Seek others’ things; grazing field; heretics devour Lord’s vineyard
Cyril: And Paul the divine also was setting for us a wise law of the love unto one another, saying thus: ‘Not seeking the things of themselves, but also the things of the others.’ For love does not seek the things of itself; but it rather looks around also at the things of the others, and how the things of the brothers would hold well. This again the ancient Writing somehow hints to us; and it holds thus: ‘And if someone should graze down a field or a vineyard, and should let his beast go to graze down another field, he will repay from his field according to its produce; and if he should graze down the whole field, he will repay the best things of his field, and the best things of his vineyard.’ For the one letting his own beast loose upon others’ fields benefits the things according to himself, and somehow seeks the things of himself, yet not from what the neighbor is gladdened, nor upon what one of those near would be pleased, but from what would happen to be grieved and wronged. So one must seek what benefits us—that is, the things of ourselves—not through grasping unto others, but through what would come about to go unto this, wronging nothing, and the neighbor’s good cheer standing uprightly. For this would clearly be seeking also the things of the others. Or let someone know, he says, if he should choose unguardedly to leave brothers behind, and should hold the neighbor without foresight, looking perhaps only unto his own, he will endure the equal penalty, and will provide as cause of destruction for the things most dear to him the mode of the seeming benefit. For this, I think, is, ‘He will repay the best things of his field and of his vineyard.’ And the power of the things set forth would also fit, as at least it seems to me, the inventors of the heresies, whose abominable and most mindless disciples, in the manner of irrational beasts, feed down the master’s grain-fields and vineyards, unto judgment and punishment of the inventors of the heresy; for the loss of the most beautiful things will befall those—that is, the destruction about the soul itself; for of a vineyard, or perhaps a grain-field, and of each of the things understood according to us part by part, the best in it is the soul.
Palladius: So we say then that a fruit of love is needing to seek the things of the others, and not indeed only the things of ourselves.
Cyril: Very much so, O Palladius, and needing to fulfill the loving unto brothers, as most sweet to God, yet he does not economically allow the love to be overloaded with the superfluous and more of misuse from our side; for what leaps upon it not measuredly, but rather with a hard-to-meet impulse, easily damages even the mind that has stepped well, even if it should happen to be in a beautiful state of whatever virtue.
Palladius: How much then do you say? For I do not understand clearly.
Cyril: Or do you not say that the gentle and the forbearing of evil is a virtue?
Palladius: How not so?
Greek
{ΚΥΡ.} Σοφὸν δὲ ἡμῖν τῆς εἰς ἀλλήλους ἀγάπης ἐτίθει νόμον καὶ ὁ θεσπέσιος Παῦλος, ὡδίπη λέγων· «Μὴ τὰ ἑαυτῶν ζητοῦντες, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ ἑτέρων.» Οὐ ζητεῖ γὰρ ἡ ἀγάπη τὰ ἑαυτῆς· περισκέπτεται δὲ μᾶλλον καὶ τὰ ἑτέρων, καὶ ὅπως ἂν ἔχοι τὰ ἀδελφῶν εὖ. Τοῦτό τοι πάλιν τὸ ἀρχαῖον ἡμῖν ὑπαινίττεται Γράμμα· ἔχει δὲ οὕτως· «Ἐὰν δὲ καταβοσκήσῃ τις ἀγρὸν ἢ ἀμπελῶνα, καὶ ἀφῇ τὸ κτῆνος αὐτοῦ, καταβοσκῆσαι ἀγρὸν ἕτερον, ἀποτίσει ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὸ γέννημα αὐτοῦ· ἐὰν δὲ πάντα τὸν ἀγρὸν καταβοσκήσῃ, τὰ βέλτιστα τοῦ ἀγροῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰ βέλτιστα τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος αὐτοῦ ἀποτίσει.» Ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἀγροῖς ἑτέρων τὸ ἴδιον κτῆνος ἐπαφιεὶς, ὀνίνησι μὲν τὰ καθ' ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ζητεῖ πως τὰ ἑαυτοῦ, πλὴν οὐκ ἐξ ὧν ὁ γείτων εὐφραίνεται, οὐδὲ ἐφ' οἷς ἂν ἥδοιτό τις τῶν πέλας, ἀλλ' ἐξ ὧν ἂν λυπεῖσθαί τε καὶ ἀδικεῖσθαι συμβαίνοι. Ζητητέον οὖν ἄρα τὸ ἡμᾶς ὠφελοῦν, τουτέστι, τὸ ἑαυτῶν, οὐ διὰ τῆς εἰς ἑτέρους πλεονεξίας, ἀλλὰ δι' ὧν ἂν γένοιτο πρὸς τοῦτο ἰέναι, πλημμελοῦντας οὐδὲν, καὶ τῆς τοῦ γείτονος εὐθυμίας ἑστώσης ὀρθῶς. Τοῦτο γὰρ ἂν εἴη σαφῶς, τὸ ζητεῖν καὶ τὰ ἑτέρων. Ἢ ἴστω τις, φησὶν, εἰ ἀφυλάκτως ἕλοιτο καταλυπεῖν ἀδελφοὺς, καὶ ἀπρονοήτως ἔχοι τοῦ πέλας, εἰς μόνον τάχα που τὸ ἴδιον βλέπων, τὴν ἴσην ὑπομενεῖν ζημίαν, καὶ τὸν τῆς δοκούσης ὠφελείας τρόπον, τῶν ὅτι μάλιστα φιλαιτάτων αὐτῷ προξενήσων τὴν ἀπώλειαν. Τουτὶ γὰρ, οἶμαι, ἔστι τὸ, «Ἀποτίσει τὰ βέλτιστα τοῦ ἀγροῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος αὐτοῦ.» Ἁρμόζει δ' ἂν, ὥς γέ μοι φαίνεται, τῶν προκειμένων ἡ δύναμις καὶ τοῖς τῶν αἱρέσεων εὑρεταῖς, ὧν οἱ βδελυροὶ καὶ ἀνούστατοι μαθηταὶ, κτηνῶν ἀλόγων δίκην, λήϊά τε καὶ ἀμπελῶνας κατανέμονται τοὺς δεσποτικοὺς, εἰς κρίμα καὶ κόλασιν τῶν τῆς αἱρέσεως εὑρετῶν· συμβήσεται γὰρ ἐκείνοις ἡ τῶν καλλίστῳν ζημία, τουτέστιν, ὁ περὶ αὐτὴν ὄλεθρος τὴν ψυχήν· ἀμπελῶνος γὰρ, ἤγουν ληΐου τυχὸν, καὶ ἀνὰ μέρος ἑκάστου τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς νοουμένων τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ βέλτιστον ἡ ψυχή.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Καρπὸν οὖν ἄρα τῆς ἀγάπης εἶναί φαμεν τὸ χρῆναι ζητεῖν τὰ ἑτέρων, καὶ οὐχὶ δὴ μόνον τὰ ἑαυτῶν.
{ΚΥΡ.} Πάνυ μὲν οὖν, ὦ Παλλάδιε, καὶ τὸ μὲν χρῆναι πληροῦν τὴν εἰς ἀδελφοὺς ἀγάπησιν, ὡς ἥδιστον τῷ Θεῷ, καταφορτίζεσθαι δὲ τὴν ἀγάπην τῷ περιττῷ καὶ πλείονι τῆς πρὸς ἡμῶν καταχρήσεως, οἰκονομικῶς οὐκ ἐᾷ· κατασίνεται γὰρ εὐκόλως καὶ τὸν εὖ βεβηκότα νοῦν, κἂν εἰ ἐν καλῷ γένοιτο τυχὸν τῆς ἐφ' ὅτῳ οὖν ἀρετῆς, τὸ μὴ μετρίως αὐτῷ, δυσαντήτῳ δὲ μᾶλλον ἐπιθρῶσκον ὁρμῇ.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ὅσον δὴ τί φής; οὐ γάρ τοι συνίημι σαφῶς.
{ΚΥΡ.} Ἢ οὐκ ἀρετὴν εἶναι φὴς, τὸ πρᾶόν τε καὶ ἀνεξίκακον;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πῶς γὰρ οὕ;
About this text
Cyril continues the dialogue with Palladius. Book 8 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 8 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 8)
- Checked print PDF of PG 68 De adoratione (Greek · Book 8)
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.