purity of heart. What good
would it do for us to “sing praises of health” while
ruining our health by eating junk food and
drinking soda pop? As we need to show
discipline in our diet, so too we should show self-
discipline in our spiritual life. “The Lord does not
say it is blessed to know something about God,
but to have God present within oneself.” “If you
wash off by living a good life the filth of sin that
has been stuck on your heart like plaster, the
Divine Beauty will again shine forth in you.”

There is much more poetry of the
soul in this sermon of St Gregory of
Nyssa, we encourage you to read
this book for yourself, you will read
of visions of “purity, sanctity,
simplicity, and other such luminous
reflections of the Divine Nature in
which we can contemplate God.” St
Gregory ends this sermon with a
prayer, “Let us become clean of
heart, so we may become blessed
when the Divine Image is formed in
us through purity of life, in Christ
Jesus Our Lord, to whom be glory for
ever and ever. Amen.”

Then we climb up to the next rung, where we are told:
“Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called
sons of God.”

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches that “if you are a
peacemaker you be crowned by Christ with
the grace of adoption as a son.” “Peace is
sweet to enjoy and sweetens all that is held
dear in life.” We all pray for a peaceful life, a
good job with a fair boss, a loving spouse and
family, happy vacations, precious memories,
but what good are these if they are cut short
by the violence of war?
We must be one of the peacemakers. What is
peace? Peace is a “loving disposition towards
our neighbor.” What is the opposite of this
love? The enemy of peace is “hate and wrath,
anger and envy, harboring resentment as well
as hypocrisy and the calamity of war.”
Christ with the little children by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1800’s

St Gregory of Nyssa explores how envy
spoils peace for several pages of his
sermon. He sees envy and anger and
hypocrisy endangering the health of the
soul, he values the peacemaker who
cures souls over the doctor who heals the
body. “The disease of envy and hypocrisy
is cherished secretly in the depth of the
heart, like a hidden fire,” while the
hypocrite deceives by appearing to be a
friend. He may hide his anger and envy
from a sense of shame, but the fire
buried under chaff still smolders, but if
the person he envies “meets with some
misfortune, then he revels in his disease,
because he makes that man’s sorrow his
own joy and pleasure.”
Suffer the Little Children to come unto Me, Pieter van Lint, late 1600's

Cain and Abel, by Andrei Mironov, painted 2015
St Gregory of Nyssa
reminds us that Cain fell
prey to envy, “Cain raved
when Abel was praised.
The envy within
commanded the murder,
but hypocrisy became its
executioner.” Cain
pretended to be his caring
brother, Cain lured his
brother Abel out into the
field, “and then he
revealed his envy by
murder.”

Scholars and preachers argue over the stories of Adam and Eve and
the patriarchs in Genesis, the scholars arguing that these stories are
mythologies that reveal the inner depths of our soul, the preachers
arguing that these are true stories, that Adam and Eve and the
patriarchs actually existed and are not merely myths.
But both camps miss the obvious significance of the stories in Genesis,
that they teach us the Divine truths through the ordinary life
experiences of ordinary people who often sin, who have to work
through the consequences of their sin, but who are nevertheless
blessed by God, though they suffer much. What the stories of Genesis
should teach us is how we treat our family and friends and neighbors
matters deeply.

The Garden
of Eden with
the Fall of
Man, Jan
Brueghel the
Elder, and
Peter Paul
Rubens,
painted 1617

Paradise with the
Creation of Eve, Jan
Brueghel the Younger,
painted 1640

Adam and Eve,
Workshop of
Jacob Jordaens,
painted 1640

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches
us that the work God ordains
for us is that we need “to cast
out hated and abolish war, to
exterminate envy and banish
strife, to take away hypocrisy
and extinguish the
resentment from past injuries
that is smoldering in our
heart.”

We need to break the cycle of hate
and resentment. “For a light follows
the departure of darkness, so the
evils of envy and anger and
resentment should be replaced by
the fruits of the Spirit, by charity, joy,
peace, kindness, and all the good
things enumerated by the Apostle.”
We must make peace in our own
heart before we can promote peace
among others. The man who is
foremost a peacemaker “pacifies
perfectly the discord between flesh
and spirit within himself.”

Then we ascend to the last rung, where we
are blessed:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.”
“Blessed are you when men revile you and
persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. Rejoice
and be glad, for your reward is great in
heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets
who were before you.”

We conclude with this eighth Beatitude,
which St Gregory of Nyssa likens to the
mystery of the eighth day of Resurrection
and to the ancient Jewish observance of
purification and circumcision, which is also
observed on the eighth day. “The
purification indicates man’s return from
defilement to his natural purity, circumcision
means the casting off of the dead skins” that
Adam had put on when his original sin
brought death into the world. The eighth
Beatitude recalls us from slavery to sin to
eternal life in the Kingdom.
Resurrection, by Lucas Cranach, 1558

The Beatitudes promise the Kingdom of Heaven both to the
poor in spirit and to those who suffer persecution for justice’
sake. St Gregory of Nyssa wonders why these virtues are not
mentioned by Jesus when he separates the sheep from the
goats on the Judgement of the Last Day:

Last Judgement by Michelangelo, 1541
“All the nations will be gathered before him,
and he will separate people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the
goats, and he will put the sheep at his right
hand and the goats at the left. Then the king
will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you
that are blessed by my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world; for I was hungry and
you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave
me something to drink, I was a stranger and
you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave
me clothing, I was sick and you took care of
me, I was in prison and you visited me.’”

Last Judgement by Michelangelo, 1541
“Then the righteous will answer him,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry
and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you
something to drink? And when was it that
we saw you a stranger and welcomed you,
or naked and gave you clothing? And when
was it that we saw you sick or in prison
and visited you?’ And the king will answer
them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to
one of the least of these who are
members of my family, you did it to me.’ “

We are reminded by this passage that the
Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Plain directly
reminds us that not only are the poor in spirit
blessed, but also the poor and down and out,
and in case we do not comprehend, Jesus in
Luke warns us, “woe to you who are rich, for
you have received your consolation.” So, what
is common between to these two Beatitudes
and the words of Jesus on the Day of
Judgement? St Gregory of Nyssa teaches us,
“they all converge on the same goal,” they all
show how the Love of God shines in our lives
and in how we live our lives, and in the love
we show to our neighbor.

St Gregory of Nyssa reminds us of St
Stephen, who was stoned to death as the
first Christian martyr. “His body eagerly
receives the showers of fast-falling stone
like a pleasant dew, and repays his murders
with blessings, praying that their sin not be
imputed to them.” Why eagerly? St
Maximus the Confessor also teaches us that
as true Christians we should be eager to
love to our neighbor, we should not merely
forgive the wrongs and faults of our
neighbor, we should be eager to forgive our
neighbor as well.
Cologne Cathedral - Window - Stoning of Saint Stephen

St Gregory of Nyssa teaches us that this Beatitude,
like all the Beatitudes, apply to us individually even
if we do not live in a period of general persecution.

The brothers of Joseph sell him into slavery, Konstantin Flavitsky, painted 1855
St Gregory of Nyssa
notes that “everyone
knows how hard it is
to bear if people,
instead of loving us,
scheme against us,”
this is particularly
true when those who
scheme against us are
family or close
friends. We see this
in the story of Joseph.
“His brothers plotted
against him and
drove him from their
company.”

But after Joseph was sold into slavery,
he became the king of his brothers
“who planned evil against him.” His
brothers and father would have not
been saved from the drought that
gripped the Promised Land had they
not sold him into slavery. “Their envy
paved the way for their salvation by this
evil plot.” Joseph told his brothers that
through their treachery they meant him
evil, but that God used it for good.
Joseph recognized by his brothers,
by Charles Thevenin, painted 1789

If Joseph can forgive his
brothers for the many years
he spent as a slave and as a
prisoner in a foreign land, so
we can forgive our neighbors,
and be kind to them even
when they persecute us. Our
persecutions and sufferings
should make us stronger. We
should not “be pained by the
loss of earthly things but be
gladdened by the gain of
heavenly ones.” “When we
are persecuted by the enemy
we should turn to God,
accepting our sufferings to
destroy the power of pleasure
within us.”
Joseph recognized by his brothers, by Léon Pierre Urbain Bourgeois, 1863

Blessed are those
who are persecuted
for righteousness
sake. St Gregory of
Nyssa adds, “blessed
are those who are
driven from all that is
hostile, from
corruption, darkness,
and sin, from
injustice and
covetousness, in
short, from anything
that is not virtuous,
whether in words,
deeds, or thoughts.”

SOURCES: We know indirectly that there were numerous manuscripts of
the main works of the Cappadocian Church Fathers, since St Nikodemus
of Mount Athos, compiler of the works of the Philokalia, did not include
these works in his collection since the manuscripts were sufficiently
numerous that they did not need to be preserved. The literary quality of
St Gregory of Nyssa’s work and its English translation is one of the best
in the ancient world.

The introduction says this,
“St Gregory of Nyssa is one of the greatest
mystic theologians of antiquity. Throughout his
life he was occupied with the question of the
vision and knowledge of God. As the Beatific
Vision is the highest object of life in Heaven,
we ought even here on earth to strive to know
God as far as possible. He takes it for granted
that we can know God by our natural reason
and that we can prove His existence from the
order of the cosmos and the perfection of
creatures. But he desires more than this
elementary knowledge, which is also accessible
to pagan philosophy.
The vision of God in the mirror of the pure soul
can be attained only by Christians, who reach it
through their cooperation with grace.”

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St Gregory of Nyssa On Beatitudes and Envy
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