Gregory of Nyssa — Commentary on Scripture

Exodus 3:5

He willingly shook off his royal dignity like so much dust which is stripped off by the stomping of the feet. He banished himself from human society for forty years and lived alone, focusing steadfastly in undistracted solitude on the contemplation of invisible things. After this he was illuminated by the inexpressible light and freed the lower part of his soul from the dead garment made of skin.

ON THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS 1.7.52

Exodus 14:22

Again, according to the view of the inspired Paul, the people itself, by passing through the Red Sea, proclaimed the good tidings of salvation by water. The people passed over, and the Egyptian king with his host was engulfed, and by these actions this sacrament was foretold. For even now, whensoever the people is in the water of regeneration, fleeing from Egypt, from the burden of sin, it is set free and saved. But the devil with his own servants (I mean, of course, the spirits of evil) is choked with grief and perishes, deeming the salvation of men to be his own misfortune.

ON THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

Exodus 14:27

But after that the surface of the sea became one again, and the temporary gap was flooded over. So this remains a unique event which occurred in such a way that the marvel did not lose credibility because of the passage of time, since it continues to be testified to by visible traces. That is the way the affair of the marshy lake is both described and shown.

THE LIFE OF GREGORY THE WONDERWORKER 7.55

Exodus 15:20

This reminds us that the prophetess, Miriam, immediately after the crossing of the sea, took a dry, tuneful “tambourine in her hand” and led a chorus of women. Perhaps by the tambourine Scripture means to suggest the virginity of the first Mary, who was, I think, the prototype of Mary the mother of God. For as the tambourine produces a loud sound, having no moisture in it and being quite dry, so also virginity is clear and noised abroad and has nothing in itself of the life-preserving moisture of this life.

On Virginity 19

Exodus 20:3

Again, he who says “you shall never worship a strange god” forbids us to worship another god, and the strange god is so called in contradistinction to our own God. Who then is our own God? Clearly, the true God. And who is the strange god? Surely, he who is alien from the nature of the true God. If therefore our own God is the true God, and if, as the heretics say, the only-begotten God is not of the nature of the true God, he is a strange God and not our God.

ON THE FAITH

Exodus 33:20

He would not have shown himself to his servant if the sight were such as to bring the desire of the beholder to an end, since the true sight of God consists in this, that the one who looks up to God never ceases in that desire. For he says, “You cannot see my face, for man cannot see me and live.”Scripture does not indicate that this causes the death of those who look, for how would the face of life ever be the cause of death to those who approach it? On the contrary, the divine is by its nature life-giving. Yet it is the characteristic of the divine nature to transcend all characteristics. Therefore he who thinks God is something to be known does not have life, because he has turned from true being to what he considers by sense perception to have being.

LIFE OF MOSES 2.233-34

Exodus 35:30

For we are not wrong in saying just the same of Bezalel, that being entrusted by Moses with the building of the tabernacle, he became the constructor of those things there mentioned. He would not have taken the work in hand had he not previously acquired his knowledge by divine inspiration. He ventured upon the undertaking on Moses’ entrusting him with its execution. Accordingly the term entrusted suggests that his office and power in creation came to him as something adventitious, in the sense that before he was entrusted with that commission he had neither the will nor the power to act. But when he received authority to execute the works and power sufficient for the works, then he became the artificer of things that are, the power allotted to him on high being, as Eunomius says, sufficient for the purpose.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 11.5