Christ silences true-speaking demons; Leviticus against mediums
they should sometime wish to bring forward the truth untrodden by them and most unaccustomed.
Palladius: And how do you say?
Cyril: Or do you not hear the holy evangelists having written that the demons, crying out something piercing and great, were coming toward Christ: ‘Ah, what to us and to you, Jesus Nazarene? You have come to destroy us; we know who you are, the Holy One of God. Yet he rebuking,’ it says, ‘was not allowing them to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ.’ And yet why ever—for according to likelihood someone might hesitate—did Christ rebuke those crying out the true? Yet the thing done was somehow beneficial unto us. For that one must not cling to the words from beside those ones, even if they should wish to cry out the truth itself, and to say the things clearly genuine, we are taught through this; for weaving sometimes the lie with the truth, they harm the hearers, not in another manner, I think, than as one might watch those who by mixture of honey take away the perception of bitter things, and by intertwining of sweet things wish to steal what sometimes grieves.
Palladius: Altogether slippery then is attending to the oracle-speakers’ trickings.
Cyril: God honors the matter with death, and writes it among the last evils. And he said thus in Leviticus: ‘And a soul which should follow after ventriloquists or enchanters, so as to whore after them, I will set my face upon that soul, and I will destroy it from its people; and you will be holy, because I am holy—Lord your God.’ And after other things again: ‘And a man or woman who should become among them a ventriloquist or enchanter, with death let them be put to death, and with stones stone them; they are liable.’ For first he refuses that any must love to follow the buffoon star-prophecies, or then necromancies, saying the matter is as far as possible from holy-fitting citizenship, and altogether unfitting for those clinging to God; and he defines death of the second, and says even they themselves are liable; not allowing pity to be allotted from our side to those who have already been driven unto this baseness, as to become a snare of death, and a hunt of guiltless souls, and a door of ruin, and a trapdoor of Hades, and what not of such evils? Yet I think somehow it is wise and unalloyed to understand that God would not have fixed so bitter a justice running beyond every evil upon those able to know and speak to others the things about to be, if indeed they truly had to speak of the things about to be. For a myth of the truth is not punished, yet the speaking-falsely is accursed; yet if someone should be caught doing this, and this as from God, he has somehow slandered the unspeakable nature itself, and assigning the lie to the truth as fitting it, having endured a justice equal to the charges he will go away unto that very much. For the
Greek
εἰ βούλοιντό ποτε τὴν αὐτοῖς ἀστιβῆ καὶ ἀσυνηθεστάτην προσκομίζειν ἀλήθειαν.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πῶς δὲ φής;
{ΚΥΡ.} Ἦ οὐκ ἐπαΐεις τῶν ἁγίων εὐαγγελιστῶν ἀναγεγραφότων, ὅτι τὰ μὲν δαιμόνια, τορόν τι καὶ μέγα διακεκραγότα, προσῄεσαν τῷ Χριστῷ· «Ἔα, τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοὶ, Ἰησοῦ Ναζαρηνέ; ἦλθες ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς· οἴδαμέν σε τίς εἶ, ὁ Ἅγιος τοῦ Θεοῦ. Ὁ δὲ ἐπιτιμῶν,» φησὶν, «οὐκ εἴα αὐτὰ λαλεῖν, ὅτι εἴδησαν τὸν Χριστὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι.» Καίτοι τί δή ποτε, κατὰ γάρ τοι τὸ εἰκὸς ἐνδοιάσειέ τις ἂν, τοῖς τὸ ἀληθὲς ἀνακεκραγόσιν ἐπιτετίμηκεν ὁ Χριστός; Ἀλλ' ἦν δή που τὸ δρώμενον, ἐπωφελὲς εἰς ἡμᾶς. Τὸ γάρ τοι μὴ δεῖν τοῖς παρ' ἐκείνοις προσκεῖσθαι λόγοις, κἂν εἰ αὐτὴν ἐθέλοιεν ἀναφωνεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, καὶ τὰ ἐναργῶς ἔτυμα λέγειν, διὰ τούτου παιδευόμεθα· ἀναπλέκοντες γὰρ ἔσθ' ὅτε τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τὸ ψεῦδος, κατασίνονται τοὺς ἀκροωμένους, οὐ καθ' ἕτερον, οἶμαι, τρόπον, ἢ καθ' ὃν θεῷτό τις τοὺς τῇ τοῦ μέλιτος μίξει παραιρουμένους τὴν αἴσθησιν τῶν πικρῶν, καὶ τῇ τῶν γλυκέων ἐπιπλοκῇ κατασυλᾷν ἐθέλοντας τὸ ἔσθ' ὅτε λυποῦν.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Σφαλερὸν οὖν παντελῶς τὸ τοῖς τῶν χρησμολόγων προσέχειν φενακισμοῖς.
{ΚΥΡ.} Θανάτῳ τὸ χρῆμα τιμᾶται Θεὸς, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐσχάτοις καταγράφει κακοῖς. Ἔφη δὲ οὕτως ἐν τῷ Λευιτικῷ· «Καὶ ψυχὴ ἣ ἂν ἐπακολουθήσῃ ἐγγαστριμύθοις ἢ ἐπαοιδοῖς, ὥστε ἐκπορνεῦσαι ὀπίσω αὐτῶν, ἐπιστήσω τὸ πρόσωπόν μου ἐπὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκείνην, καὶ ἀπολῶ αὐτὴν ἐκ τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτῆς· καὶ ἔσεσθε ἅγιοι, ὅτι ἐγὼ ἅγιός εἰμι Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ὑμῶν.» Καὶ μεθ' ἕτερα πάλιν· «Καὶ ἀνὴρ ἢ γυνὴ ὃς ἐὰν γένηται αὐτῶν ἐγγαστρίμυθος ἢ ἐπαοιδὸς, θανάτῳ θανατούσθω, καὶ ἐν λίθοις λιθοβολήσατε αὐτούς· ἔνοχοί εἰσιν.» Ἀποφάσκει μὲν γὰρ πρῶτον, τὸ χρῆναί τινας ταῖς βωμολόχοις ἀστρομαντείαις, ἤγουν νεκυομαντείαις ἕπεσθαι φιλεῖν, πολιτείας ἁγιοπρεποῦς ὡς ἀπωτάτω τὸ χρῆμα εἶναι λέγων, καὶ τοῖς Θεῷ προσκειμένοις ἀνάρμοστον κομιδῆ· καὶ καθορίζει τοῦ δευτέρου τὸν θάνατον, ἐνόχους τέ φησιν εἶναι καὶ αὐτούς· οὐκ ἐφιεὶς τὸν ἔλεον ἀπονέμεσθαι πρὸς ἡμῶν τοῖς πρὸς τοῦτο ἤδη μοχθηρίας ἐληλακόσιν, ὡς πάγην γενέσθαι θανάτου, καὶ ψυχῶν ἀθώων θήρατρον, καὶ ὀλέθρου θύραν, καὶ πέταυρον ᾅδου, καὶ τί γὰρ οὐχὶ τῶν τοιούτων κακῶν; Ἀλλ' οἶμαί που σοφὸν καὶ ἀκίβδηλον ἐννοεῖν, ὡς οὐκ ἂν ἐπεστήρισε Θεὸς τὴν οὕτω πικρὰν καὶ παντὸς ἐπέκεινα κακοῦ διᾴττουσαν δίκην τοῖς εἰδέναι τε καὶ λαλεῖν ἑτέροις τὰ ἐσόμενα δυναμένοις, καί τοι τῶν ἐσομένων ἀληθῶς ἔχουσιν εἰπεῖν. Κολάζεται γὰρ οὐχὶ τῆς ἀληθείας ὁ μῦθος, ἐπάρατον δὲ τὸ ψευδειπεῖν· ἀλλ' εἰ δή τις ἁλίσκοιτο τοῦτο δρῶν, καὶ τοῦτο ὡς ἐκ Θεοῦ, αὐτήν που τὴν ἄῤῥητον σεσυκοφάντηκε φύσιν, καὶ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ τὸ ψεῦδος ὡς αὐτῇ προσῆκον ἀνατιθεὶς, ἰσοπαλῆ τοῖς ἐγκλήμασιν ἀνατλὰς τὴν δίκην πρὸς αὐτὸ λίαν οἰχήσεται. Ἐπιτιμᾷ γὰρ ὁ
About this text
Cyril continues the dialogue with Palladius. Book 6 of a seventeen-book dialogue — not the whole work.
English follows Migne PG 68 (Aubert reprint). The PDF and a cleaned text of the same print were checked against each other. This page is Book 6 of seventeen. This is a reading translation for study, not a new critical edition of the Greek.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Migne PG 68 De adoratione Book 5 (Aubert reprint) (Greek · Book 6)
- Checked print PDF of PG 68 De adoratione (Greek · Book 6)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.