Jethro’s counsel; Midianite as nations coming to the one God

God and his law. And Moses’ father-in-law said to him: You are not doing this word rightly; you will not be able to do it alone. And now listen to me, and I will counsel you, and God will be with you. Become you to the people the things toward God, and you will bring up their words toward God, and you will testify to them the ordinances of God and his law, and you will signal to them the ways in which they will walk in them, and the works which they will do. And you look out for yourself from all the people powerful men, he says, and they will judge the people.’ And after other things again: ‘And Moses heard,’ it says, ‘his father-in-law’s voice, and did as many things as he said to him.’

Palladius: Come then again to me, and taking each in part, clarify.

Cyril: Or do you not say the Midianite is foreign-born and from the nations? For he did not spring from Abraham’s root; and he was also otherwise a sacrificer and servant of the will-worship then customarily practiced upon the earth. For they were worshiping, as much account has it, and were thinking among themselves, to a most high God just as indeed also Melchizedek; yet they were also receiving perhaps other gods, numbering with him the exceptional of the creatures—earth and heaven, sun and moon, and the more notable of the stars; and an ancient fault is the corruption and wandering upon this, and it extends even until now and stretches on. For some of those in Phoenicia and Palestine still raving think thus, who name themselves god-fearing, yet walk a middle path of religion, cleaving purely neither to the Jews’ customs nor to the Greeks’, but as it were tossed and divided unto both. And when those from Israel once chose to think thus the prophet Elijah was rebuking saying: ‘Until when will you limp upon both the hams? either Baal, Baal, or to God, God.’ Jethro therefore was also, as is likely, administering some such manner of religion. Who when he knew the things come to be from God toward salvation of those from Israel, being charmed by august and admirable narrations, arrives with all house and all kin toward the holy Moses; who when he saw, received him gladly and has brought him into his own tent. And he narrates more precisely the achievements through the divine strength very well. And the wonder-works beyond every word. For the multitude of those wandering is called unto a change of mind as toward God—I mean the nations—first from hear-sayings which someone might make concerning God, then thus themselves through themselves as it were deserting toward the divine law—that is, the catechesis through holy letter. So that it also runs into the first tent. For the law is introductory; then, having been persuaded by the more ancient narrations, it moves over also unto choosing thereafter to think that God is one and alone, and indeed also unto the need to bear fruit to him. For the Midianite, having heard Moses’ narration, ‘Now I have known,’ he says, that the Lord is great beyond all the gods;