On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and Truth, Book 15

Book Fifteen opens: come before God clean and washed§1

1ON ADORATION AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH — BOOK FIFTEEN. That we must stand before God clean and washed, and that our cleansing, once again, is in Christ.

Cyril: From the whole of our discussion, Palladius, a clear and evident proof has been gathered for us that we must go…

We all stumble, so God sent his Son to cleanse us§2

2Cyril: …into the house of God in the finest way, shining and washed, and winning close fellowship with him through sanctification. For then we shall find God gracious, and, if we may put it so, looking on our affairs with his whole eye and showing the saints the sparing care that best befits them. ‘On whom shall I look,’ he says, ‘but on the humble and quiet one, who trembles at my words?’ (Isaiah 66:2) For the one who is in this state will truly lift up holy hands (1 Timothy 2:8), and his cry will reach the very ear of the Godhead, so that, once he has obtained whatever he may pray for, he can even say in his great joy: ‘He heard my voice from his holy temple, and my cry before him will come into his ears.’ (Psalm 18:6) Or have you not plainly learned this from the inspired David, who sings to us that ‘the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer’? (Psalm 34:15)

Palladius: I have learned it.

Cyril: That this saying is true, no one may rightly doubt. But as for the need to wipe away our defilements, what way of doing it could there be for us? For no one will discern his transgressions (Psalm 19:12), and we all stumble in many ways (James 3:2). Our nature is sick with a proneness to sin, and it is very easily goaded into a settled bent for wrongdoing, since our inclination toward what is base smooths for us, in a way, the road of monstrous and loathsome pleasure.

Palladius: You are right. I would agree without a moment's delay with one who has chosen to speak correctly.

Cyril: For the flesh that comes from the earth has already fallen sick with the law of sin within it (Romans 7:23), and the human mind is very easily led astray, so that it turns aside toward evil from youth, as it is written (Genesis 8:21). That is why the sacred word rightly grieves over us: ‘For all,’ it says, ‘have turned aside; together they have become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’ (Psalm 14:3; Romans 3:12) But since there was no turning away from evil, God the Father sent us his own Son from heaven as Savior and Redeemer, to justify by faith and set free from punishment, to make the feeble very strong, to enlighten what was darkened, to turn back what was wandering, and to draw out from the devil's greed what lay prostrate beneath him.

Palladius: So it is in Christ that we shall scrub away the shame that comes from sin; and once scoured clean in this way, and keeping as far as possible from every blemish, we shall approach God the Father through him.

Cyril: You understand it very well. One may hear the holy prophets themselves proclaiming aloud this grace, so worthy of our wonder and so long prayed for. Micah, most wise, says something like this: ‘Who is a God like you, taking away iniquities and passing over unrighteous deeds for the remnant of his inheritance? And he did not hold his anger as a witness, for he delights in mercy.’ (Micah 7:18) And another says again: ‘Remember these things, Jacob and Israel; do not forget me. For behold, I have wiped away your iniquities like a cloud, and your sins like a thick darkness.’ (Isaiah 44:21–22) And one could gather a great many more such passages…

Two kinds of sacrifice, and the rule against blemish§3

3Cyril: …from the divine Scripture, showing very well what is true for us in these matters; but to heap up still more where the proof is already clear and evident is, I think, superfluous.

Palladius: That the matter is evident is plain to everyone. But for my part I would like to see the cleansing in Christ in the images of the law as well.

Cyril: Look, then, if you wish, and if it seems good that we go this way. The law ordered those who were defiled, and those who had fallen under charges of transgression, to offer sacrifice, and it divided the kinds of sacrifice in two. Some portray Emmanuel slain on our behalf; others portray us ourselves, dying to the world and offering up to God our own life and salvation as a fragrant aroma. For is it not by putting to death our members that are on earth (Colossians 3:5), and freeing the mind from worldly distraction and from earthier pleasures, that we shall live out the divine life of the Gospel?

Palladius: Certainly.

Cyril: The sacrifice, then, is the spiritual cleansing that comes, as it were, through the death of Christ; while the vow and the gift, on our side, is to dedicate to God a life well ordered and lived in holiness. Yet the law lays it down beforehand and clearly and solemnly testifies that the offerings made in these matters must be without blemish, and this is both useful and necessary. Since some of the victims offered showed Christ as slain for us, while others represent us, all but burning our own life as incense to God, for this very reason the law says that they must be without blemish and in no way afflicted with any defect. For Christ is without blemish, since he committed no sin (1 Peter 2:22); and God would not accept us either while we are still in our defilements and sick with the misery of sin. So it is written in Leviticus (Leviticus 22:17–23): ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: Any man of the sons of Israel, or of the proselytes attached to them in Israel, who offers his gifts for any of their vows or any of their freewill offerings, whatever they offer to God as a whole burnt offering, what is acceptable for you is a male without blemish from the herds, from the sheep, and from the goats. Whatever has a blemish in it they shall not bring to the Lord, for it will not be acceptable for you. And whoever offers a sacrifice of salvation to the Lord, fulfilling a vow, or as a freewill offering, or at your feasts, from the herds or from the sheep, it shall be without blemish to be accepted; there shall be no blemish in it. Blind, or broken, or with its tongue cut, or with warts, or with festering mange, or with scabs: they shall not bring these to God, and you shall not give any of them as a burnt offering on the altar to the Lord. And a calf or a sheep with cropped ears…

The unblemished male as a type of Christ and of us§4

4Cyril: …or a docked tail, you may slaughter them for yourself, but for your vow it will not be accepted. An animal that is bruised or crushed, gelded or torn, you shall not bring to the Lord, and you shall not do this in your land. And from the hand of a foreigner you shall not offer the gifts of your God from any of these, because there is corruption in them and a blemish in them. They will not be accepted for you.’ (Leviticus 22:23–25) Notice, then, that the law plainly and openly charges both those of Israel's blood and those from outside who have been admitted into the people, I mean the proselytes, that they must inspect the sacred offerings carefully for blemishes. For it said that what we bring must be male and without blemish, that is, strong and above the passions. For softness, an effeminate cast of mind, and also being sick with an inward defect, a maiming of the mind, are wholly unacceptable to God and rejected. Or would you not say that anyone in whom these things are seen is unholy?

Palladius: How could I not?

Cyril: So what is feeble and, as it were, slack is rejected, while what is strong, as pictured in the nature of males, is accepted, if it also has blamelessness joined to it. Such things would serve us as a clear type of Christ. For Emmanuel is at once male and without blemish, since he is truly the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:24) and knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is male in another sense too: for the male always stands first and holds the higher place over the other, and besides this it is the one most fitted to lead. And the Son stands at the head, holds a place incomparably higher, and leads the universe, even though he became like us, and the Shepherd was, for our good, counted among the sheep. But among the victims, those that are unholy and to be sent away are the blind, the broken, and also the one with its tongue cut, the one with warts, with festering mange, with scabs, with cropped ears, or with a docked tail. And the same holds, it says, if any animal's male parts should happen to be crushed, and so it should bear the forced condition that already places it among eunuchs. For this, I think, is what ‘bruised and crushed, gelded and torn’ means.

Palladius: Should we, then, apply these things to our own character and ways of life?

Cyril: Certainly. For in no other way than this would the law be spiritual for us (Romans 7:14). God would set no store by a worship carried on as in shadows, nor would he ever have laid down its laws, if he were not sketching in it beforehand the surpassing beauty of the truth.

Palladius: Well said. Then go through the meaning of each one, and explain again what it would be.

Cyril: I will go on, then, and very gladly. ‘Blind’ seems to mean the one without wisdom and understanding, who has no divine light in himself, that is, the enlightenment that comes through Christ in the Spirit; and the one who is senseless and still without faith is wholly unholy. ‘For if you do not believe,’ it says, ‘you will not understand.’ (Isaiah 7:9) ‘Broken’…

Blemished offerings as sicknesses of the soul§5

5Cyril: …in turn, seems to mean the person who is sick in every way and has nothing at all sound in him, who cannot walk straight, that is, has no strength to do anything good, and falls wholly short of the strength that is in Christ and in the Spirit. Something like this has happened to those of whom it is written through one of the holy prophets: ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing weakness upon this people, and fathers and sons together shall grow weak in it; the neighbor and his friend shall perish’ (Jeremiah 6:21). But our divine Psalmist presents those who have been justified by faith in Christ as joyful, singing psalms and saying: ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from corruption’ (Psalm 103:2–4). The animal with a cut tongue, as I think, is the one who does not know how to speak rightly and has no strength to proclaim, as it is written, ‘the word of faith which we preach’ (Romans 10:8), ‘the appeal to God from a good conscience’ (1 Peter 3:21). Yet the prophet will make plain that at the coming of Christ they will throw off this kind of disease too, when he says: ‘And the stammering tongues will quickly learn to speak peace’ (Isaiah 32:4). So the one with a cut tongue is the one who still stammers and has not yet been taught to speak the peace that comes to us from above and from the Father, that is, Christ (Ephesians 2:14), or the things concerning him. The animals with warts, with festering mange, or with scabs (Leviticus 22:22) we take to be those who have within themselves a mind in the grip of passion and are deeply sick with the corruption that lies in sin, yet never consider that they ought to reduce them, but rather let them creep on toward what is more shameful and spread toward what is worse. For warts and festering mange and scabs plainly always grow, tend somehow toward a worse state, and little by little spread over the whole body. So too are the passions in our souls that are not cut short but always race on toward the worse, as if with a rush that nothing holds back. The animal with its ears cut off, and besides it the one with a docked tail (Leviticus 22:23), would signify the person who is hard to persuade and will not listen, and the one who is not seemly in every respect. Or is the harm not to the hearing, for those whose ear has been cut off?

Palladius: Very much so.

Cyril: And animals that have no tail, would you yourself grant that they have the finest form? Not at all; for in themselves they are badly marred by unsightliness. So the person hinted at indirectly, as it were by an animal that has no tail, is unseemly and lacks beauty. The law also rejects what is male by nature but cannot do what males do; I mean the bruised and the cut (Leviticus 22:24). Such again would be those who have a reputation for the manly courage that leads to virtue, yet are not actually active in pursuit of the glories of virtue; they are dry, as it were, and barren, and in many ways robbed of the power to bear fruit. For a vast crowd of unholy passions forces us into weakness and impotence, and besides this into being unable to bear fruit. This is why, I think, the law calls by many names…

Access to the Father through Christ alone; leaven and honey§6

6Cyril: …the animal that has been gelded. For it says ‘bruised and crushed, cut and torn’ (Leviticus 22:24); for the passions in us are of every kind, and lead us, as it were, by a long road into weakness and impotence.

Palladius: The argument is convincing.

Cyril: Besides these things the law further declared that it is abominable to offer sacrifices to God through a foreign hand as well, saying: ‘And from the hand of a foreigner you shall not offer the gifts to the Lord your God’ (Leviticus 22:25). By this it is signified in type that the Father can be approached through Christ alone. For he is our truly unblemished and great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), the Mediator in the divine economy (1 Timothy 2:5). For as the inspired Paul writes: ‘In him we have gained access in the Spirit to the Father’ (Ephesians 2:18). So those who choose to consecrate their own souls to God the Father, with Christ as Mediator, ought to be free of blemish. ‘For you shall be holy,’ he says, ‘as I am holy’ (Leviticus 11:44).

Palladius: You have spoken excellently.

Cyril: Having set in order the ways of sacrifice as they concern cattle and sheep, the law comes to us through other figures as well, and urges most earnestly that those who are accustomed to do this must approach God without blame. For it says again in Leviticus: ‘Every sacrifice that you offer to the Lord, you shall not offer leavened. For you shall not offer any leaven or any honey from it to make a burnt offering to the Lord. You shall offer them to the Lord as a gift of firstfruits, but they shall not be brought up onto the altar for a fragrant aroma to the Lord. And every gift of your sacrifice shall be salted with salt. You shall not leave the salt of the covenant to the Lord out of your sacrifices; with every gift of yours you shall offer salt to the Lord your God’ (Leviticus 2:11–13). Leaven, then, would be a type of shrewdness, and not by any means only of the kind that is blamed, but of the other kind too, I mean the good kind that is praised, which the word of Wisdom also promises to give to the innocent (Proverbs 1:4). For the word ‘shrewdness’ is, in a sense, neutral. Honey, in turn, sometimes hints to us indirectly at bodily pleasure, as in the saying: ‘Do not give heed to a worthless woman; for honey drips from the lips of a prostitute’ (Proverbs 5:3). But at other times it gives a picture of good sweetness. For it is written: ‘Eat honey, my son, for the honeycomb is good, that your throat may be sweetened’ (Proverbs 24:13). So the law forbids that leaven and honey be brought for a burnt offering and sacrifice. It accepts them from the one who brings them as a gift and as firstfruits, but by no means carries them up for a fragrant aroma to God.

Palladius: Then explain, in turn, what the riddle means.

Cyril: The matter is hard to grasp, Palladius. For what it might mean that these things are by no means rejected, and yet are not carried up as a burnt offering and a sacrifice…

Shrewdness, marriage and salt§7

7Cyril: …how could it not be uphill work to see? I think, then, that even the shrewd conduct a holy and good soul sometimes shows, if it is practiced at the right time and has piety toward God as its motive, is not rejected by him; yet it will not be ranked on an equal footing with fragrant virtue, nor would it be counted as a spiritual sacrifice. For simplicity is more precious with God. For Holy Scripture admires the inspired Jacob, saying: ‘And Jacob was a guileless man, living in a house’ (Genesis 25:27). For shrewdness is far removed from all who are innocent. And to the holy apostles the Savior himself said: ‘Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves’ (Matthew 10:16). Yet innocence is precious with God, and compared with the other is in every way the better. But shrewd and wily conduct is fitting for the management of the apostolic mission; the blessed Paul too made use of it at times, everywhere escaping an untimely death at the hands of his enemies. So shrewdness, in godly pursuits, might well be acceptable, but it would by no means be counted as the fragrance of virtue if it were tested by its own nature. In the same way honey too, taken as a type of fleshly pleasure, would point, I think, to this life in the world, which is not free of the pleasures of the flesh. For marriage is honorable (Hebrews 13:4), serving the bearing of children, and blameless according to the law when it is lived in Christ. Yet this will not count for anyone as the strength of virtue, nor will it be ranked equal with the glories of self-control. And the blessed Paul too writes to the married: ‘Do not separate from one another, except perhaps by agreement for a time, so that you may give yourselves to prayer and supplication’ (1 Corinthians 7:5). And again: ‘Be together,’ he says, ‘so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control’ (1 Corinthians 7:5). And he added to this: ‘I say this by way of concession, not of command’ (1 Corinthians 7:6). Do you see, then, that he grants a concession to the married? How then can something that is met with a concession be a virtue? ‘Concerning the virgin,’ he says (1 Corinthians 7:25), ‘she is more blessed if she remains as she is’ (1 Corinthians 7:40), that is, unmarried. So honey is not rejected, for marriage is acceptable; yet it is not offered for a fragrant aroma, as the ways of virtue are. But salt is also sprinkled on the sacrifices; for I think we must offer sacrifice wisely and with understanding, and be well seasoned for every good thing. For what is graceless and tasteless would least of all befit those who have chosen to live devoutly. This is why the Savior said to the holy disciples: ‘You are the salt of the earth’ (Matthew 5:13). And Paul too writes: ‘Let your speech be seasoned with grace and salt (Colossians 4:6), that it may give grace to those who hear’ (Ephesians 4:29).

Palladius: It is settled, then, that good sense and graciousness are signified by the salt.

Cyril: So it is. And now, I think, having carefully marked out the ways in which one must offer sacrifice, we must next observe from the sacred Scriptures themselves…

The sin offering of a calf for the priest and the people§8

8Cyril: …how those who have fallen sick with sin may escape the disease and ward off the harm that comes from transgression. Now it is written in Leviticus: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, saying: If a soul sins unintentionally before the Lord against any of the commandments of the Lord, in things that ought not to be done, and does any one of them: if the anointed high priest sins so as to make the people sin, he shall bring for the sin that he has committed a calf from the herd, without blemish, to the Lord for the sin. He shall bring the calf to the door of the tent of witness before the Lord, lay his hand on the head of the calf before the Lord, and slaughter the calf before the Lord. And the anointed priest, whose hands have been consecrated, shall take some of the blood of the calf and bring it into the tent of witness; and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before the Lord, in front of the holy veil. And the priest shall put some of the blood of the calf on the horns of the altar of compounded incense that is before the Lord, which is in the tent of witness. And all the blood of the calf he shall pour out at the base of the altar of whole burnt offerings, which is by the doors of the tent of witness. And all the fat of the calf of the sin offering he shall take from it: the fat that covers the entrails, and all the fat on the entrails, and the two kidneys and the fat on them, which is on the thighs, and the lobe of the liver; he shall remove it with the kidneys, just as it is removed from the calf of the peace offering, and the priest shall offer it up on the altar of burnt offering. As for the skin of the calf and all its flesh, with the head, the extremities, the belly and the dung, they shall carry the whole calf outside the camp to a clean place where they pour out the ashes, and they shall burn it on wood with fire; it shall be burned where the ashes are poured out’ (Leviticus 4:1–12). This, then, is what he says about a ruler who leads the peoples under his hand to fall short of what is right along with him. And at once he declared further: ‘If the whole congregation of the sons of Israel errs through ignorance, and a matter is hidden from the eyes of the congregation, and they do, against any of the commandments of the Lord, one thing that ought not to be done, and they transgress, and the sin that they committed in it becomes known to them, then the congregation shall bring a calf from the herd, without blemish, for the sin’ (Leviticus 4:13–14). And he states plainly that it must be offered in the same manner as the first.

Palladius: And what, again, is the meaning of these passages?

Cyril: It is clear, Palladius, and not hard to grasp, at least for anyone of sound mind. For in Christ is the cleansing of priests and of people, of small and great, in short of all, even if one by one we should happen to be caught transgressing, through not knowing the divine law…

Christ the slain calf, and the place outside the gate§9

9Cyril: …or through being forced, perhaps against our will, into what least pleases God, the Master of all. That is why the divine David also cried out for us: ‘Do not remember the sins of my youth and of my ignorance’ (Psalm 25:7). And since God is good by nature, kind and compassionate, and well aware of the weakness of our nature, the blessed Job all but openly accuses him of delaying and holding back from forgiving people their sins. For he speaks thus: ‘And why did You not grant forgetfulness of my lawlessness and cleansing of my sin?’ (Job 7:21) So the law proclaims aloud as well that in Christ, and in him alone, those held fast by sins will be justified through faith. For he is the one slaughtered for us like a calf at the doors of the sacred and divine tent, to open wide for us the way inside; he himself takes away our sins, as the prophet’s voice says (Isaiah 53:4). For this, I think, is what the laying of hands on the calf signifies. He himself entered the Holy of Holies through blood and obtained a holy redemption for us (Hebrews 9:12), and by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:14), as the blessed Paul says. He it is who sanctifies the Church by the sprinkling of his own blood, and does so abundantly. ‘For the priest,’ it says, ‘shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood seven times with his finger before the Lord’ (Leviticus 4:6). ‘For we have come,’ it says, ‘to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the Church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than Abel’ (Hebrews 12:22–24). Abel’s blood cried out to God (Genesis 4:10), condemning the murderer; but the precious blood of Christ, the Savior of us all, speaks better things to God on our behalf, for it was poured out as the price given in exchange for the life of all. The blood of the calf was poured out at the base of the altar, for the death of Christ is truly holy and sacred. And the inward parts are offered up: the fat, the kidneys and the lobe of the liver. For everything in Christ is fragrant, both what is seen outwardly and what is hidden; for the Word was holy, and there was nothing in him that was not pure. But the skin and the rest are burned outside the gate, for the law does not leave even the place of his passion unmarked for us. That is why the divine Paul said to us: ‘Let us therefore go forth outside the gate, bearing his reproach’ (Hebrews 13:12–13), that is, the cross borne for us and because of us. And the Savior himself says somewhere: ‘Whoever does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me’ (Matthew 10:38). The most holy Paul seems to understand ‘outside the gate’ as ‘outside the world’, for the will to follow Christ takes us out of worldly life. Paul will bear witness again, for he said this about Christ: ‘Through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world’ (Galatians 6:14). And though the saints walk on the earth, they strive to live no longer in an earthly way, but rather to have their citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20).

Ash and water, and victims matched to the sin§10

10Cyril: …And for those who have been defiled, the cleansing is the ash with water (Numbers 19:17). For the Savior’s passion is the ransom from sin; he sanctifies us through water, through which we gain not the removal of the filth of the flesh, as it is written (1 Peter 3:21), but the washing away of the defilements in our souls. For ‘Wash yourselves,’ it says, ‘and become clean’ (Isaiah 1:16): so a prophetic word commanded us long ago.

Palladius: So in the calf, as in an image and in types, the death of Christ, suffered because of us and on our behalf, is sketched in outline.

Cyril: You understand very well. And besides this, I think you would also be struck with wonder if you looked at another point.

Palladius: Which one?

Cyril: If the leader sins, it says, together with those under him, or if the multitude under his hand sins by itself, the victim shall be a calf. But if the leader is caught in faults of his own, let him bring, it says, a he-goat from the goats. And if it is one of the people, the victim shall no longer be male but female. If you like, I will also read the laws on these cases, for it says this: ‘If the ruler sins, and unintentionally does, against any of the commandments of the Lord his God, one thing that ought not to be done, and transgresses, and the sin that he committed in it becomes known to him, he shall bring as his gift a he-goat from the goats, a male without blemish, for the sin. He shall lay his hand on the head of the he-goat, and they shall slaughter it in the place where they slaughter the whole burnt offerings before the Lord; it is a sin offering. And the priest shall put some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger on the horns of the altar of whole burnt offerings, and he shall pour out all its blood at the base of the altar of whole burnt offerings. And he shall offer up all its fat on the altar, like the fat of a peace offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him’ (Leviticus 4:22–26). And besides these: ‘If one soul of the people of the land sins unintentionally, by doing, against any of the commandments of the Lord, one thing that ought not to be done, and transgresses, and the sin that he committed in it becomes known to him, he shall bring a she-goat from the goats, a female without blemish; he shall bring it for his sin’ (Leviticus 4:27–28). And after setting out how the sacrifice is to be made, he says: ‘If he brings a sheep as his gift for sin, he shall bring a female without blemish’ (Leviticus 4:32). Do you see, Palladius, the depth of the mystery, sketched for the people of old as in a mirror and in shadows? For the bringing of victims matches, as it were, the size of the transgressions. A calf was offered for ruler and people alike, perhaps because the two had been sick with one common sin; but one kid for one, that is, for one soul. For Christ offered himself for all together, as is pictured in the calf, a weighty and great victim: ‘For where sin abounded,’ it says, ‘grace abounded all the more’ (Romans 5:20). And like a kid and a sheep…

The goat, the sheep, and offerings matched to rank§11

11Cyril: …for each one individually, because, I mean, he was made like those under sin and was counted among the lawless, according to the Scriptures (Isaiah 53:12). The kid is a type of the lawless man, since it is fruitless and dry. So Christ sets the saints at his right hand as sheep, and the workers of lawlessness at his left as kids (Matthew 25:33). One may therefore see his glory and surpassing greatness as in the calf; but his being made like us, and his being counted even among the lawless, you will understand through the goat. He was also slain as a sheep, because of his inborn gentleness and the surpassing meekness of the sacrifice. ‘For he was led like a sheep,’ it says, ‘and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth’ (Isaiah 53:7). But if the one guilty of the offenses happened to be a ruler, the goat was male (Leviticus 4:22–23); if, however, it was one of the people, a single person, the victim was female, whether it happened to be a sheep or from the goats (Leviticus 4:27–32). Even in the difference between the victims the law points to the wisdom of our Savior’s plan of salvation. For the male always in some way leads and holds first honor, while the female follows and stands second. So the cleansing through Christ is in proportion to each one’s faults, both in those who preside and lead and in those under their authority, each individual subject. For when ruler and people fall into sin they would not be liable to equal charges; the rulers, surely, to greater ones. That is why they are scoured clean by a richer grace.

Palladius: I understand what you mean; for the male is better than the other.

Cyril: And you could see in Christ the difference, as it were, in glory. For he is ruler and, as all confess, the guide of the whole universe, as God and Lord. Yet because of his humanity he also became as it were second in rank, and he was placed under the law (Galatians 4:4), as one who leads the way.

Palladius: The sense is convincing.

Cyril: The law adds other kinds of defilement as well, and once more it has foretold the purification for each, as fulfilled in Christ. It says this: ‘If anyone sins, and hears the voice of adjuration, and he is a witness, having either seen or known, if he does not report it, he shall bear the sin. Whoever touches any unclean thing, whether a carcass, or an unclean thing killed by wild beasts, or the carcasses of unclean abominations, or the carcasses of unclean cattle, or touches human uncleanness, any uncleanness of a person that defiles the one who touches it, and it escaped his notice, but afterwards he knows it and is guilty; or the lawless person who declares with his lips that he will do evil or do good, in anything whatever that a man may declare with an oath, and it is hidden from his eyes, and he comes to know it and sins in any one of these: he shall confess the sin he has committed in this matter, and he shall bring to the Lord for the wrong he has done, for the sin… (Leviticus 5:1–6)

Confession, the death of Christ, and the poor man’s doves§12

12Cyril: …he committed, a female from the flock, a ewe lamb or a she-goat from the goats, for sin; and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin he committed, and the sin shall be forgiven him’ (Leviticus 5:6). Observe, then, that the law sets in one equal and identical class of offense the man who hears the voice of adjuration and makes nothing at all of the matter, the man liable for other defilements, and, besides these, the man condemned for perjury. For contempt toward God is truly a monstrous defilement, and it rises to the very extreme of evil; and this offense is near and akin to the uncleannesses of the flesh. Or must we not count accursed perjury and contempt for adjuration as equal?

Palladius: Certainly; for in both cases the charges are always, in a way, evenly matched.

Cyril: Then for these also release will follow through confession and through the slaying of a ewe lamb, that is, a sheep. For, it says, ‘Be the first to tell your lawless deeds, that you may be justified’ (Isaiah 43:26). And the divine David also cries out: ‘I said, I will confess my lawlessness against myself to the Lord; and you forgave the ungodliness of my heart’ (Psalm 32:5). Yet confession alone is not enough to wash us completely clean. It is the death of Christ that sets us entirely free, for he suffered for us and put himself under the sins of us all, as in every kind of domestic animal: I mean in the calf, and in the sheep and the goat. And the law, as if to leave those in defilements and uncleannesses no excuse for neglecting sacrifice, urges anyone who has no calf or sheep to give honor with what is at hand and within his means, saying: ‘If his hand is not strong enough to provide a sheep, he shall bring to the Lord for the sin he committed two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for sin and one for a whole burnt offering. And he shall bring them to the priest, and the priest shall offer the one for sin first; and the priest shall pinch off its head from the neck, and shall not divide it. And he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the wall of the altar, and the rest of the blood he shall drain out at the base of the altar; for it is a sin offering. And the second he shall make a whole burnt offering, as is fitting; and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin he committed, and it shall be forgiven him’ (Leviticus 5:7–10). We should compare our Lord Jesus Christ, and very fittingly, to the turtledove and the dove, because the one has the sweetest voice and is the most vocal of birds, and the other comes nearest to the height of meekness. Both were in Christ. For he, the turtledove from above and from heaven, charmed the whole world with the preaching of the Gospel, sending forth, as it were, a clear and sweet song, and making plain the will of God the Father. For as the inspired John says: ‘He whom God has sent speaks the words of God’ (John 3:34). And he also called us to imitate the meekness and gentleness that were in him, saying: ‘Take my yoke… (Matthew 11:29)

The bird not divided, and the flour offering without oil§13

13Cyril: …upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart’ (Matthew 11:29). The priest, then, it says, will take the turtledove and nip it with his fingernail (Leviticus 5:8), for that is how light birds are killed. Yet he will not cut it off completely; he clearly means the head. For so the death of Christ was accomplished, not for division but for union. That is why at the beginning, too, when he laid down the law for the Passover, he commanded that the lamb be sacrificed, and yet, he says, ‘It shall be eaten in one house, and you shall not carry any of its flesh outside’ (Exodus 12:46). For Christ is in no way divided (1 Corinthians 1:13); he is one, whole in each and in all. And he himself is our peace (Ephesians 2:14), gathering us into union, both with one another in oneness of soul and, through himself, with God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). That the death of Christ has brought us not division but union, the bird showed indirectly by being sacrificed without its head being cut clean off the neck. And that he sanctifies the Church with his own blood (Hebrews 13:12) would be signified by the sprinkling of the tent and the things in it with the bird’s blood. One turtledove is for sin, and one, again, for a whole burnt offering; and through both Christ is understood, both dying for us and being offered to the Father as a whole burnt offering for a fragrant aroma (Ephesians 5:2), and offering himself up as the exchange for the life of all.

Palladius: Well said.

Cyril: The law, moreover, brings the form of the sacrifice down to something very easy to obtain, and commands that it be made in proportion to each person’s means. In this way it cuts away at every point any hesitation over the best offerings, and leaves those who choose slackness without excuse. Again it writes as follows: ‘If his hand cannot find a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, then he shall bring as his gift for the sin he committed a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, for sin. He shall not pour oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, because it is for sin. And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest, taking from it a full handful, shall lay its memorial portion on the altar of the whole burnt offerings of the Lord; it is a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin he committed in any one of these, and it shall be forgiven him. And what is left shall belong to the priest, like the offering of fine flour’ (Leviticus 5:11–13). But in these provisions the manner of the sacrifice no longer points to Christ; it hints to us at the life of the one who offers, his approach in Christ, and his consecration to God. For fine flour is offered, the substance from which bread is made, and bread is a type of life. But the law says that it must not be sprinkled with frankincense, nor moistened with oil (Leviticus 5:11), and quite rightly it states beforehand the wise and necessary reason for this: that it is for sin. From sin, gladness, which is understood in the oil, would be utterly and in every way far removed, and so would fragrance, which is perhaps understood in the frankincense. It could not be disputed that the sin in us is truly a gloomy and scentless thing. But there will richly abound…

Gladness and fragrance in Christ; restoring stolen holy things§14

14Cyril: …in that life, always in some way, the gladness of virtue, as in a spiritual richness; and virtue has much fragrance through hope in God. So the fine flour without frankincense and oil is a type of a life that has no gladness and is bare of fragrance; but in Christ even this life will be changed to gladness. It also receives fragrance in faith and is offered to God through him who scours clean the defiled and spiritually washes those caught in uncleanness. ‘For the priest,’ it says, ‘shall take a handful of the fine flour and carry it up to the altar of whole burnt offerings to the Lord’ (Leviticus 5:12). For our approach is in Christ, and through him we who are defiled draw near (Ephesians 2:18). We are justified through faith, and as a pleasing fragrance we offer up to the Father no longer ourselves, but Christ who is in us (Galatians 2:20), since we have the spiritual fragrance (2 Corinthians 2:15).

Palladius: What you say is true.

Cyril: Besides this, if it should happen that some offend God and steal something of what has been consecrated, or go back on what they promised and do not offer it at once, and so through carelessness in these matters incur the charge of forgetfulness, the law cleanses this too. For it is written thus: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: If forgetfulness overtakes a soul, and it sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord, he shall bring for his trespass to the Lord a ram without blemish from the flock, valued in silver shekels by the shekel of the sanctuary, for that in which he trespassed. And what he sinned in the holy things he shall repay, and he shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest; and the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering, and he shall be forgiven’ (Leviticus 5:14–16). For it is truly a dreadful thing to steal anything of what has been consecrated and dedicated to the glory of God. In the same way, and on no small charges, failure to pay what was promised will be denounced. For ‘My son,’ it says, ‘if you make a vow to the Lord, do not delay to pay it; it is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay’ (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5). And the divinely inspired David sings somewhere: ‘Make vows, and pay them to the Lord your God’ (Psalm 76:11). The sons of Eli too were punished for pilfering some of the holy things and taking for themselves what belonged to God (1 Samuel 2:12–17). What, then, might be the forgiveness for this as well? Or how might one free his foot from the charge and be set free? First, if he makes the repayment richer than what was stolen (‘For he shall add the fifth,’ it says); then, if he brings a purchased ram for sacrifice. This would be a type of Christ, whom the leaders of the Jews in a sense bought for thirty denarii, which they paid to the disciple who betrayed him (Matthew 26:15). So in Christ there is forgiveness for offenses against God as well. And that he would also free us from wrongs done against other people is easy to see for those who have read the law that comes right after this one (Leviticus 6:1–7). It runs thus: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: The soul that sins, and utterly disregards the commandments of the Lord, and lies to his neighbor about a deposit, or about a partnership, or about something seized, or…

Restitution to the neighbor; full justification in Christ§15

15Cyril: …or has wronged his neighbor in anything, or has found something lost and lies about it, and swears falsely about any one of all the things a man may do so as to sin in them, then it shall be, when he has sinned and trespassed, that he shall give back the plunder he seized, or the wrong he did, or the deposit entrusted to him, or the lost thing he found, in any matter about which he swore falsely; and he shall repay the principal itself and add a fifth to it; to whomever it belongs he shall give it, on the day he is convicted. And for his trespass he shall bring to the Lord a ram without blemish from the flock, at the value of that in which he trespassed. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any one of all the things he did and in which he trespassed’ (Leviticus 6:2–7). Do you see how the way of cleansing runs alike in both cases and is completed by both means? For he repays with increase, and he brings a ram. The law very rightly commanded that offenses against God and offenses against brothers and kinsmen alike must be put away. But justification in Christ is by no means partial; it is rather a complete washing away of whatever tends to stain us. Therefore he also said: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life’ (John 5:24). If, then, the one who through Christ has justification by faith conferred on him has escaped being judged, we are bound to say that he has escaped the charges; and no kind of accusation, I say, could prevail against such a person. For ‘it is God who justifies; who is he that condemns?’ (Romans 8:33–34). So when we answer with deeds to those brothers who have been grieved, we shall find justification in Christ close at hand. So also Zacchaeus the tax collector, when called to apostleship, promised not only that he would follow the one who had called him, but also that he would give back fourfold whatever he had taken by wrong (Luke 19:8). For I think that those who are to make Christ dwell within themselves through the Spirit (Ephesians 3:16–17) must first wash off their filth and first scour away their offenses, and so show him their own soul bright and spotless, just as the divinely inspired Psalmist, having reached this fine state of virtue, cried aloud: ‘My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and make melody’ (Psalm 57:7). For just as dyes settle into wool when it is clean, but if any trace of dirt remains, what was taken in is at once easily shed and finds no firm hold in it, so too participation in Christ sinks into holy and pure souls, but would not settle at all in those that are not so. ‘For the Holy Spirit of wisdom will flee from deceit,’ as it is written, ‘and will not dwell in a body in debt to sins’ (Wisdom of Solomon 1:4–5). So by making amends to those who have been wronged, and by good deeds that lead to friendship and shear away our brothers’ grief, we shall free ourselves from every charge and gain the forgiveness that is in Christ.

Palladius: You have spoken most rightly.

Bodily uncleanness as a type of the soul; testing for leprosy§16

16Cyril: Shall we, then, add still other lines of thought to these, and explain both the charges that arise from defilements and what has been decreed for the cleansing of each?

Palladius: By all means; for in this way our discussion of it would bring us a more abundant benefit.

Cyril: It is written, then, in Numbers: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and let them send out of the camp every leper, and everyone who has a discharge, and everyone unclean through contact with the dead; male and female alike, send them out of the camp, and they shall not defile their camps, in which I dwell among them’ (Numbers 5:1–3). Now it is clear to anyone, I think, that the law could not reasonably be thought to rebuke us in these matters for what happens by necessity and against our will. For why should a bodily affliction be punished, and how could the one who has fallen into fleshly infirmities justly incur the law’s condemnation? It is wise, then, and necessary to take these bodily conditions as an image and type of the diseases in souls. For in this way the law would be spiritual (Romans 7:14), and what God has declared on each matter at various times would be a holy verdict, not subjecting to penalties those caught by diseases they did not choose, but those in whose case the fact of wrongdoing would make the rebuke holy.

Palladius: How well you put it.

Cyril: He commanded, then, that the leper be sent away from the camp, yet in his case he makes the examination very exact, and orders that the disease be tested, saying: ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: If a man has on the skin of his body a scar with a bright mark, and an infection of leprosy appears in the skin of his body, he shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or to one of his sons the priests. And the priest shall look at the infection in the skin of his body; and if the hair in the infection has turned white, and the infection appears deeper than the skin of the body, it is an infection of leprosy; and the priest shall look and pronounce him unclean (Leviticus 13:1–3). But if it is bright white in the skin of his body, and it does not appear deeper than the skin, and its hair has not turned white, but it is faint, then the priest shall isolate the infection for seven days. And the priest shall look at the infection on the seventh day; and if in his sight the infection remains as it was and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall isolate him for seven days a second time, and the priest shall look at him on the seventh day a second time. And if the infection is faint and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is a mark. And when he has washed his clothes he shall be clean (Leviticus 13:4–6). But if the mark changes and spreads in the skin after the priest has seen him in order to pronounce him clean, he shall show himself to the priest a second time; and the priest shall look at him, and if the mark has spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean (Leviticus 13:7–8);…

Leprosy and the white patch: first the plain sense, then the spiritual§17

17Cyril: …it is leprosy.’ (Leviticus 13:8) The matter, Palladius, turns on fine distinctions, and the account of these things is not easy to grasp. Yet I think I must gather my mind and say in a few words what the law means to show. But first I will explain how the conditions differ. Leprosy is a most grievous disease of human bodies, hard to escape and devouring, and it comes about by a deadening. The sore is hollowed out at once, as the skin is consumed and keeps sinking deeper, since the corruption always creeps downward. That, I think, is why the hair growing on those places withers and turns white, and like a plant it perishes along with the soil beneath it. Such, then, is leprosy. The white patch, on the other hand, is a bodily ailment that resembles leprosy, except that it does not drive the harm deep or send the feeling of the disease into the parts within. It floats, as it were, on the surface and barely blooms on the body. It does not turn the hair white, nor does it spread beyond control; with very few remedies it is easily reined in, and the flesh where it broke out returns to health. So leprosy is an undoubted deadness, while the white patch raises some suspicion of leprosy but is not in truth the same thing, that is, leprosy and deadness. The law therefore condemns the leper as unclean, since he has already suffered deadness; but it acquits of the charge the one sick with the white patch, since he has come under suspicion of leprosy but is not actually leprous. This is why it says that if there is a scar with a mark, and a leprous sore, and the skin looks hollowed, and the hair also changes to white, dying, it may be, together with the flesh beneath it, then it will certainly be leprosy (Leviticus 13:2–3); for the deadness creeps deep. But if there is a white patch with a mark, without any hollowing of the skin and without the hair changing to white, let it be tested, it says, by the priest, and let the man be set apart a second time (Leviticus 13:4–5). For it is not unlikely that the passing of the days itself, putting the ailment to the test, may sometimes show the exact truth to those who examine it. In one case the hair takes on another color as the skin hollows, and the white patch has turned into leprosy. But if none of these things has happened, ‘let him be released,’ it says, ‘from the charge’ (Leviticus 13:6). For the condition is not leprosy, but something that resembles leprosy and comes very close to it, namely the white patch. The plain sense, then, and the explanation of the matter have been set out well enough. But come, let us speak of the spiritual meaning and lay hold of the ideas that are hidden and grasped by the mind.

Palladius: How fine and helpful that is!

Cyril: We who are being made alive in Christ (and by making alive I mean the spiritual kind) must depart from dead works (Hebrews 9:14) and go as far from them as we can. These, I think, would be the works through which the soul is put to death and the mind grows cold, when it has turned without restraint toward the things of the flesh and of the world. For if it is true that ‘the one who sows to the flesh will reap corruption from the flesh’ (Galatians 6:8), and that those who live according to the flesh…

Sin carried into deeds is the soul's leprosy; bare desire is the white patch§18

18Cyril: …cannot please God (Romans 8:8), how, or on what ground, could anyone still doubt that they will also die (Romans 8:13)? The one, then, who is defiled in soul and mind, and is full of the world’s wickedness, is dead, held fast in the works of deadness. And if anyone chose to call such a state a leprosy of the mind in the true sense, he would not miss the right word. Such a person, then, is unclean in the eyes of Christ. ‘For the priest,’ it says, ‘shall pronounce him unclean’ (Leviticus 13:3). For at the divine judgment seat, counted among those who dearly love sin, he will hear: ‘Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness; I do not know you’ (Matthew 7:23; Luke 13:27; Matthew 25:41). But to the white patch and the scar with a mark we should liken those who are still at the stage of mere desire and have not yet carried their thought into action. Or do you not agree that it is true that pleasures and thoughts spring up in us ahead of the deeds, and dawn, as it were, before them, calling us toward something the law condemns?

Palladius: I agree, for I recall the blessed David saying: ‘Before I was brought low, I did wrong’ (Psalm 119:67).

Cyril: You have spoken most rightly. Before the deeds are done, the mind has certainly already fallen into wrongdoing, having first been in labor with the pleasure. Yet while the sin still lies only in desires, the mind stands between the two and looks toward both. It is free to lean toward whichever it may choose; it has not yet suffered deadness, though it has come very near to the evil and is in labor with the passion. The Savior’s disciple has clearly told us something of this kind: ‘Let no one,’ he says, ‘when he is tempted, say, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is completed, brings forth death’ (James 1:13–15).

Palladius: True.

Cyril: So being wholly dead, as in leprosy (I mean the leprosy of the mind) and as in the condition of deadness that comes from sin, would perhaps come about not in desires alone but when they issue in deeds. As long as the evil is still in the mind’s birth pangs, there is not yet deadness and not yet death, for ‘not every sin leads to death,’ as the Savior’s disciple has said (1 John 5:16–17). There is still only a suspicion that it may suffer the things that can bring death. And we said that the white patch looks like leprosy, or comes near to it. ‘The priest shall look,’ it says, at the one held by the condition (I mean the white patch); and if it is seen not to be changing into leprosy, he shall not pronounce him unclean, but rather shall set him apart (Leviticus 13:4–5). For before God it is not beyond rebuke even to dwell in desires and come near to evil. But if the condition, it says, resists the change and has not turned toward the worse, ‘let him be clean’ (Leviticus 13:6). Best, then, and truly saving, is to refuse deadness, I mean the deadness that lies in deeds…

Washing as a type of baptism; the law reverses itself on total leprosy§19

19Cyril: …and that already, in some way, chills the mind in the very deeds themselves. Besides this, it is wise to try hard to turn away from the passions even when they are still seen only as desires; for this, I think, is to depart from both leprosy itself and the white patch. For you have learned that Emmanuel, who is God by nature, our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), counts our affairs worthy of the closest oversight. He welcomes those who have washed away what is evil, but sends out of the camp of the saints those he sees to be defiled (Numbers 5:2–3).

Palladius: What you say is true.

Cyril: ‘For you shall be holy,’ it says, ‘because I am holy’ (Leviticus 11:44; 1 Peter 1:16). And notice that the law says that the one freed from the charge will be clean once he has washed his clothes (Leviticus 13:6). In this the law foretells the cleansing through water, and, as in types that the bodily senses can perceive, it sketches for us the mystery of holy baptism.

Palladius: I understand.

Cyril: See, then, Palladius, how very searching the law is. It shifts our thoughts, as it were, to the opposite case, and in every way it hints at what leads to our benefit.

Palladius: What do you mean?

Cyril: For it said again: ‘If a leprous sore appears in a person, he shall come to the priest. The priest shall look, and behold, there is a white scar in the skin, and it has turned the hair white, and there is some healthy, living flesh in the scar. It is a chronic leprosy in the skin of his body; the priest shall pronounce him unclean and shall set him apart, because he is unclean. But if the leprosy breaks out widely in the skin of his body, and the leprosy covers all the skin of the sore from his head to his feet, as far as the priest can see, then the priest shall look, and behold, the leprosy has covered all the skin of his body; and the priest shall pronounce him clean of the sore, because it has all turned white, and he is clean. But on whatever day living flesh appears in him, he shall be unclean. The priest shall look at the healthy flesh and pronounce him unclean. The healthy flesh is unclean; it is leprosy. But if the healthy flesh is restored and turns white, he shall come to the priest; the priest shall look, and behold, the sore has turned white; and the priest shall pronounce the sore clean, and he is clean’ (Leviticus 13:9–17).

Palladius: And how are we to understand the reversal here?

Cyril: Do you not understand that we affirmed leprosy to be a partial deadness in living flesh, and that the one held by the disease was cast out as defiled?

Palladius: I understand.

Cyril: Look, then: the matter is somehow turned round for us again to its opposite. For if, it says, a man becomes wholly leprous, held fast by deadness, with nothing healthy in him, then let him be released from the charges of…

Why total leprosy is clean: dead to sin and alive to God§20

20Cyril: …defilement: he is clean (Leviticus 13:13). But if any trace of living flesh remains in him, ‘let the priest,’ it says, ‘record his uncleanness’; for the living flesh will make him unclean, and he is a leper (Leviticus 13:14–15). This case too will count the same as the charges of leprosy.

Palladius: I cannot understand what you mean. If partial leprosy makes people unclean, how could complete and total leprosy declare them clean?

Cyril: The matter, Palladius, turns on fine distinctions. But we shall by no means suppose that the precision of the law brings in an interpretation that fights against itself and, as it were, marches against us. To each case a reason has been fitted that is wise and necessary and beyond reproach. Come, let us state it, if you agree.

Palladius: By all means; you will be speaking most welcome words to one who thirsts for them.

Cyril: In two ways, I think, we shall achieve the life that is most lawful in the sight of God, who loves virtue. Either, living for him, we refuse the deadness that comes from passions and sin, and this is not to suffer leprosy; for a partial deadness befalling a living body is what makes leprosy. Or, in the other way, through a good deadness, and by no longer consenting to live in a worldly way, we shall bind on, like a crown, the vote of approval awarded to all that is best. For the inspired Paul writes thus to some: ‘So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 6:11). Living in Christ, then, by striving to accomplish what pleases him, we shall hate being put to death, plainly, by passions and sins; and having died to sin, as it is written (Romans 6:2), we shall thrust away living in it, because we think rightly.

Palladius: Explain this to me still more clearly, for I do not understand it very well.

Cyril: Do we not say, Palladius, that Christ endured death for us for this reason: so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them, that is, for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:15)?

Palladius: We do; it is agreed.

Cyril: So we live for Christ when we order our lives by the Gospel and loathe the deadness that comes from sin, that is, the death that comes from the passions. Indeed the inspired Peter writes of Christ: ‘He bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness’ (1 Peter 2:24). For I think that those who care to live a shining life must go far from everything that can bring death, and must succeed in ridding themselves of defilements.

Palladius: You speak well.

Cyril: So he would least of all suffer, as in leprosy, the…

Dead to sin, alive to God; leprosy in healed sores and burns§21

21Cyril: …condition: the one who has chosen to live for Christ and follows the commands of the Gospel, while thrusting away the deadness that comes from sin.

Palladius: I am convinced.

Cyril: This, then, is one way in which we can please God; and there is another that may in turn be rightly carried out, as follows. For we must put to death our members that are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire and covetousness (Colossians 3:5), and so seem in some way already to have died to sin, and that completely, no longer living in it. The divine Paul will assure us of this when he says: ‘What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? By no means! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?’ (Romans 6:1–2). So then, just as in the case of one who has chosen to live for Christ the law made being partly dead liable to its penalties, so too in the case of one who has died to sin, to live in it would again be a defilement, and one not free of the charge the law brings. For this reason it says that if leprosy should cover the whole body, a kind of deadness spreading over every member, it would signify the one who has died to sin; and there is no longer defilement in the body (Leviticus 13:12–13). For he is clean, it says, who has died to sin wholly and utterly, who has given it no place, and has not, as it were, let it lodge within him. ‘But if,’ it says, ‘living flesh should again be seen in him, the living flesh will defile him’ (Leviticus 13:14–15). For to live for sin at all, even in part, makes the sick man abominable. ‘For a little leaven,’ it says, ‘leavens the whole lump’ (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9), and the saying is true. But if, it says, the living flesh should be restored and change back to leprosy, let the charges be dropped: he is clean (Leviticus 13:16–17). For he has been freed even from still living partly for sin, since his mind has moved over to the deadness that is praised and has made a truly excellent change. So then, to sum up what I have said: if we live for God, let nothing be dead in us; if we have died to sin, let nothing of sin be alive in us. For this is the bright road for us of a way of life fit for saints, one with nothing in it open to reproach.

Palladius: Well said.

Cyril: The law marks off such conditions still more finely. ‘And if there should be,’ it says, ‘a suspicion and appearance of leprosy, perhaps in a wound that has scarred over, or in a part of the body that was once burned, let the priest again use the same close scrutiny and examination. And if the white spot that seemed to break out has not changed into leprosy, let him be clean,’ it says; ‘but if there should be a clear change of the white spot into leprosy, he will be unclean and abominable’ (Leviticus 13:18–28). By these things too the law hints to us that if the sicknesses in our souls (and they are countless), once healed by gentle treatment and at times brought, as it were, to scar over, should somehow be raked open by our carelessness, the one who will examine them is…

Christ judges a relapse; leprosy of the head and beard§22

22Cyril: …Christ, our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14), and he will give a very just verdict. For if the disease has gone no further, it says, than thoughts alone, the one who suffers it is by no means free of rebuke, for he will be set apart (Leviticus 13:21); yet he is not cast out entirely, nor is he wholly dead. But if the passion should shoot through the thoughts and through desire itself, having already undergone in some way a complete change for the worse, it will make the one who has fallen sick again liable to the penalties for defilement (Leviticus 13:22). So we must guard above all against waking passions that have already been lulled to sleep, against reopening the wounds of the mind, and against running back to where we were at the beginning. Otherwise we too shall hear a saint crying aloud: ‘What the true proverb says has happened to them: The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing, to wallowing in the mire’ (2 Peter 2:22).

Palladius: You seem to me to speak rightly and very reasonably.

Cyril: This is what the law tells us about leprosy and about leprosy in scars and wounds. But it goes further and says: ‘And if a man or a woman has a mark of leprosy on the head or in the beard, the priest shall look at the head’ (Leviticus 13:29–30). ‘And if there is,’ it says, ‘a hollow in it, where the skin is wasting and sinking in, and also a change of the hair to whiteness, such a person is a leper and will be unclean,’ it says, ‘beyond dispute’ (Leviticus 13:30). ‘But if none of these signs appears, let the one who has the white patch shave his head or his beard,’ it says. ‘And when his hair has been stripped away in this way, let him come to the priest and be examined then. For if the mark, that is, the white spot, has not spread wide but stays, as it were, in its place, or has grown smaller, let him be clean again. For the condition is not leprosy, but rather a suspicion and an appearance of it’ (Leviticus 13:31–37).

Palladius: What, then, would be the meaning of these things too?

Cyril: Defilement in us is twofold, Palladius: of the flesh and of the spirit (2 Corinthians 7:1). The flesh is stained by its own outrageous and unholy passions; the soul and the mind are stained above all by straying from right doctrine to worse things and by the corruption of sound faith, and besides these by tricks and deceits, false oaths, gossip, conceit, quarrels, jealousies (2 Corinthians 12:20), and whatever lies near these and is akin to them and stands equally accused of wickedness. So in these things the law seems perhaps to be calling to mind the passions of the soul, and to wish to point out the sicknesses that usually arise in the mind. For the head is a type of the mind, and the beard a type of wise understanding, since the beard too is a sign of maturity. So the High Priest of all, that is, Christ, watches over our affairs and examines them closely; he will look into the mind itself and test the inward and hidden heart. And if there should be any corruption and alteration, either from right belief to what is not right, or into baseness of character and the malice that is most…

Sickness of the mind; God sees all; small faults forgiven§23

23Cyril: …hateful to him, he will drive them off again as defiled and pass the sentence that makes them wholly unclean. This, I say, is what it means to suffer leprosy on the head or on the beard. But if the mind is, as it were, at the beginning of its sickness, yet is not seen to have turned aside entirely into the sickness I spoke of, he is set apart and made subject to measured rebukes, but he will not be wholly unclean, nor estranged from God; when he has washed his garments he will be clean (Leviticus 13:34), that is, he will receive as his help the justification that is in Christ. And the shaving of the hair, which lays the wound bare before the priest, would signify that everything, as it were, is cleared out of the way, and that whatever he may wish to look upon lies bare and unhindered before the eyes of the Godhead. ‘For there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open to his eyes,’ as it is written (Hebrews 4:13).

Palladius: That is true. For he said somewhere through the voice of a saint: ‘I am a God who is near, and not a God far off. Shall anything be hidden from me?’ (Jeremiah 23:23–24).

Cyril: Look, Palladius, how much more finely still the law speaks. It passes over nothing needed for knowledge without bringing it under its own rules, and so it benefits those who listen. ‘For no one will understand his faults,’ as it is written (Psalm 19:12), ‘and we all stumble in many ways’ (James 3:2). For our nature suffers from weakness and from slipping easily into wrongdoing; and ‘No one is clean from filth,’ as Holy Scripture says, ‘not even if his life on earth were a single day’ (Job 14:4–5). This is why the divine David sings to us: ‘If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who shall stand? For with you is propitiation’ (Psalm 130:3–4). See, then, how the law kindly drops the charge against us for faults like these, and in its gentleness cleanses those who, through human slipping, have fallen into lapses that are bitter and all but involuntary. For it says this: ‘And if a man or a woman has in the skin of his flesh bright spots, shining and whitish, the priest shall look, and there in the skin of his flesh are bright spots, shining and whitish, it is a white rash; it breaks out in the skin of his flesh; he is clean’ (Leviticus 13:38–39). And yet, if one looks into the matter strictly, to have a white rash would be a disease of the flesh and close to leprosy. But it does not suffer deadness, nor is it past all hope. Our faults are something like this: they are admittedly sicknesses, but not to the point of death and the ruin of the soul. The Judge does not examine too strictly, because ‘he knows how we were formed’ (Psalm 103:14), and he was not unaware of the weakness of our nature. So he grants forgiveness out of his innate love for humankind. And this, I think, is what is meant by ‘A white rash is clean’ (Leviticus 13:39). But sometimes small faults befall the mind even of good people: for example, brief fits of irritation, moderate stirrings toward anger, impatience with our brothers, and at times a craving for empty…

Baldness is clean: small human faults, and anger to be checked§24

24Cyril: …little honors, and passions of that kind; and these are apt at times to befall even those whose life is blameless and who are truly pure. For they are human, and in a way common to all who spend their life in flesh and blood. So the law sketches these too, again in a figure, and says this: ‘If anyone’s head loses its hair, he is bald; he is clean. And if his head loses its hair at the front, he is bald on the forehead; he is clean’ (Leviticus 13:40–41). The involuntary loss of hair would be a condition of the head; and we were saying just now that the head is named as a type of the mind, for the head is the dwelling place of the mind, at least in the opinion of some.

Palladius: I will remember.

Cyril: So the conditions of the bodily head would fittingly show the sicknesses of the mind, small ones again, and of the kind it is right to pardon. Therefore the law releases us from every human passion and from the involuntary defilements that may befall us, since our nature cannot help suffering weakness; and to be wholly freed from passions does not belong to the present time, but would befit the age to come, when sin will be shaken from its foundations and we shall pass over into a life wholly free from harm. ‘But if,’ it says, ‘there should be a scar with a reddish mark on the bald head or on the bald forehead, he is a leper and will be unclean’ (Leviticus 13:42–44). For sometimes even small passions run on until they carry the weight of offenses, and they defile terribly when we do not cut them short and they have gained, as it were, an open passage toward worse things, one wholly unrebuked. I mean something like this: someone is sometimes a little angry, and the passion has taken hold in him, as happens to a human being. Let it be cut short by gentle means, so that the small fault may not grow until, little by little, a charge that leads to death is found against those who suffer it. This is what is meant when leprosy happens to break out on a bald head: the slide from nothing toward worse things, taking place, as it were, in a type. So I say that this was rightly spoken by blessed David: ‘Be angry, and do not sin’ (Psalm 4:4).

Palladius: How profound the argument is!

Cyril: Very much so. For you notice, I think, that I am speaking with great subtlety, and that I cannot either grasp or put into words such insights without sweat. But that those who suffer the unholy sickness of open offenses cannot escape notice, even though the smallest and hidden faults sometimes go unnoticed, you will learn from this as well. Those who have become bald, it says, are clean, as you will remember; the law rightly pardons us our small stumbles, as we were saying just now. But if leprosy should appear on someone’s bald head, that is, when the passion is carried from small things to worse, then, then indeed it says that he becomes conspicuous and disgraceful, with no word to plead for him against the charges…

The leper outside the camp and the cloth given to the fire§25

25Cyril: …that could plead its case. That is why it says: ‘And the leper who has the affliction must have his garments unfastened and his head uncovered; he must cover his mouth, and he shall be called unclean. All the days that the affliction is on him he is unclean, and unclean he shall remain; he shall live apart, and his dwelling shall be outside the camp’ (Leviticus 13:45–46). The unfastened garments and the uncovered head would indicate quite clearly that he is disgraced with nothing to hide it. The covering of the mouth means that he has, so to speak, no defense and can say nothing when God charges him with his uncleanness. And the requirement that he leave the camp would again be a type of his no longer living among the choirs of the saints, but, banished as it were from the holy assembly, having no share in any good thing.

Palladius: What a dreadful thing, and one to pray we may be spared!

Cyril: Dreadful indeed, Palladius. That is why the divine David said to us: ‘Do not remember the sins of my youth and my ignorance; according to your mercy remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord’ (Psalm 25:7). The law, carrying as it were the proof of its own exactness through everything, extends it even to articles—I mean wool, weft and warp, and anything made of leather. ‘If leprosy appears,’ it says, ‘and one of these is affected, the priest is to examine it again and set the affected thing apart; and if the mark shows no change for the better, it is to be burned with fire’ (Leviticus 13:47–52). For it is, it says, a lasting leprosy (Leviticus 13:51). Yet it orders the affected article to be washed; and if after this the affliction still appears rooted in it, it then gives it to the fire as wholly useless (Leviticus 13:54–55). Here again it is perhaps likening our condition to wool and weft, to warp and skins. For who could doubt, or on what grounds, that God takes no account of wool or weft or the rest? We shall grant, then, that among offenses it is most grievous if, after the cleansing and washing that Christ would work in us, we do not get free of our defilements but settle in them to stay. For if Christ washes us and it does us no good, he hands us over to the fire to be punished, just as the priest under the law, when washing had done the weft or the warp no good, then burned it.

Palladius: So it is.

Cyril: By leprosy, then, the law aptly points to what we might call deadness in works. It neatly conveys the meaning of hidden things through things one can see plainly with the senses, and makes spiritual realities clear by bodily examples. Setting before us, as it were, a rich knowledge of the defilements in souls, and making vivid, as in the illnesses of the body, what happens in the spiritual realm, it declared again in Leviticus: ‘When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean’ (Leviticus 15:2).

The law of discharges and what it means for the mind§26

26Cyril: ‘And this is the law of his uncleanness: one who discharges seed from his body, from the discharge with which his body is afflicted through the discharge—this is his uncleanness in him. All the days of the discharge of his body, with which his body is afflicted through the discharge, it is his uncleanness. Every bed on which the man with a discharge lies is unclean, and every article on which the man with a discharge sits shall be unclean. And anyone who touches his bed shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. And whoever sits on anything on which the man with a discharge has sat shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. And whoever touches the skin of the man with a discharge shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. And if the man with a discharge comes near one who is clean, that person shall wash his garments and bathe in water, and he shall be unclean until evening’ (Leviticus 15:3–8). Besides this, the law says that every article on which the man with a discharge sits will be loathsome and abhorred, and that even if he washes his hands in water, that too will be defiled (Leviticus 15:9–11). If anyone touches his skin, he will certainly share in the charge of uncleanness; and if any who are not yet defiled come near him, they will certainly incur the charge of uncleanness. That is why he went out together with the lepers and was banished from the camp (Numbers 5:2), unapproachable and cut off from others, defiling anyone at all who met him by the mere touch of his hand.

Palladius: And what passion in the soul would resemble the bodily discharge of seed? For the law is spiritual (Romans 7:14); or is that not so?

Cyril: Certainly it is; you put it rightly. But consider this. The discharge of the body in a way harms the natural capacity to bear fruit: it lets the supply of seed run out to no purpose, and by slackening the tension in the members it brings about a wasting that is by then, in a sense, involuntary, so that those seized by this condition remain in long and continual defilement. Understand, then, that this is an image, drawn from a visible bodily illness, of what happens to the mind. For the mind too is wasted when it toils most prodigally at what it should not, and spends the effort of its own activity on nothing needful; so it bears no genuine fruit, but is always somehow carried down toward wrongdoing, and, past all restraint, is sick with a descent into baser things.

Palladius: What do you mean?

Cyril: Did not the divine Paul tell us, my friend, that man was created for good works (Ephesians 2:10)?

Palladius: Certainly.

Cyril: Then he was given a nature rightly and aptly suited to everything that deserves praise. Or do you not say that this living being is capable of wisdom and of all knowledge? And would he not easily achieve self-control and courage, and justice too, if he chose to carry out what is fitting and to follow the divine laws?

Wasted gifts, bad company, and the cleansing of the eighth day§27

27Palladius: I agree.

Cyril: But suppose he lets these things go and becomes no longer wise but foolish and senseless. He does not incline his own will toward those whose habit is to guide people into truth, but prefers to be carried beyond what is fitting and to rush headlong to ruin with those who have made a practice of twisting what is right. He neither holds the best and blameless belief about God, nor travels the road of right conduct without reproach. Would it not, in a way, be accurate to say that such a man suffers a discharge of seed in a spiritual sense, since he spends to no purpose the very things through which he might well have borne fruit for God?

Palladius: I would say so, I assure you.

Cyril: And what if he gives up doing justice and taking pride in the noble deeds of courage, and is seen instead to be unjust and slack, given over to pleasures? Would you not think that he suffers the same sickness as the man with a discharge, since he spends on baser things the natural aptitude for good that he has, and has chosen to lose his spiritual fruitfulness for nothing of any use?

Palladius: I would think so.

Cyril: So the law ordered that one keep as far away as possible from the man with a discharge. By this it teaches us to stay well away from those who have turned toward wickedness, and to shake off with resolve those whom God himself would loathe, as people sick with a continual defilement. For to cling to the wicked is truly not without harm. For it is true, as it is written: ‘Whoever touches pitch will be defiled’ (Sirach 13:1). Indeed, the man with a discharge defiles every article he happens to touch: his bed, skin, vessels, water and wooden utensils (Leviticus 15:4–12). Through these riddles the law hints that a person can share in the uncleanness that is in him even by drawing close to him only in the disposition of the spirit. For it is written: ‘Keep yourself pure, and do not share in the sins of others’ (1 Timothy 5:22). Yet Christ, and the cleansing that comes through him, removes even the passions given up as hopeless, and the sicknesses hidden deep in our thoughts, and simply all the weakness in us; the law could not do this. For ‘no one is justified by the law’ (Galatians 3:11), as it is written; and you will see that this too is no falsehood if you look at what is written next. For it said again: ‘If the man with a discharge is cleansed of his discharge, he shall count seven days for his cleansing; he shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean. And on the eighth day he shall take for himself two turtledoves or two young pigeons, and bring them before the Lord to the doors of the tent of witness, and give them to the priest. And the priest shall offer them, one for sin and one as a whole burnt offering, and the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord for his discharge’ (Leviticus 15:13–15). So it does cleanse the man with a discharge and free him from his condition…

Seven days of cleansing, the turtledoves of the eighth day, and emissions of seed§28

28Cyril: …except in Christ, through water and blood (1 John 5:6). For ‘he shall count for himself,’ it says, ‘seven days for his cleansing, and he shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean’ (Leviticus 15:13). That the cleansing is drawn out to the seventh day surely signifies that those who have chosen to pass from worldly baseness to the choice of doing what is more fitting must be scoured clean by good conduct throughout their whole life, at every moment they live. For the week, as a measure of time, holds completion and a circling back to the beginning, as when a period has already reached its end. And the law says very well that to our own good conduct there must come, as a necessary addition, the cleansing through Christ and the purification through water. For holy baptism is now understood in the washing of the body and the garments, and with it, clearly, goes the purification through blood. For ‘on the eighth day,’ it says, ‘he shall take for himself two turtledoves or two young pigeons’ (Leviticus 15:14). The eighth day, again, would signify for us the time of the dispensation in the flesh, when Emmanuel, the truly eloquent and most melodious turtledove, endured slaughter for us, and by his own blood has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:14). That Christ’s death is fragrant in every way (for it was accomplished for the life of the world (John 6:51) and for the abolishing of sin) would be shown by there being two turtledoves, one sacrificed for sin and the other as a whole burnt offering. And that, according to the Scriptures, Christ has become the atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2), the law showed by saying: ‘And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord for his discharge’ (Leviticus 15:15).

Palladius: Well said.

Cyril: In this way, then, the divine law declared to us that the man with a discharge must be cleansed. But it also declares defiled the man who has an emission, whether involuntary or voluntary, springing from the natural impulse. Voluntary, I mean, as in relations with a wife according to the law of marriage; involuntary, again, as perhaps in dreams at night. For again it spoke thus: ‘And a man from whom an emission of seed goes out shall bathe his whole body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. And a woman with whom a man lies with an emission of seed, they shall bathe their bodies in water, and they shall be unclean until evening’ (Leviticus 15:16, 18). For the charges against both are equal, and there is no difference. In the case of the discharge, then, the law described for us an affliction that was, as it were, long and continuous; but in the present case the aim of the law seems to make plain that a person will be defiled even if he does not suffer from complete and total corruption, but is seen to have suffered it only in part and rarely. The Savior’s disciple also hinted at something like this (James 2:10–11): ‘For whoever keeps the whole law,’ he says, ‘but stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all. For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. Now if you do not commit adultery, but do murder,

Unclean until evening: Christ comes at the close of the age; the woman with a flow§29

29Cyril: …you have become a transgressor of the law’ (James 2:10–11). For whoever has offended once, that is, has broken the law at all, even if only in one point and in part, will surely be liable to the charge. So under the law a person is defiled even if he does not go to the extreme of defilement, but is caught having suffered it even in part. Yet he is not cast off entirely; he too is cleansed through water in Christ. Thus the saying that the defiled man is unclean until evening would point very well to the time of Christ’s coming. For Christ came at the end (Hebrews 9:26), when this age had all but reached its very setting; through him and in him we have washed off all the filth that comes from sin, and we who were held fast by our offenses have been set free from charges both small and great. That before the time of his coming it was not possible to wash away defilement (for, according to the Scriptures, no one was justified by the law (Galatians 3:11)), you may learn from its plain saying: ‘He shall be unclean until evening’ (Leviticus 15:16).

Palladius: I understand what you say, and the argument is true.

Cyril: To these things the law adds what concerns a woman who has a flow of blood and who, ill in herself with a flow that cannot be checked, is bound to be defiled (Leviticus 15:19–30). And just as with the man with a discharge every vessel was defiled, and every bed, and every garment, and everyone who came near and touched him, so it is with her also. And the law frees her too in the same way as him: by washing her with water, by the sacrifice of turtledoves, and by the atonement made by the mediating priest. But the law, as though lifting us up to spiritual thoughts and not letting us dwell on the ailments of the flesh (for these were taken up as a type of inward realities grasped by the mind), plainly adds: ‘And you shall make the sons of Israel cautious about their uncleannesses, and they shall not die because of their uncleanness when they defile my tent that is among them’ (Leviticus 15:31). For once we have been cleansed and sanctified through Christ, then, yes then, we draw near truly radiant and shall no longer defile the holy tent; and being pure we shall worship the all-holy God purely as we come to the churches.

Palladius: Excellently said.

Cyril: That human nature was first afflicted with defilement, and could be scoured clean in no other way than through Christ, the truly sacred and holy sacrifice, you will know quite clearly if you also look closely at another oracle besides this law. For again it is written in Leviticus (Leviticus 12:1–7): ‘And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: If a woman conceives seed and bears a male child, she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of separation for her monthly impurity, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day

The woman who gives birth: the Virgin exempt; human nature unclean through corruption§30

30Cyril: …he shall circumcise the flesh of his foreskin. And for thirty-three days she shall remain in her unclean blood. She shall touch nothing holy, and she shall not enter the sanctuary until the days of her cleansing are fulfilled. But if she bears a female child, she shall be unclean twice seven days, as in her monthly impurity, and for sixty-six days she shall remain in her unclean blood. And when the days of her cleansing are completed, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a year-old lamb without blemish for a whole burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for sin, to the door of the tent of witness, to the priest. And he shall offer it before the Lord, and the priest shall make atonement for her and cleanse her from the source of her blood’ (Leviticus 12:1–7).

Palladius: Who, then, is the woman who gives birth? And again, what would be the law’s aim concerning her?

Cyril: It seems we must speak with fine precision. For the matter of this commandment is very subtle and not easy to grasp; but let us search it out as best we can. Yet there is one thing, Palladius, that I marvel at before all the rest.

Palladius: What is it you mean?

Cyril: For although the law proceeds against every woman who bears a male or a female child, and makes its denunciation of us as general as can be, the holy Virgin, from whom we say Christ according to the flesh was born, is exempted from the reproach. Look, if you will, at the precision of the law. For it says ‘a woman,’ and perhaps not all women without distinction, but ‘if any woman conceives seed and bears a male child,’ let her be unclean (Leviticus 12:2). But the divine body was formed from the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20), fashioned in the holy Virgin in a way beyond words, and paying little heed to the laws of nature. For the firstborn of the saints, the firstfruits of those who have received rebirth from God through the Spirit, had no need at all of the sowing of seed. Of these it is plainly said: ‘who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God’ (John 1:13). So the holy Virgin escaped the law’s accusation, for she in no way conceived from seed, but brought forth the divine Child by the working of the Holy Spirit. But the woman who gives birth and is unclean for that reason would be, in all likelihood and by a sound reading, human nature. For the present we shall give nature the role of the woman. Nature is accused by the law and called liable to defilements because it gives birth into corruption, and because it is no longer in the state in which it first received its being from God, for it was made for incorruption (Wisdom of Solomon 2:23), but has rather been carried off course into the necessity of being corrupted. It was condemned for the transgression, and nature has endured, against nature, the penalty that came from the divine curse. For ‘God did not make death,’ as it is written, ‘nor does he delight in the destruction of the living, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For he created all things that they might exist, and the creatures of the world are wholesome; but through the devil’s envy death entered the world’ (Wisdom of Solomon 1:13–14; 2:24). So then, nature is defiled

Conceived in iniquity; forty and eighty days and the forming of the child§31

31Cyril: …by the corruption brought in from outside, and by death, which gained the mastery through the devil’s envy and has sin as its root. And nature is defiled in another way too: those who are born are sown, as it were, in the love of bodily pleasure. And the inspired David seems to hint at something like this when he sings and says: ‘For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother conceived me’ (Psalm 51:5). So nature is unclean, since as a result of the transgression and of the curse it endures corruption, contrary to what God willed. For ‘he created all things that they might exist’ (Wisdom of Solomon 1:14); the saying is true.

Palladius: Then tell me next: in what way could someone be freed from uncleanness?

Cyril: The law itself, Palladius, which condemns us, has shown us the way. For ‘let her be set apart as unclean,’ it says, ‘for seven days’ (Leviticus 12:2). And let her count another thirty-three, and she shall remain in her unclean blood (Leviticus 12:4); that is, clearly, for a male child. But if she bears a female, it says, the separation is double, and double too the count of the other days (Leviticus 12:5). So if the child born is male, the mother is unclean and in defilement for seven and thirty-three days, that is, forty; but if female, for twice seven and sixty-six, that is, eighty.

Palladius: And what, then, would be the reason for this?

Cyril: Once again the law lifts us from bodily examples to the understanding of what is more hidden, and it paints the things of the senses as a kind of picture of spiritual contemplation. Now those who are learned in these matters say that if what is conceived in the womb is male, it takes on its form only when forty days have passed; but if female, it comes to this more slowly, being weak and feeble. They say that it needs twice forty days, that is, eighty, to be distinctly formed. So the mother of a male child was unclean for forty days; but the mother of a female was in defilements and uncleannesses for a full eighty days, that is, until what is in the womb is exactly formed and has come to human shape. And at the cleansing, as the law prescribed, a lamb and a turtledove were slain at the door of the holy tent, while a priest mediated and performed the sacred rites (Leviticus 12:6–7). The law also said that the male child must be circumcised as the law prescribed, that is, on the eighth day (Leviticus 12:3). Such, then, is the sense of the letter. But let us rise to the spiritual contemplation, and say in what way the nature that bore us into corruption and uncleanness shook off defilements and escaped the uncleanness and the denunciation of the law. For it had already spent long ages in separation, that is, away from the face of God. These were the times before Christ’s coming, during which there reigned

The eighth day: circumcision by the Spirit and new birth in Christ§32

32Cyril: …death from Adam until Moses (Romans 5:14), and sin in its many forms held sway over those on the earth. But since on the eighth day (Leviticus 12:3), that is, after the time of the law and that ancient Sabbath rest, we have been circumcised through the Spirit with a circumcision not made by hands (Colossians 2:11), and have been formed into Christ, having become sharers in his divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), then we have shaken off the charges against us; the filth too has been wiped away, and all our defilement is gone. For we are no longer born into corruption because of the transgression in Adam, but into life and incorruption because of the justification in Christ (Romans 5:18), who endured slaughter on our behalf as a spotless and true lamb (1 Peter 1:19), as a divine turtledove discerned by the mind (Leviticus 12:6). For in no other way have we been saved. Or is that not so?

Palladius: Entirely so, for the riddle is very clear.