The Serpent and H PAXIA in Gregory of Nyssa

Of all the ways in which the serpent has been employed in literature for moral purposes one of the most striking is found in two passages of Gregory of Nyssa in which the serpent appears once again as a symbol of pleasure, and in particular of its insidiousness. It is very easy for a serpent to creep into an opening, we are told, but the arrangement of its scales is such that it becomes very difficult for someone to pull it out by the tail; in the, same way pleasure enters easily into the soul, but since it has brought with it a whole train of different pleasures (like scales) it is now difficult to remove it by the last part to enter. The meaning of the two passages is quite clear, but the text has raised serious problems for the respective editors.