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Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson
St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print
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44 Pages
Page 11
He who has fled from it gazes as from some high watch-tower on the prospect of humanity, and pities these slaves of vanity for their blindness in setting such a value on bodily well-being. He sees some distinguished person giving himself airs because of his public honours, and wealth, and power, and only laughs at the folly of being so puffed up. He gives to the years of human life the longest number, according to the Psalmist's computation, and then compares this atom-interval with the endless ages, and pities the vain glory of those who excite themselves for such low and petty and perishable things. What, indeed, amongst the things here is there enviable in that which so many strive for,--honour? What is gained by those who win it? The mortal remains mortal whether he is honoured or not. What good does the possessor of many acres gain in the end? Except that the foolish man thinks his own that which never belongs to him, ignorant seemingly in his greed that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof [1361] ," for "God is king of all the earth [1362] ." It is the passion of having which gives men a false title of lordship over that which can never belong to them. "The earth," says the wise Preacher, "abideth for ever [1363] ," ministering to every generation, first one, then another, that is born upon it; but men, though they are so little even their own masters, that they are brought into life without knowing it by their Maker's will, and before they wish are withdrawn from it, nevertheless in their excessive vanity think that they are her lords; that they, now born, now dying, rule that which remains continually. One who reflecting on this holds cheaply all that mankind prizes, whose only love is the divine life, because "all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass [1364] ," can never care for this grass which "to-day is and to-morrow is not"; studying the divine ways, he knows not only that human life has no fixity, but that the entire universe will not keep on its quiet course for ever; he neglects his existence here as an alien and a passing thing; for the Saviour said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away [1365] ," the whole of necessity awaits its refashioning. As long as he is "in this tabernacle [1366] ," exhibiting mortality, weighed down with this existence, he laments the lengthening of his sojourn in it; as the Psalmist-poet says in his heavenly songs. Truly, they live in darkness who sojourn in these living tabernacles; wherefore that preacher, groaning at the continuance of this sojourn, says, "Woe is me that my sojourn is prolonged [1367] ," and he attributes the cause of his dejection to "darkness"; for we know that darkness is called in the Hebrew language "kedar."
[1361] Ps. xxiv. 1; xlvii. 7.
[1362] Ps. xxiv. 1; xlvii. 7.
[1363] Eccles. i. 4.
[1364] 1 Pet. i. 24.
[1365] S. Matt. xxiv. 35.
[1366] 2 Cor. v. 4.
[1367] Ps. cxx. 5, 6 (LXX.).
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/nyssa/virginity.asp?pg=11
