Commentary on Ecclesiastes Chapter 7
By Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Imagine a sheer, steep crag, of reddish appearance below, extending into eternity; on top there is a ridge which looks down over a projecting rim into a bottomless chasm. Now imagine what a person would probably experience if he put his foot on the edge of this ridge which overlooks the chasm and found no solid footing nor anything to hold onto. This is what I think the soul experiences when it goes beyond its footing in material things in its quest for that which has no dimension and which exists from all eternity. For here there is nothing it can take hold of, neither place nor time, neither measure nor anything else; it does not allow our minds to approach. And thus the soul, slipping at every point from what cannot be grasped, becomes dizzy and perplexed and returns once again to what is connatural to it, content now to know merely this about the Transcendent, that it is completely different from the nature of things that the soul knows.
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