Mourning kept within measure, and the laws on a priest’s marriage
Cyril: …will be defiled’ (Sirach 13:1). For whoever does not refuse to cling to another would very easily share in his wickedness. Yet the law allows the consecrated to incur defilement without blame for father and mother, for children and brothers, and indeed for close kin, by going even to their lifeless bodies, out of reverence for nature; and in this it overlooks wrongs that are wrongs only as types, so that those who are known to God might not seem hard, haughty and unfeeling; and indeed the law says plainly: ‘Honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you’ (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16). In another way too, and for another reason, we say the consecrated are barred from mourning. For they are priests of life, and offer the sacred gifts to God for the undoing of death (for the death of Christ, foreshadowed through sheep and calves, is the undoing of death); how then would it be fitting for them to be weighed down with grief over death? So too the inspired Paul writes plainly to those baptized into Christ in the hope of life and resurrection: ‘I say this so that you may not grieve as the rest do who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, and will raise them with us’ (1 Thessalonians 4:13–14). The law, then, allowed the consecrated to go to those of their very closest kin who had died. But it sets a measure on the matter, and does not let them undo what most befits them by going to excess, beyond what is needed, so that the revered dignity of the priesthood may not be wronged. For it keeps them from baring their heads as others do, and from shaving off the beard to the disgrace of the face; and it commands them not even to entertain the thought of the impious acts of pagan frenzy, I mean the gashes cut into the flesh (Leviticus 21:5). For there is nothing unreasonable in sharing the grief of one’s own family; but to lose all decorum would be unseemly and quite senseless. ‘For let all things,’ he says, ‘be done decently and in order’ (1 Corinthians 14:40). And the Savior himself has commanded us as well that the things of God must be honored above even duties to parents, as the old law required of the priests; for he says: ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me’ (Matthew 10:37).
Palladius: Well said.
Cyril: He commands, then, that the priests be defiled over the dead as little as possible. And showing us in other ways too that the holy cannot be joined or blended with the profane, he laid down for us the laws on marriage, adding at once: ‘As for every priest: they shall not take a wife who is a prostitute or profaned, and they shall not take a woman put away by her husband; for he is holy to the Lord his God, and you shall sanctify him; he offers the gifts of the Lord your God; he shall be holy, for I the Lord who sanctify them am holy’ (Leviticus 21:7–8). Now the woman who has truly lived as a prostitute and been defiled is sick, clothed with the charge of shameful deeds, and has an undisputed…
Greek
μολυνθήσεται.» Μετάσχοι γὰρ ἂν καὶ μάλα ῥᾳδίως τῆς ἑτέρου φαυλότητος, ὁ κολλᾶσθαι μὴ παραιτούμενος. Ἐφίησι δὲ ὁ νόμος τοῖς ἡγιασμένοις, ἐπὶ πατρὶ καὶ μητρὶ, παισί τε καὶ ἀδελφοῖς, καὶ μέντοι καὶ ἀγχισπόροις ἀνεγκλήτως καταμιαίνεσθαι· διὰ τοῦ καὶ ἀψύχοις σώμασιν ἐπιφοιτᾷν, τῇ πρὸς τὴν φύσιν αἰδοῖ, καὶ τῶν εἰς τύπον ἀλογήσας ἀδικημάτων, ὡς ἂν μὴ δοκοῖεν ἄτεγκτοί τινες εἶναι καὶ ἀγέρωχοί τε καὶ ἀσυμπαθεῖς, οἱ Θεῷ γνώριμοι· καί τοι λέγοντος ἐναργῶς τοῦ νόμου· «Τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου καὶ τὴν μητέρα σου, ἵνα εὖ σοι γένηται.» Καὶ καθ' ἕτερον δὴ τρόπον τε καὶ λόγον, ἀπεῖρχθαί φαμεν τοῦ χρῆναι πενθεῖν τοὺς ἡγιασμένους· ζωῆς γὰρ ὄντας ἱερουργοὺς, καὶ εἰς τὴν τοῦ θανάτου λύσιν προσκομίζοντας τὰ ἱερὰ τῷ Θεῷ (θανάτου γὰρ λύσις ὁ Χριστοῦ θάνατος, διά τε προβάτων καὶ μόσχων ἀνατυπούμενος), πῶς ἦν ἀκόλουθον ταῖς ἐπὶ θανάτῳ καταβαρύνεσθαι λύπαις; Οὕτω καὶ ὁ θεσπέσιος Παῦλος, τοῖς εἰς ἐλπίδα ζωῆς καὶ ἀναστάσεως βεβαπτισμένοις εἰς Χριστὸν, ἐπιστέλλει σαφῶς· «Τοῦτο δὲ λέγω, ἵνα μὴ λυπεῖσθε, καθὼς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα. Εἰ γὰρ πιστεύομεν ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἀπέθανε καὶ ἀνέστη, οὕτω καὶ ὁ Θεὸς τοὺς κοιμηθέντας διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἄξει σὺν αὐτῷ, καὶ ἐγερεῖ σὺν ἡμῖν.» Ἐφῆκε μὲν οὖν ὁ νόμος τοῖς ἄγαν ἀγχοῦ τεθνεῶσιν ἐπιφοιτᾷν τοὺς ἡγιασμένους. Ἐπιμετρεῖ δὲ τὸ χρῆμα, καὶ τὸ αὐτοῖς ὅτι μάλιστα πρέπον παραλύειν οὐκ ἐᾷ τῷ περιττῷ καὶ ὑπὲρ τὴν χρείαν, ὡς ἂν μὴ τὸ σεπτὸν τῆς ἱερωσύνης ἀδικοῖτο γέρας. Ἐξίστησι γὰρ τοῦ καθ' ὁμοιότητα τὴν ἑτέρων ψιλοῦσθαι τὰς κεφαλὰς, καὶ ἐφ' ὕβρει προσώπου καταξύρεσθαι γενειάδα· καὶ τὰ μανίας Ἑλληνικῆς ἀνοσιουργήματα, τὰς εἰς σάρκα φημὶ κατατομὰς, οὐδ' ὅσον εἰς νοῦν ἑλεῖν ἐπιτάττει. Συνδιατίθεσθαι μὲν γὰρ τοῖς οἰκείοις εἰς λύπας, τὸ ἀπεικὸς οὐδέν· τό γε μὴν εἰς ἅπαν ἀσχημονεῖν, ἀκαλλὲς ἂν εἴη καὶ ἀπόπληκτον κομιδῇ. «Πάντα γὰρ, φησὶν, εὐσχημόνως καὶ κατὰ τάξιν γινέσθω.» Προτετιμηκότας δὲ τὰ Θεοῦ· καὶ τῶν εἰς γονέας αὐτοὺς, κατὰ τὸν πάλαι νόμον, καὶ αὐτὸς ἡμῖν ὁ Σωτὴρ ἡγεῖσθαι προστέταχεν, οὕτω λέγων· «Ὁ ἀγαπῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ, οὐκ ἔστι μου ἄξιος.»
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Εὖ ἔφης.
{ΚΥΡ.} Ἥκιστα μὲν οὖν ἐπὶ νεκροῖς καταμιαίνεσθαι δεῖν ἐπιτάττει τοὺς ἱερέας. Ἀσύμβατον δὲ καὶ ἀσυμφανὲς τῷ βεβήλῳ, τὸ ἅγιον, καὶ καθ' ἑτέρους ἡμῖν ἀποφαίνων τρόπους, νόμους ἡμῖν ἐτίθει τοὺς ἐπὶ γάμοις, εὐθὺς ἐπιλέγων· «Ἐπὶ παντὸς ἱερέως, γυναῖκα πόρνην καὶ βεβηλωμένην οὐ λήψονται, καὶ γυναῖκα ἐκβεβλημένην ὑπὸ ἀνδρὸς αὐτῆς οὐ λήψονται· ὅτι ἅγιός ἐστι Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἁγιάσεις αὐτόν· τὰ δῶρα Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν, οὗτος προσφέρει· ἅγιος ἔσται, ὅτι ἅγιος ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ ἁγιάζων αὐτούς.» Ἡ μὲν οὖν πεπορνευμένη κατὰ τὸ ἀληθὲς καὶ μεμολυσμένη γυνὴ, τὸ ἐπ' αἰσχροῖς ἐπημφιεσμένη ἔγκλημα νοσεῖ, καὶ ἀναμφίλογον