Saturday, March 14, 2009

Our desire for the beautiful

This is a quote which was included in an article I recently linked, but important enough that I thought is should also stand alone.

From The Life of Moses:

And so every desire for the Beautiful which draws us on in this ascent is intensified by the soul’s very progress towards it. And this is the real meaning of seeing God: never to have this desire satisfied. But fixing our eyes on those things which help us to see, we must ever keep alive in us the desire to see more and more. And so no limit can be set to our progress towards God: first of all, because no limitation can be put on upon the Beautiful, and secondly because the increase in our desire for the Beautiful cannot be stopped by any sense of satisfaction.

--St. Gregory of Nyssa

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