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Gregory of Nyssa

4 bytes added, 18:49, September 1, 2008
Stages
Gregory speaks of three stages of spiritual progression: initial darkness or ignorance, then spiritual illumination, and finally a darkness of the mind in contemplation of the God who cannot be comprehended. (See [[apophatic theology]].)
Like earlier authors, including the Jewish [[Philo of Alexandria]], he uses the story of [[Moses]] as an allegory for the spiritual life. Moses first meets God in the burning bush, a [[theophany]] of light and illumination, but then he meets him again in the cloud, where he realizes that God cannot be seen by the eyes. Ascending [[Mount Sinai]], he finally comes to the "divine darkness", and realizes that God cannot be known by the mind either.
It is only through not-knowing and not-seeing that God can, paradoxically, be known and seen. This notion would be extremely influential in both Western and Eastern spirituality, via the mystical writings of Pseudo-[[Dionysius the Areopagite]]. Thus he is a major figure in the history of apophatic theology and spirituality.
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