Gregory of Nyssa — Commentary on Scripture

Proverbs 1:6

It is universally admitted that the name of “proverb,” in its scriptural use, is not applied with regard to the evident sense but is used with a view to some hidden meaning, as the Gospel thus gives the name of “proverbs” to dark and obscure sayings. So the “proverb,” if one were to set forth the interpretation of the name by a definition, is a form of speech which, by means of one set of ideas immediately presented, points to something else which is hidden. Or [it is] a form of speech which does not point out the aim of the thought directly but gives its instruction by an indirect signification.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3:2

Proverbs 4:6-8

If anyone is going to obey Solomon and take true wisdom as the companion and sharer of his life, concerning which he says, “Love her, and she will safeguard you,” and “Honor her, in order that she may embrace you,” he will worthily prepare himself for this longing, keeping festival in a pure garment, rejoicing with those in this marriage, in order not to be rejected because of being clothed as a married person.It is clear that the eagerness for this kind of marriage is common to men and women alike, for since, as the apostle says, “There is neither male nor female,” and Christ is all things for all human beings, the true lover of wisdom has as his goal the divine One who is true wisdom, and the soul, clinging to its incorruptible bridegroom, has a love of true wisdom which is God. Now, what spiritual marriage is and toward what goal the pure and divine love looks has been sufficiently revealed in what we have said before.

ON VIRGINITY 20

Proverbs 4:18

The person who removes himself from all hatred and fleshly odor and rises above all low and earthbound things, having ascended higher than the whole earth in his aforementioned flight, will find the only thing that is worth longing for. Having come close to beauty, he will become beautiful himself. Through his participation in the true light, he will himself be in a state of brightness and illumination. For just as at night the multitudinous glowing objects of the air which certain people call “shooting stars” … just as this earthly air, when it is forced upwards by the wind, becomes light-like, being changed in the clarity of the ether, so it is with the mind of man. After leaving this muddy and dusty life, it is purified through the power of the Spirit, becomes light-like, and is mixed with the true and lofty purity, and glows and is filled with rays and becomes light in accordance with the promise of the Lord who declared that the just will shine like the sun.

ON VIRGINITY 11

Proverbs 8:22

The phrase “created me” refers not to the divine and the uncompounded but, as has been said, to that which had been assumed, in accordance with the divine plan, from our created nature.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3:1.50

Proverbs 9:1

We say, therefore, that when he said in his previous discourse that wisdom built a house for itself, he is speaking enigmatically about the formation of the Lord’s flesh. For true wisdom did not live in someone else’s building but built a home for itself from the Virgin’s body.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3:1.44

Proverbs 11:22

Let eagerness for virginity be put down as the foundation for the life of virtue, but let there be built upon this foundation all the products of virtue. If this is believed to be precious and befitting to God, as it is, but one’s whole life does not conform to it and is stained by the rest of the soul’s disorder, then this is “the golden ring in the swine’s snout” or the pearl trampled under the feet of the swine.

ON VIRGINITY 18

Proverbs 15:19

There are those who are called the slothful in the book of Wisdom, who strew their path with thorns, who consider harmful to the soul a zeal for deeds in keeping with the commandments of God, the demurrers against the apostolic injunctions, who do not eat their own bread with dignity, but, fawning on others, make idleness the art of life. Then, there are the dreamers who consider the deceits of dreams more trustworthy than the teachings of the Gospels, calling fantasies revelations. Apart from these, there are those who stay in their own houses, and still others who consider being unsociable and brutish a virtue without recognizing the command to love and without knowing the fruit of long-suffering and humility.

ON VIRGINITY 23

Proverbs 20:9

Whose soul, then, is pure from stain? How has anyone not been struck by vanity or been trodden down by the foot of pride? Whose hand has never been touched by sin? Whose feet have never run toward evil? Who has not been polluted by a roving eye or been defiled by an undisciplined ear? Whose taste has never been preoccupied by its enjoyment, whose heart has remained unmoved by vain emotions?

ON THE LORD’S PRAYER 5

Proverbs 27:2

If we did anything in those struggles for our religion that redounds to our honor in the telling, wisdom commands us to leave it to others to tell. “Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth.” And it is this very thing that our omniscient friend has not been conscious of in devoting the larger half of his book to self-glorification.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 1:12

Proverbs 30:3-4

It is not mere human wisdom that is claimed for himself by Solomon, who says, “God has taught me wisdom,” and who, where he says, “all my words are spoken from God,” refers to God all that is spoken by himself.

AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3:2

Proverbs 31:6

Console each other with the following words. It is a good medicine that [Solomon] has for sorrow; for he bids wine be given to the sorrowful. He says this to us, the laborers in the vineyard, “Give,” therefore, “your wine to those that are in sorrow,” not that wine which produces drunkenness, plots against the senses and destroys the body, but such as gladdens the heart, the wine which the prophet recommends when he says, “Wine makes glad the heart of man.” Pledge each other in that liquor undiluted and with the unstinted goblets of the word, that thus our grief may be turned to joy and gladness, by the grace of the only-begotten Son of God, through whom be glory to God, even the Father, for ever and ever. Amen.

FUNERAL ORATION ON MELETIUS