Unclean until evening: cleansing comes through Christ
Cyril: …or perhaps they are also those who say, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ (1 Corinthians 15:32), and those who drag the minds of the less instructed toward the pleasures of the world. Unclean, too, and apt to defile those who touch them or come near them (by the law, I mean, of shared disposition) are those of whom the most wise Paul also said somewhere: ‘If anyone who is called a brother is a fornicator, or a drunkard, or a robber, or greedy, or an idolater, do not even eat with such a one’ (1 Corinthians 5:11). Or would you not say that for the holy and chosen race, those who have not fallen into such evils, the most fitting thing is not to mix with those who are sick with them either?
Palladius: Certainly.
Cyril: ‘So whoever touches these,’ he says, ‘shall be in uncleanness until evening. He shall not eat of the holy things unless he washes his body with water; and when the sun has set he shall be clean, and then he shall eat of the holy things, because it is his bread’ (Leviticus 22:6–7). Besides this he also forbids eating what has died of itself or been torn by beasts, since it is quite able to defile (Leviticus 22:8). See, then, Palladius, that the putting away of all filth and the release from the charges against us could come about in us in no other way than through Christ alone, and at the time of his coming.
Palladius: What do you mean?
Cyril: He showed that everything before the coming of the Only-begotten was unpurified and still stained, and had no share in life, when he said, ‘He shall be unclean until evening, and he shall not eat of the holy things’ (Leviticus 22:6). Or did not Emmanuel come in the last times of the age?
Palladius: Yes, that is plain.
Cyril: And we have been given life by eating the bread that is truly holy and from heaven (John 6:32–33), that is, Christ, when the time had come to its end, as though the sun were setting and bringing the measure of time to a close in evening.
Palladius: Quite so.
Cyril: This is why the one who is defiled remains unclean until evening and has no share in the holy and life-giving food, while he waits for the time of cleansing. But once he has washed in water and the sun has set, he is clean, and he has the bread from heaven as his own. For to those who have been sanctified through water, I mean in holy baptism, it has been granted, as it were, to be blessed through Christ; and he himself is the living bread, and he again is the one who came down from heaven and gives life to the world (John 6:51; John 6:33). That the setting of the sun would mark the time of our Savior’s coming you will see clearly from what God says about the lamb to Moses, the revealer of sacred things: ‘Speak to the sons of Israel, and let them take for themselves a sheep by households’ (Exodus 12:3); ‘and it shall be kept,’ he says, ‘from the tenth day of the month until the fourteenth, and the whole…
Greek
εστραμμένην, ἤγουν κἀκεῖνοι τυχὸν, οἱ λέγοντες· «Φάγωμεν καὶ πίωμεν· αὔριον γὰρ ἀποθνήσκομεν·» καὶ οἱ πρός γε τὰς ἐν κόσμῳ φιληδονίας τὰς τῶν ἀμαθεστέρων διανοίας ἐξέλκοντες. Ἀκάθαρτοι δὲ πάλιν καὶ καταμιαίνειν εἰδότες τοὺς ἐπαφωμένους, ἤτοι πλησίον ἰόντας, κατά γε, φημὶ, τὸν διαθέσεως νόμον, οἱ περὶ ὧν ἔφη που καὶ ὁ σοφώτατος Παῦλος· «Ἐάν τις ἀδελφὸς ὀνομαζόμενος ἢ πόρνος, ἢ μέθυσος, ἢ ἅρπαξ, ἢ πλεονέκτης, ἢ εἰδωλολάτρης, τῷ τοιούτῳ μηδὲ συνεσθίειν.» Ἢ γὰρ οὐχὶ τῷ ἱερῷ τε καὶ ἀπολέκτῳ γένει πρεπωδέστατον εἶναι φὴς τὸ, μὴ γεγονόσι τὰ τοιάδε τῶν κακῶν, μήτε μὴν τοῖς ἠῤῥωστηκόσι συναναφύρεσθαι δεῖν;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πάνυ μὲν οὖν.
{ΚΥΡ.} «Ἔσται δὴ οὖν ἐν ἀκαθαρσίᾳ,» φησὶν, «ὃς ἂν ἅψηται τούτων, ἕως ἑσπέρας. Οὐκ ἔδεται ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων, ἐὰν μὴ λούσηται τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ὕδατι, καὶ δύῃ ὁ ἥλιος, καὶ καθαρὸς ἔσται, καὶ τότε φάγεται ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων, ὅτι ἄρτος αὐτοῦ ἐστιν.» Ἀποφάσκει γε μὴν καὶ πρὸς τούτοις ἔτι τὴν θνησιμαίου τε καὶ θηριαλώτου βρῶσιν, ὡς καταμιαίνειν ἱκανῶς δυναμένην. Θέα δὴ οὖν, ὦ Παλλάδιε, τὴν ῥύπου παντὸς ἀπόθεσιν, καὶ ἐγκλημάτων ἀπαλλαγὴν, οὐχ ἑτέρως ἂν ἐν ἡμῖν ἐσομένην, πλὴν ὅτι διὰ μόνου Χριστοῦ, καὶ ὡς ἐν καιρῷ τῆς ἐπιδημίας.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πῶς ἔφης;
{ΚΥΡ.} Ὅτι γὰρ ἀπερικάθαρτον ἅπαν καὶ ἐν μολυσμοῖς ἔτι, καὶ ὅτι ζωῆς ἀμέτοχον τὸ πρὸ τῆς ἐπιδημίας τοῦ Μονογενοῦς, παρέδειξεν εἰπών· «Ἀκάθαρτος ἔσται ἕως ἑσπέρας, καὶ οὐκ ἔδεται ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων.» Ἢ οὐκ ἐν ἐσχάτοις τοῦ αἰῶνος καιροῖς ἐπιδεδήμηκεν ὁ Ἐμμανουήλ;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ναί· σαφὴς γὰρ ὁ λόγος.
{ΚΥΡ.} Ἐζωοποιήμεθα δὲ κατεδηδοκότες τὸν ἄρτον, τὸν ὡς ἀληθῶς ἅγιον καὶ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, τοῦτ' ἔστι Χριστὸν, εἰς πέρας ἥκοντος τοῦ καιροῦ, καὶ ὥσπερ ἡλίου δύνοντος, καὶ κατακλείοντος εἰς ἑσπέραν τοῦ χρόνου τὸ μέτρον.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πάνυ.
{ΚΥΡ.} Ταύτῃτοι καὶ μέχρις ἑσπέρας ἀκάθαρτος ὁ μεμολυσμένος, ἀμέτοχος δὲ καὶ τροφῆς ἁγίας καὶ ζωοποιοῦ, τὸν τῆς καθάρσεως περιμένων καιρόν. Ὕδατι δὲ λουσάμενος καὶ δῦντος ἡλίου, καθαρὸς, καὶ ἴδιον ἄρτον ἔχων τὸν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. Ἐκνενέμηται γὰρ ὥσπερ τοῖς δι' ὕδατος ἡγιασμένοις, ὡς ἐν ἁγίῳ, φημὶ, βαπτίσματι, τὸ εὐλογεῖσθαι διὰ Χριστοῦ· καὶ δὴ αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ζῶν, αὐτὸς δὲ δὴ πάλιν ὁ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καταβὰς, καὶ ζωὴν διδοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ. Ὅτι δὲ τῆς τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἐπιδημίας κατασημήνειεν ἂν τὸν καιρὸν ἡ ἡλίου δύσις, εἴσῃ τοι σαφῶς, Θεοῦ λέγοντος ἐπὶ τῷ ἀμνῷ πρὸς τὸν ἱεροφάντην Μωσέα· «Λάλησον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ λαβέτωσαν ἑαυτοῖς πρόβατον κατ' οἴκους, καὶ ἔσται, φησὶ, διατετηρημένον ἀπὸ τῆς δεκάτης τοῦ μηνὸς, ἕως τῆς, τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτης, καὶ σφάξουσιν αὐτὸν πᾶν τὸ