Ask, seek, knock; man turned aside

Palladius went on: Come then, putting a fine and exact mind to what was spoken in type, let us search very well the beauty of the truth. For so at last the mystery of the worship in spirit would be clear to no one of those who are.

Cyril said: And yet, noble friend, I have shuddered at this greatly, and with reason, and I am very reluctant toward it. For I think the things that have obtained a contemplation so removed and stretched high would be ungraspable for those of our time. And I think a man looking into the depth of the thoughts in the Law must say: 'Who is wise and will understand these things? And understanding, and will know them?'

Palladius: The thing is not without roughness, my good man. Yet 'Ask,' says Christ, 'and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.'

Cyril: We must go on, then, to the need of hunting what makes for profit; and let us also stretch out a petition beforehand, saying: 'Uncover my eyes, and I will perceive your wonders from your Law.' And we must, as it seems, speak before the rest both of how man turned aside into a cheap and low life, and about slavery, and the captivity under the enemy of all, and how and in what manner these things are worked by us and in us. And then, next, also in what manner we must turn away from the evil, and shake off the yoke of the slavery to it, and spring up again toward what was at the beginning, God saving and helping. For if the word goes for us on this fitting road, the rest also would, I think, belong.

Palladius: You think most rightly.

Cyril: For being able to bear fruit to God and to bring spiritual sacrifices, or to take heart and to be well thought of, when we wish to accomplish virtue, would not, I suppose, be fitting for those still so bound in slavery and in the necessity of passions, but for those whose mind is already somehow sobering toward the free, and who have not left unpracticed the shaking-off of the yoke of the devil's greed.

Palladius: I agree, for you think rightly.

Cyril: Come then, let us say that man was made at the beginning with his mind still somehow above sin and passions, yet not wholly incapable of the turning aside toward whatever he might choose. For it seemed right to God, the best craftsman of all, to fasten to him the reins of his own wishes, and to assign him to do what seemed good by self-commanded impulses. For virtue had to be seen as of choice, and not as from necessity, and not as set unfailingly on laws of nature; for that would be proper to the highest of all beings and to the supremacy. And when the living being had been finished according to the reasons of its own nature, God crafting it, it was at once rich in the likeness toward him. For the image of the divine nature was engraved on it, when the Holy Spirit had been breathed in. For that is the breath of life, since God is life by nature.