Solid food, marriage, and unequal gifts

Cyril went on: But when they dart through toward a man already mature, and into the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ, the more solid food would already somehow be fitting, that is, the word about the highest things, and every path thereafter of dogmatic search; so here too I say, that is, in the corrections of habits and manners, it would not be of the things possible for some to be able to spring up at once upon what has itself blamelessly, or into a beyond-nature and high way of life. It would be fitting, I think, little by little toward the habit that has itself completely, having begun from small and measured things, and all but running in beforehand as into a small city, neighbor to a high mountain, the way of life that sits under the exceptional and housed life and is in lesser things. That is why the righteous Lot also would be a type of those so disposed, thinking it right to lodge not at once on the mountain, but in the small city Zoar. Or shall we not also in the gospel preachings often find such plans having come to be in those who believe? And so the blessed Paul sends a letter, saying: 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of the fornications let each have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. And this I say by way of concession, not by command. For I wish all men to be as I myself also am. But each has his own gift from God, one thus, one thus.' You see how he showed us the exceedingly lifted-up character of self-control as a mountain, saying: 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'; and he permitted us to lodge in Zoar, that is, in the training that still sits under what has itself perfectly — I mean the being permitted to be joined only with one's own wife? And the Savior said the best land would give back fruits, one a hundred, one sixty, one thirty. And he also distributed the talent, not in equal measure, but to one five, to one two, to one one; showing, I think, through these the unequal strength of the habits, and assigning to each as he would have aptitude and judgment. For as we said just now, 'Each has his own gift from God, one thus, one thus.'

Palladius said: You speak well.

Cyril: The blessed angel permits him to lodge in Zoar. 'For behold,' he says, 'I have admired your face also in this word of not overthrowing the city about which you spoke. Hurry then to be saved there.' Then he says that 'The sun came out upon the land, and Lot entered into Zoar.' And you might wonder, my friend, what the mind of these things also would be, when you have learned: 'For I have admired your face,' he says, 'of not overthrowing the city about which you spoke.'