Satan hates 5th/8th/14th; Christ hours Cross Pascha moon
season—that is, the fourteenth—for such a cause, even if being all-variegated and sharp unto mischief-working, he intertwines other starting-points for them; for the seasons or then the days in which it has happened that he slipped off from the tyranny against us, when the Only-begotten shone upon us in human form and in the look according to us, he somehow perhaps does not endure to take even in bare thoughts.
Palladius: How then do you say?
Cyril: For is not a fifth season numbered for us, O Palladius—that of our Savior’s sojourn?
Palladius: I understand what you say, from the Gospel parable at least. For Christ said that the one hiring the workers into the vineyard had gone out about the first hour, and the third and sixth, and ninth and eleventh—that is, in the last season, according to which he both appeared and shone upon us.
Cyril: Most mindfully and very rightly you have spoken. And what? Do we not say that he has been handed over on the fifth of the Sabbath, and has come as it were unto beginnings of the whole economy, through which we all have been saved, the one having become human through us having endured the saving cross on our behalf?
Palladius: And very much.
Cyril: And he has abolished death, and has lived again, having spoiled Hades, not on an eighth—that is, the one of the Sabbaths,
Palladius: Not doubtful.
Cyril: And at any rate the ancient law was typing that the circumcision in flesh, some under-type of the one in spirit and truth, be practiced according to the eighth. And the more advanced circumcision than that ancient one—that is, the one in spirit—is a partaking of Holy Spirit, and the grace in beginnings, which, since he lived again from dead ones, Christ renewed again for us, saying: ‘Receive Holy Spirit.’ And somewhere also the blessed Paul said that ‘Our Pascha was sacrificed—Christ.’ And a day at least of this saving and much-prayed slaughter is the fourteenth according to moon. Thus also the law was proclaiming beforehand clearly the season of our Savior’s slaughter, which we say he has endured on behalf of the world’s life: ‘For on the tenth,’ it says, ‘of the first month, let them take for themselves a sheep according to houses; according to a number,’ it says, ‘of soul they will collect, and it will be kept until the fourteenth of this month, and all the multitude of the sons of Israel will slaughter it toward evening.’ Do you hear how having been taken from a tenth, the victim was kept for those of old unto a fourteenth, in order that you may understand the fifth season, according to which having become human he underwent the death on our behalf, the moon already waning, which has also been set unto beginnings of the night? And the matter is a type of a mystery, and seems to signify thinly the devil’s greediness’s path backward, and a sinking as it were the little-by-little unto the strengthless and altogether weak. And somehow he holds a type of moon. For he also rules
Greek
καιρὸν, τουτέστι, τὴν τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην, δι' αἰτίαν τοιαύτην, κἂν εἰ παμποίκιλος ὢν καὶ δριμὺς εἰς κακουργίαν, ἑτέρας αὐτοῖς ἐπιπλέκει τὰς ἀφορμάς· τοὺς γάρ τοι καιροὺς ἤτοι τὰς ἡμέρας, ἐν αἷς αὐτὸν τῆς καθ' ἡμῶν τυραννίδος ἀπολισθεῖν συμβέβηκεν, ἐπιλάμψαντος ἡμῖν τοῦ Μονογενοῦς ἐν ἀνθρωπείᾳ μορφῇ καὶ ἐν εἴδει τῷ καθ' ἡμᾶς, τάχα που καὶ ἐν ψιλαῖς ἐννοίαις ἑλεῖν οὐκ ἀνέχεται.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πῶς δὴ φής;
{ΚΥΡ.} Οὐ γὰρ, ὦ Παλλάδιε, πέμπτος ἡμῖν ἀπαριθμεῖται καιρὸς, ὁ τῆς τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἐπιδημίας;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Συνίημι ὃ φὴς, ἀπό γε τῆς εὐαγγελικῆς παραβολῆς. Ἐξεληλυθέναι γὰρ ἔφη Χριστὸς, τὸν τοῖς ἐργάταις εἰς τὸν ἀμπελῶνα μισθούμενον, περὶ ὥραν πρώτην, τρίτην τε καὶ ἕκτην, καὶ ἐννάτην καὶ ἑνδεκάτην, τουτέστιν, ἐν τῷ τελευταίῳ καιρῷ, καθ' ὃν ἐπεφάνη τε καὶ ἐπέλαμψεν ἡμῖν.
{ΚΥΡ.} Νουνεχέστατά γε καὶ λίαν ὀρθῶς εἴρηκας. Τί δέ; οὐχὶ τῇ πέμπτῃ τοῦ Σαββάτου παραδεδόσθαι φαμὲν αὐτὸν, καὶ εἰς ἀρχὰς ὥσπερ ἥκειν τῆς ὅλης οἰκονομίας, δι' ἧς οἱ πάντες ἀνασεσώσμεθα, τὸν σωτήριον ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀνατλάντος σταυρὸν τοῦ δι' ἡμᾶς ἐνηνθρωπηκότος;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Καὶ μάλα.
{ΚΥΡ.} Κατήργηκε δὲ τὸν θάνατον, καὶ ἀνεβίω πάλιν, σκυλεύσας τὸν ᾅδην, οὐκ ἐν ὀγδόῃ, τουτέστι, τῇ μιᾷ τῶν Σαββάτων,
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Οὐκ ἀμφίβολον.
{ΚΥΡ.} Καὶ γοῦν ὁ πάλαι νόμος τὴν ἐν σαρκὶ περιτομὴν, ὑποτύπωσίν τινα τῆς ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ, διετύπου πράττεσθαι κατὰ τὴν ὀγδόην. Περιτομὴ δέ γε τῆς ἀρχαίας ἐκείνης ἡ προφερεστέρα, τουτέστιν, ἡ ἐν πνεύματι, Πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου μέθεξις, καὶ χάρις ἡ ἐν ἀρχαῖς, ἢν, ἐπείπερ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνεβίω, πάλιν ἀνεκαίνισεν, ἡμῖν ὁ Χριστὸς, λέγων· «Λάβετε Πνεῦμα ἅγιον.» Ἔφη δέ που καὶ ὁ μακάριος Παῦλος, ὅτι «Τὸ Πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός.» Ἡμέρα γε μὴν τῆς σωτηρίου ταύτης καὶ πολυεύκτου σφαγῆς, ἡ κατὰ σελήνην τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτη. Οὕτω καὶ ὁ νόμος προανεκήρυττεν ἐναργῶς τῆς τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν σφαγῆς τὸν καιρὸν, ἢν ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ζωῆς ὑπομεμενηκέναι φαμὲν αὐτόν· «Τῇ γὰρ δεκάτῃ, φησὶ, τοῦ μηνὸς τοῦ πρώτου, λαβέτωσαν ἑαυτοῖς πρόβατον κατ' οἴκους, κατ' ἀριθμὸν, φησὶ, ψυχῆς συλλέξουσι, καὶ ἔσται διατετηρημένον ἕως τῆς τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτης τοῦ μηνὸς τούτου, καὶ σφάξουσιν αὐτὸν πρὸς ἑσπέραν πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ.» Ἀκούεις ὅπως ἀπὸ δεκάτης ληφθὲν, εἰς τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην ἐφυλάττετο τοῖς πάλαι τὸ ἱερεῖον, ἵνα τὸν πέμπτον νοήσῃς καιρὸν, καθ' ὃν γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος τὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ὑπέστη θάνατον, φθινούσης ἤδη τῆς σελήνης, ἣ καὶ εἰς ἀρχὰς τέτακται τῆς νυκτός; Μυστηρίου δὲ τὸ χρῆμα τύπος, καὶ ὑποσημαίνειν ἔοικεν ἰσχνῶς, τῆς τοῦ διαβόλου πλεονεξίας τὴν ἀνόπιν ὁδὸν, καὶ κατάδυσιν ὥσπερ τὴν κατὰ βραχὺ πρὸς τὸ ἄναλκι καὶ εἰσάπαν ἀσθενές. Σελήνης δέ πως ἐπέχει τύπον. Ἄρχει γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸς
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.