4.  Who is there who knows not the Abraham and Sarah of these our latter days, Gregory and Nonna his wife?  For it is not well to omit the incitement to virtue of mentioning their names.  He has been justified by faith, she has dwelt with him who is faithful; he beyond all hope has been the father of many nations,1    Rom. iv. 18. she has spiritually travailed in their birth; he escaped from the bondage of his father’s gods,2    His father’s gods.  These words, together with the reference to idols and idolators in § 5 and the lines (Poem, Hist. I. i. 123–4, tome 2. p. 636) ὑπ᾽ εἰδώλοις πάρος ἦεν ζώων have led some writers (esp. Ullmann and Clericus) to attribute the worship of idols to the Hypsistarii, and Clémencet points out that ζώων is only the Ep. and Ion. partic. of ζάω, and does not mean “of animals.”  The weakness of a reliance on a poetical expression is shown in Dict. Christ. Biog.  Here the words are the mystical application of the actual experience of Abraham, and ἐίδωλον does not necessarily connote material idols.  It is applied by S. Greg. Nyssen, Orat. funebr. de Placilla, p. 965. B (ed. 1615) to the worship of Jesus Christ by the Arians.  Cf. Introd. to Orat. xviii. she is the daughter as well as the mother of the free; he went out from kindred and home for the sake of the land of promise,3    Gen. xii. 1; Heb. xi. 8. she was the occasion of his exile; for on this head alone I venture to claim for her an honour higher than that of Sarah; he set forth on so noble a pilgrimage, she readily shared with him in its toils; he gave himself to the Lord, she both called her husband lord and regarded him as such, and in part was thereby justified; whose was the promise, from whom, as far as in them lay, was born Isaac, and whose was the gift.

Δʹ. Τίς οὖν οὐκ οἶδε τὸν νέον ἡμῶν Ἀβραὰμ, καὶ τὴν ἐφ' ἡμῶν Σάῤῥαν; Γρηγόριον λέγω καὶ Νόνναν, τὴν τοῦδε σύζυγον (καλὸν γὰρ μηδὲ τὰ ὀνόματα παρελθεῖν, ὡς ἀρετῆς παράκλησιν), τὸν πίστει δικαιωθέντα, καὶ τὴν τῷ πιστῷ συνοικήσασαν: τὸν πατέρα πολλῶν ἐθνῶν παρ' ἐλπίδα, καὶ τὴν πνευματικῶς ὠδίνουσαν: τὸν φυγόντα πατρῴων θεῶν δουλείαν, καὶ τὴν θυγατέρα καὶ μητέρα τῶν ἐλευθέρων: τὸν ἐξελθόντα συγγενείας καὶ οἴκου διὰ τὴν γῆν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ἐκδημίας (τοῦτο γὰρ ἐκείνῃ μόνον, ἵνα τι τολμήσω, καὶ ὑπὲρ τὴν Σάῤῥαν): τὸν παροικήσαντα καλῶς, καὶ τὴν προθύμως συμπαροικήσασαν: τὸν τῷ Κυρίῳ προσθέμενον, καὶ τὴν κύριον τὸν ἑαυτῆς ἄνδρα καὶ προσαγορεύουσαν καὶ νομίζουσαν, καὶ μέρος τι διὰ τοῦτο δικαιωθεῖσαν: ὧν ἡ ἐπαγγελία, καὶ ὧν ὁ Ἰσαὰκ, ὅσον τὸ ἐπ' αὐτοῖς, καὶ ὧν τὸ δώρημα.