Mother not killed with young = Jerusalem spared; no grove by altar = no pagan décor

Palladius: …needing mother with the children in one day, what again would it be?

Cyril: Having legislated very well the things upon Christ, and having announced beforehand gracefully the perfection through him, he has not been ignorant, as God, of the unpersuaded of the Jews, and of Jerusalem’s hard-to-rein, and that on account of this cause those from Israel will be destroyed as Lord-killers, and having behaved drunkenly savagely unto the Son, yet Jerusalem will not go away entirely root-and-all, but will remain as desolate of children, awaiting the last and in ends time, according to which she herself also will be saved running behind the nations; for she has been set unto a back—that is, behind—according to the Psalmist’s voice, ‘Because he will set them a back’; for all Israel will be saved, with the flock from nations having been folded beforehand in the divine pens. So then the law does not allow the corruption as in a last total-destruction to come to be, announcing beforehand the anger upon the unpersuaded mixed with gentleness, and at the same time, I think, setting the matter as some types of necessary knowledge. For least of all will the beings go away unto nothing being tyrannized by unmixed corruption, but this will remain as in successions in that, and that perhaps in this being saved, according at least to the same-race or same-form, God driving away the utter destruction of his own creatures. ‘For he created unto being all things and saving are the begettings of the world,’ according to what has been written. And the fore-announcement of such things was also fitting, and indeed also the showing, of the words concerning Christ, through whom and in whom the things corrupted are saved, and what is tyrannized by death has bloomed again unto life, for the root of the human race has died as some mother, as in Adam, yet those from her—that is, we—have bloomed again in Christ and we are and are saved, having him as life and as a second root of the race.

Palladius: How well indeed and very polished the word holds.

Cyril: And it is worthy, O Palladius, to bring upon the things said: ‘You will not plant for yourself a grove; every tree beside the altar of Lord your God, you will not make for yourself, you will not set for yourself a pillar, which Lord your God has hated.’ For see how he wholly houses-out the worshipper of the truth from idol-fitting deceit, least of all allowing to use up the laws of Greeks, and charging that the customs beside those must be shaken off, even if they should have nothing grieving, and if they should perhaps come to be.

Palladius: What sort of thing do you say?

Cyril: Greeks taking all the most well-branching of plants and thickly leafy occupying a thicket were setting altars and sacrifices to the demons. For it was necessary, necessary that as it were a carrying-away of mind, and indeed also worldly delights, have been fixed beside the altars of the demons. For the false is sick from home with the weak, and is often beautified with the imported adornments,