Eli’s sons; ignorance vs insolence; priests and deadness; pitch-touch begins

Cyril: …all-divine Paul said. So then there was a necessity that what is under the brought-forward be consecrated to God, according to the law fitting each, and that the servants be comforted with the remaining body of the sacrifice. But if somehow someone should appropriate as it were wholly through-and-through the gift, and has apportioned it to his own needs, having burned-fragrance nothing; as having eaten down holy things, he was being written by law. This indeed the sons of Eli the priest have done, snatching before sacrifices and profaning the sacred things, and saying most unholily to those come unto sacrificing: ‘Give meat to roast for the priest.’ (Leviticus 21:1–6) But those at least as voluntary and having naked the insolence were being punished proportionally. ‘But if somehow it should become, he says, either having been snatched-together by forgetfulness, or not accurately knowing what seems to the laws, to do some such thing; let him undergo damage; and let him pay the equal without neglect; and let him further bring upon this also the fifth,’ (1 Corinthians 10:18) that is, the fifth share of the valuation; ‘and thus he will be released the charges, and will thrust away the harms from the ignorance.’ (1 Samuel 2:12–17) So then when the unknown is not free of writing, what would one think the from mindlessness and boldness? So then those for whom the sacred things are in care must decline seeking to appropriate nothing before sacrifice; or let them know that having miss-done terrible things, they will owe justice, and will be under divine motion. Or do you not say the matter is true, O friend?

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: And that those priesting must be holy and washed-out, and shake off also very youthfully the as it were dead and cooled mindset, and the not breathing unto virtue, he was making clear saying: ‘Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and you will say toward them: In the souls they will not be defiled in their nation, but either in the household nearest them, upon father and mother, and sons and daughters, upon a brother, and upon a virgin sister drawing near him, the one not given out to a man, upon these he will be defiled. He will not suddenly be defiled in his people unto his profaning. And you will not shave a baldness the head upon a dead, and they will not shave the look of the beard, and upon their fleshes they will not cut cuttings. They will be holy to their God, and will not profane the name of their God; for the sacrifices of Lord gifts of their God they themselves offer, and they will be holy.’ (Leviticus 22:14) For no pollution at all would become for a man, the death of another, if one should carefully investigate the word of the truth. Yet bodily deadness would be a type of the inward and in souls, by which the one become near must be defiled, either according to will, or according to same-deed; for to withdraw from dead works and to be borne as farthest would be fitting for saints, and not to go unto the same with those sick such things is beautiful. For it has been written that ‘The one touching pitch, (Sirach 13:1)