Young and old, flocks and herds

Cyril went on: For they, as it seems, are very hard and wholly unsoftened, and late and barely would they still go, at least into a moderate sense of the divine anger; but he is lifted above in a wildness beyond word, and hardened to the utmost. For it is written that 'His heart has been fixed like a stone, and he has stood like an unhammered anvil.' So when a very great outcry had come to be upon him, he barely said to those around Moses: 'Go and worship the Lord your God. But who also are those who go?' And Moses says: 'With our young men and our elders we will go, with our sons and our daughters, and our sheep, and our oxen; for it is the feast of the Lord our God. And he said to them: Let the Lord be with you, in that I send you out — not also your household stuff? See, that evil is set before you. Not so; but let the men go, and worship God, for this you yourselves seek.' Understand then, my friend, that Moses said the breaking-up must be made in the best way; but he says, not so; and that he will let them go in part, and that what is left must as it were be a hostage for the returns of those who set out, the household stuff itself also remaining in Egypt. For let every young man of yours go, he says; and every race in its primes. But the divine Moses strongly affirms that it is fitting to set out very well, nothing having been overlooked; but together with those in youth and in old age, with sons and daughters, and herds of oxen, and other flocks. For it is fitting for those who are eager to take for themselves the true freedom to love to be set free from the evils in the world, and to go a path upon virtues, leaving no remnant at all of their own soul and mind, through which they would again be carried under the greeds of the evil one. And the divine law calls to this young men and virgins, elders with younger, according to the Singer's voice, and every kind of the age understood in Christ. To whom the divine John also called, saying: 'I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father; I have written to you, fathers, because you have known him from the beginning; I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have conquered the evil one.' And they would also be, in another way, young men a type of courage, and elders of prudence, and sons and daughters of the infancy understood in Christ; for with courage, and prudence, and the simplicity according to God, we shall set out from sin into sanctification. 'Take heart,' he says, 'and let your heart be strengthened.' And again: 'Become prudent as the serpents, and simple as the doves.' And having said that sheep and oxen run off together, he would mark, I think, that it is fitting not even to let go to Satan the bodily and less reasonable motions in us. And so the divine Paul writes: 'For as you presented your members slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members slaves to righteousness unto sanctification.'