Follow Christ; Abraham leaves Haran

Cyril went on: Or do you not say that it is the work of the utmost strength understood in Christ, the so bright and conspicuous courage, which counts these things as nothing? And it makes much of the need to follow Christ.

Palladius said: Very much so, since those called to the wedding and refusing the coming have also slipped away from the best hope and from the gladness in Christ. Of whom one said: 'I have married a wife, and I cannot come.' And another, saying he had bought a field, made the temporary things better than the calling.

Cyril: Well done, Palladius; for you gladden us, saying what is likely, and from a very great aptitude leaping up well beforehand toward understanding warmly the end of the word. See then that for those who follow God wholly and in every way, and have made the things of the flesh and worldly love of pleasure second to the hope in him, there will follow in every way a rich sharing in the blessing from above. For what does he say to Abraham? 'And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you,' and the things joined to these. You see, then, how great a crowd of spiritual goods he heaped on him? And in what manner Abraham sets out from the land that bore him — how is it not worth seeing? 'For he took,' it says, 'Sarah his wife, and Lot the son of his brother, and all their belongings which they had acquired, and every soul which they had acquired in Haran. And they went out to go into the land of Canaan, and Abraham passed through the land into its length, as far as the place Shechem, to the high oak.' For he went out from Haran, leaving no remnant of himself in it, and as with his whole race and whole house, most eagerly running over into the land of Canaan, which God showed. Then he goes through the land into its length, and comes into the high land. For the one who has wished to follow the divine decrees very well, and to count the calling from above worthy of the best care, let him go out of the life in worldly pleasures wholly through and through, and as with his whole race, having left no remnant of his own mind in the things in which he once was. For so he sets out rightly, and he will go through the land, for he has been called by God, so that, as the blessed Paul writes, he may be strong to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the mystery of Christ. For then he will go up well toward the high land, that is, toward the habit housed in virtues, and having no longer from any side what is thrown down into love of flesh. And what again of the goods there will be for the one who has already come to this, we shall know from the holy Writings themselves. 'For the Lord appeared,' it says, 'to Abraham, and said to him: To your seed I will give this land. And Abraham built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.' For while he lingered in the land of his fatherland, and had not yet gone over toward the holy land, only an oracle was given of the need to go over into another, having slighted the land that bore him. But when he came into the land of Canaan with his whole house and with all his gear, and toward the holy land he sprang up, the grace of the seeing of God has been given.