Contemplation and action

Summary

Gregory identifies the inward and outward aspects of the faith which are set out in n Timothy 3.16: its work of teaching and explanation, correction and instruction in righteousness. Inwardly and contemplatively the mind knows ‘right things’ of the Creator; but it recognises the need to do ‘works of faith’ to complete the inward faith (j: xvii.v.7, p. 854; j: xxv.v.26). Gregory, although he finds the first indispensable, cannot think it enough without the second. Just as sin is committed in thought and by coming out from within into action completes itself, so faith goes out from within and shows itself for what it is in good works (j: iv.xxvii.49, p. 193.9–34). It is on this base that he erects his account of the relation between action and contemplation.

The commonplaces of Gregory's discussion of the experience of contemplative ecstasy are, for the most part, those of other writers in the spiritual tradition on which he draws. He speaks of the transitoriness of the experience, of its sweetness, of the sense of seeing the sun as through a fog or cloud and knowing that there is more to be seen, and, more clearly, in the life to come; he describes the fervour and love which lessens the tug of concupiscence to which fallen man is constantly subject.