Jeremiah Sabbath burdens; Church as city; not cease from every good
‘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,
Greek
«Βάδισον καὶ στῆθι ἐν πύλαις υἱῶν λαοῦ σου, ἐν αἷς εἰσπορεύονται βασιλεῖς Ἰούδα, καὶ ἐν αἷς ἐκπορεύονται ἐν αὐταῖς, καὶ ἐν πάσαις ταῖς πύλαις Ἱερουσαλήμ· καὶ ἐρεῖς πρὸς αὐτούς· Ἀκούσατε λόγον Κυρίου, βασιλεῖς Ἰούδα καὶ πᾶσα Ἰουδαία καὶ πᾶσαἹερουσαλὴμ, καὶ οἱ εἰσπορευόμενοι ἐν ταῖς πύλαις ταύταις. Τάδε λέγει Κύριος· Φυλάσσεσθε τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν, καὶ μὴ αἴρετε βαστάγματα ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν Σαββάτων, καὶ πᾶν ἔργον οὐ ποιήσετε, καὶ μὴ ἐκπορεύεσθε ταῖς πύλαις Ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ μὴ ἐκφέρετε βαστάγματα ἐξ οἰκιῶν ὑμῶν ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν Σαββάτων, καθὼς ἐνετειλάμην τοῖς πατράσιν ὑμῶν καὶ οὐκ ἤκουσαν, καὶ οὐκ ἔκλιναν τὸ οὖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἐσκλήρυναν τὸν τράχηλον αὐτῶν ὑπὲρ τοὺς πατέρας αὐτῶν, τοῦ μὴ ἀκοῦσαί μου, καὶ τοῦ μὴ δέξασθαι παιδείαν.» Οὐ μόνον δὴ οὖν τὸ δεῖν ἔργου παντὸς καταλήγειν ἐν Σαββάτῳ προστέταχεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ περαιτέρω πυλῶν Ἱερουσαλήμ.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Εἶτα τίς ἂν εἴη καὶ τούτων ὁ λόγος;
{ΚΥΡ.} Νοητὸς δὴ καὶ πνευματικὸς, καὶ ἐπέκεινα τῶν τύπων, καὶ σκιᾶς ἀμείνων τῆς ἀρχαιοτέρας. Ἔργου μὲν γὰρ τοῦ πρὸς φαυλότητα τετραμμένου τε καὶ βλέποντος εἰς κατάληξιν ἰέναι κελεύει τοὺς ἐν Χριστῷ σαββατίζοντας, βάσταγμά γε μὴν ἐπωμάδιον ποιεῖσθαι μηδέν. Τοὺς γὰρ ἅπαξ διὰ τῆς πίστεως τὸ δύσοιστον ἀληθῶς τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἄχθος ἀποβεβληκότας, πῶς οὐκ ἀπόπληκτον παντελῶς τὸ καὶ εἰς αὖθις αὐτῷ καταφορτίζεσθαι δεῖν, καὶ ὑποπίπτειν ἑλέσθαι πάλιν τοῖς εἰς φαυλότητα ζυγοῖς; Πυλῶν δὲ εἴσω καθίζειν τῶν τῆς Ἱερουσαλὴμ, τὸ μὴ χρῆναι πόλεως ἡμᾶς τῆς ἁγίας ἀπονοσφίζεσθαι τυπῶν, μήτε μὴν ἔξω φέρεσθαι καὶ ἀπολισθεῖν ἐφιεὶς, διὰ τῆς εἰς ἕτερόν τι παρατροπῆς. Ἁγίαν δὲ πόλιν νοήσεις, τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν· ἤδη γάρ πού τινες, διὰ τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως ἐκλελαμπρυσμένοι, ἀποφορτισάμενοί τε τὴν βέβηλον ἁμαρτίαν, εἴσω τε πυλῶν γεγονότες ἁγίων τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ Θεοῦ, παρεκομίσθησαν εἰς ἀπόστασιν, εἰ καὶ μὴ πρὸς ἐμφανῆ τυχὸν, ἀλλ' οὖν ἐξήλαντο τῆς ἁγίας πύλης, ἔθη τιμήσαντες εἰδωλοπρεπῆ. Εἴσω δὴ οὖν καθῆσθαι πυλῶν τοὺς νοητῶς σαββατίζοντας κεχρησμῴδηκε Θεὸς, τὸ ἀσφαλές τε καὶ ἀνεξίτηλον, καὶ τὸ μηδαμῆ χρῆναι παρολισθεῖν τῆς εἰς αὐτὸν γνησιότητος, τοῦ τύπου σημαίνοντος. Ὅτι δὲ Θεοῦ πόλις ἡ Ἐκκλησία, μάλιστα μὲν ἀναβοήσει καὶ ὁ Δαβὶδ λέγων· «Δεδοξασμένα ἐλαλήθη περὶ σοῦ, ἡ πόλις τοῦ Θεοῦ·» πληροφορήσει δέ που καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Σωτὴρ περὶ αὐτῆς λέγων· Ὧδε κατοικήσω ὅτι ᾑρετισάμην αὐτήν.»
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ἄραρεν οὖν, ὅτι παντὸς ἔργου καταλύσομεν ἐν Σαββάτῳ, κατά γε τὸ νομοθέτῃ δοκοῦν.
{ΚΥΡ.} Οὐ παντὸς ἁπλῶς, ὦ Παλλάδιε· τὸ γάρ τοι χρῆναι φρονεῖν τε καὶ δρᾷν τὰ ἐφ' οἷς ἂν ἥδοιτο Θεὸς, καὶ οὐ μετρίαν ἔχοι τὴν ὄνησιν, οὐκ ἐπαινουμένην ἂν εἰσδέξαιτο τὴν κατάληξιν. Προστέθεικε γὰρ οὐ μάτην, ὥς γέ μοι δοκεῖ, τὸ Γράμμα τὸ ἱερὸν,
About this text
Cyril continues the dialogue with Palladius. Book 7 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 7 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 7)
- Checked print PDF of PG 68 De adoratione (Greek · Book 7)
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.