Spirituality Studies 10-1 Spring 2024 81 Miloš Lichner us humble” (Gregorius 1979, 59). The plurality of biblical hagiographic descriptions corresponds to all life situations of a person, and every reader will find there what he needs at the given moment (Gregorius 1985, 1169–1170). The sacred text preserved God’s testimonies, which are offered to the reader so that he may enter into continuity with the biblical history of salvation. In this we perceive the clear influence of the work of St. Augustine On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed from the year 399, in which he recommends that the catechist retell to the person interested in baptism the history of salvation from the Holy Scriptures and remind him that this does not end with the ascension of Christ but continues until the arrival of this person to the catechist (Lichner 2015). However, Gregory emphasizes much more than Augustine hagiographic models of moral behavior, the knowledge of which thus becomes an indispensable means of the spiritual growth of a Christian. In his interpretation of the Book of Job (Lat. Moralia in Job), Gregory quotes the verse Psalm 104:18 “The high mountains are for the wild goats” and interprets it with the following words: “The high mountains can be understood as high sentences (that is, difficult to understand) of the Holy Scriptures, about which the psalmist says: ‘The high mountains are for the wild goats’, because those who already know how to jump into contemplation ascend to the high mountains of God’s sayings as if to the high peaks of the mountains” (Gregorius 1983, 1534–1535). From the quoted text, it could seem that only a few select readers of the sacred text could experience the peaks of contemplation. Usually, however, Gregory presents the Holy Scriptures as a cure for our diseases, as a faithful companion of humanity on its earthly journey: “If the Church were not flooded with the joys of the Word of God, it could not rise to the heights from the desert of this world. It is thus flooded with joys and rises, and this is why it feeds on mystical meanings every day and rises to the contemplation of the good things from above… This is why the psalmist says: ‘The night will shine like the day’ (Psalm 139:11), because when an attentive soul finds its food in mystical understanding, the darkness of the present life will be illuminated in it by the brightness of the day that comes, so that in the midst of the darkness of our depravity the power of the future light breaks into his understanding” (Gregorius 1979, 813). 4 The Idea of the Sacred Text as a Gift from God Therefore, in the next step, Gregory reminds us in a comment on the prophet Ezekiel of the difference between created and uncreated light: “The Holy Scripture has become a light on our path in the darkness of the present world… We know, however, that our lamp is itself dark, if the Truth does not illuminate our minds. This is why the psalmist says (Psalm 18:28): ‘You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light’. What is a burning lamp if not light itself!? However, the created light does not enlighten us if not it is illuminated by an uncreated light. Because Almighty God Himself created the utterances of the holy testaments for our salvation and made them available to us” (Gregorius 1971, 93–94). Reading the Holy Scriptures is thus the beginning of a contemplative life, because through the created (written) text, a person enters into contact and a relationship with his Creator, who is uncreated light. It therefore becomes obvious that on the spiritual path one cannot avoid reading the Holy Scriptures, “just as obedient servants are always attentive to the face of their masters in order to immediately understand and hurry to carry out their orders, so also the minds of the righteous try to closely follow the Almighty Lord and contemplate His face in the Holy Scriptures, so that they deviate as little as possible from His will, because God tell us everything He wants through the Holy Scriptures and they recognize His will in His word. His words therefore do not pass through their ears superficially but become fixed in their hearts” (Gregorius 1979, 824). In line with St. Augustine (Augustinus 1956, 1922), who understood the Holy Scriptures as a letter from God, Pope Gregory wrote the following words to a doctor in Constantinople: “What else is the Holy Scriptures if not a letter from Almighty God to his creation? And if your glory were based on another place, and you would receive a message from an earthly emperor, then you would not stop, you would not rest, you would not give sleep to your eyes, until you first read what the emperor wrote to you. The heavenly emperor, the Lord of angels and men, sent you his letters for your life, and yet, my glorious son, you neglect to read his letters fervently. Therefore, please, study daily and meditate daily on the words of your Creator” (Gregorius 1982, 339–340). The center of the Holy Scriptures, its fullness, is Christ; it is He who unites the Old and New Testaments, Gregory notes, and he refers to the apostle Paul. Gregory returned to this topic in the 25th homily, in which he explained a passage from the Gospel of John 20, 11–18 (Gregorius 1999, 208). He emphasizes that when Mary Magdalene entered the tomb, she did not find the body of Christ there, which had been placed in it a few days before, but found only the folded clothes and saw two angels who were sitting in the place of the head and feet of the previously placed body: “We can discern in them the double law that simultaneously announces the incarnate Lord, the deceased and the resurrected one.” (Gregorius 1999, 208). The Pope then quotes a passage
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