A curse on the tree; honor God from righteous labors

'a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through the faith.'

Palladius: But, my good man, if it seems good, I would rather we go on to something else learned from Christ. This is enough about the Law and the economy according to it.

Cyril: Say then whatever is dear to you; and for me too it is not among the things too hard to reach.

Palladius: The question is not very steep, or trackless. What is sought could be caught, I think, even without much labor, if Christ puts the divine light into us. Will we not, then, honor God with the bloodless offerings — we who have received the justification in faith and push out the worship in shadows and types?

Cyril: You speak well. For it is written, 'Honor the Lord from your righteous labors, and offer him firstfruits from your fruits of righteousness.' 'For with such sacrifices God is well pleased,' according to the voices of the saints.

Palladius: So it is idle, then, to be eager to sacrifice cattle and to fulfill the things brought in for us through the ancient commandment. For sheep-slaughters and frankincense, and besides these cakes, and oil-soaked fine flour, turtledoves and pigeons, were in that time the dedicated things of those who worshiped. But tell me why he did not from the beginning make these things dismissed, and is now seen laying down as law the things he delights in, and uncovering for us the ways of the spiritual sacrifice.

Cyril: Do you think, then, and dare to say, that the divine did not plan rightly at the beginning, and, as if it had missed the perfectly good, was only barely able to find the greater? Or that it chose then the things in shadows as adequately having what seemed good to it, and then suffered some love of novelty in our case, giving the preference to others, and making new for us a worship not long since decided?

Palladius: No indeed. That, I think, is nonsense. I would not even suppose that being able to miss in anything at all would follow him. I would learn with the greatest pleasure what it was that persuaded him to lay down as law, for those on the earth, those things then, and these things now.

Cyril: Your argument forces us to go back, as it were. Or did I not say that the Law was a tutor — that is, the trainer of those still infants? And to those not yet able to understand what the truly good is, and what the will of God would be — the perfect and well-pleasing — hinting it through a riddle? And as in—