Scripture a smooth field; keep brother-love pure — Book 7 Amen
word; 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.
Greek
γος· ψιλὸν δὲ πεδίον, ἡ θεόπνευστος Γραφή. Ὅταν τοίνυν οἷά περ φλόγες, ἢ πῦρ τοῖς τῶν ἑτεροδόξων τε καὶ Ἑλλήνων φενακισμοῖς οἱ τῶν ἁγίων μυσταγωγῶν ἐπιφύοιντο λόγοι, τοῖς τῆς ἀληθείας συνηγοροῦντες δόγμασι, καὶ τὰ κατὰ μόνης ἰόντων ἀκάνθης φησὶ, καὶ καταφλεγόντων μὲν ὡς ἄχρηστον καὶ ἀγρίαν ὕλην, τὰ παρ' ἐκείνοις συγγράμματα, μὴ συναδικούντων δὲ σῖτον ἢ ἄσταχυν, τουτέστιν, νηφέτωσαν οἱ μυσταγωγοὶ, μὴ ἄρα τι καταπημήνειαν τῶν τῆς ἀληθείας δογμάτων· ἢ ἴστω, φησὶν, ὁ σὺν ἀσφαλείᾳ τοῦτο δρᾷν οὐκ ἀνεχόμενος, ὡς εἴπερ τι γένοιτο συγκαταφλεχθῆναι τοῖς φαύλοις τῶν ἀναγκαίων εἰς ὄνησιν, ἀποτίσει τῆς ἀπροσεξίας τοὺς λόγους. Αἰσθάνῃ δὴ οὖν ὅσην ἡμᾶς ποιεῖσθαι τὴν ἐπιτήρησιν προστέταχεν ὁ νομοθετῶν, τῆς εἰς ἀδελφοὺς ἀγάπης τὸ εἰλικρινὲς ἀθόλωτον ἀποσώζων πανταχῆ;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Συνίημι.
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.