On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and Truth, Book 10

Book Ten opens: was the account of the tent enough?§1

1ON ADORATION AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH — BOOK TEN. Still on the same subjects, and on the things in the holy tent.

Cyril: Palladius, has the account we gave of the holy tent and of the things in it been clear to you, and enough?

Why Moses, not Joshua, set up the tent§2

2Palladius: Very clear indeed, but far from enough.

Cyril: Then would you like us to go back with all eagerness to the point that seems to have been left out of what we said about it? For you think, I suppose, and naturally so, that we must add an account that makes clear how it was set up for us, and when and how the ordinances and laws connected with it were established, together with its dedication, its sanctification and its judgment.

Palladius: Then explain each of these in turn, for you are thinking rightly.

Cyril: I will speak, then. But you in turn must be indulgent, bearing in mind how altogether difficult these contemplations are. If at any point I happen to say something that misses precision and strays from what ought to be said, reshape it and set it right; for I will make you a partner and helper in my words.

Palladius: Go on, trusting in God.

Cyril: When the work on the holy tent had been fully completed, and each of the things in it had been made with wisdom and skill after the beauty shown on the mountain (Exodus 25:40), the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ‘On one day of the first month, at the new moon, you shall set up the tent of witness’ (Exodus 40:2). And again, further on: ‘And it came to pass,’ it says, ‘in the first month, in the second year after they went out of Egypt, at the new moon, that the tent was set up, and Moses set up the tent’ (Exodus 40:17–18). So the ancient tent was set up as God willed. It was the tent of the Church that is understood in Christ, and it showed beforehand in itself, very clearly, the types of that Church. Let us inquire closely, if you agree, why it was set up by Moses rather than by another, while Joshua the son of Nun is passed over in silence for the present. Yet Joshua always stood beside the most excellent Moses (Exodus 24:13); he went up with him onto Mount Sinai, and he made war and marched out against Amalek at Moses’ word. For Moses said to him: ‘Choose for yourself mighty men, and go out and draw up for battle against Amalek tomorrow’ (Exodus 17:9). And he drew up for battle, and he won (Exodus 17:10–13). What, then, is the reason for this? Is it not worth examining?

Palladius: Certainly it is.

Cyril: If anyone chooses to work out, as exactly as he can, the meaning of the mystery in each of these events, he will say in amazement: ‘O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!’ (Romans 11:33). See how subtle and how necessary the sense of each detail is. When the inspired Moses goes up the mountain, Joshua goes up with him; for the Father cannot be approached in any other way than through the Son. Indeed, the saying is true: ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). So even for the saints themselves the approach is in Christ. No one could spring up, as onto a mountain, to some lofty and surpassing contemplation; nor, I think, could anyone come near to God — by way of

Christ makes the way to God passable; the law builds the Church§3

3union, I mean, in the life lived in the Spirit and in holiness — unless Emmanuel were with him, making what is beyond human reach passable on foot and even on horseback. And this, I think, is what was spoken through the voice of Isaiah: ‘Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and all the crooked places shall become straight, and the rough places smooth roads’ (Isaiah 40:4; Luke 3:5). For in Christ even the steep places are smooth for us, and rough ground can be walked; the hard roads lie clear and level. Indeed, as the prophet himself says again elsewhere: ‘The way of the godly has become straight, and the way of the godly is made ready’ (Isaiah 26:7). So of necessity Joshua goes up with the inspired Moses. For, as I said, the Father is approached through the Son, and he is the Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), who joins us through himself and carries us up to heights beyond nature. Joshua drew up for battle with picked men and defeated Amalek. For Christ chose the saints, whose firstfruits were the inspired disciples, and conquered the ruler of this age. But Moses was the one who gave the command; for the Son came under the law (Galatians 4:4), though as God he is the Lawgiver. And the battle was not fought on the very day on which Moses spoke, but on the next day, that is, it was put off to a later time. For the law foretold what was to come, and, if it is understood spiritually, it contains a splendid account of the Savior’s mighty deeds. This, I think, is also why it was Moses who set up the holy tent. For the training given through the law has its part in the forming of the Church. It leads us as a tutor to Christ (Galatians 3:24), who is the head of the Church (Ephesians 5:23; Colossians 1:18) and its whole structure, ‘the pillar and foundation of the truth,’ as it is written (1 Timothy 3:15). Indeed Christ said to the Jews: ‘If you believed Moses, you would believe me also; for he wrote about me’ (John 5:46). So Moses too, that is, the training given through the law, builds the Church of Christ, showing beforehand, as though still in shadows, the mystery concerning it. The person of Moses sometimes stands for the law given through him, as is rightly said in the parables of the Gospel: ‘They have Moses and the prophets’ (Luke 16:29).

Palladius: You have spoken rightly.

Cyril: And what, in turn, might it mean that the holy tent had to be pitched on one day, at the new moon of the first month, and in the second year? Come, let us explain it, tracking down the truth and what future readers will judge best. The one day points to the saving time for which we prayed so long, in which the Only-begotten became man and by the death of his own flesh won those on earth for God the Father. And this time is one for all. For having died once, he dies no more; death will no longer have dominion over him, as the Scriptures say (Romans 6:9–10). For we shall no longer expect the Son to die for us and for the spirits in Hades, nor yet

One day of salvation; the Church built in believers§4

4that there will be a second firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). For if there is to be no more death, how could there be a resurrection? So we may say without falsehood that this time is one, as I said just now, and the day is one. The prophet too mentioned this day, speaking as in the person of God: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you’ (Isaiah 49:8). And the inspired Paul writes: ‘Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation’ (2 Corinthians 6:2). On that day Christ came back to life from the dead, having destroyed the grim power of death; and then he also appointed the holy apostles as builders, so to speak, and spiritual craftsmen of the Church from the Gentiles, saying: ‘Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:19–20). Or would you not say that this is what forms the Church?

Palladius: What exactly do you mean?

Cyril: The faith handed down through the holy teachers of the mysteries, and the way of life that has been proclaimed, I mean the life in Christ, and the union with God through holy baptism, by sharing in the Holy Spirit. For so Paul addressed us, saying: ‘And you, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5), into a holy temple, into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit’ (Ephesians 2:21–22). For of old Christ was foreshadowed in the holy tent as though in various vessels: as the golden censer, as the ark, as the lampstand, and also as the table and what was set on it. But now, in the present time, each of those who have believed is, I think, called a house and temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16), since he has Christ dwelling within him. For Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, as it is written (Ephesians 3:17). He is by nature one and the same, even when he is thought of together with the flesh; for there is ‘one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things’ (1 Corinthians 8:6). Yet through the various properties of his Godhead he has in himself, as it were, many forms, and he is understood in various ways. For he is in us as the Word of God, and as wisdom, and light, and life, and the living bread that came from heaven (John 6:51).

Palladius: I understand what you mean.

Cyril: So the time when he became man for us, and the much longed-for day of the resurrection from the dead, were prefigured of old when God said: ‘On one day you shall set up the tent’ (Exodus 40:2). And as for the words ‘and at the new moon of the first month,’ one can see, Palladius, that they were added usefully and of necessity. For as the beginning of a month is the first of its days, that is, the new moon, so the time of his coming among us is a kind of beginning of a new age and the first onset of new times. For ‘in Christ there is a new creation; the old things have passed away’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). And the age that follows this one dawns upon us, as it were, now still seen as in hope, but then to be present

Spring, the second year, and the Church of the Gentiles; the tent that will not be shaken§5

5Cyril: …in truth, when Christ shines on us again with the holy angels in the glory of the Father (Mark 8:38). Then he will take with him those who have chosen to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4) and who have grown rich, through patience, in the surpassing beauty of the Gospel way of life, and he will bring them into the glory and the kingdom long awaited. That those who are in Christ are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), and, as it were, a new budding of times and of things, the figure of the first month (Exodus 40:2) would show this very well. In that month tender grass, freshly sprung, appears on the earth, plants flower again, and the varied beauty of the meadow flowers comes into view, while the fragrance of spring smiles. For it was in such a season, as it were, that Christ called the Church from the Gentiles, saying: ‘Arise, come, my companion, my fair one, my dove; for behold, the winter is past, the rain is gone, it has gone its way; the flowers have appeared in the land; the time of pruning has come’ (Song of Songs 2:10–12). For human nature flourished once more, like a plant, after it had withered away in death because of the transgression in Adam and the sin that tyrannized over us all. And I hear Christ saying through one of the holy prophets as well: ‘I who speak am here, like springtime upon the mountains’ (Isaiah 52:6–7). For what spring does on the mountains and in the woods, crowning the plants with new growth, the coming of our Savior has also brought to completion in us. It came at its appointed time, as in the second year (Exodus 40:17), and not in the first period, when the law was in force together with the choir of the prophets, and when death held sway. For death reigned from Adam until Moses (Romans 5:14). So it was as in the second year, that is, in the time that followed the first, the time of the law, that the Church from the Gentiles shone out, with Christ, the end of the prophets and of the law (Romans 10:4), vividly present to her. Does it seem to you that our argument is speeding toward what is right and true?

Palladius: Entirely so.

Cyril: For my part, I think that the truer tent was announced to us beforehand through the voice of Isaiah, who says, as if to each of those called through faith to righteousness: ‘Your eyes will see Jerusalem, rich cities, tents that will not be shaken; the pegs of its tent will not be moved, and its cords will never be broken, for all time’ (Isaiah 33:20). For the Church is the city of God, which the inspired David also spoke of when he said: ‘Glorious things have been spoken of you, O city of God’ (Psalm 87:3). For she is rich, made splendid with gifts from above and from heaven, and her foundation and her permanence stand firm and cannot be broken. For ‘the gates of Hades will not prevail against her,’ as the Savior said (Matthew 16:18).

Palladius: Your thinking is entirely right and reasonable.

Cyril: Once the tent had been set up, God, the Master of all, teaches that the things in it had to be placed in order, and not heaped together carelessly, when he says:

Where each holy vessel stands: the veil, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies§6

6Cyril: ‘And you shall set the ark of the testimony in place, and you shall cover the ark with the veil. And you shall bring in the table, and set out its bread of presentation. And you shall bring in the lampstand, and put its lamps on it. And you shall set the golden altar for burning incense before the ark. And you shall put the covering curtain on the door of the tent of testimony, and you shall set the altar of whole burnt offerings beside the doors of the tent of testimony. And you shall enclose the tent, and set all that belongs to it round about’ (Exodus 40:3–8). In these words one can see the sacred vessels brought into the holy tent, but not yet clearly the place that suits each one and was assigned to it. Would you like us, then, to gather from the commands about the tent a detailed and exact knowledge of these matters?

Palladius: Most gladly.

Cyril: God, then, said to the holy Moses: ‘And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and twisted scarlet and spun fine linen; you shall make it a woven work with cherubim. And you shall hang it on four pillars that cannot rot, overlaid with gold; their capitals shall be gold, and their four bases silver. And you shall put the veil on the pillars, and there, inside the veil, you shall bring in the ark of the testimony; and the veil shall divide for you between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. You shall cover the ark of the testimony with the veil in the Holy of Holies. And you shall set the table outside the veil, and the lampstand opposite the table on the south side of the tent; and you shall put the table on the north side of the tent. And you shall make a screen for the door of the tent, of blue and purple and twisted scarlet and twisted fine linen, the work of an embroiderer. And you shall make five pillars for the curtain and overlay them with gold; their capitals shall be gold, and you shall cast five bronze bases for them’ (Exodus 26:31–37). So much for these things. About the laver he says something like this: ‘Make a bronze laver, and a bronze base for it, for washing; and you shall put it between the tent of testimony and the altar’ (Exodus 30:18). Is the meaning of each point clear to you?

Palladius: Not at all. I am quite at a loss, I assure you, and I cannot say what it means.

Cyril: Then for each of the passages before us I will take hold of what bears on their spiritual meaning, and give an account as clear and distinct as I am able. The holy tent, Palladius, was set up in the wilderness with a twofold arrangement and form, as it were. One part was the innermost, and its name was the Holy of Holies. Around it, like a kind of entrance hall, was the first part, called the Holy Place (Hebrews 9:2–3). In the innermost tent the ark had been placed, and it had a curtain about it, hung on four golden pillars and skillfully made of blue and purple and twisted scarlet and spun fine linen.

The veil is Christ's flesh; the four pillars are the evangelists; the Word hidden until the resurrection§7

7Cyril: We have already spoken, and sufficiently, I think, about the linen and the purple, the twisted scarlet, and the blue as well, so we will set repetition aside. But this much we will say for the present: the veil on four golden pillars with silver bases was then a hint of the mystery of Christ. Why so? Did not the wise Paul also name the body of Christ a veil for us, when he said: ‘the new and living way which he opened for us through the veil, that is, his flesh’ (Hebrews 10:20)?

Palladius: You are right.

Cyril: See, then, as in shadows and riddles, how the Word, who is God and from God the Father by nature, came to be as in a golden and incorruptible ark, that is, in the temple taken from the Virgin; for the body of Christ is incorruptible and precious. And by taking the flesh he was all but hidden, as though behind a veil. We say that the Word from God was hidden, not as though he were confined within a small body, for the Son is everywhere and in all things, but because he remained unnoticed, in keeping with the plan of salvation, and waited for the time of his showing forth. And the time of his showing forth to all was his return to life from the dead. For before the precious cross he ordered the holy disciples not to make him known (Matthew 16:20); so it is written. But after he had suffered death and come back to life, he says: ‘Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19). So the veil hung on the pillars, covering the ark within; and it would be a type of Christ, who is lifted up on high by the preaching of the holy evangelists and is seen in the glory of the Godhead by those in the holy tent, that is, in the Church. The pillars are four, golden and set in silver; and the evangelists are equal to them in number, bright and precious. So the ark lay there, and the veil of linen and purple and the rest, reaching from top to bottom, kept it out of sight. Above the veil and above the cherubim on the right and on the left, God uttered his oracles, showing that he is above all creation. Even the highest of all rational beings, that is, the Seraphim, are seated beneath the divine glory beyond words, and they attend the Son himself as his guard of honor, even though he became flesh (John 1:14) and, insofar as he is man, came perhaps into a kind of lowering of his equality with the Father. That is why he himself said: ‘My Father is greater than I’ (John 14:28). Yet being equal by nature to the One who begot him, he says that he came into a lesser state, and this only because of his humanity. For this reason, in the holy tent too, the cherubim were around the veil, they too attending the Son as God. And above the veil itself, which stood as a type of Christ, God is understood to be. For he says: ‘And I will make myself known from there, and I will speak with you’ (Exodus 25:22). For the Father is beyond all creation, and beyond Emmanuel himself, not insofar as Emmanuel is understood to be God and is God, for he is equal to God in all things, but insofar as

The incense altar, the lampstand and the table§8

8Cyril: …came into the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7) and into the measure of humanity.

Palladius: How subtle and deep your argument is.

Cyril: And yet it does not stray from the point.

Palladius: I agree.

Cyril: With the ark set in this way, Scripture says, ‘And you shall set the golden altar for burning incense opposite the ark’ (Exodus 40:5). I think we have already said enough to show that Christ is the golden altar. Yet it was set opposite the ark, over which hung the veil, with the seraphim around it and God above, as though God were receiving the incomparable fragrance of Emmanuel. For he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth, as it is written (1 Peter 2:22). That is why he himself said, ‘The Father loves the Son’ (John 3:35; John 5:20). And we ourselves are also acceptable to God when we are fragrant with the ointment of Christ. Paul too will confirm this when he writes, ‘But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us makes known the fragrance of the knowledge of him; for we are the fragrance of Christ to God’ (2 Corinthians 2:14–15).

Palladius: You are right.

Cyril: Let us consider carefully, then, with our eyes fixed on what is written, that the ark was placed on the side of the holy tent that faces southwest and west, and opposite it the golden altar, in the place that faces the rising sun. For east and west are filled with Christ, and north and south as well. So too the lampstand’s place was the south side of the tent, and the table’s the side toward the north (Exodus 26:35). We have already shown at length that Christ is signified by both: the lampstand shows that Christ is light, and the table with what lay on it shows that he is life and the living bread (John 6:51). But consider this, and look closely at the mystery. The land of the Jews lies farthest to the south, while the land of the Gentiles lies further to the north. So from where the two stood, I mean the lampstand and the table, those who wish to understand well will surely gather that Christ shone as light on the Jews and proclaimed among them, ‘I am the light’ (John 8:12). For he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24), and ‘theirs are the promises’, as the Scriptures say (Romans 9:4). But since they did not accept the light of the truth, he became for the Gentiles life and bread from heaven (John 6:33). Nor are the Gentiles without light; you may learn this too from the way the light of the lampstand reached the north side of the tent as well. And since the holy tent was very narrow, it is not unlikely that the lampstand seemed almost to stand beside the table, even though it held the southern place. The figure also shows us in another way that, when the divine light shines out, the worthy may be able to share in Christ as the living and true bread. The Gentiles have become members of one body with Christ and sharers in him (Ephesians 3:6). And again the inspired Paul writes: the Gentiles have become members of one body and sharers…

The door screen, the five pillars, and the law at the threshold§9

9Cyril: …in light, the spiritual light, that is, and they are filled still further, ‘as the day dawns and the Morning Star rises’ in the mind (2 Peter 1:19), as one of the Savior’s disciples said. With the things in the Holy of Holies placed and made in this way, he commanded that a drawn curtain, or veil, be made of blue, purple, spun scarlet and twisted fine linen; and he said that it must be stretched across the entrances of the tent, hung on five golden pillars whose bases were bronze (Exodus 26:36–37). He calls the hanging over the door a ‘drawn curtain’ because, I think, it was drawn back on slender rings when the entrance was to be opened, and then drawn across again and spread over the doorway to hide the Holy Place. The five pillars, golden and bound with bronze, prefigure the teachers and leaders of the Churches who belong, as it were, to the fifth period of time, the period in which the coming of Christ took place. Rightly handling the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15), they are precious as gold and ring out clearly like bronze. ‘For their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world’ (Psalm 19:4; Romans 10:18). Through their skilled teaching of the mysteries, inspired by God, they also widen, as it were, the entrances for those who wish to hasten into the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies, then, that is, the inner tent, was covered by the veil. The first tent was set right against the second and joined to it. It held the altar of burnt offerings, on which every offering made with blood was carried out, the cakes and the frankincense, and every sacrifice and drink offering; and it held the bronze laver as well, beside the altar (Exodus 30:18). The altar’s place was by the doors of the tent, clearly the outer tent (Exodus 40:6), and the laver’s place was the very middle of the tent.

Palladius: And what, again, are we to understand by this careful arrangement?

Cyril: Holy Scripture is exact, Palladius, and nothing at all in it is idle. See how the figure has shown us the law as a tutor leading us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). For the altar of the worship under the law was set right at the entrances that lead into the Holy of Holies. For the law barely brings us as far as the beginnings of the mysteries of Christ, to what are, as it were, the first entrances of exact knowledge about him; but it does not bring us at all into the Holy of Holies, that is, into the inner tent, where Christ is found in many forms: as the Word of God, as light, as living bread, as a sweet fragrance to God the Father (Ephesians 5:2). Or would you not say that the preparatory practice of worship under the law was the elements and first principles of the oracles of God (Hebrews 5:12)?

Palladius: That is true.

Cyril: That the law made nothing perfect (Hebrews 7:19), for ‘it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away…

The laver as baptism, the veiled law, and Paul on the two tents§10

10Cyril: …sins’ (Hebrews 10:4), you can learn at once, and with no trouble at all, once you have considered what the laver was for. It stood in the middle of the first tent, bright and plain to see, washing beforehand with water those who were going into the Holy of Holies; for the law on this point was laid down for the priests (Exodus 30:19–21). So even what seemed to be fulfillment under the law was incomplete; it pointed to the cleansing through holy baptism, which washes the sacred race clean. I mean the race of those justified by faith, whom the inspired disciple addressed when he said, ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light’ (1 Peter 2:9). One should also know that a veil was stretched across the door of the outer tent as well, so that the Holy Place, that is, the first tent, where the altar of the law stood, would not lie bare and open to those outside. Here again, I think, the figure shows that the law itself is not plain to just anyone. For the letter has a veil over it (2 Corinthians 3:14), and is in a way covered and wrapped in the obscurity that belongs to shadows.

Palladius: That is so.

Cyril: In the first tent, then, stood the laver and the altar; in the second and innermost stood the ark and the lampstand, and also the golden censer with the fine incense upon it, and the table and the loaves. The inspired Paul also mentions a golden jar holding the manna (Hebrews 9:4). He names Aaron’s rod too, which he says was laid up in the Holy of Holies, since he was well versed in the sacred Scriptures and knew very well what had been decreed at various times and what God had commanded blessed Moses. Yet he knows that the table and the lampstand were in the first tent (Hebrews 9:2). He writes this about the two covenants: ‘In speaking of a new covenant he has made the first old; and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish. Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. For a tent was prepared, the first one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the setting out of the loaves; it is called the Holy Place. Behind the second veil was the tent called the Holy of Holies, which had a golden censer and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which were a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat’, of which we cannot now speak in detail (Hebrews 8:13–9:5).

Palladius: Suppose, then, that someone chose to be inquisitive and said we ought to give the reasons for the whole arrangement. What answer would we give?

Cyril: The reason, Palladius, is that he commanded some of these things to be done before the holy tent was built, and others after it. For in Exodus, even…

The order of the types, and the manna as Christ§11

11Cyril: …before the patterns of the holy tent had been shown at all, and the commands about it given, God uttered the oracle about the golden jar (Exodus 16:32–34), since he knew what was to come. After the whole tent had been set up, we shall find in Numbers that Aaron’s rod was brought into the Holy of Holies (Numbers 17:10). And in Leviticus God gave further laws about the lampstand and the table in the first tent (Leviticus 24:1–9). And Paul, most wise and learned in the law, leaves out nothing at all of what took place, but recalls the first things, the middle ones and the last.

Palladius: Very well said. Then explain each thing clearly and point by point; for surely there is a deep meaning in them.

Cyril: Yes, you are right; for that is how the matter truly stands. I will make the jar the starting point of my account. God sent the manna down like rain on the people of Israel in the wilderness; for this was their food and bread from above, from heaven (Exodus 16:4). But what was done did not stop at things of sense. As through a type and a shadow, it leads us up to understand that in due time the Word would come to us from above and from the Father, as bread from heaven, just as the divine David hints to us when he says: ‘He gave them the bread of heaven; man ate the bread of angels’ (Psalm 78:24–25). We certainly do not say that the physical manna was the bread from heaven and of angels. For a spirit is fed spiritually, and a body according to its own nature, that is, bodily. The food of angels, the bread fit for the heavens and for the spirits above, is the Word who is from God the Father. So the manna signified Christ. Yet the type is of no use unless the truth has been received. For it is a shadow of the truth, not made chiefly for its own sake, but so that it might paint in itself a picture of something better. That is why Christ gave the crowds of the Jews a wise rebuke, because they admired, not him as the truth, but Moses, the servant of the types. For he said: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses has given you the manna; but the bread of God is he who came down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the living bread’ (John 6:32–33, 51). So it was in making the manna an image of the Word who came down from above, from heaven, that God gave the oracle about the jar. It is written thus: ‘And Moses said: This is the word which the Lord commanded: Fill the omer with manna, to be laid up for your generations, so that they may see the bread which you ate in the wilderness, when the Lord brought you out of the land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron: Take one golden jar, and put into it a full omer of manna, and lay it up before God, to be kept for your generations, as the Lord commanded Moses. And Aaron laid it up before the testimony, to be kept’ (Exodus 16:32–34). For just as we were saying that the ark, holding the divine word, signified Emmanuel, since the Word of God was within, as in a…

The full jar before the Father; Korah’s revolt and the twelve rods§12

12Cyril: …holy temple, I mean the temple that came from the Virgin; in the same way the golden jar, bearing within it the physical manna, shows us the life-giving Word from above, plainly the Word who is from the Father, as in a holy and undefiled body. And the jar was full to the brim with manna; for ‘in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily’ (Colossians 2:9), in the words of blessed Paul. And ‘he does not give the Spirit by measure’ (John 3:34). For Christ is perfect in every way. The jar was laid up to be kept for the generations of the sons of Israel (Exodus 16:33); for Christ is incorruptible, abides for ever, and is well known in every season and age. And he is before the Lord, that is, in the eyes of the Father. For when the Only Begotten became one of us, he then also entered into the Holy of Holies through the greater and more perfect tent (Hebrews 9:11–12), that is, into heaven, ‘now to appear in the presence of God for us’ (Hebrews 9:24), as it is written. For it is not himself he sets in the Father’s sight, but us, as in himself, though we had fallen from his presence and, as it were, out of his sight, through the transgression in Adam and the sin that ruled as a tyrant over all. So in Christ we have gained access, and boldness to enter the holy place (Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 10:19), as wise Paul has told us. For just as we have been raised with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:6), so again in him we have come into the presence of the Father. Let this be enough about the sacred jar. Now come, let us show that Aaron’s rod too signifies Christ, if you agree.

Palladius: By all means.

Cyril: Korah, then, and Abiram too, and Dathan besides, sprang from the tribe and blood of Levi. Though they had been entrusted, Scripture says, with a ministry in the holy tent appointed by decree from above, they thirsted for the glory of Moses and Aaron, seizing the honour for themselves, although God had not called them to it (Numbers 16:8–11; Hebrews 5:4). What is more, swelling with savage insolence and exceedingly proud, they poured out on them both abuse that could no longer be borne and was utterly intolerable. Like bulls that scorn the herd they broke away, and shaking off their service under God, they persuaded others to break loose with them into impiety. But they paid the penalty for what they had dared. For the earth opened its mouth and sent that arrogant people down to Hades, with their own kin, their tents and their goods (Numbers 16:31–33). Then the Lawgiver, wishing to make plain that Aaron had received the chief rank in the priesthood by decree from above and not by the wishes of Moses, said to the most excellent Moses (Numbers 17:2–3): ‘Speak to the sons of Israel, and take from them a rod for each father’s house, from all their leaders according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods; and write each man’s name on his rod. And write Aaron’s name on the rod of Levi; for there is one rod. According to the tribe of their fathers’ houses they shall…

Aaron’s rod blossoms: Christ the High Priest rises from death§13

13Cyril: …give them. And you shall set them in the tent of witness, before the testimony, where I will make myself known to you. And the rod of the man whom I choose shall sprout; and I will take away from me the grumbling of the sons of Israel, which they grumble against you. And Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and all their leaders gave him a rod, one rod for each leader, according to their fathers’ houses, twelve rods; and Aaron’s rod was among their rods. And Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tent of witness. And on the next day Moses and Aaron went into the tent of witness; and behold, Aaron’s rod for the house of Levi had sprouted, and put forth a shoot, and burst into flower, and borne almonds. And Moses brought out all the rods from the presence of the Lord to all the sons of Israel; and they looked, and each man took his own rod. And the Lord said to Moses: Lay up Aaron’s rod before the testimonies, to be kept as a sign for the sons of the disobedient; and let their grumbling against me cease, so that they do not die’ (Numbers 17:3–10). So the blossoming of the rod was no obscure sign that the inspired Aaron, as one of the blood of Levi, had been chosen with distinction and set apart for the priestly service. But when the account is turned once more to spiritual contemplation, the mystery of Christ will shine out again, though still, as it were, in very coarse types.

Palladius: In what way?

Cyril: Emmanuel has been appointed for us by God the Father as Lawgiver and High Priest at once, to offer himself for us as the sacrifice. For as blessed Paul said: ‘The law through Moses appoints as high priests men who have weakness; but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son made perfect for ever’ (Hebrews 7:28). So the Word came down from heaven and became one of us, ‘a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tent, which the Lord pitched, and not man’ (Hebrews 8:2). But those of the blood of Israel did not see fit to think rightly. Setting their own will against him, as it were, they shot at him in many ways with the arrows of envy, no longer holding back their tongues, their insolence or their outrageous schemes; and the wretches, destroying themselves, at last crucified him. Yet the rod from the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1) blossomed again. For Christ sprang up again and came back to life, ‘having loosed the pangs of death’ (Acts 2:24), as it is written. Since he is Life by nature, as God, how could he be held by death (Acts 2:24), and not rather triumph over corruption? Just as the springing up of the rod, when wood already past flowering unexpectedly sprouted again, was a sufficient sign to the people of old that Aaron had been appointed high priest by decree from above, so we say that his trampling on death and coming back to life as befits God is a clear, plain and fully sufficient proof that Emmanuel is also God by nature. Indeed Christ himself, although…

The sign of Jonah, the almond rod, and the lamp and loaves§14

14Cyril: …he was able to accomplish, without effort and with ease, anything whatever beyond what is likely or reasonable, he said to those who were asking for a sign: ‘This generation is evil; it asks for a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights’ (Matthew 12:39–40). So the sign that the Son is God by nature and was begotten of God the Father, a sign truly renowned and plain to all and enough to bring the truly fair-minded to faith, is this: he abolished death and corruption and blossomed again into life. ‘For he has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep’ (1 Corinthians 15:20) ‘and the firstborn from the dead’ (Colossians 1:18). And the sign has been given to the sons of the disobedient (Numbers 17:10), so that they may know that Christ has become high priest over us by the vote of God the Father, ‘holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens’ (Hebrews 7:26), as it is written.

Palladius: Well, Aaron’s rod did blossom for us; the sacred word has just shown us that. But it blossomed with almonds (Numbers 17:8), and I cannot make out what the riddle is.

Cyril: In the first place, Palladius, there is nothing unlikely in supposing that the rod was cut from an almond tree; it was the custom among the people of old to use staffs of this kind as well. But if we must also fit to it an explanation suited to spiritual contemplation, I would mention in turn something that is widely repeated, and that seems to some people worth believing: that a rod of almond wood is not without power to cause sleeplessness if it is laid near a person’s head, perhaps producing this effect through natural powers, by the will of God. And he who knows all things, the Maker of the universe, will in some way confirm this for us himself when he says to Jeremiah: ‘What do you see, Jeremiah?’ And Jeremiah said, ‘A staff of almond wood.’ To this God says: ‘You have seen rightly, for I am keeping watch over my words, to perform them’ (Jeremiah 1:11–12). The almond rod, then, would fittingly be understood as a symbol of sleeplessness. And Christ’s return to life from the dead was an awakening, as if from sleep. That is why he also says through the lyre of the Psalmist: ‘I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord upheld me’ (Psalm 3:5).

Palladius: What you say is true.

Cyril: About the lamp and the table in the first tent, it is written again as follows: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command the sons of Israel, and let them take pure oil, beaten, for the light, to keep a lamp burning continually outside the veil in the tent of witness. And Aaron and his sons shall burn it from evening until morning before the Lord continually, a perpetual ordinance throughout your generations. On the pure lampstand you shall burn the lamps before the Lord until morning. And you shall take fine flour and make of it twelve…’ (Leviticus 24:1–5)

Pure oil and the lamps: Christ's light in the Church and under the law§15

15Cyril: …loaves. Each loaf shall be of two tenths, and you shall set them in two rows, six loaves to a row, on the pure table before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense and salt on the row, and these shall go with the loaves as a memorial, set before the Lord. On the Sabbath day you shall set them out before the Lord continually, in the presence of the sons of Israel, an everlasting covenant. And they shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat them in a holy place, for it is a most holy thing. This is his share from the offerings sacrificed to the Lord, a perpetual ordinance’ (Leviticus 24:5–9).

The oil, then, is pure, and it is olive oil besides: that is, it comes from olives, not from other, more earthy kinds of seed, which did yield pressed oil, but oil that was spurious and, so to speak, adulterated. For the light in the churches is always pure and truly genuine: the light, clearly, that comes through Christ, by the Spirit, even if it is ministered through the voice of the saints, to whom Christ said: ‘You are the light of the world’ (Matthew 5:14). And this is no wonder. For with those whom he called his brothers (Hebrews 2:11) and made partakers of himself (Hebrews 3:14), he would fittingly share the glory of his own honors as well.

So the lamp burns in the first tent as well, and the matter would have a twofold sense. In the inner tent seven lamps shine (Exodus 25:37); they are kindled in the morning, and they pour a rich light upon those who hurry in. And the lampstand was Christ, again as in a type, flooding with abundant and generous light those who wish to hurry into the Holy of Holies. For, it says, ‘Come to him and be enlightened’ (Psalm 34:5). Moreover, the lighting of the lamps in the morning would signify the time when he became man. For something like a day dawned, and a light perceived by the mind shone out, driving away the darkness of our ancient ignorance and scattering the mist that had fallen like night upon the hearts of all. So too the prophet called for the time of the Savior’s coming among us, when he said: ‘In the morning you will hear my voice; in the morning I will stand before you, and I will keep watch’ (Psalm 5:3). For when would the prayers of all have become acceptable, and when would we who once wandered have stood, as it were, before God, through kinship with him (the spiritual kind, of course) and through obedience and faith, if the light from heaven, that is, Christ, had not shone upon us?

So in the inner tent the light of the seven lamps is rich and clear, but in the first tent it was a single lamp that gave light; and it showed, I think, that not even those being schooled under the law were without the divine light, as the thing itself makes plain. For the law given through Moses also called people out of the worship of many gods to the knowledge of him who is God by nature and in truth. It drew the people of old away from still serving the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25), and persuaded them that they must hold fast to the Maker of all. And these things were not achieved in the souls of those under its schooling without the light perceived by the mind. So, to say it once more, the illumination that comes from Christ is rich and plentiful for those who enter the Holy of Holies, but less for those under the law; and the statement is true.

The lamp as John the Baptist, the twelve loaves as the apostles§16

16Cyril: …For in spiritual brightness the shadow in the law (Hebrews 10:1) is in no way equal to the decrees of the Gospel. These flash their light around the whole inhabited world, while the shadow was a token for those of Israel alone.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly.

Cyril: It seems, Palladius, that the table and the lamp in the first tent point to something else as well.

Palladius: What do you mean?

Cyril: The lamp, perhaps, is John, the inspired Baptist, while the twelve loaves prefigure for us the company of the holy apostles.

Palladius: In what way?

Cyril: Or do you not know that for those under the law in Judea the inspired Baptist was a kind of lamp going before Christ, and that God the Father spoke of him beforehand: ‘I have prepared a lamp for my Christ’ (Psalm 132:17)? The Savior himself also bore witness to this, saying of him to the teachers of the Jews: ‘He was the lamp that burns and shines, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light’ (John 5:35). See how blessed Paul, as one learned in the law, all but calls to mind the lamp in the first tent (Hebrews 9:2). For the lawgiver commanded that it must be kept unquenched, saying: ‘And Aaron and his sons shall burn it from evening until morning before the Lord continually’ (Leviticus 24:3). Yet the Jews took delight in John for a very short time, in that they ran to the baptism he gave and marveled greatly at him; then they put the ever-shining lamp to sleep in death, all but quenching it. For even if the crime may perhaps be called Herod’s (Matthew 14:10), still he was of Israel’s blood. That is why Christ, charging the peoples of the Jews with their insolence against every holy man, says: ‘It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside Jerusalem’ (Luke 13:33).

Palladius: So the inspired Baptist too was a light and a lamp for those under the law in Judea, by likeness to Christ and by sharing in him.

Cyril: That is what I say. And in the same way we say that the holy apostles are to be understood as loaves. For only one is bread by nature and in truth: the bread that is from heaven and gives life (John 6:33). But by imitation of the one who is bread by nature, and by sharing in him, the divine guides into the mysteries are loaves that nourish us in godliness, putting into us words of life and driving the famine of ignorance out of the souls of those who believe. The loaves are equal in number to the disciples, for they are twelve, and they are laid in two rows, six on this side, it says, and six on that (Leviticus 24:6), almost as if they stood round in a circle, with the one Bread from heaven, that is, Christ, lying in the middle. And each is of two tenths (Leviticus 24:5), that is, of two perfect measures. For the inspired disciples became perfect in both respects, ready for every good thing, distinguished in deed and in word.

Frankincense, salt and the Sabbath, and why these types stand in the first tent§17

17Cyril: Frankincense and salt are sprinkled on the loaves (Leviticus 24:7). The frankincense points to the sweet fragrance of sanctification and to the fragrance of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15); the salt hints at understanding. For the word of the saints is not senseless or foolish but, as it is written, seasoned with grace and salt (Colossians 4:6), and it gives grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:29). Christ also said to them, ‘You are the salt of the earth’ (Matthew 5:13). The loaves are set out on the Sabbath day as well (Leviticus 24:8). For the day on which the holy apostles were made known is the time of the spiritual Sabbath, that is, the coming of Christ. Because those of Israel did not recognize it, Paul says of them, ‘So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God’ (Hebrews 4:9). For they did not enter into his rest, because they did not accept faith (Hebrews 3:18–19). The spiritual and true Sabbath rest, then, is the time when our Savior came to dwell among us. The loaves are set out before the eyes of God, and indeed before the eyes of Israel as well. For ‘you shall set them out,’ he says, ‘on the Sabbath day before the Lord continually, from the sons of Israel’ (Leviticus 24:8). They are before the eyes of God, because he looks on the saints and continually counts them worthy of his care; for ‘the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,’ it says (Psalm 34:15). They are before the eyes of Israel, because Israel ought to give heed to them and, as it were, fixes on them the eye of the mind, of which the bodily eye would be a type. ‘But they shall belong,’ he says, ‘to Aaron and to his sons, and they shall eat them’ (Leviticus 24:9). For the writings of the holy apostles are set before us as food: before us who have been justified in faith, a holy and sacred race, peoples for his own possession (1 Peter 2:9), chosen and anointed with the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Palladius: Well said; I would agree. But why are the types of the holy Baptist and of the holy apostles not in the Holy of Holies but in the first tent?

Cyril: First, because the distance between them is great, and what belongs to the saints will not be placed where Christ is, but, as it were, outside and in a lesser place. For the things of God are set apart and stand by themselves, and a wide distance walls off what is human, showing that the distinct character of the natures and the difference in glory admit no comparison. Second, because they came from the Jews and from the worship under the law. For this reason the first tent is, so to speak, the place fitting for them, the tent in which stood the altar of burnt offerings, one of the types. Or did the calling of the holy disciples not come from the blood of Israel and, as it were, from the first tent?

Palladius: Certainly.

Cyril: Since our account of these things is now well and sufficiently settled, we should bring in, if you agree, the voice of the inspired Paul, which sets out clearly and elegantly the testimony concerning the first and the second tent. He writes as follows: ‘Now when these things had been prepared in this way,…’ (Hebrews 9:6)

Christ the high priest enters once for all with His own blood§18

18Cyril: ‘…the priests continually go into the first tent, performing the services; but into the second the high priest goes alone, once a year, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of ignorance of the people. By this the Holy Spirit makes clear that the way into the holy places has not yet been disclosed while the first tent still has its standing. This is a figure for the present time, in which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshiper as to the conscience; they deal only with foods and drinks and various washings, ordinances of the flesh imposed until a time of reformation. But Christ, having come as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves but through his own blood, entered once for all into the Holy of Holies, having obtained eternal redemption’ (Hebrews 9:6–12).

You understand, then, that the priests performed the services in the first tent but had no way of entry into the Holy of Holies. For such, in a way, is the worship under the law: it has its standing in shadows. And these things are of no use for cleansing and washing away sin. For you heard Paul just now cry out that they cannot perfect the worshiper as to the conscience (Hebrews 9:9). Rather, it was kept until the time of reformation (Hebrews 9:10), which plainly means the time when the Only-begotten became man, when what was unlovely in the types passed over into the truth. ‘Once a year the high priest alone used to enter the Holy of Holies, and not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins of ignorance of the people’ (Hebrews 9:7). The most wise Paul will make this plain to us again, speaking of Christ in these words: ‘When he said above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin you did not desire, nor did you take pleasure in them” (these are offered according to the law), “then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ. And every high priest stands day after day ministering and offering again and again the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down for ever at the right hand of God, waiting from then on until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he has perfected for ever those who are being sanctified’ (Hebrews 10:8–14). For having died once, he dies no more, as it is written (Romans 6:9–10); and having borne the sins of many (Hebrews 9:28), he entered into the Holy of Holies, that is, into heaven, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf (Hebrews 9:24).

Palladius: Your explanation is clear. So you may leave off your labor on that point. But tell me, since I ask: what blood, again, was the one who presides over the sacred rites accustomed to bring for himself and for the sins of ignorance of the people?

The law of the sin offering for the anointed priest and for the people§19

19Cyril: Paul was learned in the law and had mastered the commandment given through Moses as thoroughly as anyone. So he speaks of things so holy and so far beyond words to the Hebrew people as to men wise in such matters, who had read the law: not in long accounts, but rather in passing, as a reminder of what they already knew. But if you agree, I will bring forward the law on this point as well, since you have chosen to learn what is profitable and are very thirsty for an exact and finely worked explanation of these insights. It is written, then, in Leviticus:

‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: If a person sins unintentionally before the Lord against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things that ought not to be done, and does any one of them; if the anointed high priest sins so as to make the people sin, he shall bring for the sin he has committed a calf from the herd, without blemish, to the Lord as a sin offering. And he shall bring the calf to the door of the tent of witness before the Lord, and he shall slaughter the calf before the Lord. And the anointed priest, whose hands have been consecrated, shall take some of the blood of the calf and bring it into the tent of witness. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the Lord, in front of the holy veil. And the priest shall put some of the blood of the calf on the horns of the altar of the compounded incense, which is before the Lord, which is in the tent of witness; and all the blood of the calf he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offerings, which is by the doors of the tent of witness. And all the fat of the calf of the sin offering he shall remove from it: the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, which is on the thighs, and the lobe on the liver together with the kidneys, he shall remove it, just as it is removed from the calf sacrificed as a peace offering; and the priest shall offer it up on the altar of burnt offering. As for the skin of the calf and all its flesh, with the head, the extremities, the belly and the dung, they shall carry the whole calf out of the camp to a clean place, where they pour out the ashes, and they shall burn it on wood with fire; it shall be burned on the place where the ashes are poured out’ (Leviticus 4:1–12).

This is what the law commanded to be done if any fault committed in ignorance should be charged against the one who holds first place in the priesthood. It says too that for the sins of ignorance of the people a sacrifice must be performed: a calf is brought and slaughtered in the same way at the doors of the tent of witness before the Lord, the elders of the congregation lay their hands on it, its blood is brought into the Holy of Holies, and, in a word, everything is done with it in the likeness of the sacrifice for Aaron (Leviticus 4:13–21). But that Christ is the cleansing of priests and people alike (for in him we have been justified, wiping away the stain that comes from sin)…

The unblemished calf and the blood sprinkled seven times§20

20Cyril: …will be clear to anyone from these things too. But let us take up, one by one, what belongs to each point of the text; for so the discussion would go forward clearly and unfold, as far as it can, what is hidden.

Palladius: Well said.

Cyril: The calf, then, is taken without blemish and without wound (Leviticus 4:3) as a type of Christ, who is truly without blemish and did not submit to the wound that sin inflicts. ‘For the ruler of this world is coming,’ he says, ‘and he will find nothing in me’ (John 14:30); for he committed no sin, as the Scriptures say (1 Peter 2:22). And it is brought to the very doors of the holy tent, before the Lord (Leviticus 4:4); so Christ, as it were, did not refuse to suffer for the holy tent, that is, the Church, and was dedicated for her as a fragrant aroma to God the Father (Ephesians 5:2). That is why he said, ‘For their sake I sanctify myself’ (John 17:19). By ‘I sanctify’ he means ‘I bring and dedicate an unblemished offering to God the Father.’ For whatever is dedicated to God is said to be sanctified, as in the saying somewhere in Scripture: ‘It is a snare to a man to sanctify hastily something of his own, for after he has made the vow he comes to regret it’ (Proverbs 20:25). The words ‘before the Lord’ show that the offering is acceptable and well pleasing. For we already know what is written about the pair of brothers, I mean Cain and Abel: ‘God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts,’ it says, ‘but to Cain and his sacrifices he paid no heed’ (Genesis 4:4–5). For it is plain enough that God looks upon what pleases him, and turns away in hatred from what does not. When the hands of the one who has sinned have been laid on the calf, the slaughter is carried out, and that before the Lord (Leviticus 4:4). For ‘he takes away our sins and suffers pain for us’ (Isaiah 53:4) as he is slain; for the hand stands as a type of deeds and actions. Yet he is slain before the Lord, the Father all but consenting that the Son must die for us. For the Father does not turn away when he sees him slain; not that he in any way praises the suffering, but he knows well that Emmanuel’s suffering for us brings salvation to the world. So it is he who takes away our sins and suffers pain for us (Isaiah 53:4), enduring for our sake the slaughter on the precious cross. Then the priest takes some of the blood on his finger and sprinkles it seven times on the holy veil (Leviticus 4:6), which was over the ark, and whose name is the mercy seat. He also smears the horns of the altar of incense (Leviticus 4:7). For Christ has become for us both atonement (1 John 2:2) and mercy seat (Romans 3:25). Yet it is in the blood of an eternal covenant (Hebrews 13:20) that he grants us the most perfect cleansing. This, I think, is the meaning of the mercy seat being sprinkled seven times with the blood, for the number seven is a sign of perfection. For his death too is fragrant with the salvation and life of the world, and with our access to God in faith. ‘For one died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised’ (2 Corinthians 5:14–15), as the Scriptures say. So the smearing of the golden altar of incense with the blood shows the fragrance of his death. The rest of the blood is poured out at the base of the altar of burnt offerings (Leviticus 4:7)…

The calf burned outside the camp; the tent anointed§21

21Cyril: …in the outer tent. The blood stands as a type of life (Leviticus 17:11), and Emmanuel has laid down his life (John 10:15) not only for the Church from the Gentiles but also for those under the law, that is, for Israel. For all of us together, Greeks and Jews alike, have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and Paul will bear witness, saying: ‘Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith’ (Romans 3:29–30). When the inner parts of the calf have been taken out and carried up to the altar (Leviticus 4:8–10), the rest of the body is burned outside the camp (Leviticus 4:11–12). For he himself is the holy sacrifice, fragrant with virtues, of which the inner parts would be types, since the virtues are hidden, as it were, within us and lie deep within the mind. He is also the one who suffers outside the gate (Hebrews 13:12), and by the death of his own flesh cleanses those who were defiled. For ‘the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled on those who are defiled,’ it says, ‘sanctify for the purification of the flesh’ (Hebrews 9:13). So Emmanuel, being one and the same, gives off his fragrance in the holy tents, I mean the churches, and he also suffered outside the gate; and there, as the inspired Paul said, we too must go out, bearing his reproach (Hebrews 13:13). A calf is also brought for the sins of ignorance of the people (Leviticus 4:13–14), in the same way and without any difference, and the meaning of the sacrifice was the same in every case. For Emmanuel offered himself in the same way for small and great, for people and priests alike. Or is what I say not true?

Palladius: How could it not be?

Cyril: Shall we, then, rein the discussion back, as it were, and turn again to the accounts of the tent?

Palladius: By all means.

Cyril: When all the work had been completed, and each of the holy vessels had been carefully set in the place most fitting for it, God laid down that they and the tent must be sanctified, saying to the inspired Moses: ‘And you shall take the oil of anointing, and anoint the tent and everything in it, and you shall sanctify it and all its vessels, and they shall be holy. And you shall anoint the altar of burnt offerings and all its vessels, and you shall sanctify the altar, and the altar shall be holy of holies’ (Exodus 40:9–10). So you see the ark anointed with the holy oil, and the table too, and the lampstand beside it, and the golden altar of incense as well; and indeed our long discussion has already made clear that in all of them Emmanuel is portrayed.

Palladius: True.

Cyril: Consider, then, what is sung by the voice of David as addressed to him: ‘You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions’ (Psalm 45:7). Paul also writes: ‘For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one’ (Hebrews 2:11). We must understand that, by reasoning free from all fault, the very one who…

Christ sanctified in his humanity; the cloud fills the tent§22

22Cyril: …as God, together with God the Father, supplies and bestows sanctification on all others, is himself sanctified with us in his humanity; and this is what is called the self-emptying (Philippians 2:7). For he who is holy by nature, as God, is said to have needed God to sanctify him. Blessed Peter says this too: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 10:38). So the anointing concerns his humanity, and the sanctification belongs to the flesh, which is not holy by nature but holy by participation in what comes from God. For sanctification comes to created things from outside, and they are enriched with grace as something added to them by God. Together with the rest, the altar of the worship under the law is anointed too. For the law also is holy: it calls its hearers to the knowledge of him who is God by nature, plants in them an understanding of righteousness, and carries those it instructs on to the beginnings of goodness. ‘For the beginning of a good way,’ it says, ‘is to do what is right’ (Proverbs 16:7, Septuagint). And the inspired Paul writes somewhere: ‘So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good’ (Romans 7:12). The law is holy of holies, not in its shadow, but because, if it is turned to spiritual contemplation, its types proclaim aloud to us Christ himself, who is truly the Holy of Holies. For as God he sanctifies those who have come to share in him through faith, anointing them with his own Spirit. Now that the holy tent has been set up, and anointed with the holy oil as well, let us speak of what comes next, if you agree.

Palladius: Certainly.

Cyril: This, then, is what is written: ‘And Moses finished all the works. And the cloud covered the tent of witness, and the tent was filled with the glory of the Lord. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of witness, because the cloud overshadowed it, and the tent was filled with the glory of the Lord. Whenever it went up from the tent, the sons of Israel set out with their baggage; but if the cloud did not go up, they did not set out until the day on which the cloud went up. For the cloud was on the tent by day, and fire was on it by night, before all Israel in all their journeys’ (Exodus 40:33–38). For when the holy and truer tent, that is, the Church from the Gentiles, had been revealed in the world, the light of Christ shone around it, and the cloud, like a kind of spiritual dew richly nourishing us with what comes from above, fills the divine temple. Yet Moses, it says, was not able to enter; for Israel did not go in, since it could not bear the force of the divine light. For it neither understood the mystery of Christ, nor accepted the enlightening that comes in the Spirit, nor beheld the glory of the Lord with the eyes of the mind. And with him, as in the type of the cloud, when he departs from the world and goes on to the things above, we depart too, following in the Master’s footsteps; for he opened for us the new and living way (Hebrews 10:20), I mean the way to the things above and in heaven. And when he rests, as it were…

Light in the Churches; sacrifice at the tent alone§23

23Cyril: …and lodges, we rest with him and shall lodge with him. When the cloud set out, the people set out with it; and when it halted, they camped with it (Numbers 9:17–18). ‘For the cloud,’ it says, ‘was over the tent by day, and fire by night’ (Exodus 40:38). For Christ richly nourishes with spiritual gifts those who have come to be, as it were, in day and light, because they have grasped the knowledge of him with precision and careful study and have had their minds made bright; and he enlightens those who are still less instructed. But in the Churches there is no darkness of worldly deceit at all, since Christ shines all around them and floods all things with spiritual light; for we are not of night or of darkness, but sons of light and of day, as it is written (1 Thessalonians 5:5).

Palladius: You are right.

Cyril: To this we shall add an account, and not at great length, of the laws concerning the tent, of the gifts the peoples brought, and also of the settings out and the encampments. For in this way our discussion would keep to a straight road.

Palladius: I agree.

Cyril: The Lawgiver and Judge, then, ruled that sacrifices must be offered in the holy tent alone by any who chose to offer them. He was drawing them away, I suppose, from the stale false worship, that of Egypt, I mean, where there was much mockery of idols and a most unlovely crowd of falsely named gods, a crowd perhaps unknown even to those who had chosen to worship them; and where sacrifice was left free, to be offered as anyone pleased, just as one of the Greek sages carelessly said: ‘One man sacrificed to one god, another to another.’ Drawing them away, then, from so cold and profane a habit and so senseless a custom, he said again in Leviticus: ‘Speak to Aaron and to his sons and to all the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: This is the word which the Lord has commanded, saying: Any man of the sons of Israel, or of those who reside among you, who slaughters a calf or a sheep or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters it outside the camp, and does not bring it to the door of the tent of witness to make it a whole burnt offering or a peace offering to the Lord, acceptable as a fragrant odor; and whoever slaughters outside, and does not bring it to the door of the tent of witness, and so does not offer a gift to the Lord before the tent of the Lord, it shall be reckoned to that man that he has shed blood; that soul shall be utterly destroyed from its people’ (Leviticus 17:2–4). He says, then, that the one who sacrifices outside the tent sheds blood and will be liable to the charge of murder. For such a man has, as it were, killed himself and destroyed his own soul, since he withdraws it from him who is God by nature, assigns it to stones and wood, and dedicates it to the deceits of demons. That he did not command simply every slaughtered animal to be brought to the doors of the tent, but only whatever anyone chose to dedicate to God as a sacrifice, he showed clearly by adding at once (Leviticus 17:7): ‘And they shall not offer their sacrifices…

One house for the lamb; the Church and the heretics§24

24Cyril: …to the vain things after which they themselves go whoring’ (Leviticus 17:7). So he altogether forbids sacrificing indiscriminately to whomever one wishes, and says, very rightly, that worship must be offered to him alone who is God by nature.

Palladius: Our argument stands very well indeed.

Cyril: I think it would also benefit us not a little to understand, in another way, that it is profitable, and indeed in some sense necessary, for the sacrifices to be performed and the sacred victims offered in the holy tent alone.

Palladius: What do you mean?

Cyril: Did we not say that the calf slaughtered at the holy tent for the priest and for the people’s sins of ignorance is an image and type of Emmanuel (Leviticus 4:3, 13–14)?

Palladius: We did.

Cyril: In this way, then, we say, the mystery of Christ must be celebrated in the Churches of God, as in holy tents. For he sketched this out for us again elsewhere too. For when, at the beginning, he laid down for the Israelites departing from the land of the Egyptians how the lamb must be slaughtered as a type of Christ, he says: ‘It shall be eaten in one house, and you shall not carry any of its flesh outside’ (Exodus 12:46). So the heretics, who think otherwise, set aside what God has decided: beside the tent that is truly holy they pitch another for themselves; they sacrifice the lamb outside, carry it far away from the one house, and divide him who cannot be divided; for Christ is one and complete in all. But our wise Moses, who reveals holy things to us, gives this charge in Deuteronomy: ‘Take care that you do not offer your burnt offering in every place that you see, but only in the place which the Lord your God chooses, in one of your cities; there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you today. But you may slaughter whenever you desire, and eat meat as your soul desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you in every city. The unclean among you and the clean alike shall eat it, as they would a gazelle or a deer; only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water’ (Deuteronomy 12:13–16). To dare, then, to sacrifice in every place, and not to fulfill the mystery of Christ in the house of God, is the offense of a most loathsome mind, and liable to indictment.

Palladius: Well said. But explain this to me. The law has condemned the eating of blood, and very reasonably. What, again, might be the meaning contained in the letter?

Cyril: Then, if you agree, let us cite what was decreed on this point in Leviticus as well. It runs thus (Leviticus 17:10–14): ‘And any man of the sons of Israel, or of the proselytes residing among you, who eats any blood, I will set my face against the soul that eats the blood, and I will destroy it from its people. For the soul of all flesh is its blood…

Blood as a type of the immortal soul; no leaven with the blood§25

25Cyril: …And I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for its blood shall make atonement in place of the soul. Therefore I have said to the sons of Israel: No soul among you shall eat blood, and the proselyte residing among you shall not eat blood. And any man of the sons of Israel, or of the proselytes residing among you, who takes in hunting a beast or a bird that may be eaten, shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. For the soul of all flesh is its blood. And I said to the sons of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the soul of all flesh is its blood; everyone who eats it shall be utterly destroyed’ (Leviticus 17:10–14). See, then, how clearly and openly the blood is taken as a type of the soul.

Palladius: I understand.

Cyril: The law, therefore, sets the blood apart and draws it away from the bodies of the slaughtered animals, teaching a true doctrine, one received by us in faith and held in honor in the Churches: I mean that the rational soul of man is immortal, and continues to exist and to think. Death does not destroy it together with earthly bodies; rather, the Creator releases it and sets it free, and exempts it from suffering, having made it a sharer in life. For in the beginning man was made a living soul, when God breathed into him the breath of life; for so it is written (Genesis 2:7). For, I think, we shall be charging the Life that gives life to all things with weakness if we say that what came into life from it perishes together with our temporary bodies. But we shall crown that Life with the most excellent wisdom if we believe that the soul is immortal, since the Creator of all, in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), has willed that it be so. And this, I suppose, is the reason for the legislation on this point. But let us go on to other ordinances of the tent as well. God said, then, in Exodus: ‘You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven’ (Exodus 23:18). Let the blood that is shed be unleavened, he says, the blood shed for what has been brought to God as a sacrifice; that is, of course, no leaven, or fine flour that has been leavened, is to be brought with it. For we must be cleansed and, as it were, unleavened, that is, we must not harbor in our minds any entanglement, so to speak, with baseness and wickedness, and so consecrate to God our own souls, of which the blood is a type. And the inspired Paul also called those ‘a new batch’ and ‘unleavened’ (1 Corinthians 5:7–8) who keep their own soul sincere, unclouded and unmixed with baseness, through faith in Christ, of course, and through perfect love. But ‘neither shall the fat of my feast,’ he says, ‘remain overnight until morning’ (Exodus 23:18); that is, you shall not offer yesterday’s fat as a fragrant odor. And in Leviticus he sets out the law more clearly and makes the matter plain, saying of the one who brings a sacrifice (Leviticus 7:16–17): ‘If he sacrifices his gift as a vow or a freewill offering, on whatever day he offers his sacrifice it shall be eaten, and on the next day as well; but what is left of the flesh of the sacrifice until the third day shall be burned with fire…

Leftover sacrifices and the end of the law in Christ§26

26Cyril: …But if he does eat any of the flesh on the third day, it shall not be accepted for the one who offers it; it shall not be credited to him; it is a defilement; and the soul that eats of it shall be defiled and shall bear the sin’ (Leviticus 7:18). So the sacrifice of the third day is rejected; and that yesterday’s is refused as well, he made plain by saying: ‘If you sacrifice to the Lord a sacrifice, a vow of rejoicing, you shall sacrifice it so that it is acceptable for you. On that same day it shall be eaten; none of the flesh shall be left until morning; I am the Lord’ (Leviticus 22:29–30); ‘he shall bear the sin’ (Leviticus 19:8).

Palladius: Then what might be the meaning of these as well?

Cyril: The law has shown us many times already in what came before that divine Scripture is accustomed to divide the whole of time sometimes into two: the time when the law was in force, and the time when Christ shone forth; and sometimes again into three, inserting and placing between them the time when the choir of the holy prophets shone forth; except that in the time of Moses and in that of the holy prophets the manner of worship was the same, since it was still in the shadows of the law. But when morning has come, that is, when the third season has at last been revealed in turn, and the spiritual light, that is, Christ, shines all around the world beneath the sun, and the ancient mist has at last been dispersed, the manner of worship of that former time is no longer acceptable. Whether the fat or the sacrifice is yesterday’s or the third day’s, it is no longer acceptable, but loathsome and rejected before God, and counted as a defilement for those who choose to bring it out of season. Or would you not say it is true that, now that Christ illumines the souls of the saints with the teachings of the Gospel and initiates them so well into spiritual worship, the things in the law have somehow become superfluous and useless?

Palladius: I would. For I will call to mind the inspired Paul, who called the law’s grounds for boasting refuse and loss because of the surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ (Philippians 3:7–8). And I hear him writing to some: ‘I tell you that if you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing’ (Galatians 5:2).

Cyril: You are right. So it is sin and defilement, now that Christ has been revealed and the time of the law and the prophets has gone by, to cling to worship as in shadows, and to attempt to bring to God a sheep, or fat, or frankincense, even though the Son says plainly to God the Father: ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you took no pleasure. Then I said: See, I have come, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book, to do your will, O God’ (Hebrews 10:5–7; Psalm 40:6–8). For the Son, offering himself up for us as a spotless victim (Hebrews 9:14), put a stop to the things of the law, which could not take away sins (Hebrews 10:11); for Christ is the end of the law and the prophets (Romans 10:4).

Palladius: Well said.

The newborn offering and the eighth day§27

27Cyril: So then, after the perfecting in Christ, the Father cannot be approached through the worship of the law; he can be approached through the Son alone. That is why he said, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6). And that everything not in Christ is unfit for sacrifice and imperfect, while what is through him and in him is acceptable and most holy, can also be seen clearly from what the law says. In Exodus it says, ‘You shall not boil a lamb in its mother’s milk’ (Exodus 23:19); and in Leviticus, ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: When a calf or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall be seven days under its mother; but from the eighth day on it shall be accepted as gifts, an offering by fire to the Lord. And a calf or a sheep, the mother and her young, you shall not slaughter on the same day’ (Leviticus 22:26–28). So he does not allow a lamb that is newborn and still at the breast to be slaughtered, showing that what is still immature and, so to speak, small and weak in understanding is not yet holy, and for this reason is still unacceptable to God. Such were certain unwise and small-minded people to whom the inspired Paul writes: ‘For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; you have come to need milk, not solid food. But solid food belongs to the mature’ (Hebrews 5:12–14). What is still on milk and at the breast is therefore immature, I mean in understanding and in spiritual strength. But let our discussion of these matters now move, as from a type drawn from things that are seen and plain to the senses, to things beyond the senses and grasped by the mind; only, you will understand very well that in Christ all things have come to perfection and acceptance. For the animals that are brought and dedicated to God must, he says, be seven days under their mother, but from the eighth day on they will be a gift, and an offering by fire to God.

Palladius: Your point is not very clear.

Cyril: Do you not say that the eighth day is the day of the Savior’s resurrection, and the beginning, as it were, of a new age, once the time of the law, figured in the first seven days, has passed by?

Palladius: I do.

Cyril: Then whatever belongs, so to speak, to the time of the law, that is, whatever lies in worship according to the flesh, is still unholy and cannot yet be offered; but from now on everything in Christ, on the eighth day and after, is already a gift and well pleasing to God. For the calling in Christ has no end, and its beginning is the resurrection. The Son himself knew this, and so he said at one time, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself’ (John 12:32), and at another, ‘Truly I tell you, unless the grain falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears more fruit’ (John 12:24).

Palladius: You have spoken rightly. But the rule that a mother must not be killed…

The mother spared with her young; no grove beside the altar§28

28Palladius: …together with her young on the same day: what, in turn, would that mean?

Cyril: After laying down in the law so well what concerns Christ, and gracefully foretelling the perfecting that comes through him, the Lawgiver, being God, did not fail to know the disobedience of the Jews and the unruliness of Jerusalem. He knew that for this reason the people of Israel would be destroyed as killers of the Lord and as men who had savagely abused the Son; yet Jerusalem would not perish altogether, root and all. She would remain like a woman bereft of children, waiting for the last time, at the end, when she too will be saved, running behind the nations. For she has been set at the back, that is, behind, as the Psalmist’s words have it: ‘For he will put them at the back’ (Psalm 21:12). For all Israel will be saved, once the flock from the nations has first been gathered into the divine folds (Romans 11:25–26). So the law does not allow the destruction to come about as a final and total ruin. It shows in advance that the wrath against the disobedient is tempered with gentleness; and at the same time, I think, it sets the matter before us as a kind of figure of something we need to know. For the things that exist will by no means pass away into nothing, overpowered by unchecked corruption. Rather, they will endure, as it were, through succession, this one preserved in that, and that perhaps in this, according to kinship or likeness of kind, since God wards off the total destruction of his own creatures. For ‘he created all things that they might exist, and the generations of the world bring preservation’ (Wisdom of Solomon 1:14), as it is written. And it was fitting that the foretelling of such things, and indeed their disclosure, should belong to the teaching about Christ, for whose sake and in whom what was corrupted is saved, and what was under the tyranny of death has blossomed again into life. For the root of the human race died like a mother, as in Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22); yet those who came from it, that is, we ourselves, have blossomed again in Christ. In him we exist and are saved, since we have him as our life and as a second root, so to speak, of our race.

Palladius: How well, and how carefully, your argument is worked out!

Cyril: It is worth adding to what has been said, Palladius, this passage: ‘You shall not plant a grove for yourself; any tree beside the altar of the Lord your God you shall not make for yourself; you shall not set up a pillar for yourself, things which the Lord your God hates’ (Deuteronomy 16:21–22). See how he removes the worshipper of the truth entirely from idolatrous deceit. He by no means allows him to make use of the laws of the pagans, and he charges him to shake off their customs, even if they do no harm and even if they come about by chance.

Palladius: What do you mean?

Cyril: The pagans would take over the most flourishing trees and every thicket dense with leaves, and there they would set up altars and sacrifices to the demons. For they had to, they simply had to, attach to the altars of the demons something that would carry the mind away, as it were, and worldly pleasures besides. Falsehood is sick with weakness from within, but it is often decked out with ornaments brought in from outside,

No pagan adornment for God’s altar; the leaders’ gifts begin§29

29Cyril: …as, of course, shameless women are too. But what need did the divine altar, flashing with the beauty of the truth, have of help from outside, that is, of needless ornaments? For the divine is not approached through worldly pleasure, nor with a mind that is somehow slack and fastened on the things of the flesh, but with an understanding that is sober and looks intently upward, to the heavens. If a divine altar had happened to stand somewhere, perhaps even at the foot of trees, as if by chance, the thing would have done no harm at all to the steadfast and genuine worshipper of the Savior. But since the practice is wholly pagan, we must refuse to imitate it, and refuse any likeness to the custom. In the same way, of course, for the faithful mind, firmly set on true knowledge, an idol is nothing in the world (1 Corinthians 8:4), and neither is food offered to idols anything (1 Corinthians 10:19); yet such a person is not permitted to eat when another warns him, for the sake of the conscience of the weaker (1 Corinthians 10:28). ‘For why am I judged by another’s conscience? If I partake with thanks, why am I denounced over that for which I give thanks?’ (1 Corinthians 10:29–30). So this wins approval with God: I mean refusing to act as the pagans do, both in the placing of altars and in the customs and ways of worship.

Palladius: I agree.

Cyril: Sacred Scripture again made it plain to us that we must bear fruit for the glory of God and not go into the holy tent with empty hands. In Numbers it runs thus: ‘And it came to pass on the day that Moses finished setting up the tent, that he anointed it and sanctified it, and all its furnishings, and the altar and all its furnishings; he anointed them and sanctified them. And the leaders of Israel brought offerings, twelve leaders of their fathers’ houses. These were the leaders of the tribes; these were the ones who oversaw the census. And they brought their gift before the Lord: six covered wagons and twelve oxen, a wagon from every two leaders and a calf from each, and they brought them before the tent. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take them from them, and they shall be used for the work of service at the tent of witness, and you shall give them to the Levites, to each according to his service. And Moses took the wagons and the oxen and gave them to the Levites’ (Numbers 7:1–6). The tribal leaders’ gifts did not stop there; others were brought besides. For it is written: ‘And the leaders brought offerings for the dedication of the altar on the day he anointed it, and the leaders brought their gifts before the altar. And the Lord said to Moses: One leader each day, a leader each day, shall bring their gifts for the dedication of the altar. And the one who brought his gift on the first day was Nahshon son of Amminadab, leader of the tribe of Judah. And he brought his gift: one silver dish weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels by the holy shekel,

The leaders’ daily gifts as a figure of Christ’s offering§30

30Cyril: …both full of fine flour mixed with oil for a sacrifice; one incense dish of ten gold shekels, full of incense; one calf from the herd, one ram, one yearling lamb for a whole burnt offering; and one male goat for sin; and for a sacrifice of salvation two heifers, five rams, five male goats, five yearling ewe lambs. This was the gift of Nahshon son of Amminadab’ (Numbers 7:13–17). And they brought their gifts in turn, one after another, up to the twelfth, in the same way and with unvarying generosity, each being assigned the day appointed for him in particular (Numbers 7:18–83); for this was how God ordained it.

Palladius: And what then is the meaning of so varied an offering?

Cyril: The thing is an offering of fruit, Palladius; but woven into it, I think, is also a mystical meaning, which refers the riddle to Emmanuel and to ourselves. I will explain it again as well as I can. Now that the holy and true tent (Hebrews 8:2), that is, the Church, has been revealed in this world, Christ, shining out in it in many ways, is offered, one might almost say, by us and on our behalf, as a sacred victim to God the Father, a ransom and exchange for the life of all, the One who is worth as much as all. For since the Only-begotten became man as one of us, he offered himself to God the Father (Ephesians 5:2), as a kind of first offering and firstfruits of human nature, fragrant with holiness: a holiness that is his by nature and in essence, inasmuch as he is understood to be God and is God, but that is his in turn as something received, because of his humanity. And though he is one, he was depicted in many ways, as in the offering of the leaders; and so too, even now, Christ is offered in sacrifice through those who serve as leaders in each age, being understood in many ways and honored with various names. The offering each day suggests, in a way, that the sacrifice of Christ never fails and never ceases on any day, and that those who have been justified by faith bear fruit in it. For worshippers will not fail, nor will there be any lack of gifts. Christ will be offered by us and on our behalf, mystically sacrificed in the holy tents. He himself is our first and choicest offering of fruit; for he offered himself as a sacrifice to the Father, not for himself, indeed, as irreproachable reasoning holds, but rather for us who were under the yoke and indictment of sin. And in likeness to him we too are sacred victims, dying to the world, since sin has been put to death in us, and living to God (Romans 6:11) the life of holiness and godliness. This, it seems, is what the leaders’ offering hints at for us. Would you like us to examine it part by part with fitting reasoning, as best suits us, and speak of it as far as we are able?

Palladius: By all means.

Cyril: Now a calf was brought by each leader, and the wagons, six in number, were assigned to the sacred work of the holy tent (Numbers 7:3–5). Then from…

Whole burnt offering and sacrifice of salvation; the dish and cup as Christ our food and drink§31

31Cyril: …each, one silver dish and one cup, both, it says, full of fine flour mixed with oil; one incense dish full of incense; one ram and one yearling lamb for a whole burnt offering; a male goat for sin (Numbers 7:13–16). These are the whole burnt offerings. And for a sacrifice of salvation, it says, they also brought two heifers, five rams, five he-goats and five yearling ewe lambs (Numbers 7:17).

Palladius: Explain, then, before anything else, what separates the two: what difference would one say there is between the sacrifice of salvation and the whole burnt offering?

Cyril: Listen, then. In the whole burnt offerings the animals were burned up entire by the sacred and unquenchable fire, no part at all held back; every portion and every limb rose, as it were, to God as a fragrant aroma. But the animals slaughtered for the sacrifice of salvation received a partial consecration, in the right shoulder, for example, the head and the feet, the kidneys and the liver, and certain other inner parts and entrails. It is fitting, then, that Christ should be offered as a whole burnt offering, for he is truly holy in his entirety, wholly fragrant and sacred. But to us belongs what is not altogether holy and not entirely sacred, for there is some defilement in us too, because of the sin that is in us. For ‘no one is clean from filth’ (Job 14:4), and ‘Who will understand his transgressions?’ (Psalm 19:12), as it is written. For this reason the law very rightly commanded that the sacrifice of salvation be consecrated not as a whole burnt offering, but rather in part. Is the account clear to you, then, Palladius, and enough to make it easy to grasp?

Palladius: Very much so.

Cyril: Come, then, let us go on to the next point: to say something, I mean, about each of the things offered, and also to understand what is needed for our benefit.

Palladius: Go on, then.

Cyril: The gifts from each of the tribal leaders, then, are one silver dish and one cup, both full of fine flour mixed with oil. The dish serves for food and is useful for eating what goes with bread, as the Savior himself showed when he told John, his true disciple, who was eager to learn it, who would betray him: ‘He who dipped his hand in the dish with me,’ he says (Matthew 26:23). And why should I speak of the use of the cup, when the thing itself cries it aloud? Fine flour is a sign of bread, since bread is made from it, and the bread of life is Christ (John 6:35). So in the dish and the cup, as it were, and in the bread that was in both (for both were full of fine flour), as in food and drink, Christ is signified as life and as the giver of life. ‘For truly,’ he says, ‘I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves’ (John 6:53). And it says that the fine flour was soaked in oil, as though the type were singing out that very word in the Psalms (Psalm 45:7): ‘You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil…

The incense dish, the four victims, and the heifers as ourselves§32

32Cyril: …of gladness beyond your companions’ (Psalm 45:7). The incense dish, again, has the shape and form of a censer, being made like a small bowl, and it too is filled with incense. For Christ is both fragrance and censer. He does not have his fragrance from outside, as we ourselves do, who come to have it by sharing in virtue and in the holiness that belongs to godliness. He has it from within, as God, and is rich in his own nature in all for which he is wondered at, and he fills the whole world with a fragrance that is above the world and above creation. For since he is God by nature and in truth, and has in his own nature the fragrance of the knowledge of the Father (2 Corinthians 2:14), he is very clearly recognized for what he is. The incense dish, then, is full of incense. Accordingly there are brought a calf and a ram, and a lamb as well, and a male goat, the offerings brought in addition to these; and through them all he himself is portrayed. In the calf, because of its great strength, and because among the tame and clean animals the calf is foremost, and greatest in size of body; and all that is Christ’s stands in a spiritual pre-eminence, and he himself is the One who excels and stands above, by a difference beyond comparison in every respect whatever. In the ram, because of its full maturity; and in the lamb, because of its innocence: ‘For I,’ he says, ‘like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed, did not know’ (Jeremiah 11:19). In the male goat, because of the slaughter on behalf of those who had sinned. For under the law the male goat is the sacrifice for sin; and Emmanuel went down into death for our sake, and we have been redeemed from our ancient offences through the slaughter he endured for us. Or do you say that this too is not true?

Palladius: How could it not be?

Cyril: Notice, too, that the calves were brought, but were given for the work of the tent, so that when the camp moved they might carry the loads on wagons and spare those who performed the sacred service toil and distress (Numbers 7:3–8). For the Church rests upon Christ, and he carries us. He does not let the holy and precious race, the people skilled in holy works, fall into labours beyond their strength. In this way, then, the things named must be referred to Christ. As for the animals for the sacrifice of salvation, the leaders brought them, as it were, in place of themselves, consecrating them in some way to the holy tent and offering them up to God as a fragrant aroma. There were two heifers, five rams, five he-goats and five ewe lambs. Now the calf is Christ, and the heifers are we ourselves, and the reasoning about the two is not out of keeping, but rather true and plain. For the male is always, in a way, the one most fitted to lead, and held in the highest honour and glory with God; and nature is witness to it, admitting the fact. The female is lesser and placed beneath, coming as it were behind the strength and glory of the male. So in the male calf Christ is our leader, while we, as it were, are yoked beneath him and far less than he in strength and glory, and the distance between is beyond comparison. For even if he became like us…

The heifer is of one kind with the calf§33

33Cyril: …(for the heifer is of the same kind as the calf), yet all that is his stands in a very great…

Christ above us though made flesh; the two peoples and the flock of believers; our souls consecrated to God§34

34Cyril: …pre-eminence. ‘For who will be likened to God among the sons of God?’ (Psalm 89:6). For Christ is at once like us and above us, in the pre-eminence of his Godhead, even though he became flesh (John 1:14). There are two heifers, as a type, I think, of the two peoples, who have run together into the one people made from both, as he who is for our sake and with us joins them through faith into spiritual unity (Ephesians 2:14–15). The rams, again, and the lambs, equal in number, and the male goats no fewer, point to the multitude of believers, the multitude gathered, I mean, in the fifth age, as it were, the time when he came who says, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself’ (John 12:32). Through the rams is signified the believers’ maturity in understanding and their full growth in spiritual stature, the stature, plainly, that is in Christ (Ephesians 4:13); through the lambs, their simplicity and innocence: ‘Brothers,’ he says, ‘do not be children in your thinking, but be infants in evil, and in your thinking be mature’ (1 Corinthians 14:20); and through the male goats for sin, their constant need of cleansing and of the forgiveness of offences. That is why we too have been taught to say in our prayers, ‘Forgive us our trespasses’ (Matthew 6:12). For there is no time when those who are truly right-minded, and who know the weakness of human nature, need not cry out, ‘Who will understand his transgressions?’ and, ‘Cleanse me from my secret faults’ (Psalm 19:12). This is a spiritual sacrifice, giving off a fragrance to God for the salvation of our souls.

Palladius: True.

Cyril: I have said, then, that Christ is signified in the calf and in the rams, the lambs and the he-goats, and in the rest; and I would by no means suppose that the account given of this misses what is fitting. But if anyone should choose to carry the force of these thoughts over to ourselves as well, there is no harm in applying some such contemplation as this to the passage before us.

Palladius: What kind do you mean?

Cyril: Under the law the sacred victims were brought by all Israel, and the blood of the slain was poured out at the divine altar. The rite all but spelled it out, as in a shadow, and hinted to us indirectly that it is fitting for us to consecrate our own souls to the holy God.

Palladius: Well said.

Cyril: So the victims stand in our place and on our behalf, and in them it is we who, in type, are offered in sacrifice.

Palladius: True.

Cyril: Come, then, let us examine carefully, as is right, what was brought by the hand of the leaders as though from all the people, and look closely at the beauty of the spiritual contemplation. What was offered in silver vessels, I mean the dish and the cup, was fine flour soaked in oil. And the symbol of brightness…

The leaders’ gifts as types: gladness in hope, the one yoke of Christ, and meekness§35

35Cyril: …is the silver; the fine flour is a symbol of life, since bread, which keeps us in life, is made from it; and the oil is a symbol of gladness. So let us too, for our part, offer to God who is over all, through our hope in Christ, the gladness that belongs to a bright life. For it says: ‘Rejoicing in hope’ (Romans 12:12). And how could those who keep the commandments of our Savior, and have trained themselves thoroughly in a life and conduct of shining distinction, not be filled with the highest joy? For them a share in his glory is stored up with God, wholly and surely. For it says: ‘For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory’ (Colossians 3:3–4). So the fine flour is mixed with oil (Numbers 7:13). For in the life of the saints there is also the gladness that comes from the hope of glory, together, of course, with the brightness that belongs to holiness and righteousness. And the golden dish full of incense (Numbers 7:14) depicts the beauty of the saints: their fragrance in sanctification, held as in choice vessels, and then, as it were, a gift to God that is truly most fragrant. Or should we not think, Palladius, that the saints are bright and choice vessels?

Palladius: Certainly we should.

Cyril: Each leader also gave an ox, twelve in all. They carry the holy tent as their load, brought in pairs to a single wagon and under a single yoke, and they were assigned to the service of the Levites (Numbers 7:3–6). This would be a type of the two peoples, no longer divided by unlike doctrines and ways of life, but brought together and, as it were, running together under the one yoke of the Savior (Matthew 11:29), with endurance and courage. For it says: ‘Be courageous, and let your heart be strong, and wait for the Lord’ (Psalm 27:14). And the ox is an animal that endures hardship and is very strong. Such, surely, are those who have chosen godliness: they carry Christ upon themselves like a yoke, as the one prefigured in the holy tent. The divine Paul, too, called the Church his body (Colossians 1:24). And it was said to Ananias about him, I mean about Paul: ‘Go, for this man is a chosen vessel to me, to carry my name before the Gentiles’ (Acts 9:15). Besides these, a ram and a lamb were offered (Numbers 7:15). They hint at the coming to God of the older people and of the new, and at their dedication, so to speak, which is plainly a spiritual one. For just as endurance and courage were signified in the oxen, so in the same way, I think, the sheep clearly show the fruit borne in meekness by those who have been justified through faith in Christ. For the animal is gentle, and fruitful as well. Such are all who labor with exactness at the Gospel way of life, to whom Christ himself said: ‘Give to everyone who asks you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back; and to the one who strikes you on the cheek, turn the other also’ (Luke 6:30; Matthew 5:39). And Paul too writes: ‘The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but be gentle…

The goat of confession, and the voice from above the mercy seat§36

36Cyril: …toward all, teaching with meekness those who oppose him’ (2 Timothy 2:24–25). That the offering of a goat must follow what has already been named (Numbers 7:16) would show, I think, nothing other than what I said just now: that all people, even any whose settled character is good, need cleansing through repentance and the pardon of their trespasses. Knowing this, the divine David said: ‘If you should mark iniquities, Lord, Lord, who will stand?’ (Psalm 130:3). Under the old law, then, the goat was the sacrifice for forgiveness. But now repentance and the plea for pardon are the sacrifice for us who draw near to God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). For it says: ‘State your sins first, that you may be justified’ (Isaiah 43:26). And David too sings somewhere: ‘I said, I will confess my sin against myself to the Lord, and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart’ (Psalm 32:5). Is the account of the leaders’ gifts clear to you now?

Palladius: Entirely so.

Cyril: I think this too must be said. For when the sacrifice had already been brought by each, and as it were on behalf of all, the divine words began to come to Moses, the revealer of the sacred rites, in the holy tent. It is written thus, again in Numbers: ‘This is the dedication of the altar, after his hands were filled and after he was anointed. When Moses went into the tent of testimony to speak with him, he heard the voice of the Lord God speaking to him from above the mercy seat, which is on the ark of the testimony, between the two cherubim; and he spoke to him’ (Numbers 7:88–89). For when the holy tent had, as it were, been completed, and the true sanctuary, which is the Church, had been shown to the world, then indeed the voice of God the Father came to us. ‘For he has spoken to us in the Son’ (Hebrews 1:2), whom we also call the mercy seat for our sins, according to the Scriptures (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2). The voice comes from above the cherubim, for God is above all creation and beyond it, and his supremacy over everything that has come into being belongs to his very essence and is inherent in him. And the Son, the true mercy seat, conveying to us the words that come from above and from the Father, said: ‘The words that I speak are not mine, but his who sent me’ (John 14:10, 24). So the voice came from above the mercy seat. You would also marvel not a little as you consider the approach of the tribal leaders. For a day was assigned to each one separately (Numbers 7:11), on which he was to carry out what had been prescribed and bring his gift. They came forward in good order, as the lawgiver decided; yet not in the order of their birth, that is, by age, nor simply mixed together at random, but arranged instead, as it were, in a mystical order.

Palladius: And yet I cannot work out what you mean. So tell me plainly.

Cyril: Would you like us to name, in order and one after another, those born of…

Not by birth order: Judah first, and the last made first§37

37Cyril: …Jacob? For in this way the departure from that order in their approach would become very clear.

Palladius: By all means.

Cyril: Reuben, then, is the firstborn, and after him come Simeon, Levi and Judah, all from their mother Leah (Genesis 29:32–35). Bilhah, the servant girl, bore Dan and Naphtali (Genesis 30:4–8), and Zilpah, Leah’s maid, bore Gad and Asher (Genesis 30:9–13); and Leah, besides her other four, bore Issachar and Zebulun (Genesis 30:17–20). From Rachel, too, came Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 30:22–24; 35:16–18). So the first are the four from Leah, the free woman: Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah. From the two servant women, Bilhah and Zilpah, come four: Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. After these come another four: two from Leah, Issachar and Zebulun, and from Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin. We must also remember that Joseph’s lot was divided into two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, his sons (Genesis 48:5).

Palladius: I understand the order of the names very well. But it is now for you to make plain what, in all this, we are looking for.

Cyril: When they came forward with their gifts, Palladius, they did not come by age. First came Judah, though he was fourth in time (Numbers 7:12–17); after him Issachar, the ninth son, and with them Zebulun, the tenth (Numbers 7:18–29). After these came a second company, as it were: Reuben the firstborn, and Simeon, the next and second son (Numbers 7:30–41). Dan, a slave woman’s son, was joined to them as well. Next came a third rank, made up of three freeborn sons: Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin (Numbers 7:48–65). The fourth company, at the very end, is made up of those born of the servant women. These again are three, Dan, Asher and Naphtali (Numbers 7:66–83), although in the time of their birth they come before those placed ahead of them in order, I mean Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin. Would you not say this calls for close examination?

Palladius: Very much so. Try to tell me, then, what the reason is.

Cyril: The matter is a riddle, I think, once again. It shows that what comes through Christ holds the first rank with God over what belongs to the law, and that the first have been made last and the last first (Matthew 19:30). For those older in time, and for that reason firstborn, that is, Israel, come behind the Gentiles. And those who have the spirit of slavery (Romans 8:15), the sons of the Jerusalem that is in slavery, will yield the first place in glory to the sons of the free woman, who is the mother of us who have been justified in Christ (Galatians 4:25–26) and called to the dignity of the free through the Spirit of freedom. Look, if you will, at how exact these insights are. The tribe of Judah brings its gift first (Numbers 7:12), the tribe from which Christ sprang according to the flesh (Hebrews 7:14). Right after it come Issachar and Zebulun, both free and born of free parents. Then Reuben, the firstborn…

Reuben, Simeon and Gad stand for Israel, which comes after the free§38

38Cyril: …and Simeon and Gad, who was born of a slave woman. Through these Israel is signified. Come, let us set out what belongs to each, gathering it from the prophecy Jacob spoke over them. The inspired Jacob said: ‘Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the beginning of my children, hard to bear, hard and self-willed’ (Genesis 49:3). And again: ‘Simeon and Levi, brothers, carried out wrongdoing of their own choosing. Let my soul not enter into their counsel, and let my heart not lean upon their gathering; for in their anger they killed men, and in their passion they hamstrung a bull. Cursed be their anger, for it was self-willed, and their wrath, for it was hardened’ (Genesis 49:5–7). And of Gad he said this: ‘A band of raiders shall raid, and he himself shall raid him at his heels’ (Genesis 49:19). So in Reuben Israel may fittingly be signified: firstborn in time, but hard, self-willed and insolent. In Simeon, with whom Levi is joined, Israel is signified as ready for bloodshed, as one who killed the saints (for ‘Which of the prophets,’ it says, ‘did your fathers not kill?’ (Acts 7:52)), and as one who hamstrung, so to speak, the bull, who is Christ. For it is not the Jewish people alone that stands convicted of daring these outrages against the saints and against Christ; Levi too joined them, that is, the priestly race, those who attend the altar, the scribes and Pharisees. That is why, in the prophecies of the forefather Jacob, Levi is yoked with Simeon. In Gad, who was born of a slave woman and is a band of raiders, Israel is signified as base-born in disposition, as testing Jesus and laying snares to do him harm; for they came to him saying, ‘Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?’ (Luke 20:22; Matthew 22:17). So, to bring my argument back to where it began: Israel, firstborn in time, hard, self-willed and insolent, quick to shed blood, whose wrath is cursed, who killed men and hamstrung the bull, base-born and bitter in deceit, who sets snares and is a band of raiders, has been ranked behind those who are in Christ and free; and even if it is free, it comes after us, so that it scarcely comes into the sight of God.

Palladius: You have put it well.

Cyril: You would understand what I mean more fully if you also turned your mind to what follows. For next, three in a row brought their offerings, descendants of Rachel the free woman: Ephraim and Manasseh [The text is damaged here.]. Then, after them, three more in a row, the sons of the maidservants: once again I mean Dan, Asher and Naphtali. Do you see, then, that the sons of the free woman go in first and are held in high honour, while the sons of the maidservants follow? Or is this not plainly what the inspired Paul himself writes to us? ‘When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,’ he says, ‘then all Israel will be saved’ (Romans 11:25–26).

The camp set around the tent in the same order as the gifts§39

39Palladius: You are right; the observation is very subtle indeed.

Cyril: And you will see very easily that this is no false conclusion. For Scripture at once bears us out from other points as well. God prescribed that the sons of Israel must break camp, and also halt, that is, encamp together, in fitting order, and he expressly commanded them to go around the tent, in keeping, I think, with what the blessed David sings so gracefully: ‘And I will go around your altar, O Lord, that I may hear the voice of your praise’ (Psalm 26:6–7), or again: ‘I went around and offered in his tent a sacrifice of joyful shouting’ (Psalm 27:6). But what they were commanded to do as in a type hints at something else as well. For we must not keep ourselves apart from God, but be seen, so to speak, standing near and all around him, with no sin coming between, no worldly pleasure setting us apart, while an upright steadiness of mind and a readiness for every admirable thing gather us into spiritual unity. For those who have chosen to win approval in this way, it is above all fitting that they bear fruit. For it is written: ‘All who are around him shall bring gifts’ (Psalm 76:11). So he commanded them to set out together with the tent and to march around it, and again in an order: not one that matched their ages and kept strict sequence from the first to the last, but with them joined together as they were, group by group, just as in the bringing of the gifts.

It is written thus in Numbers: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: Each man keeping to his own division, by their standards, according to their ancestral houses, let the sons of Israel encamp before the Lord; around the tent of witness the sons of Israel shall encamp’ (Numbers 2:1–2). Then he shows the place assigned to each, where and how they encamped, and who they were. For he goes on thus: ‘And those who encamp first, toward the east, are the division of the camp of Judah with their host; and those encamping next to them, the tribe of Issachar; and those encamping next, the tribe of Zebulun’ (Numbers 2:3–7). Then he mentions a second company and says: ‘The division of the camp of Reuben toward the south with their host; and the leader of the sons of Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur; his host, those counted, numbered forty-six thousand five hundred. And those encamping next to him, the tribe of Simeon; and those encamping next to him, the tribe of Gad’ (Numbers 2:10–14). And at once he adds a third, saying: ‘The division of the camp of Ephraim by the sea with their host; and those encamping next, the tribe of Benjamin’ (Numbers 2:18–22). And then at once he mentions a fourth company, saying: ‘The division of the camp of Dan toward the north with their host; and those encamping next to him, the tribe of Asher; and those encamping next to him, the tribe of Naphtali. All those numbered,’ he says, ‘of the camp of Dan were one hundred fifty-seven thousand six hundred; they shall set out last…

Judah leads in the light; the maidservants’ sons set out last§40

40Cyril: …by their divisions’ (Numbers 2:25–31). Do you see that Judah and those with him are placed first, and hold the chosen place toward the dawn and the south? For those who are in Christ are in the light, and fervent in the Spirit (Romans 12:11). Second comes Reuben and those with him. Third, again, are the sons of the free woman. Then after them come three others, the sons of the maidservants, of whom it is said, ‘They shall set out last’ (Numbers 2:31). Is it not plain, and in no way open to doubt, that the second, that is, the people in Christ, has been honoured above the firstborn and called in ahead of it, and so have those who are free in faith above those who come from slavery? For the one group leads because of Christ, who is from Judah; the others only barely follow behind, and have been placed, as it were, in the second rank.

Palladius: You have spoken most rightly, and I would praise you for such fine sharpness of mind.