From Saint Gregory’s same oration On
Pascha:
Having put to death the members
that are on the earth, and imitating the cincture of John, the
desert-dweller and forerunner and great herald of the truth.
The one who imitates the “cincture” of
John is he who by the power of reason tightly binds the fecundity of his soul
in actual practice informed by knowledge, thereby preserving it from diffusion
in matter. A “desert-dweller” is he [1365D] whose habit of mind is purified of
the passions. A “forerunner” [GK: Προδορομος]is
he who through his genuine repentance herald the righteousness that follows it,
and through his outward virtue herald the knowledge that eventually will
descend upon both. A “great herald of the truth” is the man whose own life
confirms the word of teaching spoken by his mouth. [1368A] (Maximus the
Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 49, in On Difficulties in the Church
Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton Oaks
Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 2:223)
Further Reading: