On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and Truth, Book 7

Book 7 opens: love God and neighbor; love of brothers§1

1ON ADORATION AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH — BOOK SEVEN. Concerning the love toward the brothers.

Cyril: With praises for us, O Palladius, crowning unto a limit and unto the highest the first and uppermost of the commandments—the law, I mean—the ‘You will love the Lord your God from whole heart and from whole understanding and from whole strength’; and adding also that ‘And your neighbor as yourself,’ and indeed also Christ himself saying clearly that on these two commandments all the law and the prophets hang, and naming love a fulfillment of law—Paul the divine also, because of doing nothing evil to the neighbor—the word has made for us, as at least it seems to me, a sufficient arrangement upon the first, according at least to what is possible, going up and down and somehow as in a circle, and not ignobly narrating what manner from our side the love unto God whole and altogether blameless would become. Come then already, let us busy ourselves with the neighboring and sister commandment, and let us make exact examination of the love unto the neighbor, tracking very well the things through which someone would become in a beautiful circle of virtue, and having taken the best glory of craftsmanship unto this, will walk in goodness with God and humans according to the divine Samuel. For I myself say that it is necessary to practice gracefully together with the love unto God also the love unto brothers; since to fall short of one has the missing upon both, according at least to John’s voices. For he has written thus: ‘If someone should say that I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the

1 John brother-love; tassels and blue thread as memory of law§2

2one not loving his brother whom he has seen, how is he able to love the God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him, that the one loving God love also his brother.’ Therefore both are destroyed together with one another and rise together brightly; for the virtues are as it were near-doored to one another, and like some unbroken pair they ferry the one having practiced best to drive unto one outshining and most complete beauty of piety unto God.

Palladius: You have spoken well. And since the aim is to sweat in these things, come again, and gathering the trusts upon each of the contemplations from the sacred Letters, try to tell me how the pure fulfillment of the love unto the neighbor would become.

Cyril: A most plentiful path then carries us off unto this. For it has been written that ‘Your commandment is very broad.’ Yet the craftsmanship upon each of the things done, I think one would not collect from elsewhere except through the law; for a prophetic word said that it has been given to us unto help. And at any rate raising us unto the continual remembrance of the things having been legislated, the lawgiver says: ‘And you will cast these words into your heart and into your soul, and you will fasten them as a sign upon your hand, and they will be unshaken before your eyes, and you will teach them to your children, to speak them sitting in a way and lying down and rising, and you will write them upon the doorposts of your houses and of your gates, in order that you may be many-dayed, and days of your sons upon the earth which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, just as the days of the heaven upon the earth.’ And what again is the ‘Fasten them upon your hands,’ he made clear in Numbers. For it has been written thus: ‘And the Lord said toward Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you will say toward them, and let them make for themselves fringes upon the wings of their own garments unto their generations; and you will set upon the fringes of the wings a hyacinth-colored cord, and it will be in the fringes, and you will look at them, and you will remember all the Lord’s commandments, and you will do them; and you will not be turned aside behind your understandings, and behind your eyes in which you fornicate behind them, in order that you may remember; and you will do all my commandments, and you will be holy to your God; I am the Lord your God.’ Having commanded beforehand then very well that we write the law down in hearts, then knowing forgetfulness a hard sickness of mind, he commands that the commandments must be marked off as on a tablet upon the doorposts; and indeed also to fasten to the right hand little tablets somehow perhaps pregnant with the law and having the oracle written in, and indeed also that they be hung from the garments themselves, he says is not unprofitable unto benefit—through both fringes and the hyacinth-colored cord.

Blue thread = heavenly mind; law in heart; Leviticus blessings begin§3

3Palladius: And what remembrance of the divine laws would become for us through fringes and a hyacinth-colored cord?

Cyril: For do you not say that the law has been spoken enigmatically to those of old and indeed also is as in shadows?

Palladius: I say so.

Cyril: An enigma then of needing to choose to think and do the things from heaven, and to remember thoroughly the laws from above—the fastening both of fringes and of the hyacinth-colored cord itself to the hand? For I think that somehow the ethereal body is imaged by the Indian stone—I mean the hyacinth—mixed with gleam and darkness, and somehow having in depth the water-like, and showing a trembling and easily-diffused look. Therefore the law has commanded economically that both from the garments themselves and indeed also from the hand the hyacinth-colored cord be hung, somehow as it were sounding under: Let a garment of mind and understanding be for you—an oracle from heaven—and let the law be awarder of right works. For the hand is a symbol of work; and the things done by us according to law are somehow altogether also unreproveable, and do not have the left-handed thing in baseness. Therefore the Pharisees were magnifying their fringes, and were widening their phylacteries—that is, the little tablets hung from the right hand; yet they were being laughed at by Christ, making the matter a starting-point of glory-loving, and not unto remembrance of the law. It is possible then even to lawless according to law, if someone should not use the law rightly. And this, I think, is what Solomon said: ‘There is a just one being destroyed in his just thing.’ Therefore the divine commandment must be written down unto mind and heart, and making the benefit of the matter clear the divine David said concerning every just one: ‘The law of his God is in his heart, and his steps will not be tripped.’ For it is, I think, also very clear that for whomever the divine law is present unto mind, there will also altogether be present the having been well fixed, and the lying in the firm of virtue.

Palladius: It holds thus.

Cyril: Therefore the long and continual meditation of the law carries away unto the straight—and this would be what seems to God—sending out forgetfulness as it were some turbid thing and mist of a human’s understanding. And the lawgiver does not stop unto these things, but inventing also something better besides, he makes hope as it were some bait of the eagerness at least in needing to do—the hope upon all the most prayed-for things. For he said again: ‘If you walk in my ordinances, and keep my commandments, and do them, I will give the rain to you in its season, and the earth will give its births, and the woods of the plains will give back their fruit. And the threshing will overtake the vintage for you, and the vintage will overtake the sowing, and you will eat your bread unto fullness, and you will dwe

Leviticus/Deuteronomy blessings; spiritual rain; toward neighbor-love§4

4ll safely upon your land, and the war will not pass through your land, and I will give peace in your land, and you will sleep, and there will not be the one frightening you, and I will destroy evil beasts from your land.’ Do you understand of how much care and mildness he counts worthy the fair and most work-loving one, and indeed the one worsted by reverence concerning the law? For both early and late rain, and fruitfulness one upon another, and indeed also fullness of bread, and unstinting use of foods, and besides these he announces he will gift peace. For it is likely that the genuine guard of the law, and an unsated lover of whatever God should wish, be soaked with the unstinting gifts of the heavenly good things; for the spiritual and from-above encouragement, watering like rain a soul of the just as it were a fat and well-bearing earth, gladdens it very much, so as to show an unfailing and as it were all-variegated fruit of piety unto God; and peace crowns, bringing in the remaining unto being well. At any rate Paul also writes: ‘And the peace of God, the one surpassing every mind, will guard your hearts and your thoughts.’ The one then having obtained such munificence from God will continue a warless and peaceable life, the enemy yielding, and every one having stood against falling and going away unto nothing, and a diabolic approach being idle, and every fear going easily out of the way. And this same law we will also find written in Deuteronomy. For he said here having altered a little: ‘And if by hearing you hear all his commandments as many as I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him from whole heart and from whole soul, and he will give you the rain of your land, according to early and late season, and you will bring in your grain and your wine and your oil, and you will give fodder in your fields for your cattle.’ Therefore then the craftsmanship and good-rhythm, at least unto needing to fulfill whatever God should wish, the meditation of the law will house in our souls. And the desire of the things having been promised shows the sweat upon virtues bearable.

Palladius: Truly; for I would agree, and very reasonably. Yet of the love unto the neighbor, in what manner someone would carry the law through—it is time to say, O friend.

Cyril: One must go then already upon this very thing. And indeed we say, following the sacred Letters, that the Master God of the wholes commanded Moses to assemble the people, and to bring them together very well cleansed and purified under the mountain called Sinai; for he ordered that they must wash the garments, and be seen better than the pleasure unto women, for three days, signifying through the things in sense and seen the intelligible things; for with bright garments as it were—the boasts from virtues—having been made splendid, and excelling with the brightness according to mind, and having been freed from all flesh-loving and earthly pollutions,

Sinai approach; Moses leads to God; fire smoke trumpet typology§5

5it is somehow fitting to go unto a sight of God, the law pedagoguing us unto this, just as indeed Moses also the ones of old; for those things were types of the more true. And the pedagoguing through all-wise Moses, carrying the education through the law unto Christ, was under-typing for the more ancient ones. And besides these things I think it is also somehow worth watching that. For the matter and face of the one needing to pedagogue has been well kept in Moses’ face; for he did not present the people to himself, but to God, somehow as lawgiver and teacher and introducer of the things to be done. And the law also, being a pedagogue through the letter, was bringing us not to itself, but to the God Word having come down from heaven through us. Does the word seem to you to go for us according to the track of the thoughts of the truth?

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: It has been written then that ‘And Moses led the people out unto a meeting of God, from the camp, and they stood under the mountain Sinai. And the mountain Sinai was being smoked wholly because of the Lord’s having come down upon it in fire, and the smoke was going up as smoke of a furnace; and all the people were astonished very much; and the voices of the trumpet were becoming going forward stronger very much. Moses was speaking; and God was answering him with a voice.’ The having come down of God upon a mountain would become a sign also very clear—that he loves to visit understandings not most low-lying, nor indeed to lodge with those having an earthy and ground-cast thought, but with whomever the mind should leap up toward the height, and having as it were a peak rising over, looks somehow below at the human things, and would imagine only the things beside God. And it would also signify otherwise that the knowledge concerning God is high and lying above the things according to us, and somehow perhaps catchable only in part by those having practiced to fly the high things; ‘For young of a vulture fly the high things,’ according as it has been written. And in this understand that God came down defining the ancient law for those of old, not where the people was, but high and far. For he was still standing off far according to the Psalmist’s voice, the Only-begotten not yet having come to be with us fleshly, nor indeed having let himself down unto emptying; for the mystery has been kept not for the more ancient ones, but unto us ourselves; for he has come to be with us as far as one may say, unto a glory clear to eyes, having left behind the heights of the Godhead; and he was living as a citizen with us, as one from us. And God was coming down in a form of fire; it was necessary for those about to be pedagogued by necessity and law to know clearly that they will have words toward fire, if they should choose to be careless. For the God-loving was not being practiced by the more ancient ones from willing love and a free lean of mind, but as from necessity and fear; for a spirit was in them not free, nor indeed of sonship, but of slavery unto fear. And the mountain is smoked because of the Lord’s having come down upon it in fire; and this, I think, is what is hymned in Psalms:

Smoke darkness tears; fire and clearer gospel voice; Sabbath opens§6

6‘And he set darkness his hiding.’ And the smoke would also signify otherwise for us the tear about to be altogether and entirely upon the despising; for the moisture from eyes creeps out with the strikes of the smoke. And if someone should wish to cast upon the present contemplations otherwise, he will count the fire unto the enlightenment through the law, yet not without mist; for the law is also dim and unclear, and the overshadowing from the letter thick, and able to muddy the eye of the understanding. And the voices of the trumpet going forward stronger; for small was and scarcely sounding the thing of the law in the beginnings. And since the word has gone forward for us unto Gospel education, Emmanuel having shone upon, the voices have become stronger; for Christ has sounded out something audible and clear, and already reaching unto all the inhabited world. For it is possible to hear him saying through David’s voice: ‘Hear these things, all the nations; give ear, all who dwell the inhabited world.’ Although the voice of the law at that time was not going elsewhere, nor indeed initiating all the nations, but sounding around only the Jews’ land, and pedagoguing one race—the one from Israel. But ‘Moses was speaking,’ it says; ‘and God was answering him with a voice.’ For Moses as a servant was seeking the law, and a mediator and under-worker of the divine oracles; yet God was answering with his own voice—that is, through Son; for voice and word of the Father is the Son. And from him is the law, even if it has been spoken through angels; at any rate it is possible, if somehow someone should choose, to hear him saying clearly: ‘I myself who speak am present.’ And, ‘I did not come to loosen the law or the prophets, but to fulfill; for I say to you, until the heaven and the earth pass, one iota or one tip will not pass from the law until all things become. The heaven and the earth will pass, yet my words will not pass.’ Therefore he calls the law his own words; for a voice of God has spoken it, just as I said just now—that is, the Son. Then it says that ‘The Lord has come down upon the mountain Sinai, upon the peak of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses upon the peak of the mountain, and Moses went up. And God said toward Moses saying: Having come down, testify to the people lest they ever draw near toward God to look closely, and a multitude fall from them; and let the priests drawing near to the Lord God be made holy, lest ever the Lord remove from them.’ The God above all comes down unto the mountain, then Moses having been called goes up. For it is not of the possible things that some be strong enough to leap up unto the heights of the true God-seeing, unless God having let himself down and preparing to become approachable to our understandings; and with him calling we go up thus scarcely unto a supernatural and as it were exceptional peak—the true knowledge concerning him which Christ will bring on, uncovering for us the Father and God, and the mountain untrodden for the herd-like (for impassable for the many is the

Moses with Aaron = law with Christ; Decalogue begins§7

7grace of knowledge stretched very far over), yet walkable only for those knowing how to go through it, or rather also having been called unto this from God, just as indeed also Moses. If then somehow there is a faithful and genuine one in God’s house, he himself also will be according to that one chosen out and suitably holding unto coming to be near God, according at least to the manner in holiness and knowledge. For thus we will be with him saying: ‘And you, stand with me.’ And he enjoins that those crowned with priesthood must be thoroughly cleansed, saying: ‘Lest ever the Lord remove from them.’ For the matter of the priesthood is altogether slippery, and not far from dangers, or rather even very near, if the blameless unto life should not be seen present; for it is fitting that those serving the all-pure God be holy. Then he says: ‘And the Lord said to Moses: Go, come down and go up—you and Aaron with you; yet let the priests and the people not force themselves to go up toward God, lest ever the Lord destroy from them.’ Moses goes up and not without Aaron, who was unto a type of Christ. For law is honorable in Christ, and as holy through him, near God and with God. For he himself also proclaims the high priest and apostle of our confession, according to the Scriptures. Therefore let the law be yoked beside Christ, through the contemplation in spirit. For Moses has heard: ‘Go up—you and Aaron.’—‘What then God has yoked, let a human not separate,’ carrying the law away from the contemplation in Christ, because of clinging to the shadow alone, and not receiving the truth unto an image of the types. It has been said at least that the sacred race together with the peoples go up unto the mountain. For not to those being pedagogued in law, nor to those still completing the worship in shadows, has the dogma in high and uppermost things concerning him been given from God; yet it has rather been kept for those having been justified in faith, and having been called in Christ unto obedience, and a knowledge differing much from the more ancient. For Paul the divine has also admired the surpassing of the knowledge of Christ; and the Savior himself will also witness, concerning both us and those from Israel’s blood, saying openly that ‘To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens, yet to those it has not been given. And concerning the Jews: ‘Leave them; they are blind, guides of blind ones.’ And he has sounded again toward those having known him: ‘Yet of you blessed are the eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.’ And since the God of the wholes was completing the words about these things, he begins to legislate, and to mark off the laws upon all the best things. And thus he says: ‘I am the Lord your God, who led you out from Egypt’s land, from a house of slavery; there will not be for you other gods besides me.’ And he made a beginning fitting for the laws, saying himself to be the wonder-worker in Egypt; the one setting the whole creation, so to speak, against the manias of the greedy; rains and hailstones having ar

No other gods; vain Name; Sabbath command; what sanctifying means§8

8med, and having shown changes of the elements, and having cast the pitiable death upon the firstborn, and having poured upon them the three-day darkness; the one gifting to go through middle of waves to whomever he should wish, and without toil shattering those having stood against. For it was necessary, necessary, that those running under the yoke of the divine commandment not be ignorant how great the lawgiver’s power is, and that it is not safe for them to strike against the one strong to set all things right easily.

Palladius: How well and God-fittingly the lawgiver was contemplating for us! For fear somehow always pours down unto well-persuasion, and works the harsh and hard-to-lead as it were some well-reined colt.

Cyril: You have spoken most rightly. Having refused then the needing to worship other gods, and the making of every idol, and likeness and writing, and the daring to distribute the name of the Godhead to the crafts of statue-makers, having brought under the last justices (‘For you will not take,’ he says, ‘the name of the Lord your God upon a vain thing, because the Lord will not cleanse the one taking his name upon a vain thing’), he rhythm-trains hereafter the human things, and marks off the law as it were some canon unto the straight for all citizens’ ways; and he stands us out of every sin, and before the others marking the season of the justice in Christ, according to which the most complete ransoming and the destruction of baseness, and re-forming unto what was from the beginning, and renewal of life in holiness and God-loving. Therefore he says: ‘Remember the day of the Sabbaths to make it holy; six days you will work, and you will do all your works, yet on the seventh day Sabbaths, a rest for the Lord your God; you will not do in it every work—you and your son and your daughter, your servant and your maidservant, your ox and your beast of burden, every animal of yours, and the sojourner dwelling beside you. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all the things in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Because of this the Lord blessed the seventh day and made it holy.’

Palladius: And what then is this? For I do not understand clearly. And in what manner would we make holy the day of the Sabbaths?

Cyril: Do you wish that we say some few things about Sabbath and the idleness honored in it? for thus the things having been oracle-spoken from God for us would also be very clear.

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: The Sabbath, O Palladius, being a last day of the week, would somehow, I think, mark the season of our Savior’s sojourn, which has appeared upon a completion and all but already toward the very settings of the present age, yet has become for us a beginning and door and way unto a washing-off

Spiritual sabbatism in Christ; Hebrews rest; wood-gatherer type§9

9of sin, unto freedom and forgiveness, unto incorruption and unto life, and unto the coming hope. And in many manners the faith of the sacred Letters also riddles for us the sabbatism understood in Christ, sometimes under-drawing the cessation in himself—the one as from sins—and defining the most bitter and harsh justice of the transgressor, and sometimes again typically showing the ransoming and forgiveness in him unto freedom, and indeed also the preparation unto the coming age.

Palladius: Say then how. For I would know as most sweetly.

Cyril: Through faith, O Palladius, understood spiritually in Christ we sabbatize, ceasing from the distractions in this world, and resting from empty carrying-around, and standing off from baseness, and stripping out of the yoke of the sin, we are let go hereafter unto free holiness. And at any rate the divine Paul says concerning those not yet having believed: ‘And with whom was he vexed forty years? Was it not with those having disobeyed, whose limbs fell in the desert? And to whom did he swear not to enter into his rest, if not to those having disobeyed? And we see that they were not able to enter because of disobedience. Let us fear then lest ever, a promise of entering into his rest being left, someone from you should seem to have come short.’ And after other things: ‘Therefore a sabbatism is left for the people of God.’ And yet how is it not true that if the sabbatism is only to be idle on Sabbath, how did Israel not enter into the rest, although having kept the idleness on Sabbath? But the matter was unto a type of the rest in Christ, and of the ceasing from sin of the one being justified by the faith. Therefore God commanded that the one collecting woods on Sabbath must have died stone-struck; and the justice upon that one was an under-type of an intelligible and necessary matter. Or is not the wood having already been withered from its own root, having been thoroughly cleaned and dried, a symbol of deadness? And would it also otherwise be nurture of fire?

Palladius: Truly.

Cyril: Some such thing is the all-toiling sin, as it were some deadness, and an unholy nurturer of the untamed flame for those loving it. Whenever then as in a season of cessation—I mean the one from sins—some should hold dead and fruitless works, and should choose to love, having let go virtue, the things through which penalties and flames would be kindled for them unto an age, they will reasonably undergo the condemnation upon death, because although it is possible not to live loosely, they willingly go through unto needing to be punished. Therefore we who have believed enter into the rest, according at least to the voice of blessed Paul. And at any rate through Jeremiah’s voice God accuses those signifying beside the beauty of the truth through sin unto the type, saying:

Jeremiah Sabbath burdens; Church as city; not cease from every good§10

10‘Go and stand in gates of sons of your people, in which kings of Judah enter, and in which they go out in them, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; and you will say toward them: Hear a word of the Lord, kings of Judah and all Judea and all Jerusalem, and those entering in these gates. Thus says the Lord: Guard your souls, and do not lift burdens on the day of the Sabbaths, and you will not do every work, and do not go out by the gates of Jerusalem, and do not carry out burdens from your houses on the day of the Sabbaths, just as I commanded your fathers and they did not hear, and they did not lean their ear, and they hardened their neck above their fathers, so as not to hear me, and so as not to receive education.’ Therefore he has commanded not only the needing to cease from every work on Sabbath, but also beyond gates of Jerusalem.

Palladius: Then what would the account of these things also be?

Cyril: Intelligible then and spiritual, and beyond the types, and better than the more ancient shadow. For he commands those sabbatizing in Christ to go unto a cessation of work having been turned toward baseness and looking, yet to make no burden at all upon the shoulder. For those once having cast off through the faith the truly hard-to-bear load of the sin—how is it not altogether struck-out to need to load themselves with it again unto a later time, and to choose to fall under again the yokes unto baseness? And to sit inside gates of Jerusalem types the needing for us not to stand off from the holy city, nor indeed to be carried outside and to slip away, through a turning-aside unto some other thing. And you will understand a holy city—the Church; for already somehow some, having been made bright through the faith into Christ, and having unloaded the profane sin, and having come to be inside holy gates of God’s house, have been carried unto standing-off, even if not toward an apparent one, yet they have leaped out of the holy gate, having honored idol-fitting customs. Therefore God has oracle-spoken that those sabbatizing intelligibly sit inside gates, the type signifying the safe and unexit-able, and the needing nowhere to slip from the genuineness unto him. And that the Church is God’s city, David especially will cry out saying: ‘Glorious things have been spoken concerning you, the city of God’; and the Savior himself will also somehow fill full concerning her saying: ‘Here I will dwell because I have chosen her.’

Palladius: It has been fixed then that we will dissolve every work on Sabbath, according at least to what seems to the lawgiver.

Cyril: Not every simply, O Palladius; for the needing to think and do the things upon which God would be pleased, and would have not a measured benefit, would not receive a praised cessation. For the sacred Letter has added not in vain, as at least it seems to me,

Holy works on Sabbath; spiritual circumcision; Jericho; Hebrew slave§11

11the needing for the day of the Sabbaths to be made holy by us; ‘For remember,’ he says, ‘the day of the Sabbaths to make it holy.’ And we will finish this also very reasonably, if we appear caretakers of holy works, sabbatizing intelligibly; and a clear under-type of the matter would be—the priests in the temple on Sabbath profaning the Sabbath, and blamelessly working the sacred things, and completing sacrifices, and sheep-slaughtering, and doing all the things unto God’s glory unhindered. Or did not Christ bring forward this very thing to the Jews’ blames, when they were naming a loosing of the law upon him having healed the paralytic on Sabbath?

Palladius: I will remember.

Cyril: And a human is also circumcised on Sabbath, according to the Savior’s voice, the law not rebuking; for the type almost also testifies clearly that it would be fitting and very reasonably for those sabbatizing in Christ—that is, for those ceasing from sin, and being made holy through faith—that the circumcision in spirit be practiced according to the eighth, that is the resurrection day; for thus Christ has been raised. And since he lived again, having dissolved death’s power, he sealed at once his own acquaintances with the Holy Spirit, and this is the circumcision in spirit. For he breathed in saying: ‘Receive Holy Spirit.’ Or does Paul not also say that the circumcision as in understanding is practiced thus? For he insisted that those having believed must have been circumcised with a circumcision not hand-made—that is by spirit. And I would add that we would not reasonably cease from the things unto spiritual manliness, and from crushing enemies, and from conquering in Christ those having stood against, when sabbatizing intelligibly; and again I will bring forward for you as an image that ancient Joshua, having taken Jericho together with those from Israel according to the seventh day—that is, on the Sabbath.

Palladius: Therefore then the Sabbath would bring in for us, as it seems, only an idleness from baseness and sins—at least as far as it comes unto truth—the thing almost only sketched as still in types for the more ancient ones.

Cyril: Thus I say; and in another manner it would also show Christ’s mystery very clearly.

Palladius: What then do you say?

Cyril: The law said somewhere again: ‘And if you acquire a Hebrew servant, he will slave for you six years, yet in the seventh year he will go away free for a gift.’ And these things in Exodus. And again in Deuteronomy thus he says: ‘And if your brother the Hebrew, or the Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he will slave for you six years, and in the seventh you will send him out free from you; and whenever you send him out free from you, you will not send him out empty; you will provision him a provision from your sheep, and from the grain and from your inheritance; just as the Lord your God has blessed you, you will give to him.’ For all the other time, before our Savior’s sojourn, Israel was being h

Hebrew release = free grace; Jer 34; gifts irrevocable§12

12eld fast, being yoked under a punishing law. And since in last seasons of the age (and the Sabbath has also been set for us as a type of this) Emmanuel has shone upon, then indeed the spirit of slavery has been taken away, and having brought forward nothing at all unto ransoming for the Master, they have been called by philanthropic grace unto freedom, and unto the glory of the adoption; for those having believed have been justified not from works of law according to the Scriptures, but from faith. And this I say is the ‘He will go away free for a gift.’ But, ‘Whenever,’ he says, ‘you send him out free from you, you will not send him out empty; you will provision him a provision from your sheep, from your grain, and from your winepress.’ Do you see clearly the power of the mystery according to Christ shining out in these things? for we have been ransomed, and the Savior of us all has let us go free, for a gift. For not from works of justice which we did, but according to his much mercy, according as it has been written, we have partaken of such supernatural mildness; and letting us go free—that is, having freed from sins, and having adorned with the grace of the adoption—he has added himself for us as a good provision, as a blameless victim, and as a sheep led unto slaughter through us, having also gifted the partaking of the life-giving blessing—that is, of his holy flesh and blood. This, I think, is the needing to be provisioned from the sheep, and from grain and wine, for those having been called unto freedom from the Master’s mildness in a seventh season—that is, in the intelligible Sabbath; yet these things the law. And since for the Jews having fallen back unto carelessness it did not seem very much to keep the things having been commanded, God was accusing those having chosen to do this. For it has been written that also ‘A word of the Lord became toward Jeremiah, saying: Thus said the Lord the God of Israel, saying: I covenanted a covenant toward your fathers on the day on which I took them out from Egypt’s land from a house of slavery saying: Whenever six years are filled, you will send out your Hebrew brother who will be sold to you, and he will work for you six years, and you will send him out free; and they did not hear me, and they did not lean their ear; and they turned today to do the straight before my eyes, to call a release each of his neighbor; and they completed a covenant according to my face in the house upon which my name has been called upon it; and you turned, and you profaned my covenant, to turn back each his servant, and each his maidservant, whom you sent out free in their soul, to be for you unto servants and maidservants.’ Do you see how he does not endure the types being set aside, or rather the truth itself being insolently treated as still in shadows? ‘For the gifts and the calling of God are without regret,’ according as it has been written. Yet the Jews, dragging back those once having been let go, and bringing them under again under the yokes of slavery, have not kept the without-regret, and have struck against because of this

Debt release typology; believers freed; unbelievers still liable§13

13the power of the mystery, having both set aside and dishonored it, even if it was still in types.

Palladius: You have spoken most rightly.

Cyril: And that we are justified freely through grace in Christ, having brought forward nothing as exchange of our own life, nor indeed having bought the glory of the freedom from a price, yet gaining the matter by Masterly mildness and love-of-humanity—he was under-typing saying in Deuteronomy: ‘Through seven years you will make a release. And thus the ordinance of the release: you will release every private debt which your neighbor owes you, and you will not exact from your brother whatever may be for you beside him; yet for your brother you will make a release of your debt, because there will not be a needy one in you; because blessing the Lord your God will bless you, in the land which the Lord your God gives you in a lot to inherit it.’ Do you see the truth flashing through in the shadows? For this also would show most clearly our Savior’s economy unto us. For those having come near him through the faith, and already having been shown intimates and brothers, through partaking of Holy Spirit, and having become sharers of a divine nature, he released from debts, they having paid out nothing; for he did not seek from them the justices of the transgression, although they were owing to him the accounts of the things lived by them; yet those still alien, and all but also other-raced, through their destructive unbelief, and having come to be as farthest from the intimacy unto him, he set liable to the debts, and as still having the sin unwashed, he reasonably worked them debtor both to the justice and to needing to be punished; and at any rate he was addressing those having believed: ‘If you remain in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will free you.’ Yet to those dishonoring the true and Gospel education: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.’ Do you understand then that for those intimates according to faith he announces he will release unto freedom, yet for those still alien and foreign, having died in the stumbles, he said they will pay back to the judge the accounts of their own faults?

Palladius: Truly.

Cyril: And the idleness according to the Sabbath also shapes elegantly the holy-fitting luxury unto the coming age, and the partaking of the heavenly good things.

Palladius: Speak how, for me wishing to understand.

Cyril: And very much. For somewhere the divine David sings saying concerning the sons of Israel and the God strong in all things: ‘He gave them bread of heaven; a human ate bread of angels,’ saying the manna, food of heaven and of angels, in order that sending their own mind beyond the sense-perceptible and seen things, we may look down at the spiritual and divine supply,

Manna double on sixth day; future rest; Word coeternal with Father§14

14which God sends into the saints’ souls, making the God Word who feeds angels and makes humans live take lodging with those having received the faith. For Christ has dwelt in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and we are fed with living bread and from heaven unto spiritual good-condition and strength; a type then of such a thing is the manna, clear and having itself without doubt. And the law has commanded the sons of Israel to gather it, the thing holding sufficiently for each, not overrunning. For it has been written thus: ‘In the morning it became when the dew was resting around the camp, and look—upon face of the desert thin as coriander, white as frost upon the earth. And seeing it the sons of Israel said one to the other: What is this? for they did not know what it was. And Moses said toward them: This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the word which the Lord arranged: Gather from it each unto the fitting gomors according to heads, according to number of your souls; each with those tenting with you collect.’ Then he says also again after other things: ‘And it became on the sixth day, they collected the needed things double—gomors for the one; and all the rulers of the synagogue entered, and announced to Moses. And Moses said toward them: This is the word which the Lord spoke: Holy Sabbaths, a rest for the Lord; tomorrow as many things as you bake, bake, as many as you boil, boil, and leave every excess for yourselves a store unto the morning.’ Then besides these the hierophant Moses was clarifying the divine law for them, saying at once: ‘Eat today; for there are Sabbaths today for the Lord. You will not find today in the plain. Six days you will collect, yet on the seventh day Sabbaths; it will not be in it.’ Is it still unclear for you hereafter, O Palladius, even after this, that the needing to do nothing on Sabbath, and to collect as into a store the thing already having been provided, and not even that the manna has been given down from heaven, yet to use through thoroughly the thing already having been brought together unto enjoyment and food, would also have very clearly a pre-preparation and under-type of the life about to be unto the coming age? For sabbatizing in Christ and going unto a complete cessation of the sin, we will luxuriate in the good things from above, every toil having been removed, and without sweats finding richly everything which benefits.

Palladius: The word is true. For then the life of the saints will be as upon ready and all good things about to lie forward; and let it also be said from us ourselves toward every saint: ‘You will eat the toils of your fruits.’

Cyril: Therefore running back unto the from-beginning, and as it were reining the word upward again, we say that—that the law having transferred very much and consistently upon the one God by nature and truly, has also not allowed to be ignorant of the coeternal Word having been born from him and in him and coexisting.

Sabbath after first commandment; honor parents as Creator-type§15

15For having commanded beforehand and said, ‘You will love the Lord your God from whole heart, and from whole understanding, and from whole strength’; and indeed: ‘And there will not be for you other gods besides me’; he joined at once Christ’s mystery, saying after: ‘Remember the day of the Sabbaths to make holy.’ For this path is both beautiful and necessary, and a way of most God-fitting craftsmanship, and producing the most complete benefit for those learning what it is fitting to know. And at any rate the Savior said toward the Father and God in the heavens: ‘And this is the eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.’ For the word about Son accompanies necessarily the word about Father, and the knowledge upon both is very near-doored. At any rate rebuking Jews having missed the truth, through not receiving the Son, yet thinking that they have known God, he was saying: ‘You know neither me nor my Father; if you had known me, you would also have known my Father.’ For the knowledge of each is brought in together upon both. Therefore having laid down beforehand as it were some necessary foundation the exact thing unto God-knowledge, and having rooted beforehand in them the knowledge of the lawgiver, he comes down upon the human things, and sets as neighbor and joined at once to the reverence unto God also the reverence unto father and mother, through whom we have been brought into being and existing at all, God nodding, they having as it were a second taxis of the Craftsman; for with divine nods and a self-taught craft nature life-forms in herself the thing being born; yet she under-molds as it were a craftsmanly glory; and just as God is beginning and genesis of all things, inasmuch as Maker and Craftsman, so also each of those having completed unto parents is as it were some root of genesis for the child born from him, and a spring of the passage unto being. Unto a type then of the craftsman of all things is the under-work of father and mother unto existence, unto all those upon the earth. Therefore the law has commanded that the honor unto them be made more forward than the other things, neither having stood the ones having chosen to honor off from prizes, nor freeing from penalty those not enduring to do this; for he crowns the well-born and holy judgment with honors; yet the one not holding thus he loads down with the last evils; for ‘Honor,’ he says, ‘your father, in order that it may become well for you, and you will be long-timed upon the earth.’ Therefore as it were some prize and exceptional award unto life, and the going unto longest time, for those willing to honor, yet having hung death over the boastful and insolent ones, the law sets fear over as it were some pedagogue frightening toward the straight. For he said again: ‘Whoever strikes his father or mother, let him end by death; and the one speaking-evil of his father or mother will end by death.’ Look then that he punishes every manner of the sin unto them in equal measure, and again he is seen clearly setting the parents’ just things near the things about God. For just as upon God, the fault of tongue is honored with death and with the unto

Stubborn son; Sirach; Jacob; Christ love-me-more than parents§16

16peak angers, so also upon the ones having begotten; and someone having set aside the divine commandment, and having chosen to pain the pedagogue with the transgressions, dies without compassions. And having disregarded perhaps father’s or mother’s counsels, he ends stone-pelted, the divine law having commanded this also. And he said thus in Deuteronomy: ‘And if someone has a disobedient and provocating son, not hearing his father’s voice and mother’s voice, and they educate him, and he does not listen to them; and having taken him his father and his mother, they will lead him out upon the gerousia of his city, and upon the gate of his place, and they will say to the men of his city saying, that This our son disobeys, and provokes, and does not listen to our voice, being a club-companion he is wine-soaked; and the men of his city will stone him with stones, and he will die. And you will lift out the evil one from yourselves, and the remaining having heard will fear.’ Is it still lawful for you hereafter to doubt even after this, that the things unto father and mother are according to a track of the honor of God?

Palladius: Not at all. For what has also been said by someone wisely also persuades us thoroughly unto the needing to honor: ‘Remember that through them you were born.’ And indeed the patriarch Jacob saying most fairly: ‘If the fear of Isaac my father were not for me.’

Cyril: Would saying to have been born through them not show them clearly as an image of the Craftsman and of the one calling the things not being once unto being? And the needing to have been honored also by fear from us—has he not all but also set it in the very Masterly dignity?

Palladius: And very much. Therefore also the Proverb-speaker curses some, saying: ‘An eye laughing-down a father, and dishonoring a mother’s old-age—let ravens from the ravines dig it out.’ Yet clarify that—how someone would think it has been said clearly by Christ the Savior of all: ‘The one loving father or mother above me is not worthy of me.’ And I will also remember that; for to the disciple entreating to bury a father and to old-age-tend, he says: ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’

Cyril: Then what is the out-of-place thing in these? for nothing is uphill, as at least it seems to me, yet the knowledge of the things lying forward is very bare, and most ready to catch for those willing to understand rightly.

Palladius: And indeed the word is not completely free of suspicion

God-love ranked above parents; Corban abuse begins§17

17the word; for it somehow seems to carry us away from the reverence unto parents.

Cyril: Away with the suspicion, O human, and with the thoughts thus adulterated! for the Savior’s word does not stand us off at all from the reverence unto parents, yet teaches to count the reverence unto God older and better. And the word has also continued for us, naming it near and second up and down of the one fitting for God, which Christ himself has also kept, neither having written a charge upon those having chosen to love, nor indeed having set any blame and writing upon those having chosen to honor. Yet that the human things go behind God he legislates most fittingly. Therefore he says not simply: ‘The one loving his father or mother’; yet he has added the ‘above me.’ Or will you not think it fitting that the love unto God be set before the love unto humans?

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: Therefore he was not letting the disciple go upon the needing not to think to make the reverence unto a human more urgent than the reverence unto God, even if a father should exist, the one also being advocated by nature’s laws at least unto needing to be honored. Therefore he makes the things according to himself better than the things according to us. For the beyond all and highest is God; yet he nowhere grants that some count the reverence unto parents as nothing, because of the needing to think and say that the things of God are in the older and better portion. For Christ was making the matter an accusation for the Jews’ leaders saying: ‘God said, Honor your father and your mother; yet you say—God says: Whoever should say to his father, A gift whatever you would be benefited from me, and he will not honor his father or his mother, and you have voided God’s commandment through your tradition.’

Palladius: And indeed the knowledge of the things lying forward is not very ready. Clarify then what ever the Pharisees’ fault is in this at least.

Cyril: In Leviticus it has been written somewhere: ‘And the Lord spoke toward Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you will say toward them: A human who should vow a vow as a price of his soul to the Lord, the price of the male from twenty-yeared until sixty-yeared will be, his price will be fifty didrachms of silver, by the holy weight.’ And having said some few things in between about a woman and youths, he brings on again: ‘And if he is humble in the price, he will stand opposite the priest, and the priest will price him.’ The word then is mystic and deep, and will be tested very well by us in the fitting season; yet the thing in hands—come let us say: Some from Israel were approaching, and were being eager to consecrate their own souls to God, as still in type and shadow, yet

Corban vs parent care; Jesus entrusts Mary to John§18

18according to the law, confessing the prices on behalf of themselves to those having obtained to be priests, and sitting beside the divine altar. Yet there were some, longing for such glory (for already made holy and sacred, and a divine dedication, and what of such things were they not thinking fit to be named?), yet by lack of money cutting short the desire, and having poverty as a hard-to-flee trip-up of the matter; and with the Scribes and Pharisees turning them on also very eagerly unto the needing to go toward this (for such ones are very money-loving, and being worsted by shameful gains), they were holding forward the reverence unto parents, and saying truthfully that they can scarcely provide the life-necessary things for themselves and for those, or even collect clothing. These dared to persuade to count the matter as nothing because of God; and if the ones having begotten should approach seeking the customary help from them, they were teaching that they must say to father and mother: ‘A gift, whatever you would be benefited from me.’ That is, Whatever you take from me, know that you are harming the divine dedication, and laying hands upon sacred monies; for I have dedicated myself and have announced myself as a gift to God. And those fearing the harms from the temple-robbery, and having shuddered very much at the laws upon this, were enduring groaning, and were stretching that the piety unto God had become a pretext of hunger for them, perhaps also crying down the divine commandment as doing them injustice unto the most timely things. Why then does he say, ‘You have voided God’s commandment through your tradition’? for it was necessary, necessary to honor the ones having begotten, not to dissolve the law upon them for the sake of the piety unto God. Therefore one must neither neglect the things fitting for God because of the human things, nor indeed be altogether careless of the human things because of God; yet rather distributing the exceptional of the love to the beginning of all things—that is to God—and as in a second and neighboring taxis, carrying at once also unto the under-workers of the genesis the honors most especially fitting for them, thinking also this which I said.

Palladius: What then do you say?

Cyril: For our Lord Jesus Christ, showing the reverence unto the ones having begotten a matter most especially of the necessary things for us, was counting his own mother worthy of sparing and of a word. For already having been hung from the precious cross, and having been nailed to the wood, he was giving the holy Virgin to the genuine disciple, and setting the beloved as her old-age-tender, he was saying: ‘Woman, look—your son’; and to the disciple he said: ‘Look—your mother’; and from that hour, it says, the disciple took her unto his own.

Palladius: How best the word about this seems to have been worked out for us.

Cyril: Having yoked then very well the things from them to the ones having begotten, and the from law and necessity

Parents must not sacrifice children to rulers; Molech ban opens§19

19having thrown a yoke upon them, what sort those around their own offspring would also be—and the parents—if they should not scare out what seems to God. For it is necessary that the ones having begotten also be seen keeping the love unto the children unadulterated, and not bringing them forward unto blood and pollution for the sake of money, nor indeed selling the dignity of nature for gifts. Therefore the law has also shouted: ‘You will not give of your seed to serve a ruler, and you will not profane the name of the holy one; I am the Lord.’ And again: ‘And you will not give from your seed to serve a ruler, and you will not defile the name of your God; I am the Lord your God.’ And he strengthens the ordinance with a fear, saying: ‘And if a human gives from his seed to a ruler, by death let him be put to death; the nation upon the earth will stone him with stones; and I will set my

Molech face of God; Christ frees from law’s pedagogue yoke§20

20face upon that human, and I will destroy him from his people, because he has given of his seed to a ruler, in order that he may defile my holy things and profane the name of those having been made holy for me; and if the natives of the land overlooking overlook with the eyes from that human, when he gives of his seed to the ruler, so as not to kill him, I will set my face against that human and his family, and I will destroy him and all consenting with him to go a whoring toward the rulers, from their people.’ Do you see how much he is disgusted at those choosing to sell their own children for money, and to throw into ruin the dignity of nature for the sake of unholy gifts? Therefore also the prophet was accusing Israel saying: ‘You have slaughtered my children and given them when you made them pass through for them.’ And again: ‘And you took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me, and sacrificed them for yourselves to eat.’ Away then with such a love of money, and let the love of parents toward children be kept pure. And since we have already sufficiently gone through the things about the honor of parents, and about the love of those having begotten toward the offspring, come let us go toward the remaining laws which educate the love unto the neighbor. For there is a short thing mediating, for both those having been justified in Christ, and those being pedagogued through law. For the

Mixed marriage economy; love neighbor; 1 Cor 13 begins§21

21to be entangled with some foreign ones, and to go at once in the same way with the other-raced, was not without penalty for the more ancient ones; yet for us Paul counsels that we must live as citizens both better and more boldly, saying: ‘If some man has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to dwell with him, let him not send her away; and a woman, who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not send the husband away. For the unbelieving man has been made holy in the wife; and the unbelieving wife has been made holy in the husband.’ What then is the manner of the economy at least in these things? And instead of what was the law of old fearing the intertwining toward those other-minded, yet now no longer? For the Spirit dwelling in them works those having been called in Christ firm, and having the God-loving unshaken, through whom and ‘in whom we cry: Abba the Father’; yet those not yet were rich with the gift. For as the divine John says, ‘For Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.’ Therefore all the completion is in Christ, yet the law has completed nothing, according to what has been written.

Palladius: Would you then speak for me asking how the incomplete thing in law would become clear?

Cyril: And very much. And the word will walk for us upon the things in hands, and will thoroughly test the manners of the love unto the neighbor, the writing through Moses having been brought in somehow thicker than is necessary for the more ancient ones.

Palladius: Go then already upon this very thing, and very eagerly.

Cyril: Therefore the law says, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself’; yet our Lord Jesus Christ introduces for us the law of mutual-loving through as many words as parts, and setting as it were the inborn knowledge and the wish in each as advocate for the law, ‘As many things then as you wish that the humans do for you, these things you also likewise do for them.’ For if of as many things as someone would pray to obtain, these he should also choose to do for others himself, he will not run off from the aim; yet he will rather walk straight of the love, and will bind on the crown of the mutual-loving.

Palladius: You speak well.

Cyril: The love then is a fulfillment of law, and better than faith and hope. For thus the divine Paul writes for us. Therefore as it were weaving together for it some many-formed crown from spring flowers, he says again: ‘And if I feed out all my belongings, and if I hand over my body in order that I be burned, yet do not have love, I am benefited nothing. The love is long-suffering, is kind, the love does not envy, does not boast, is not inflated, does not behave shamefully, does not seek

1 Cor 13 finishes; just weights; gospel exceeds law’s equality§22

22the things of herself, is not provoked, does not reckon the evil, does not rejoice upon the injustice, yet rejoices with the truth; covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—the love never falls out.’ Yet these things are clear to all, as at least I think, and the word about them would become very long, if somehow someone should choose to collect finely the things beside the New Writing. Yet we will turn now toward the shadows from law, and the things having been oracle-spoken for those of old as still in types.

Palladius: You reason best.

Cyril: The law was a practice unto justice and as it were some pre-entry of the Gospel manly-deeds. For it has been written: ‘A beginning of a good way is to do the just things.’ For the law pedagogues unto Christ, and of the life understood in him it would not have a falsified glory, if it should be understood spiritually. And it stands unto justice, yet carries off still beyond this—the Gospel lesson. And manners of justice—first, honor and loving, the one unto the one and by nature God; and neighboring as it were and after that at once the one unto brothers and same-raced, the reverence unto parents having been set beforehand. In a fitting order then the Word goes forward for us, after at least the piety unto God, and the carefulness unto parents, that it is fitting that we also make the showing of fairness also unto others, he announces. For everywhere the law is seen legislating, providing for equality, and making the exact test of the just. For it has been written in Deuteronomy: ‘There will not be in your bag a great or small weight; a true just weight will be for you, and a true just measure will be for you, in order that you may become many-dayed upon the earth which the Lord your God gives you in a lot, because an abomination to the Lord your God is everyone doing these things, everyone doing an unjust thing.’ And again in Leviticus: ‘In measures and weights, and with balances—just balances, and just weights, and a just chous will be for you.’ And with measures and weights and balances he was hurrying very well to equalize the manners of the justice, and very rightly; for a straight and justice-loving mind somehow balances and measures thoroughly the natures of the affairs, and tests the account of the equality, more finely and more exactly than someone would think those testing the coin upon a scale-pan and balance; and he measures out as it were for each of the things contemplated what is most fitting for it, neither loosing the beauty of the exact equality by the excess, nor indeed by the under-bringing toward the less allowing the sufficient as in equality to be counterfeited. Let there then be, he says, just balances and weights, and a just chous; and these would be, I think, as it were some types and clear examples, showing under for us manners through which the account of the exact equality would be searched through for us, and the knowledge of the justice will appear. And understand that the things in law are measured together, and have the justice as a boundary, yet the greater is rich, and the things through Christ run very much beyond. For beyond just is the good—that is, the glory of the citizenship in Christ.

Justice must exceed Pharisees; no hate in heart; no hypocrisy§23

23Palladius: You speak well. For I will remember Christ saying thoroughly to those having been justified in faith: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, if your justice does not abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.’

Cyril: Yet let these things hold thus for us; and let us be busy, if it seems good, with the measure of the Mosaic fairness, and the glory of the justice according to law; for the one having been most rightly eager to hunt the knowledge of the just, and indeed also having made in word the excelling in loving perhaps the one toward brothers, it is fitting to be seen safe and having stepped, and what he truly is—not easily-shaken, nor light, not having the useful as plastered-on, and as it were wishing to shadow the wolf’s form with a sheep’s fleece, but rather hurrying to have naked and unreproveable the freedom of his own manner. Therefore the law says: ‘You will not walk with deceit in your nation, and you will not hate your brother in the heart; with rebuke you will rebuke your neighbor, and you will not take a sin because of him.’ Therefore he has commanded not only to stand off from the deed of the hatred, but also to cast out the very disease of the mind; for the one hating in heart has already been blood-guilty, even if he should not yet stretch out the hand for murder. And Christ also, defining the Gospel justice more severely, was saying: ‘You have heard that it was said for the ancients: You will not murder; yet I say to you that everyone being angered with his brother emptily will be liable to the judgment.’ Therefore the justice in Christ has been stretched beyond the law’s boundary. And he also refuses the human-pleasing—the cursed thing, which is woven as it were from two pursuits having been sickened with no measured corruption unto one another. For what or of what sort is the hypocrites’ life? Is it not the being seen useful in humans’ sight, and the seeming to be, yet not still also being according to truth useful?

Palladius: And very much.

Cyril: Twofold then is the manner woven for us from unlike wishes. Yet the divine David

Single-turned vs people-pleasers; goring ox liability§24

24receives the single-turned and says he is counted worthy of the sparing from above; ‘For the Lord,’ he says, ‘settles single-turned ones in a house.’ And God is also said to scatter bones of human-pleasers; and Paul also abominates the matter, saying: ‘For do I now persuade humans, or God? Or do I seek to please humans? If I were still pleasing humans, I would not be Christ’s slave.’

Palladius: And for whom of the things that are is it not unapparent, that the double-souling and play-acting is truly out-of-place and farthest from the exact uprightness?

Cyril: A fruit then of the love having been prepared blamelessly and fitting for a just and good man is the having been freed from deceit. And that this is also necessary the law says—that the one truly a caretaker of the justice, and a lover of the love unto brothers, thinks the glory upon this holds rightly, not if he himself and alone should refuse to do injustice, but if he should also become an educator also of those intimate according to race, or then of those having come near according to some other manner, and should stand them off from the bad. And look—he also legislates about an ox accustomed to gore: ‘And if an ox gores a man or a woman and he dies, with stones let the ox be stoned, and his meats will not be eaten, yet the lord of the ox will be without liability. And if the ox is a gorer from yesterday and the third day, and it has been testified to his lord, and he has not destroyed him, and he kills a man or a woman, the ox will be stoned, and his lord also will die.’ He has commanded then that the goring animal pay the justice upon death; he said it must end stone-pelted. Yet he steals under

Owner shares guilt if forewarned; holy vs common harm§25

25the one possessing the anger, if he should not know the manner of the greediness, nor be caught a sharer of that one’s baseness; for others’ accusations are not ours, if somehow they should become secret. And he does not allow to eat the ox’s meats, under-typing as in a type according to the eating and as it were the partaking—the needing not to share others’ uncleanness; is this not clearly the ‘Keep yourself pure, and do not share alien sins’?

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: And he has judged that the master be condemned together with the calf, if somehow he should know the thing stumbled, and having learned should be proven about the greediness; for the being able to bar the manners of the injustice, and to hinder very well the faulty thing, then not enduring to do this, and very eagerly, all but also shows the human as having worked together, and as far as it comes unto wish and same-counseling having chosen to labor out together with those wishing to do unholy things. Let such a one then die, he says, except that he may give a ransom for his life. Therefore knowing beforehand and overlooking is partnership of the evil. And he distinguishes the strike upon a son or daughter, and upon a manservant or maidservant, not measuring the penalty equally upon both; because that both those and these are brothers by nature is clear to everyone; yet the holy is in the spiritual excess, and in the heights of the virtue; and precious beside God, so as also to become in a taxis of son and daughter, and to be carried above the human and slave-fitting measure. And the law also introduces to do holy things and to cling to the love unto brothers,

Open pit = scandal; cover the word; love seeks others’ good§26

26and according to other manners also introduces for us, which also having set beside next, we will say what has come unto mind upon each. For he said again: ‘And if someone opens a pit, or quarries a pit, and does not cover it, and a calf or donkey falls there, the lord of the pit will pay back; he will give silver to their lord, yet the having died will be for him.’ And this is enigmatically—the not setting a stumble for the brother or a scandal, and not allowing what has been born to benefit to become useless for some, nor indeed a path to be seen toward death—the things necessary unto life for us and for others. Or does not someone opening a pit, or quarrying, complete something useful and necessary for himself and for others? Yet let not, he says, your things be a pretext of danger for another. ‘For the love,’ according as the divine Paul says, ‘does not seek the things of herself,’ yet rather reckons also the things of others.

Palladius: And who is the one opening or quarrying a pit, and what is the pit—I would wish to know clearly.

Cyril: The thing from the history is simple: a pit for water, useful, yet deadly if uncovered. Yet according to the more mystic look—those digging wells of living waters are the sacred teachers, drawing the divine oracles; yet those of the falsely-named knowledge also dig broken pits, according to the prophet’s voice; if then someone should dig a pit, let him make safe, he says, lest somehow what seems to have been worked well become a manner of destruction for some; for we must make the word about God both rightly and exactly, so as to become a pretext of scandal for no one. And this, I think, is the lid lying upon the pit—the of the fitting safe

Ox/donkey = baptized vs unbaptized; scandal debt; thorn vs grain§27

27guarding not to be without share for the word. For if, he says, an ox or donkey falls, the one having toiled will pay back. And he names ox and donkey again not simply, but as in a deep word; and he says ox, in order that you may understand the sacred and clean race; yet donkey, in order that you may put together the unsacred and unclean; for the unclean is not brought according to law unto a sacrifice for God; and we say a sacred and clean race are those already having been made holy through the faith; yet unsacred and unclean—those not yet having been cleansed through the holy baptism, but still having the pollution of the sin in-melted. Like then as if he should say, If some harm should become, either about some of those already baptized and sealed through the grace unto the intimacy as toward God, or then unto some perhaps of those not yet such, the provider of the scandal will owe a justice, and the having died will remain for him—that is, the death of the one having suffered will become his. At any rate the Savior himself also makes us safe saying: ‘Whoever should scandalize one of these little ones believing into me, it benefits him that a millstone of a donkey be hung around his neck, and he be sunk in the sea’s depth.’ Therefore one must cover the pit—that is, make the word about the mysteries safe with exactness, lest either a baptized one or one still outside be destroyed. And when teachers’ words as flames or fire fall upon the trickings of the other-doctrined and of Greeks, advocating for the dogmas of the truth, and go against thorn alone, and burn down as useless and wild matter the writings beside those, yet do not wrong together grain or ear—that is, let the mystagogues be sober, lest somehow they also damage something of the dogmas of the truth; or let him know, he says, who does not endure to do this with safety, that if somehow something of the necessary things unto benefit should become burned down together with the base things, he will pay back the accounts of the carelessness. Thorn then is the most foul and profane door-mouthing of the distorted ones; yet grain and ear is the soul-benefiting and most nourishing word of the truth

Scripture a smooth field; keep brother-love pure — Book 7 Amen§28

28word; and a bare plain is the God-breathed Scripture. Whenever then as it were flames, or fire, the words of the holy mystagogues should fall upon the trickings of the other-doctrined and of Greeks, advocating for the dogmas of the truth, and he says they go against thorn alone, and burn down as useless and wild matter the writings beside those, yet do not wrong together grain or ear—that is, let the mystagogues be sober, lest somehow they also damage something of the dogmas of the truth; or let him know, he says, who does not endure to do this with safety, that if somehow something of the necessary things unto benefit should become burned down together with the base things, he will pay back the accounts of the carelessness. Do you perceive then how great a watching the legislating one has commanded us to make, saving everywhere the sincere thing of the love unto brothers unmuddied?

Palladius: I understand.