Chapter XIX.

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’s dance131    Exod. xv. 20.. By this timbrel 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 God132    δι᾽ ἧς οἶμαι καὶ τὴν Θεοτόκον προδιατυποῦσθαι Μαρίαν. These words are absent from the Munich Cod. i.e. the German; not from Vat. and Reg. Ambrose, Ep. 25, has “Quid de alterâ Moysi sorore Mariâ loquar, quæ fœminei dux agminis pede transmisit pelagi freta,” when speaking “de gloriâ virginitatis.”. 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’s 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 probability133    τοῦ εἰκότος…ἀπεσχοίνισται 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 “the sister of Aaron134    Exod. xv. 20.,” 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 “judge” of the Divine blessings135    S. John viii. 15. “Ye judge after the flesh.” It is Gregory’s manner to make such passing allusions to Scripture, and especially to S. Paul. “according to the flesh”? 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’s saints; for both the Prophet Isaiah and the divine Apostle have made this clear and certain. The one cries, “From fear of Thee, O Lord, have I conceived136    Gregory here quotes from LXX. Cf. Is. xxvi. 18, and also below, ἐτέκομεν πνεῦμα σωτηρίας σου, ὃ ἐποιήσαμεν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.;” 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, “begotten” by him in Christ through the Gospel137    1 Cor. iv. 15; Philemon 10.. In the same strain the womb of the Holy Virgin, which ministered to an Immaculate Birth, is pronounced blessed in the Gospel138    S. Luke xi. 27; for that birth did not annul the Virginity, nor did the Virginity impede so great a birth. When the “spirit of salvation139    Is. xxvi. 18 (LXX.). See above. But R.V. “We have as it were brought forth wind: we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth.”,” 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 man140    2 Cor. iv. 16.; 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,—and it must be true141    πάντως δὲ ἀληθὴς, κ. τ. λ. So Codd. Reg. and Morell., for πάντων. Gregory alludes to 2 Cor. xiii. 3. because Wisdom is speaking there,—then 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’s virginity was the co-operator and the agent of the inward marriage, this assertion would not be much beside the probable fact.

[19] Κεφάλαιον ιθʹΜνήμη Μαρίας τῆς ἀδελφῆς Ἀαρὼν ὡς ἀρξαμέ νης τούτου τοῦ κατορθώματος. Ἡμῖν δὲ δίδωσι τὰ τοιαῦτα ὑπονοεῖν καὶ ἡ προφῆτις Μαριὰμ εὐθέως μετὰ τὴν θάλασσαν ξηρὸν καὶ εὔηχον μεταχειριζομένη τὸ τύμπανον καὶ τοῦ χοροῦ τῶν γυναικῶν προπομπεύουσα: τάχα γὰρ διὰ τοῦ τυμπάνου τὴν παρθενίαν ἔοικεν ὁ λόγος αἰνίττεσθαι ὑπὸ τῆς Μαρίας πρώτης κατορθωθεῖσαν, δι' ἧς οἶμαι καὶ τὴν θεοτόκον προδιατυποῦσθαι Μαρίαν. Ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸ τύμπανον πολὺν τὸν ἦχον ἀφίησι, πάσης ἰκμάδος κεχωρισμένον καὶ ξηρὸν εἰς ἄκρον γενόμενον, οὕτω καὶ ἡ παρθενία λαμπρά τε καὶ περιβόητος γίνεται μηδὲν ἐν ἑαυτῇ τῆς ζωτικῆς ἰκμάδος κατὰ τὸν βίον τοῦτον προσδεχομένη. Εἰ οὖν νεκρὸν μὲν σῶμα τὸ τύμπανον, ὅπερ ἡ Μαριὰμ μετεχειρίζετο, νέκρωσις δὲ σώματος ἡ παρθενία ἐστί, τάχα οὐ πολὺ τοῦ εἰκότος τὸ παρθένον εἶναι τὴν προφῆτιν ἀπεσχοίνισται. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν στοχασμοῖς τισι καὶ ὑπονοίαις, οὐκ ἐκ φανερᾶς ἀποδείξεως οὕτως ἔχειν ὑπενοήσαμεν, τῷ τὴν προφῆτιν Μαριὰμ τοῦ χοροῦ τῶν παρθένων ἡγήσασθαι, εἰ καὶ πολλοὶ τῶν ἐπεσκεμμένων ἄγαμον αὐτὴν σαφῶς ἀπεφήναντο ἐκ τοῦ μηδαμοῦ τῆς ἱστορίας γάμον καὶ παιδοποιίαν αὐτῆς μνημονεύεσθαι. Ἦ γὰρ ἂν οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτῆς Ἀαρών, ἀλλ' ἐκ τοῦ ἀνδρός, εἴπερ ἦν, ὠνομάζετο καὶ ἐγνωρίζετο, ἐπειδὴ κεφαλὴ γυναικὸς οὐχ ὁ ἀδελφός, ἀλλ' ὁ ἀνὴρ προσηγόρευται. Καίτοι παρ' οἷς εὐλογίας μέρει τὸ παιδοποιεῖν ἐσπουδάζετο καὶ νόμιμον ἦν, εἰ φανείη τίμιον τὸ τῆς παρθενίας χάρισμα, ἐκ πολλοῦ τοῦ περιόντος ἡμεῖς ταύτην τὴν σπουδὴν ἀσπασώμεθα οἱ οὐ κατὰ σάρκα τῶν θείων λογίων, ἀλλὰ πνευματικῶς ἐξακούοντες. Ἀπεκαλύφθη γὰρ διὰ τῶν θείων λογίων τί ποτε τὸ κυοφορεῖν τε καὶ τίκτειν ἀγαθόν ἐστι, καὶ ποῖον εἶδος τῆς πολυτεκνίας παρὰ τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῦ θεοῦ ἐσπουδάζετο. Ὅ τε γὰρ προφήτης Ἡσαΐας καὶ ὁ θεῖος ἀπόστολος ἐναργῶς ταῦτα καὶ σαφῶς διεσήμαναν, ὁ μὲν λέγων: «Ἀπὸ τοῦ φόβου σου, κύριε, ἐν γαστρὶ ἐλάβομεν», ὁ δὲ καυχώμενος ἐπὶ τῷ πάντων γενέσθαι πολυγονώτατος ὡς καὶ πόλεις ὅλας καὶ ἔθνη κυοφορῆσαι, οὐ μόνον Κορινθίους καὶ Γαλάτας διὰ τῶν οἰκείων ὠδίνων εἰς φῶς ἀγαγὼν καὶ ἐν κυρίῳ μορφώσας, ἀλλὰ καὶ «ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐν κύκλῳ μέχρι τοῦ Ἰλλυρικοῦ καταπληρώσας» τῶν ἰδίων τέκνων τὴν οἰκουμένην, ἅπερ «ἐν Χριστῷ διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐγέννησεν». Οὕτω μακαρίζεται καὶ ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ ἡ τῆς ἁγίας παρθένου κοιλία ἡ τῷ ἀχράντῳ τόκῳ ὑπηρετήσασα, ὡς οὔτε τοῦ τόκου τὴν παρθενίαν λύσαντος οὔτε τῆς παρθενίας τῇ τοιαύτῃ κυοφορίᾳ ἐμποδὼν γενομένης: ὅπου γὰρ πνεῦμα σωτηρίας γεννᾶται, καθὼς Ἡσαΐας φησίν, ἄχρηστα πάντως τῆς σαρκὸς τὰ θελήματα.