Peter's four names and what it takes to see God

Beatus es, Simon Bariona, quia caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi sed pater meus, qui in coelis est (Matt. 16:17): 'Blessed are you, Simon Peter,' says our Lord, 'for flesh and blood have not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.' St Peter has four names: Peter, Barjona, Simon, and Cephas. Our Lord says, 'Blessed,' or 'happy,' are you. Everyone wants to be happy. As the philosopher puts it, all people want to exist. This is why Augustine says, the good person does not want praise, he wants to be worthy of praise. Our own teachers also hold that virtue is so pure, so entirely abstract and detached from bodily things in the root and height of its nature, that nothing at all can enter into it without corrupting virtue and bringing in vice. The slightest thought or hint of self-seeking, and it is no longer virtue: it turns into vice. That is what virtue is by nature.

A pagan philosopher says that virtue, if not sought for its own sake, is not virtue at all. If its aim is praise or anything else, that is trading virtue away. Real virtue cannot be sold for anything on earth. This is why the good person does not seek praise: he seeks to be worthy of praise. What matters is not whether we are blamed, but whether we deserve blame.

'Blessed are you,' says our Lord. Blessedness consists of four things. To have everything that has being and is truly worth wanting and brings delight; to have it all at once and whole in the undivided soul, and that in God, shown in its perfection, in its flowering, where it first breaks forth in the ground of its own existence, and all of it conceived where God conceives himself: that is happiness. The name Peter means one who sees God. Now theologians ask whether the core of eternal life lies more in intellect or in will. Will has two activities: desire and love. Intellect, with its single function, is therefore higher; its work is understanding, and it does not rest until it has taken naked hold of what it sees. It also runs ahead of the will and tells it what to love. We desire a thing while we do not yet have it. Once we have it, we love it, and desire falls away.

What must a person be, to see God? He must be dead. 'No one can see me and live,' said our Lord. Now Gregory says, 'That person is dead who is dead to the world.' You can judge for yourselves how dead a person may be, and how little the things of this world can touch us. By dying to this world we do not die to God. Augustine prayed many different prayers. 'Grant me, Lord,' he said, 'to know both you and myself.' 'Lord, have mercy on me and show me your face, and grant that I do not die until I behold you forever.' This is the first point: one must be dead in order to see God. So much for the first name, Peter.

One philosopher says that if there were no means, we would see the one we love in heaven. Another says that if there were no means, we would see nothing. Both are right. The colour on the wall that reaches my eye is filtered and refined in the air and in the light, and carried to my eye in a pure state. In the same way the soul must be strained through light and grace before it can see God. So the master who said that without means we would see nothing is right. But the other one is also right who said that without means we would see the one we love in heaven. For the soul would see God naked, if there were nothing in between.

The second name, Barjona, means a son of grace, in whom the soul, made clear and raised up, is fit for the vision of God.

The third name is Simon. That means one who listens, one who obeys. To hear God, one must be set apart from the world. David says, 'I will be still and listen to what God is saying in me.' He speaks peace in his Word, upon his saints, upon his people, upon all who commune with him in their heart. Happy is the one who is occupied with attending to what God is saying within. He stands directly beneath the divine ray of light. The soul that stands with all her powers under the light of God is set on fire and kindled with divine love. The divine light shines straight down from above, and a sun standing directly overhead is something few can bear. Yet the highest power of the soul, her head, stays lifted up beneath this shaft of divine light, so that in it there can shine the light divine, which I have often described as so bright, so overwhelming, so far beyond all else, that every other light is darkness compared to this one. All creatures, simply as creatures, are nothing; sunk in the light in which they have their being, they are something. However noble the natural mind may be, still, to reach and grasp God without means, the soul must have these six qualities I am speaking of.

First, she is dead to all that changes. Second, she is made clear in light and grace. Third, she is without means. Fourth, she hears God's Word in her heart. Fifth, she stands under the divine light. The sixth is the pagan philosopher's definition of happiness: one unbroken rising up into, and vision of, blessedness in God. Where the Son himself is understanding, in his first going forth, there in God's highest we too shall understand. For this reason we must keep our head turned steadily that way.

Cephas means a head. Understanding is the head of the soul. The common view is that love comes first. But the soundest arguments state plainly, and this is the truth, that the core of eternal life lies in knowledge rather than in love. This point our best teachers make: intellect, understanding, wants nothing in particular, and so it flies straight up to God. Love turns toward the one it loves, and finds there what is good. Intellect takes hold of the cause of the good. Honey is sweeter in itself than anything we make from it. Love takes God as being sweet, but intellect goes deeper and grasps God as being. 'Blessed are you, Simon Peter,' says our Lord. To the righteous person God gives divine being, and calls him by the name that fits that being. So he goes on to speak of 'my Father who is in heaven.' Among all names, none fits better than He-who-is. To recognise a thing and simply say 'it is' would seem strange; call it a stone, or a piece of wood, and we know what we mean. But suppose everything stripped away, taken off, pared down, and nothing left but the is: that is the special nature of his name. Our Lord promised his disciples, 'My followers will sit at my table in my Father's kingdom, and will eat my food and drink my drink, which my Father has prepared for me.' Happy is the one who has come to receive, with the Son, exactly where the Son receives. Right there we too will find our happiness, and there in his blessedness, there where he has his being, in that same ground his friends will all behold and draw their happiness from it. That is the table in God's kingdom. May we come to that table. So help us God.