St Gregory of Nyssa: We need some subtlety of understanding and keenness of vision...
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Lessons by our Holy Fathers
What then? Some one will say, "How shall I imitate them(the saints), since I am not a Chaldaean as I remember Abraham was, nor was I nourished by the daughter of the Egyptian as Scripture teaches about Moses, and in general I do not have in these matters anything in my life corresponding to anyone of the ancients?
How shall I place myself in the same rank with one of them, when I do not know how to imitate anyone so far removed from me by the circumstances of his life?"
To him we reply that we do not consider being a Chaldaean a virtue or a vice, nor is anyone exiled from the life of virtue by living in Egypt or spending his life in Babylon, nor again has God been known to the esteemed individuals in Judaea only, nor is Zion, as people commonly think, the divine habitation.
We need some subtlety of understanding and keenness of vision to discern from the history how, by removing ourselves from such Chaldaeans and Egyptians and by escaping from such a Babylonian captivity, we shall embark on the blessed life.
St Gregory of Nyssa
THE LIFE OF MOSES
