The priest’s household and the priest’s daughter
Cyril: …if the sojourners and the hired servants are ranked with the foreigners, they will also be with them, as far as possible from the holy things; and since they are all but sick with kindred faults, they will justly suffer a penalty of the same kind. But he said that the sharing of the holy things must be left open to the members of the household. For those born in the priests’ households will eat, he says, and anyone they may happen to buy. By ‘acquired’, ‘bought with silver’ and ‘born in the house’ he means, I take it, the one who is genuine in faith, a member of the household in spirit, and bought with a price, as the blessed Paul says (1 Corinthians 6:20). For, as it is written, ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us’ (Galatians 3:13).
Palladius: True.
Cyril: He further commands that if the daughter of a priest is married to a foreign man, she shall not eat of the firstfruits of the holy things (Leviticus 22:12). He has plainly honored the member of the household by allowing him to share in the holy things as one who is genuine. Yet those who have this close bond with the priest must firmly refuse to cling to people who are not their own by faith or by way of life and have not gained through virtue a kind of kinship with them; this will be clear enough to anyone willing to search the evidence of the sacred Scriptures. For just as in the passages already read he made the leper unclean, and with him the man with a discharge, and made the one who came near them, joined to them, as it were, by touch, a sharer in their defilement and uncleanness, so here too he says that the priest’s daughter, even if she happens to have a holy kinship, will gain nothing from it when she is joined to another, that is, to a foreigner, one who is in no way akin to her and not of the blood of Israel. Let this, then, be the historical sense. But when we carry the law over into spiritual contemplation, we say that by the priest’s daughter he means the soul that has been born again of water and the Spirit (John 3:5) by the power of Christ, and called through faith to sanctification. Yet even such a soul, he says, may have no share in the holy things if she is married to a foreign man, that is, if she joins herself to people who are not truly holy and have no spiritual bond with God. For bodies the manner of union would be bodily, but for spirits it is spiritual.
Palladius: And who, would we say, have been carried away into this?
Cyril: Those whom the solemn word of Wisdom sought to keep safe when it said: ‘My son, do not let ungodly men lead you astray, and do not consent if they urge you, saying: Come with us, share in blood’ (Proverbs 1:10–11). We will also add those who in their ignorance have turned away from the right faith and run after the flesh; who do not admit the words given through the Holy Spirit, but have given heed to spirits of error, through the hypocrisy of liars who are seared in their minds (1 Timothy 4:1–2). These have thrust aside their close bond with Christ, and in truth they have been married to foreign men; they have accepted the devil’s seed, and in error they bear as fruit the…
Greek
εἰ συντετάξονται τοῖς ἀλλογενέσιν οἱ πάροικοί τε καὶ μισθωτοὶ καὶ τῶν ἁγίων ὡς ἀπωτάτω, σὺν ἐκείνοις ἔσονται· μόνον δὲ οὐχὶ καὶ ἀδελφὰ νοσοῦντες ἐγκλήματα, τὴν ὁμοφυᾶ δικαίως ὑποστήσονται δίκην. Ἀνεῖσθαι δὲ δεῖν τοῖς οἰκείοις ἔφη τῶν ἁγίων τὴν μέθεξιν. Φάγονται γὰρ, φησὶν, οἱ τῶν ἱερέων οἰκογενεῖς, καὶ ὃν ἂν ἐκπρίαιντο τυχὸν, ἔκκτητόν τε καὶ ἀργυρώνητον καὶ οἰκογενῆ που λέγων, τὸν ἐν πίστει γνήσιον, καὶ οἰκεῖον ἐν πνεύματι, καὶ τιμῆς ἠγορασμένον, κατὰ τὸν μακάριον Παῦλον. «Χριστὸς γὰρ ἡμᾶς ἐξηγόρασεν ἐκ τῆς κατάρας τοῦ νομοῦ, γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα,» κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ἀληθές.
{ΚΥΡ.} Προσεπιτάττει δὲ ὅτι καὶ θυγάτηρ ἀνθρώπου ἱερέως, ἐὰν γένηται ἀνδρὶ ἀλλογενεῖ, αὕτη τῶν ἀπαρχῶν τῶν ἁγίων οὐ φάγεται. Τὸν μὲν οἰκεῖον ἐκτετίμηκεν ἐναργῶς, μεταλαχεῖν ἐφιεὶς τῶν ἁγίων, ὡς γνήσιον· πλὴν ὅτι τοῖς ἔχουσι τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν οἰκειότητα, παραιτητέον εὖ μάλα τὸ προσκολλᾶσθαι φιλεῖν τοῖς μὴ κατὰ πίστιν ἢ τρόπον οἰκείοις, μήτε μὴν τὸ οἱονεὶ συγγενὲς πεπλουτηκόσιν ἐξ ἀρετῆς, οὐκ ἀσυμφανὲς ἂν γένοιτο τοῖς ἐθέλουσι πολυπραγμονεῖν τῶν ἱερῶν Γραμμάτων τὴν πίστιν. Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τοῖς ἤδη προανεγνωσμένοις ἀκάθαρτον μὲν ἐποίει τὸν λεπρὸν, καὶ αὖ ἐπὶ τούτῳ τὸν γονοῤῥυᾶ, μολυσμοῦ δὲ καὶ ἀκαθαρσίας τῆς ἐπ' αὐτοῖς ἐτίθει μέτοχον τὸν ἀγχοῦ γεγονότα, καὶ οἱονεὶ συνημμένον ἐξ ἐπαφῆς· οὕτω κἀνθάδε τὴν ἱερέως θυγατέρα φησὶ, κἂν εἰ ἔχοι τυχὸν τὸ συγγενὲς ἅγιον, οὐδὲν ἐντεῦθεν ὠφεληθήσεσθαι, συνημμένην ἑτέρῳ, τοῦτ' ἔστιν ἀλλογενεῖ, τῷ μηδαμόθεν οἰκείῳ, μήτε μὴν ἐξ αἵματος Ἰσραήλ. Ὁ μὲν οὖν τῆς ἱστορίας ἐν τούτοις ᾖ λόγος. Παροισθέντος δὲ ἡμῖν εἰς θεωρίαν πνευματικὴν τοῦ νόμου, φαμὲν ὅτι θυγατέρα φησὶν ἱερέως, τὴν ἐξ ὕδατός τε καὶ πνεύματος ἀναγεννηθεῖσαν ψυχὴν δυνάμει Χριστοῦ, καὶ διὰ πίστεως κεκλημένην εἰς ἁγιασμόν· ἀλλ' ἔσται, φησὶ, καὶ ἡ τοιάδε τυχὸν τῶν ἁγίων ἀμέτοχος, εἰ γένοιτο ἀνθρώπῳ ἀλλογενεῖ, τοῦτ' ἔστιν, εἰ συνάπτοιτό τισι τοῖς οὐκ ἀληθῶς ἁγίοις, καὶ σχέσιν οὐκ ἔχουσιν πρὸς Θεὸν πνευματικήν· σώμασι μὲν οὖν σωματικὸς ἂν γένοιτο τῆς συναφείας ὁ τρόπος, πνεύμασι δὲ αὖ πνευματικός.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Καὶ τίνας εἰς τοῦτο παρενεχθῆναί φαμεν;
{ΚΥΡ.} Οὓς ὁ σεμνὸς τῆς σοφίας διησφαλίζετο λόγος, οὕτως ἔχων· «Υἱὲ, μή σε πλανήσωσιν ἄνδρες ἀσεβεῖς, μηδὲ βουληθῇς ἐὰν παρακαλέσωσί σε λέγοντες· Ἐλθὲ μεθ' ἡμῶν· κοινώνησον αἵματος.» Προσθήσομεν δὲ κἀκείνους, οἳ τῆς ὀρθῆς πίστεως ἀμαθῶς ἀπονενευκότες, ὀπίσω τρέχουσι σαρκὸς, τοὺς μὲν διὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος οὐ προσιέμενοι λόγους, προσεσχηκότες δὲ πνεύμασι πλάνης, ἐν ὑποκρίσει ψευδολόγων, κεκαυστηριασμένων τὸν νοῦν. Οὗτοι τὴν πρὸς Χριστὸν οἰκειότητα παρωθούμενοι, γεγόνασι κατὰ τὸ ἀληθὲς ἀνθρώποις ἀλλογενέσι, καὶ σπερμάτων ἠνέσχοντο διαβολικῶν, καρποφοροῦντες ἐν πλάνῃ τὰ πλάνης