God as the Ultimate and Inaccessible Light.
God is the ultimate and inaccessible light, "the purest
radiance of the Trinity." The second light is the order of angels, who are "rays
or participants in the first light." The third light is man. Even the pagans
called man a light "by virtue of the intellect within him." God is the "lamp of
the intellect," and when the human intellect is illuminated by the Archetypal
light it also becomes radiant. "God is to the intellect what the sun is to
material nature," Gregory writes. "One illuminates the visible world, and the
other enlightens the invisible world. One gives light to corporeal vision, and
the other makes intellectual natures like God."
Gregory is here using the Platonic comparison of the Greatest
Good and the sun, a comparison which the Neoplatonist had developed into an
integral doctrine of metaphysical light. Gregory uses Platonic imagery and, like
the Platonists, stresses the corrupting influence of the senses and the body in
general. However, the idea which he expresses in Platonic language is not itself
Platonic. According to Gregory, "similarity" to God is primarily achieved
through the sacraments. The goal of the sacraments, he writes, is to "give wings
to the soul, steal it from the world and return it to God, to preserve the image
of God if it is whole, to support it if it is in danger, to renew it if it is
harmed, and to instill Christ in our hearts by means of the Spirit. Everyone who
belongs to the celestial ranks is transformed into a god by the sacraments and
made a participant in heavenly bliss." It is not fortuitous that baptism is
called "illumination," since it is the beginning of man's path toward the light.
At the end of this path the sons of light will be completely similar to God and
God will be fully contained within them.
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