Many called, few chosen

Cyril went on: And those outside and in a wilderness, very few and choice; 'for many are called,' he says, 'but few chosen.' We have all then been called into freedom through the faith in Christ, and we have been redeemed from diabolic tyranny, Christ carrying us toward this, being well prefigured for the people of old in Moses and Aaron, so that in the same you may understand Emmanuel, being lawgiver and high priest and apostle, in the manner of the plan. But the most of those called still linger in the old evils, and having not yet gone out with a whole mind from worldly deceit, they worship God as in a naked and mere faith. These we say are those who sacrifice in Egypt, or who have come a little outside. 'For you shall not stretch far,' says the hard-hearted Pharaoh, even if you run out from the Egyptians' land. Those, however, who wish to please God with a whole transfer toward the good, and who have been set free even wholly from worldly confusion, are carried outside the Egyptians', and they run away from the tyrant's hand, and, as in a wilderness, in the leisured and loosed life, they sacrifice cleanly, being clean, to God. And I for my part would also say, in another manner, that those running from the worshiping of the creation beside the one who created, toward truth, and called into knowledge of the God who is so by nature, must be carried farthest from the Egyptians' land. For those who have not yet rubbed off the remnants of the ancient deceit from their own mind have not yet gone out perfectly. For some observe days and months and seasons and years. These, called toward the free dignity through Christ, still living in the Egyptians', sacrifice to God, keeping a life that would not be unwanted by Satan. And if someone should go out wholly, having said farewell to the more ancient customs, he sacrifices in a wilderness, and practices the life worthy of every praise.

Palladius said: I agree; for you think rightly. And let the word go for us again with the stream.

Cyril: So then Pharaoh lies, and denies the promise, and does not yet let those from Israel go. Then he was maltreated with three other plagues, and he barely nods, saying he will let them go; and he was caught having lied again. 'For he is a liar, and has not stood in the truth,' according to the Savior's voice. And God, threatening, and also putting it in, sends the most violent hail upon the Egyptians, and also the locust, the field-destroyer, if one must also take a voice from the Greeks and say it. Then, then, the spear-bearers of Pharaoh's abomination, once terrible and unbroken, barely make a very great outcry against him, saying: 'How long shall this be a snare for us? Send out the men, that they may worship the Lord their God. Or do you wish to know that Egypt has perished?' And from here again it comes to me to think that Satan is perhaps somehow better than the powers under him, in the things in which winning would be fitting for him. For they, as it seems, are very hard and wholly unsoftened.