Discharge and corpse uncleanness read spiritually; Deuteronomy's exclusions
Cyril: …that is, the man with a discharge, signifies the one who lives always and without restraint in defilements, and wastes for nothing his nature’s aptitude for bearing virtuous and admirable fruit.
Palladius: Such as what?
Cyril: There is a great deal to say on all of this; but for now I will use one clear and most vivid example to show what I have said. Those who have a gifted mind, polished, so to speak, and who apply it to the teaching about the truth, will they not reap the beauty of right and exact doctrine as a fruit worth marveling at?
Palladius: Quite so.
Cyril: But those who have not chosen to think and do this, and instead turn their mind aside from the road it must take, and set it up as an advocate of unholy doctrines, or show it to be a servant of the wickedness that is in the world, make it a father of deceit and fraud. Losing to no useful end their nature’s aptitude for the good, they portray very well for us the man with a discharge, and show in their own ways a sickness of soul akin to the bodily affliction.
Palladius: You are right.
Cyril: And the one unclean through the dead surely signifies the one who has shared in the deadness of others, and who carelessly lets himself be filled with other people’s offenses. To such a one the divine David also said somewhere: ‘If you saw a thief, you ran along with him, and you took your share with the adulterer’ (Psalm 50:18). For just as doing what is not permitted harms and deadens both soul and mind, so does approving of those who do such things; and the one who consents would be a partner with those who commit the sin themselves, for he is in no way blameless. That is why Paul too says: ‘Keep yourself pure, and do not share in other people’s sins’ (1 Timothy 5:22). This, I think, is what it means to be defiled by a dead body in the spiritual sense.
Palladius: So it seems.
Cyril: Very rightly, then, he commanded the leper, the man with a discharge, and the one unclean through the dead to go away from the congregation, not allowing those whose uncleanness is hard to wash away to be joined to the companies of the saints. ‘For what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what share has a believer with an unbeliever?’ he says (2 Corinthians 6:14–15).
Palladius: So it is dangerous, then, to go into the house of God with unwashed feet, as it were.
Cyril: Most dangerous indeed, if it is true that offending God does not go unpunished. In Deuteronomy he also shuts others out of the holy court, saying: ‘One who is crushed or cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. One born of a prostitute shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation he shall not enter the assembly of the Lord, and even forever, because they did not… (Deuteronomy 23:1–4)
Greek
τοῦτ' ἔστιν, ὁ γονοῤῥυὴς, τὸν ἀεὶ καὶ ἀσχέτως ἐν μολυσμοῖς, καὶ τὴν τῆς φύσεως ἐπιτηδειότητα πρὸς καρποφορίαν ἐνάρετόν τε καὶ ἀξιάγαστον δαπανῶντα πρὸς τὸ μηδέν.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Οἷον δέ τι φής;
{ΚΥΡ.} Πλατὺς μὲν λίαν ὁ ἐφ' ἅπασι λόγος· ἑνὶ δὲ δὴ τέως σαφεῖ καὶ ἐναργεστάτῳ κεχρήσομαι παραδείγματι, πρὸς ἀπόδειξιν ὧν ἔφην· οἱ τὸν νοῦν ἔχοντες εὐφυᾶ καὶ οἱονείπως ἀπεξεσμένον τοῖς περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας αὐτὸν ἐνιέντες λόγοις, ἆρ' οὐχὶ τὸ ἐν ὀρθότητί τε καὶ ἀτρεκείᾳ δογμάτων εὐπρεπὲς καρπὸν ἕξουσιν οὐκ ἀθαύμαστον;
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Καὶ μάλα.
{ΚΥΡ.} Οἱ δέ γε τουτὶ μὲν, οὐχὶ φρονεῖν τε καὶ δρᾷν ᾑρημένοι, παρατρέποντες δὲ μᾶλλον τῆς ἀναγκαίας ὁδοῦ, καὶ δογμάτων ἀνοσίων ἰστῶντες συνήγορον, ἤγουν τῆς ἐν κόσμῳ πονηρίας ἀποφαίνοντες ὑπουργὸν, δόλου καὶ ἀπάτης ποιοῦνται γεννήτορα, τὴν τῆς φύσεως ἐπιτηδειότητα πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν, ἐπ' οὐδενὶ τῷ χρησίμῳ ζημιούμενοι, καταγράφουσιν ἡμῖν εὖ μάλα τὸν γονοῤῥυᾶ, καὶ πάθους σωματικοῦ ψυχικὴν ἀῤῥωστίαν ὁμοφυᾶ δεικνύουσιν ἐν ἰδίοις τρόποις.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ὀρθῶς ἔφης.
{ΚΥΡ.} Ὁ δὲ ἀκάθαρτος ἐπὶ ψυχῇ σημαίνει που πάντως τῆς ἑτέρων νεκρότητος τὸν μετεσχηκότα, καὶ πλημμελημάτων ἀλλοτρίων ῥᾳθύμως ἀναπιμπλάμενον, πρὸς ὃν καὶ ὁ θεῖος ἔφη που Δαβίδ· «Εἰ ἐθεώρεις κλέπτην, συνέτρεχες αὐτῷ, καὶ μετὰ μοιχοῦ τὴν μερίδα σου ἐτίθεις.» Κατασίνεται γὰρ ὥσπερ καὶ κατανεκροῖ ψυχήν τε καὶ νοῦν, τὸ δρᾷν ἃ μὴ θέμις, οὕτω τὸ τοῖς αὐτὰ δρῶσι συνευδοκεῖν, καὶ τοῖς αὐτουργοῦσιν εἰς ἁμαρτίαν κοινωνὸς ἂν εἴη καὶ ὁ συνεθελητής. Ἀκαταιτίατος γὰρ οὔτι που. Τοιγάρτοι καὶ Παῦλος· «Σεαυτὸν ἁγνὸν τήρει,» φησὶν, «καὶ μὴ κοινώνει ἁμαρτίαις ἀλλοτρίαις·» τοῦτο, οἶμαι, ἐστὶ τὸ ἐπὶ νεκρῷ μολύνεσθαι νοητῶς.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ἔοικεν.
{ΚΥΡ.} Ἀποστείχειν δὴ οὖν τῆς συναγωγῆς εὖ μάλα προστέταχε λεπρὸν καὶ γονοῤῥυᾶ, καὶ ἀκάθαρτον ἐπὶ τῇ ψυχῇ, τοῖς τῶν ἁγίων χοροῖς οὐκ ἐῶν ἀναπλέκεσθαι τοὺς δυσαπόνιπτον ἔχοντας τὴν ἀκαθαρσίαν; «Τίς γὰρ κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος; ἢ τίς μερὶς πιστῷ μετὰ ἀπίστου;» φησί.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Σφαλερὸν οὖν ἄρα, τὸ ἀνίπτοις ὥσπερ ἰέναι ποσὶν εἰς οἶκον Θεοῦ.
{ΚΥΡ.} Σφαλερώτατον μὲν οὖν, εἴπερ ἐστὶν ἀληθὲς, ὅτι τῷ Θεῷ προσκρούειν οὐκ ἀζήμιον. Ἐξείργει δὲ καὶ ἑτέρους τῆς ἁγίας αὐλῆς ἐν τῷ Δευτερονομίῳ, λέγων· «Οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται θλαδίας καὶ ἀποκεκομμένος εἰς ἐκκλησίαν Κυρίου, οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται ὁ ἐκ πόρνης εἰς ἐκκλησίαν Κυρίου· οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται Ἀμμανίτης καὶ Μωαβίτης εἰς ἐκκλησίαν Κυρίου, καὶ ἕως δεκάτης γενεᾶς οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται εἰς ἐκκλησίαν Κυρίου, καὶ ἕως εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, παρὰ τὸ μὴ