{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/205/2050169.htm","path":"chr/ecf/205/2050169.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/205/2050169.htm","text":"But besides other things the action of Miriam the prophetess also gives rise to these surmisings of ours. Directly the sea was crossed she took in her hand a dry and sounding timbrel and conducted the women\u2019s dance 1474 . By this timbrel p. 365 the story may mean to imply virginity, as first perfected by Miriam; whom indeed I would believe to be a type of Mary the mother of God 1475 . Just as the timbrel emits a loud sound because it is devoid of all moisture and reduced to the highest degree of dryness, so has virginity a clear and ringing report amongst men because it repels from itself the vital sap of merely physical life. Thus, Miriam\u2019s timbrel being a dead thing, and virginity being a deadening of the bodily passions, it is perhaps not very far removed from the bounds of probability 1476 that Miriam was a virgin. However, we can but guess and surmise, we cannot clearly prove, that this was so, and that Miriam the prophetess led a dance of virgins, even though many of the learned have affirmed distinctly that she was unmarried, from the fact that the history makes no mention either of her marriage or of her being a mother; and surely she would have been named and known, not as \u201cthe sister of Aaron 1477 ,\u201d but from her husband, if she had had one; since the head of the woman is not the brother but the husband. But if, amongst a people with whom motherhood was sought after and classed as a blessing and regarded as a public duty, the grace of virginity, nevertheless, came to be regarded as a precious thing, how does it behove us to feel towards it, who do not \u201cjudge\u201d of the Divine blessings 1478 \u201caccording to the flesh\u201d? Indeed it has been revealed in the oracles of God, on what occasion to conceive and to bring forth is a good thing, and what species of fecundity was desired by God\u2019s saints; for both the Prophet Isaiah and the divine Apostle have made this clear and certain. The one cries, \u201cFrom fear of Thee, O Lord, have I conceived 1479 ;\u201d the other boasts that he is the parent of the largest family of any, bringing to the birth whole cities and nations; not the Corinthians and Galatians only whom by his travailings he moulded for the Lord, but all in the wide circuit from Jerusalem to Illyricum; his children filled the world, \u201cbegotten\u201d by him in Christ through the Gospel 1480 . In the same strain the womb of the Holy Virgin, which ministered to an Immaculate Birth, is pronounced blessed in the Gospel 1481 ; for that birth did not annul the Virginity, nor did the Virginity impede so great a birth. When the \u201cspirit of salvation 1482 ,\u201d as Isaiah names it, is being born, the willings of the flesh are useless. There is also a particular teaching of the Apostle, which harmonizes with this; viz. each man of us is a double man 1483 ; one the outwardly visible, whose natural fate it is to decay; the other perceptible only in the secret of the heart, yet capable of renovation. If this teaching is true,\u2014and it must be true 1484 because Wisdom is speaking there,\u2014then there is no absurdity in supposing a double marriage also which answers in every detail to either man; and, maybe, if one was to assert boldly that the body\u2019s virginity was the co-operator and the agent of the inward marriage, this assertion would not be much beside the probable fact.\n\u03b4\u03b9\u1fbd \u1f27\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f36\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u0398\u03b5\u03bf\u03c4\u03cc\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c4\u03c5\u03c0\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u039c\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03bd. These words are absent from the Munich Cod. i.e. the German; not from Vat. and Reg. Ambrose, Ep. 25, has \u201cQuid de alter\u00e2 Moysi sorore Mari\u00e2 loquar, qu\u00e6 f\u0153minei dux agminis pede transmisit pelagi freta,\u201d when speaking \u201cde glori\u00e2 virginitatis.\u201d\n365:1476 365:1477 365:1478\nS. John viii. 15. \u201cYe judge after the flesh.\u201d It is Gregory\u2019s manner to make such passing allusions to Scripture, and especially to S. Paul.\n365:1479\nGregory here quotes from LXX. Cf. Is. xxvi. 18, and also below, \u1f10\u03c4\u03ad\u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c5, \u1f43 \u1f10\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ae\u03c3\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b3\u1fc6\u03c2.\n365:1480 365:1481\nS. Luke xi. 27\n365:1482\nIs. xxvi. 18 (LXX.). See above. But R.V. \u201cWe have as it were brought forth wind: we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth.\u201d\n365:1483 365:1484\n\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f00\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u1f74\u03c2, \u03ba. \u03c4. \u03bb. So Codd. Reg. and Morell., for \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd. Gregory alludes to 2 Cor. xiii. 3.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. V: Ascetic and Moral Treatises.: Chapter XIX","type":"page"}