Daniel Alexander Apatiga
Prof. Lori Branch
Engl: 3140, Sect. 1
Oct. 23rd, 2016
Gregory of Nyssa and What We May Infer about his
Interpretive Community
Gregory
of Nyssa (or G.O.N.) offers many interpretations of the divine from the life of
Moses. This suggests that the Christian
interpretive community he belonged to was interested in unpacking the deeply hidden
symbology from within the Scriptures of Exodus, whose story of Moses parallels
in many ways the gospels that narrate the life of Jesus. At that time, Christians were less likely to
have been born Jews than they had been at the founding of Christianity, and so
they would not necessarily have been raised to be knowledgeable about Moses’s
life. This was because a limited number
of manuscripts existed and the printing press had not been invented by
Gutenberg yet (which was in 1440 C.E.). Also, legally, only monks and literate members
of church could have access to the manuscripts transcribed from the Septugint
L.X.X. of the stories of Moses. Finally,
the genealogy of Christianity could finally trace itself back thousands of
years to the time of Moses when he contributed to its authority. For these reasons, G.O.N. may have spread
the idea that Moses was a monumental figure, though not the son of God, for
those who might be converted to Christian ideology from paganism.
A
problem existed in the early Christian community: was the divine something
magical, or was it explainable? G.O.N.
believed that the divine could not be mistaken as being finite or limited in
nature—it was infinitely “good.” That is
because he believed evil was limited by virtue, which is good, and the divine
is good (G.O.N., page 5). He defends his
reasoning by examining the symbology of Moses’ miracles: the finding of Moses
by the daughter of the Pharoah at the river bank; the symbol of the staff
becoming a snake and then eating the other staffs that became snakes; how the
plagues were proverbial in symbology; why the tall mountain was high where
Moses communicated with God; how he defined a foreigner and how he thought Christians
should deal with them; how we might learn about fleeing from battle and the
bigger picture; what paradoxes were encountered when seeking the divine; and what
are the problems with pleasure seeking? In
a macroscopic parallel sort of way, Jesus was a lot like Moses in that his
father was absent from his life. G.O.N.
rightly notices that “…[Moses] did not choose the things considered glorious by
the pagans, nor did he any longer recognize as his mother that wise woman by
whom he had been adopted, but he returned to his natural mother and attached
himself to his own kinsmen” (G.O.N., page 9).
Next, the symbol of the staff had been missed, according to G.O.N.. His interpretation suggests that the staff
itself was solid and lifeless, and when it became a snake it was like the
serpent in the story of Adam and Eve. So
why would the divine provide something like this to Moses? G.O.N. believed that conquering evil requires
evil, and Moses showed this by having Moses’ staff that became a snake eat the
other snakes that the pagan sorcerers conjured.
Jesus, though in many ways was an impressive prophet in stature who did
not deal with battles and wars the same way that Moses did, because even though
he lost the battle of his life, he won the war without lifting a finger. In that way, Moses was at first gentle to his
oppressers. Satirically, G.O.N. possibly
recognized that the Kings and despots in power wanted a bloodier and a literal
alternative than what Jesus taught. But
without Moses, Jesus would not have been possible. Next, the plague of the frogs is symbolic in
itself because “being a man by nature and becoming a beast by passion, this
kind of person exhibits an amphibious form of life ambiguous in nature. In addition, one will also find the evidences
of such an illness not only on the bed, but also on the table and in the
storeroom and throughout the house” (G.O.N., page 50). Jesus never used a plague against his enemies except
in his parable against the priests of the synagogue, perhaps, and the use of
magic in curing the sick and diseased (since we do not know how he accomplished
those tasks other than from the divine), which were by comparison, harmless but
hurtful to himself. G.O.N. further
states, “let us not draw the conclusion that these distresses upon those who
deserved them came directly from God, but rather let us observe that each man
makes his own plagues when through his own free will he inclines toward these
painful experiences” (G.O.N., page 55). The
moral of the death of the newborn, a plague, is according to G.O.N., “when
through virtue one comes to grips with any evil, he must completely destroy the
first beginnings of evil (G.O.N., page 57).
On the same page, he says of the Pharoah’s murderous intent, “neither of
these things would develop of itself, but anger produces murder and lust
produces adultery” that were later inscribed by the divine as commandments,
notably. Regarding the lamb’s blood that
was painted on top of each doorway of the Israelites, G.O.N. argues that “no
opposition from the blood resists his entrance: that is to say, faith in Christ
does not ally itself with those of such a disposition” (G.O.N., page 59). On the same page and rather darkly, G.O.N.
states of the divine that “…the firstfruits of the Egyptian children [must be
destroyed] so that evil, in being destroyed at its beginning, might come to an
end.” However, Jesus would not have made such a logical leap. I have issues with the lesson that G.O.N.
extrapolates here, since the Holocaust of the Jews made by Nazi Germany was
precisely because of this logic. Lastly,
the eleventh plague—the collapsing of the Red sea on the chariots is in itself
symbolic for a different reason: “if… we by ourselves are too weak to give the
victory to what is righteous, since the bad is stronger in its attacks and
rejects the rule of truth, we must flee as quickly as possible (in accordance
with the historical example) from the conflict to the greater and higher
teaching of the mysteries” and he later states, “…let us reprove the teachers
of evil for their wicked use of instruction”
(G.O.N., page 36). Jesus, though,
did not seek the consequence of this despite being a Jew, and was condemned to
his death by crucifixion, resurrection, and later ascension into heaven. Next, G.O.N. believed that the concept of a
foreigner or an alien should be limited to those who do not believe in the word
of Christ (aka. Christians), because the concept of the other is a person who
is a non-believer. This is directly from the ten commandments that defined
worshipers of the divine as having only one God. Next, a paradox exists when seeking the
divine: G.O.N. states that “…every concept which comes from some comprehensible
image by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the divine nature
constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God” (G.O.N., page 81). Finally, pleasure seeking, according to
G.O.N., should be abhorred, because “…the person who lacks moderation is a
libertine, and he who goes beyond moderation has his conscience branded…”
(G.O.N., page 121).
Like Jesus, Moses
sought truth for it is “…always the same, neither increasing nor diminishing,
immutable to all change whether to better or to worse (for it is far removed
from the inferior and it has no superior), standing in need of nothing else,
alone desirable, participated in by all but not lessened by their
participation---this is truly real being” (G.O.N., page 38). Yet, in terms of the search for perfection,
which is good, and thus, a part of the divine, Moses differs from Jesus. If we believe G.O.N.’s interpretation of the
life of Moses, because the apostle Mathew states Jesus as saying, ‘Therefore be
perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect’” (G.O.N., page 6). On that same page, G.O.N. states “…the
perfection of human nature consists perhaps in its very growth in goodness.” G.O.N. believed that the life of Jesus
perhaps could not be interpreted without first interpreting the life of Moses.
Gregory of Nyssa. The Life of Moses. HarperCollins, 2006. Print.
