Desire of the flesh, of the eyes, and pride of life

Cyril went on: And the Savior's disciple would also show us that this is true, saying in this way, 'that all that is in the world, the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life.' For the desire of the flesh is inborn and rooted in us ourselves and remaining, and the divine Paul also named it a law of sin, dwelling in the members of the flesh. And the delights and pleasures from outside and brought in are the things through the eyes. For the things from wealth are wondered at through eyes, and also fine clothing, and the things to which some would cling, that they may have the sweetest enjoyment, giving them no small vote. So then vine and fig would be toward a type of the delight and luxury from outside and brought in, showing with a fine grace together the temporary and easily withered character of the things in the world, and with this the sweet together with what is accustomed to darken. For every worldly luxury has a sweet sharing at the moment, but it darkens very much and makes terribly drunk the one who has received it. And the cistern is an image of the inborn motions in us. For these have not been brought in as those have, but they spring as it were in us, bubbling up from the flesh itself. Of all these then, natural and brought on, the evil powers say that the sharing will be free for us, and the enjoyment wholly broad, if, having left self-control as a holy and unshaken city, we go over to the king of Babylon, who was in type of Satan. But Rabshakeh promised that the delight at the moment would be let go to them and given besides, if they went over to the Babylonians. But they were not persuaded, thinking rightly; for there will follow in every way, upon wishing to choose the worldly things, the need to fall into an unwanted slavery, and to come into the rank of those taken by the spear.

Palladius said: The word is exact. And what would be the way out of these things? Tell me, since I would hear it most gladly.

Cyril: What else than the one that stands opposite to the first and at the beginning? For turning aside by swings of our own wishes toward wishing to live shamefully, and pushing away the fineness of the blameless way of life, we have fallen toward a low-born and slavish mind, thinking only the things on the earth, and lying wholly in the pleasures of the flesh. That is why God thereafter also let us slip down into a reprobate mind.

Palladius: So then it is necessary to run back toward virtue?

Cyril: Without neglect, my good man, no longer longing for the life in the world, according surely to that word spoken rightly through Paul's voice: 'For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.' But rather thirsting for the enrollment in heaven, and having made the city above as it were fatherland and city, and crying out well to God: 'Let me go, because I am a sojourner on the earth, and a stranger, as all my fathers were.' For the one who walks on the earth, and has a bright citizenship in heaven, would reasonably appear, from the things themselves, a sojourner and a stranger in truth.