George E. Demacopoulos. Gregory the Great

“Holy Jacob desired Rachel, but in the night received Lia,” says Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) in his Homilies on Ezekiel, “because every one who is converted to the Lord, desires the contemplative life, longs for the rest of the everlasting Country; but first it is necessary that in the night of the present life he work what good he can, and exert himself in labour, that is to say, receive Lia, that afterwards in the embraces of Rachel he may rest in the sight of the Beginning. Rachel was beautiful but sterile, because the contemplative life is lovely in the mind, but while it longs to rest in silence, it does not generate sons by preaching” (trans. Abbot Cuthbert Butler, in Western Mysticism: The Teaching of Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and Contemplative Life [1922; repr., 2001], 172). On the one hand, this is a strange and off-putting passage, evoking a rarefied monastic environment. On the other hand, colleagues will know what Gregory and his modern Benedictine interpreter are talking about, as they attempt to balance out the demands of research and teaching. University education is founded on the premise that a “mixed” life combining the two is the best way to bring on the next generation.

Aesthetics · Art · Asceticism · Behold · Contemplation · Epistemology · Mysticism · Premise · Rest (music) · Silence · Theology · Classics · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Theology and Canon Law Studies

• Seeing through Sigebert

  Evan A Gatti•Gesta•2022

  Add to list