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On the Lord’s Prayer

St Gregory of Nyssa, tr. Graef, 1954

4. The Beatitudes: Sermon 4

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill

The medical experts tell us that people who are suffering from loss of appetite always seem to be perfectly satisfied, because certain bad juices and excretions flow together in the upper part of the stomach. Hence they are without desire for wholesome food, since their natural appetite has been destroyed by a spurious satiety. But if some medical treatment is applied, and the juices blocking up the cavities of the stomach have been purged by some laxative medicine, the healthy appetite for nourishing food returns, because the natural functions are no longer hindered by foreign matter. It is a sign of health that the patients take food no longer because they are forced to do so, but with desire and relish.

Why do I start with this opening? The Word which proceeds by successive stages leads us by the hand to the higher steps of the ladder of the Beatitudes. As the Prophet says,¹ He has disposed beautiful steps in our heart, and so, after the ascensions that have been accomplished before, He shows us another step: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill. I think it is right that after the glutted satiety of the soul has been purged away as much as possible, we should be filled with the blessed desire of such food and drink. For a man cannot be strong unless his vigour is sustained by sufficient food, nor can he take in food without eating, or eat without having an appetite. Strength, then, is one of the good things of life. Now strength is preserved by being sufficiently filled, and this is brought about by food. But eating depends on appetite. Appetite, therefore, should be a blessed thing for living creatures, since it is the principle and cause of our strength. Now as regards material food, we do not all relish the same things; but the desires of men at table vary according to the diversity of foods. One likes sweet things, the other hot and piquant courses; one prefers something salted, the other a sour dish. But it often happens that a person’s taste is not for the things that are good for him. If someone’s particular constitution has a tendency towards a certain disease, he will cause it to grow by his predilection for the wrong kinds of food. But if he shows an appetite for what is wholesome, he will live in perfect health, because the food makes at the same time for his well-being.

So it is also with the food of the soul. Everyone’s desire is not for the same. Some people covet glory, or wealth, or prominence. The desire of others is incessantly occupied with the table. Others again lap up envy like some noxious food; and then there are also some who desire things whose nature is good. Now what is good by nature is the same for all and at all times. It is that which is desirable not because of something else, but for its own sake. It is always the same, and satiety can never blunt its attraction. Therefore the Word calls blessed those who hunger not without qualification, but those whose desire is directed towards true justice.

What then is justice? This, I think, we must first explain in our sermon; for only when its beauty has been shown can the desire for this lovely thing be roused in us. It is impossible to desire something of which one is not aware; our nature is slow to be moved towards what it does not know, unless by hearing or sight it first conceive some idea of the desirable object.

Thinkers who have investigated these matters say that justice is the disposition to distribute equally to each, according to his worth. For example, if someone is charged with distributing money, he will be called just if he aims at equity and fits the gift to the needs of the recipients. Again, a man invested with the authority of a judge will not pass sentence according to favour or disfavour; but he will be guided by the nature of the case and punish those who deserve punishment whilst acquitting the innocent. In other matters of dispute he will give judgement according to truth. Such a man will be called just. It is the same with a person who imposes taxes on his subjects, which he should do in accordance with their capacity. Or take the master of a household, the ruler of a city, or the king of a nation. If any of these men rule his subjects fairly, that is to say, if he does not take advantage of his power to indulge irrational impulses, but judges them squarely, adapting his sentence to their situation, he will come within the definition of those who attribute precisely such conduct to the notion of justice.

But as I look up to the sublime laws of God, I come to realize that one must see something higher in this justice than what has been discussed hitherto. The word of salvation is indeed given as a common good for all mankind, but not every man is concerned with the things that have just been mentioned. For only few are called to reign or govern, to give judgement or to have power of administering money or other revenues; whereas the majority of men are subjects of rulers and administrators. How then can one accept as true justice what is not meant equally for all? For if, according to the words of those outside the fold, the purpose of the just man is equality; but on the other hand pre-eminence presupposes inequality, then this definition of justice cannot be regarded as true, because it is at once completely refuted by the inequality of life.

What then is the justice that belongs to all, and which everyone should desire who belongs to the table of the Gospel? 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. For if this were present only in a man of great authority and prominence, how could Lazarus be just? He was cast outside the rich man’s gate and had no material, as it were, for such justice. He had neither power nor authority, neither house nor table, nor any other of the things in connection with which such justice is practised in this life. For if justice consisted in ruling, or distributing, or administering anything, anyone without such authority would be quite outside the scope of justice. But how could a man be deemed worthy of the eternal rest who had none of those things which, in the general opinion, are the characteristics of justice? Therefore we must search for that kind of justice the fruition of which is promised to him who desires it. For He says: Blessed are they that hunger after justice, for they shall their fill.

We need great discernment concerning the many and varied things that exist for our use, and which human nature is impelled to desire. For we must distinguish the useful from the harmful in these kinds of foods; else what the soul would take for food might bring about our ruin and death instead of life. Therefore it may not be amiss to elucidate the sense of this by some further inquiry into the Gospel.

He who had everything in common with us except sin, and who shared all our sufferings, did not think hunger a sin. Therefore He did not refuse Himself to undergo this experience, but accepted the natural instinct to desire food. Having remained forty days without food, He afterwards was hungry; for when He desired it, He allowed His human nature to act in its normal way. But when the father of temptations realized that He, too, was affected by hunger, he advised Him to meet the desire with stones. Now this means to pervert the desire for natural food into something that is outside nature. He says, Command that these stones be made bread.²

What is wrong with tilling the land? On what grounds are the seeds rejected and the food they yield despised? Why does he judge the wisdom of the Creator, as if He did not feed mankind properly with grain? Indeed, if stones were more suitable for providing food, then the wisdom of God would have made but poor provision for human life. Command that these stones be made bread. Thus he speaks even now to those who are tempted by their own lust, and while saying this he commonly persuades those who pay attention to him to make stones their food. For when desire goes beyond the limits of lawful need, what else is this than the counsel of the devil, who then spurns the food that is made from seeds and incites the appetite to things beyond the limits of nature?

Now people eat food made from stones if their meals betray their avarice, because from their unjust gains they procure for themselves luxurious dishes worth fabulous sums, and the paraphernalia of their dinners are designed only for show so as to impress people, since they far outstrip the necessities of life. For what relation to the needs of nature has this silver which no one can eat and which is displayed in such quantities that it can hardly be carried?

Now what is hunger? Surely the desire for the food one needs. For when the physical vigour is gone, its lack is to be made up again by taking the necessary nourishment. Then nature desires bread, or something else to eat. If, therefore, someone took gold instead of bread into his mouth, would he meet the need? Hence, if a man cares for things he cannot eat instead of for food, he is evidently concerned with stones. While nature seeks one thing, he is busy trying to find another.

Nature says—in fact, by being hungry it almost cries out—that it is now needing food. The strength that has evaporated must be restored to the body. But you do not listen to nature; you do not give it what it is seeking. You think instead of the load of silver you want to be on your table, and so you look for metalworkers. You waste your time on inquiries about images you want carved, so that in these carvings human passions and habits may be reproduced with such technical perfection that you can recognize the wrath of the warrior when he draws his sword for slaughter. You also want to see the pain of the wounded who has received a mortal blow, and whose very appearance seems to wail aloud. You want to look at the attacking hunter as well as at the savage animal, and whatever other things empty-headed people employ artists to execute cleverly in the materials that are used at table.

Nature wants to drink—but you prepare costly tripods, tankards, mixing bowls, jars, and a thousand other things which have nothing to do with the need in question. Is it not evident that by doing so you listen to him who advises you to pay heed to the stones? But it would be useless to go through the rest of this stony food, the shameless spectacles and the plays that rouse the passions, by which men prepare a way for worse evils to follow, seasoning their food by inciting to licentiousness.

This is the advice the enemy gives in the matter of food; such things he suggests by turning to stones, instead of being content with the ordinary use of bread. But He who overcomes temptation does not eliminate hunger from nature, as if that were a cause of evil. He only removes the worry and fuss which the counsel of the enemy causes to enter together with the need, and leaves nature to adjust itself within its own limits. To give an example: Those who filter the wine do not reject the good liquid on account of the foam mixed up with it; they separate the superfluous matter with a strainer, but do not refuse to use what is pure. The Word acts in the same way. He scrutinizes and distinguishes what is foreign to nature by His subtle and most perfect contemplation. Therefore He does not eliminate hunger, since it is needed to preserve our life; but He does sift out and cast away the superfluous things that have become mixed up with this need, when He says that He knows a bread that nourishes indeed, because the Word of God has adapted it to human nature. If, therefore, Jesus has been hungry, the hunger that is in us as it was in Him should truly be blessed. Hence, if we knew what it was for which the Lord hungered, we should certainly know also the meaning of the Beatitude with which we are now concerned.

What is this food that Jesus is not ashamed to desire? After His conversation with the Samaritan woman He says to His disciples: My meat is to do the will of the Father.³ But the will of the Father is manifest who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.⁴ Now if the Father desires that we should all be saved, and if, therefore, our life is Christ’s food, we know how to make use of this hungry condition of the soul. What is this? That we should hunger for our own salvation, that we should thirst for the Divine Will, which is precisely that we should be saved.

So now we have learned from the Beatitude how such a hunger should come to exist in us. For if a man has desired the justice of God, he has found what is truly to be desired. And he satisfies this desire not only in one of the forms this appetite can take; for He wants us to partake of justice not only as food. If the desire took only this form, it would be but half-complete. Now, however, He has disposed that this good thing can also be drunk, so that the intense fervour of the desire should be represented by the passion of thirst. For when we are thirsty we have, as it were, become burning dry, and so approach drink with delight because it will quench this thirst. Though the desire for food and drink is of one kind, yet the form each takes is different. Therefore the Word expresses thus the highest desire for the Good and calls blessed those who suffer both hunger and thirst for justice. For the coveted object is great enough to meet the desire in both ways: grace becomes solid food to the hungry, and drink if a man be drawn to it by thirst.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill. It may be asked whether it is only blessed to desire justice, whereas if someone had the same longing for temperance or wisdom, prudence or any other kind of virtue, the Word would not call him blessed. But the saying might be interpreted thus: Justice is one of the virtues. Now Divine Scripture frequently expresses the whole by the part, for example, when it gives certain names to the Divine Nature. Thus, speaking in the person of God, the prophecy says: I the Lord; this is my eternal name, and this is my memorial unto all generations.⁵ And again elsewhere, I am who am;⁶ and yet in another place, I am compassionate.⁷ Thus Holy Scripture can call Him by innumerable other names which fittingly signify God’s majesty; and so it becomes quite clear to us that when it says one thing the whole series of names is quietly understood to be included as well. For it cannot be supposed that if He is called Lord, He should not also be the other things; but through this one name all others are expressed as well.

So we have learned that the Divinely inspired Word comprehends many things in one part. If, therefore, the Word here calls blessed the hunger of those who desire justice, He includes in this every other 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. For any one form of virtue, divorced from the others, could never by itself be a perfect virtue. For if none of the other good things would appear together with it, their opposites would inevitably find a place in it. Now the opposite of temperance is licentiousness, of prudence folly, and so everything that is accepted as good has something that is known to be its opposite. If, therefore, the other virtues were not all included in justice, it would be impossible that what remained should be good. For no one would say that justice is foolish or rash, licentious or anything else that is known to be evil. But if the conception of justice does not admit of anything bad, it must needs comprise in itself everything good, but what is good belongs to virtue. Therefore every virtue is here comprised under the name of justice. Those who hunger and thirst for it the Word calls blessed and promises them the fulfilment of their desires.

For He says: Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill. I think the saying means something like this: None of the things that are coveted in this life for the sake of pleasure will satisfy those who run after them, but, as Wisdom says somewhere metaphorically, A cask full of holes is the occupation with the pleasures of sense.⁸ For those who are always anxiously busy filling it show that their unending labour is fruitless. All the time they are pouring something into the abyss of desire, they add pleasure to pleasure, yet never procure themselves full satisfaction. Who has known avarice come to an end because the man afflicted with it had got what he wanted? Who has ceased to run after fame because he had attained to his heart’s desire? But if anyone has indulged to the full what pleases his ears or eyes, his mad craze for the things of the stomach and what comes after the stomach—what has he found to be the result of this enjoyment? Does not every form of pleasure provided by the body vanish almost as soon as it comes, remaining hardly a moment with those who have caught it?

Therefore we learn from the Lord this sublime doctrine that the only truly and solidly existing thing is our zeal for virtue. For if a man has perfected himself in any of the higher things, such as continence, temperance, devotion to God or any other of the sublime teachings of the Gospel, his joy in these achievements does not quickly pass away, but is truly solid, lasting his whole lifetime. Why is this so? Because these things can always be done; there is no moment in the whole of life when we are sick of doing good. For we can always practise temperance and purity, we can be faithful in all that is good and abstain from evil as long as we aim at virtue, and its very practice will bring joy with it. But as for those who waste their lives in absurd lusts, even if their soul should constantly be occupied with licentiousness, yet it will not always be able to enjoy it. For satiety stops the greed of the glutton, and the drinker’s pleasure is quenched at the same time as his thirst. And so it is with the other things. They all require a certain interval of time to rekindle the desire for the delights, which enjoyment carried to satiety has caused to flag. The possession of virtue, on the other hand, where it is once firmly established, is neither circumscribed by time nor limited by satiety. On the contrary, it always offers its disciples the ever-fresh experience of the fulness of its own delights. Therefore God the Word promises to those who hunger for these things that they shall be filled, and in being filled their desire will not be dulled but rather kindled anew.

This, then, He teaches us in the discourse from the high mountain of thought: not to desire eagerly any of those things that end in nothingness for those who pursue them. To occupy oneself with them is as devoid of sense as to run after the top of one’s own shadow. For such people run on forever, since the object of their pursuit always quickly eludes the pursuer. But we should turn our desire to those things where, if a man exerts himself, the object of his efforts becomes his possession. If a man desires virtue, he makes goodness his very own, for he sees in himself what he has desired. Blessed, therefore, is he who hungers after temperance, for he shall be filled with purity. As has been said, being filled in this way brings about not an aversion, but an intensified desire; both mutually increase each other. The desire of virtue is followed by the possession of what is desired; and the interior goodness brings at the same time unceasing joy to the soul. For such is the nature of this wonderful thing that it not only delights at the moment while one is enjoying it, but brings actual happiness at every instant of time. For if a man has lived rightly, he finds joy in the memory of the past as well as in the virtuous conduct of the present and the expectation of the future reward. This, I suppose, is none other than again virtue itself, which is both the work and the reward of those who have accomplished it.

If we would venture on a bolder interpretation, it seems to me that through the ideas of virtue and justice the Lord proposes Himself to the desire of His hearers. For He became for us wisdom from God, justification, sanctification and redemption, but also Bread descending from Heaven and living water. Somewhere in the Psalms David confesses his thirst for this when he offers this blessed malady to God and says: My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God. When shall I come and appear before the face of God?⁹ It seems to me that the power of the Spirit has instructed him beforehand in these lofty teachings of the Lord, since he said also that his desire would be fulfilled. I will appear before Thy sight in justice, he says, I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear.¹⁰ Now in my view this glory is the true virtue, the good that is unmixed with evil, which comprises every concept concerned with goodness. This is God the Word Himself, the virtue that covered the heavens, as Habacuc explains,¹¹ and rightly have those who hunger for this justice of God been called blessed. For if, as the Psalmist says,¹² a man has truly tasted the Lord; that is, if he has received God into himself, he is filled with Him for whom he has thirsted and hungered, as He has promised who said: I and my Father will come and will make our abode with him¹³ (the Holy Spirit of course had already been dwelling there before). I suppose the great Paul, too, who had tasted of those ineffable fruits from Paradise, was at the same time full of what he had tasted and always hungering for it. For he owns that he has been filled with what he desired when he says, Christ liveth in me;¹⁴ yet he is still hungry, for he always stretches forth to the things before him,¹⁵ saying: Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect; but I run that I may apprehend.¹⁶

Now may I be allowed to adduce an hypothetical example of something not to be found in nature. Supposing that nothing of the material food that is taken for nourishment were eliminated, but that all were retained in order to add to the stature of the body. Then the bodies would grow to great height, since the daily food would by itself augment their stature. It is the same with justice and every other virtue that goes with it. If, what is eaten in the way of spiritual food be not ejected, it will by constant additions continually increase the stature of those partaking of it. If, therefore, we have understood this blessed hunger, and vomited forth the abundance of evil, let us hunger for the justice of God, that we may be filled with it, in Christ Jesus Our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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