Nyssa on Knowing

Anatolios sums up a wonderful exposition of Nyssa’s epistemology with this: “The distinctive character of Gregory’s epistemology . . . lies not so much in delimiting the extent of information that can be gleaned by the mind (he insists there is no limit) as in locating the act of knowledge radically within the movement of receptivity and wonder . . . . Authentic and understanding contact with reality accepts its own irreducible stance of receptivity with regard to the always prior self-presenting dynamism of the being that is known. Instead of claiming to supercede or overreach that dynamism, the one who seeks to know stretches herself out toward the unfathomable depths of the active source of a being’s self-presenting dynamism of power . . . . The crucial distinction is that between a comprehensive knowledge in which the mind masters its object and the doxological knowledge enacted in worship. The former claims to enclose the known object by the mind’s grasp; the latter seeks to stretch out ( epekteino ) into the infinitely open expanse of divine glory.”