7. Crossing the Desert (The Life of Moses, 365A-D; ed.
FROM GLORY TO GLORY
ing have been ignorant of the commandments of the Law and have mixed the old leaven of sin with their new life, and even after passing through the waters they drag after them the army of the Egyptians, which lives with them in their actions. Thus die man who before receiving the grace of baptism has become rich by robbery or injustice, or has ac quired property by perjury, or has been living with a woman in sin, or has dared to perform some forbidden act—does he think that even though he has been baptized, if he con tinues to enjoy what he has wrongfully possessed, he is de livered from the slavery of sin ? He does not realize that he is still cowering before the tyrants of evil. Indeed, incontinence is a cruel, insane tyrant for the mind that is subject to it, and pleasures are the scourges with which it whips its victims. A similar tyrant is avarice, that never gives its slave any rest; no matter how hard he may work to fulfill his master's orders, the desire for acquisition drives him on more and more. And similarly for all the other evils that flow from sin we can enumerate as many masters and tyrants. Whoever is enslaved to them, even though he may have passed through the waters, has not, in my view, so much as come in contact with the mystic water, whose function is the annihilation of the evil tyrants.
7. Crossing the Desert (The Life of Moses, 365A-D; ed.
Danielou, ii. 13 0-134) He who has crossed the sea, as I have explained it, and has seen the Egyptian army perish, as we have contemplated it, no longer looks only to Moses as the staff-bearer of virtue, but
GREGORY OF NYSSA
puts his trust primarily in God, as the text tells us, obeying Moses as His servant (Exod. 14.31). And we see the same thing happening with those who have truly passed through the water: having offered themselves to God they also show obedience and submission to those who serve God through the priesthood, as the Apostle bids us (Heb. 13.17).
After crossing the sea there followed a three day's march, and during this time they encamped in a place where they found water which they could not at first drink because of its bitter taste (Exod. 15.23). But the wood that Moses cast into the water made it a pleasant drink for them in their thirst. The text corresponds with what actually happens: when a man has given up the Egyptian pleasures to which he had been enslaved before crossing the water, his life seems at first bitter and disagreeable now that his pleasures have been taken away. But once the wood is cast into the waters, that is, once he unites himself to the mystery of the resurrection, which had its beginning in the wood (and by the wood here, you surely understand the Cross), then the life of virtue be comes sweeter and more refreshing than all the sweetness that makes the sense tingle with pleasure, because it has been seasoned by our hope in the things to come.
The next stopping place, made pleasant by springs and palm trees, gave the travellers rest from their fatigue (Exod.
15.27). There were twelve springs of water supplying a fine, pure drink, and seventy large, high-crested palm-trees which the passage of the years had raised high towards the heavens.
Now what do we find here as we follow the course of the text ? It is this: that the mystery of the wood, which had made the water of virtue a pleasant drink for the thirsty, leads us to the twelve springs and the seventy palm-trees, that is, to