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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 36
The work of true sobriety is the same; from all pursuits and habits to choose that which is pure and improving, rejecting in every case that which does not seem likely to be useful, and letting it go back into the universal and secular life, called "the sea [1467] ," in the imagery of the Parable. The Psalmist [1468] also, when expounding the doctrine of a full confession [1469] , calls this restless suffering tumultuous life, "waters coming in even unto the soul," "depths of waters," and a "hurricane"; in which sea indeed every rebellious thought sinks, as the Egyptian did, with a stone's weight into the deeps [1470] . But all in us that is dear to God, and has a piercing insight into the truth (called "Israel" in the narrative), passes, but that alone, over that sea as if it were dry land, and is never reached by the bitterness and the brine of life's billows. Thus, typically, under the leadership of the Law (for Moses was a type of the Law that was coming) Israel passes unwetted over that sea, while the Egyptian who crosses in her track is overwhelmed. Each fares according to the disposition which he carries with him; one walks lightly enough, the other is dragged into the deep water. For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in her way "fly like clouds [1471] ," as Isaiah says, "and as doves with their young ones"; but sin is a heavy affair, "sitting," as another of the prophets says, "upon a talent of lead [1472] ." If, however, this reading of the history appears to any forced and inapplicable, and the miracle at the Red Sea does not present itself to him as written for our profit, let him listen to the Apostle: "Now all these things happened unto them for types, and they are written for our admonition [1473] ."
[1467] S. Matt. xiii. 47, 48.
[1468] Ps. lxix. 1.
[1469] didaskalian exomologeseos huphegoumenos
[1470] Exod. xv. 10.
[1471] Is. lx. 8. The LXX. has peristeran sun neossois.
[1472] Zech. v. 7. "this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah:" epi meson tou metrou (LXX.). Origen and Jerome as well as Gregory make her sit upon the lead itself. Vatablus explains that the lead was in an amphora.
[1473] 1 Cor. x. 11; Rom. xv. 6.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/nyssa/virginity.asp?pg=36
