Be still and know; I will redeem you

Cyril went on: He will accuse us of the leisure and will upon this as an unholy thing, and the enemy of all rises up together with the other evil and unclean spirits, forcing them wildly to hold without stopping to fleshly and earthly uncleanness and to the things in the world, according to what is customary for each, and least allowing them to hold off from the well-worn cheap and low life, and making even this hard to get, so that the evil may not, by being too ready, be spat out and come to a glut? For this, I think, is what the demanding the quota of the brickmaking strongly, and depriving them of the things through which it would come easily — that is, the straw — shows. And we are somehow of a nature, then most of all, to seek the customary things most eagerly and most strongly, and to be burned toward them with hotter desires, when something in between should appear that of necessity carries us toward not being able to obtain them. And when a divine law is retraining the human mind from the more shameful things, a long longing then most of all slips in, calling toward the same things, and all but persuading us to cry out against the lawgiver; and of this again the scribes of the sons of Israel are a proof as in shadows, worn out in the works, and not seeing the easy road upon them; for they were in want of straw, and they accused Moses and Aaron very much of the cause brought upon them, saying they had become an occasion, and that they had endured a more grievous assault of the greed, for no other reason than that a longing for freedom had slipped into them, having been persuaded by their words.

Palladius said: Do you not think you are saying what is likely and true?

Cyril: Wholly, Palladius; for as soon as a useful desire and a good reasoning has perhaps stirred us toward the need to choose the things that seem good to God, and we have remembered a law toward piety, the enemy of all presses down more badly upon what is of a nature to harm, yet God draws out and saves. And so he said to Moses: 'Go, say to the sons of Israel, saying, I am the Lord, and I will lead you out from the domination of the Egyptians, and I will rescue you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with a high arm and a great judgment, and I will take you to myself for a people. And I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who led you out from the land of Egypt, from the domination of the Egyptians.' For when Satan turns us away, and raises us out of every good desire, and pushes aside the turnings toward this by whatever manners he can, the law of God urges toward a good will, showing the one who helps as unbroken, and whetting into good daring by the richest hope, and strengthening by faith, and assigning us to God, in truth savior and redeemer.

Palladius: How best of all a thing, and saving, is the faith, and the need to thirst to follow God!

Cyril: You have spoken rightly. And that the faith creeps toward the good as its end, you will know well, when our word has come to its own aim.