or one consecrated to God; probably
she was a deaconess.

Footnotes:
1. [Greek: {apstzen eaostzian}], Naz. {}.

APPENDIX

ON

THE WRITINGS OF ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA wrote many learned works extant in three volumes in
folio, published by the learned Jesuit, Fronto le Duc, at Paris, an.
1615 and 1638. They are eternal monuments of this father's great zeal,
piety, and eloquence. Photius commends his diction, as surpassing that
of all other rhetoricians, in perspicuity, elegance, and a pleasing turn
of expression, and says, that in the beauty and sweetness of his
eloquence, and the copiousness of his arguments in his polemic works
against Eunomius, he far outwent the rest who handled the same subjects.
He wrote many commentaries on holy scripture. The first is his
Hexaemeron, or book on the six days' work of the creation of the world.
It is a supplement to his brother Basil's work on the same subject, who
had omitted the obscurer questions, above the reach of the vulgar, to
whom he preached. Gregory filled up that deficiency, at the request of
many learned men, with an accuracy that became the brother of the great
Basil. He shows in this work a great knowledge of philosophy. He
finishes it by saying, The widow that offered her two mites did not
hinder the magnificent presents of the rich, nor did they who offered
skins, wood, and goats' hair towards the tabernacle, hinder those who
could give gold, silver, and precious stones. "I shall be happy," says
he, "if I can present hairs; and shall rejoice to see others add
ornaments of purple, or gold tissue." His book, On the Workmanship of
Man, may be looked upon as a continuation of the former, though it was
written first. He shows it was suitable that man, being made to command
in quality of king all this lower creation, should find his palace
already adorned, and that other things should be created before he
appeared who was to be the spectator of the miracles of the Omnipotent.
His frame is so admirable, his nature so excellent, that the whole
Blessed Trinity proceeds as it were by a council, to his formation. He
is a king, by his superiority and command over all other creatures by
his gift of reason; is part spiritual, by which he can unite himself to
God; part material, by which he has it in his power to use and even
enslave himself to creatures. Virtue is his purple garment, immortality
his sceptre, and eternal glory his crown. His resemblan