Strengthen weak hands; flat-nose = poor discernment; cut-ear = hard-hearing; crush of foot/hand

Cyril: ‘Be strong, hands slackened, and knees paralyzed.’ (Isaiah 35:3) And Christ himself also was blaming the peoples of the Jews, as not enduring to make the tracks upon him straight, but rather turned out unto the lame, and slipped from the reasonings of rightness. ‘For alien sons,’ (1 Thessalonians 5:21–22) he says, ‘lied to me; alien sons grew old, and they limped from their paths.’ (Psalm 18:44–45) So then in equal to one another and very near, as in likeness of passions, are lameness of mind and blindness; the one bringing down unto uselessness the precious as in understanding, the other the well-strong as in good works. And besides these the law said the flat-nosed must be made rejectable, and with him the ear-cut. And one might fit upon them such a word. For by the smelling senses both the foul-smelling and most fragrant are tested, of as many as are in such a nature, the one allotted to smell, I mean; and very discerning is the sense, both of what knows how to delight, and of what not somehow thus, but having otherwise, and as in a worse share; and human mind at least, if it should somehow have completely in the things according to itself, goes well-strongly unto being able to discern the quality of the things, and will make the accurate assay upon each, and like some excellent banker testing all things, and holding the good, and abstaining from every form of evil, according to what has been written, will be well-reputed very much. For it adulterates the as it were shameful and counterfeit of the things done, and would easily accept the beneficial and better. So then snub-nosedness makes clear the not very healthy and completely having as in sense, according to which discerning each of the things best, apportioning the better vote to the best, and the worse to the more shameful, we both are and have been named wise and keen-minded, and what not of such things. For smell as it were leaping up into mind is as it were a real quality of the things thought by it. And the having been cut-off of the ear would under-show, as at least it seems to me, the hard-hearing. For with hearing cut-off, I at least would grant the passion to be the from-part obedient, and not wholly well-reined unto obedience, or else the not being able blamelessly to hear the sacred, especially writings, which indeed some also do, most counsel-lessly turning aside the well-hearing of the soul unto things not fitting. And these would be, according to the voice of all-wise Paul, those itching the hearing, and turning it away from the truth, and lying upon spirits of error, and having inclined unto profane empty-voices. So then the ear-cut would under-show the maiming of the inward and intelligible hearing, and the corruption from rightness unto the worse. But also if somehow a crushing of foot or crushing of hand should be seen present for someone, let him withdraw, he says, and be ranked in equal with the others, this persuading to think the one somehow crushed in foot or hand, yet not altogether sick, (2 Timothy 4:3–4) (Leviticus 21:18–19)