Not a hoof left behind

Cyril went on: And so the divine Paul writes: 'For as you presented your members slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members slaves to righteousness unto sanctification.'

Palladius said: Why then does Pharaoh let those in youth and in their primes go, and take for himself the others?

Cyril: For whom do you say is the one who remains in Egypt?

Palladius: There were, I think, women in every way, children not yet in youth, and weak elders, and livestock without reason.

Cyril: Then, my good man, how do you not think that other thing at once?

Palladius: What do you say?

Cyril: For those swelling and young, and having a more prime habit toward piety, he counts burdensome; for he longs, I think, even unwilling, to be rid of those who have stood against, who are also able to act against him, and to help themselves when they are wronged, according at least to the, 'Stand against the devil, and he will flee from you.' And he takes much for himself of what is not of a nature to take heart, and as a weak and unwarlike race, and he loves a mind sick in itself with the female and soft, and such as has left youth and is without strength, and still boyish, and the thick and less reasonable, as in type with oxen and sheep.

Palladius: You have spoken well.

Cyril: And the hard-minded and unbending Pharaoh lies again. Then, when their whole country, so to speak, is being spent by the assaults of the locust, he makes Moses sent-for, Aaron running in with him, and says: 'Go and worship the Lord your God, only leave the sheep and the oxen, and let your household stuff run off with you.' And Moses said: 'But you too shall give us whole burnt-offerings, and sacrifices which we shall make to the Lord our God; and our cattle shall go with us, and we shall not leave behind a hoof; for from them we shall take to worship the Lord our God.'

Palladius: And what mind would we fit to what was said by Moses, who was wise in all things? Or how would one take the things from Egypt and Pharaoh, and assign them to God?

Cyril: And yet, my friend, the word is clear. For the one who has stood against and fights those who wish to be pious, if it should not be wholly possible that some lie under him, desires at least to have this in part; but the law of God teaches that the leaving must be made very cutting, allowing nothing whatever to lie and remain under him — not of soul, not a portion of mind, not an occasion of a bodily motion. And besides, we must also bring to God the finest and exceptional things of the life in the world. For this, I think, is what taking from Egypt, and sacrificing to God, shows. Or would not those who contend for our holy and divine doctrines through worldly wisdom do this?