On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and Truth, Book 17

1ON THE WORSHIP AND SERVICE IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH — BOOK SEVENTEENTH. Concerning the holy feasts. Enough has been said about purity, about prayer, and about the priests.

I think we should next set out carefully what repayment God gives for our labors, and toward what end those who turn will be fattened with the honors that reach their fulfillment, and will share in the hope that lasts forever.

Palladius: How well you put it.

Cyril: It would be fitting, Palladius, for those who have practiced the renowned and chosen life, and who have come to such a measure of the transparent citizenship we have here that they win the best vote of all, to live long in fair days — feasting, rejoicing together, having Emmanuel as the beginning of their festival, and resting in hopes that are firmly set. (Isa 7:14; Mt 1:23)

Palladius: Fitting indeed — and the word is true.

Cyril: Shall we then carefully examine the feasts given in type and according to the law, and narrate the manners of the sacrifices in them, transferring, as far as we can, their force toward the true meaning of the thoughts they hold?

Palladius: I would wish it — how could I not?

Cyril: Since, then, I seem to have seen clearly that these are excellent things, and that we ought lovingly to distinguish and think them through — come, let us search out, before the rest, when and upon what grounds the Lawgiver bids us feast.

2Palladius: Go on, then, wherever you please; you will benefit me most richly.

Cyril: When the people of Israel were once gathered in the wilderness under Mount Horeb, the God of all shaped the law that defines what we must do. After he had commanded countless profitable statutes, he added at last: ‘Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.’ (Ex 23:14)

And he made plain at once what those times are. He said: ‘You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the season of the month of new grain; for in it you came out of Egypt. You shall not appear before me empty. And you shall keep the feast of harvest, of the firstfruits of your works that you sow in your field; and the feast of ingathering at the outgoing of the year, when you gather in your works from the field. Three times in the year shall every male appear before the Lord your God.’ (Ex 23:15-17; Ex 34:18-23; Dt 16:16)

That we must fulfill the feasts to God would be fitting for every age — yet Pharaoh resisted, and the plagues began to press Egypt until the destroyer came upon the firstborn.

3Cyril: When Pharaoh practiced madness against God, the One who has authority over all sent the destroyer upon the firstborn of the Egyptians and sentenced them to death in a single night. (Ex 12:29) He also took care that the flocks of the Jews should not be swept into that evil, and should stand as far as possible from the destroying hand — that is, from wrath.

But no one could do this otherwise than through Christ, who is life and life-giving, inasmuch as he has sprung from the life of the Father according to nature. (Jn 1:4; Exodus 12:1) So the law sketched beforehand the mystery concerning him, saying: ‘The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it is the first for you among the months of the year. Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying: On the tenth of this month let each take a sheep according to their fathers’ houses, a sheep for each house. And if the household be too few for a sheep, he shall take with him his neighbor who is near…’ (Ex 12:1-4)

4Cyril: Let us take each point in order and say what is fitting. We shall give the wise a starting-point and make it known to the righteous, as it is written. And they themselves may add what is theirs, and be far better for it.

Palladius: Very much so.

Cyril: So then, at the year’s beginning and in the first month, the mystery of Christ is brought to light. For the season of our Savior’s sojourn is a new age for us, transferring all things toward the better and thoroughly remaking into the newness of creation what was growing old and near vanishing. (Heb 8:13) ‘If anyone is in Christ — a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.’ (2 Cor 5:17) And we ourselves no longer live in the Mosaic manner, but have been carried over into evangelical life, Christ renewing us through the Spirit.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly.

Cyril: Each takes the sheep, and the banqueters gather in number into one house. For though we are divided, as it were, so as to exist each according to nature, we are gathered into one house — the Church — and feast together on one Christ. (1 Cor 10:17; Eph 2:19-22)

And whether it is called sheep or lamb or kid, the naming points to Christ: unblemished, male, of a year — perfect and in his prime — given over for us. (Ex 12:5; 1 Pet 1:19; Jn 1:29)

5Cyril: He was handed over for our offenses, and is said to have died for us. (Rom 4:25; 2 Cor 5:14-15) In that sense we too are the ones who slaughter; for those for whom he died are almost clearly workers of the passion, even if something is done through others.

And that the sprinkling of the blood saves those who are anointed, he showed at once by saying that the entrances of the houses must be smeared with the blood — I mean the doorposts and the lintels. (Ex 12:7; Ex 12:22-23) For the mystery of Christ blocks, as it were, and makes death’s entrance impassable. So it is fixed that we too, anointed with the precious blood, shall be stronger than death and shall disregard corruption, making no account of the destroyer. For the blood of life — that is, of Christ — rescues us. (Heb 12:24; 1 Pet 1:2)

And he says the flesh of the lamb must be consumed in a single night; for truly one is the season of the saving passion, and ‘having died once, he dies no more; death no longer lords it over him.’ (Rom 6:9-10)

6Cyril: …leaving aside cold and old-womanish tales of the Greeks. Do you understand clearly what I mean?

Palladius: Very much so.

Cyril: That one who has become a sharer in Christ — by partaking of his holy flesh and blood — must also have his mind and love to go forward through inward achievements, understanding well what concerns him, he hinted at once by saying that head must be eaten with the feet and the inward parts. (Ex 12:9; Jn 6:53-56)

For did we not say that the head is a type of the mind, and the feet everywhere signify the journey in deeds? And did the inward parts of the victims again point to what is inside and hidden?

Palladius: It seemed right to understand it so. But tell me this: what would Christ’s mind be, what his journey, and what the hidden things?

Cyril: Christ’s mind would be to think only what looks toward the glory of God the Father, and to will to accomplish what pleases the One who begot him. ‘I have come down from heaven,’ he says, ‘not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.’ (Jn 6:38; Phil 2:5) His journey is the way of the commandments; the hidden things are the mysteries of the gospel, which fatten the mind with spiritual nourishment.

7Cyril: Filling our own mind not only with what is human and outwardly apparent in Emmanuel, but also with the very inward parts — that is, his hidden mysteries — we shall have spiritual nourishment. He said the lamb must be consumed in that one night, with nothing at all left over remaining until morning. (Ex 12:10)

And he does not allow a bone to be broken — the first point signaling that in the age to come Christ will sanctify and bless those dedicated to him by faith and holiness in another manner, and will not again feed them with his own flesh and make them live by his blood exactly as now, but — death already abolished and corruption wholly dissolved — there will be some intelligible mode of sanctifying. (Ex 12:46; Jn 19:36; 1 Cor 15:26)

So morning would signify, I think, nothing other than the age to come. And the second point — that the bone must not be broken — leads us into thoughts about Christ and keeps us in step with what was written of him.

8Palladius: You have spoken excellently.

Cyril: When these things have been carefully kept and carried through to the end according to the lawgiver’s intent, he says he will pass through and, as it were, go round all Egypt, destroy the firstborn, and execute vengeance on the gods of the Egyptians — that is, demand justice from everything high and lifted up among them and ranked among things worshipped for glory’s sake, for so hard and disorderly a mind and for extreme arrogance. (Ex 12:12; Isa 2:12)

Yet he promised to shelter the sons of Israel when the doorposts were anointed with the blood, which he named a sign of kinship with him. ‘For I will see the sign,’ he says, ‘and I will shelter you.’ (Ex 12:13) When God brings wrath and anger upon every high and lofty thing, according to the prophet’s voice, and condemns to death the wanton and guilty who have continuously neglected piety toward him, only those escape unharmed who are marked with the blood of the true Lamb.

9Cyril: …entering into the rest of Christ — to abstain thereafter from every fleshly work and from earthly ambitions and empty bustle, and rather to press on to finish only what leads to the unstained life and makes people reverent and holy. For as wise Paul writes to us: ‘The one who has entered his rest’ — clearly Christ’s — ‘has also rested from his works, as God did from his own.’ (Heb 4:10; Gen 2:2)

Palladius: True.

Cyril: So the divine oracle spoke to us. And when divine Moses set the command before those from Israel, he said: ‘Go, take for yourselves a sheep according to your families, and sacrifice the Passover. You shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dipping it in the blood that is by the door you shall put it on the lintel and on both doorposts from the blood that is by the door. And none of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. And the Lord will pass through to strike…’ (Ex 12:21-23)

10Cyril: …For if someone should somehow go out from sanctification, he will perish with the others and share the penalties laid on those who have grown sick with a wanton and incurable life. So also the inspired Singer says to us: ‘Do not destroy my soul with the ungodly, and my life with men of blood, in whose hands are lawless deeds.’ (Ps 26:9-10)

See, then, how he says: ‘You shall not go out the door of your house until morning.’ For the sacred Writing likens the present age to night, and the age to come that we expect to day. (Rom 13:12) And blessed Paul, seeing the present age already drawing to its end and the coming age near — almost at the doors — spoke: ‘The night is far gone; the day has drawn near. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us walk becomingly as in the day.’ (Rom 13:12-13)

So ‘until morning’ would signify through the whole of this life. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; therefore let us keep the feast. (1 Cor 5:7-8) And the law also opened a Passover in the second month for those hindered — a mercy we shall examine next.

11Cyril: ‘And the men who were unclean by reason of a human soul came forward and could not keep the Passover on that day. And they came before Moses and Aaron that day and said: We are unclean by reason of a human soul; must we then fall short of offering the Lord’s gift in its season among the sons of Israel? And Moses said to them: Stand here, and I will hear what the Lord will command concerning you. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel: If anyone becomes unclean by reason of a human soul, or is on a long journey among you or among your generations, he shall keep the Lord’s Passover in the second month on the fourteenth day; toward evening they shall keep it; they shall eat it on unleavened bread and bitter herbs by night; they shall leave none of it until morning, and they shall not break a bone of it. According to the law of the Passover they shall keep it.’ (Num 9:6-12)

Those unclean by a corpse image those who still wear dead manners outside the Church’s way; yet God opens a second season of mercy so that they may not be wholly deprived of the gift — provided they come cleanly to the feast. (Eph 2:1-5; Col 3:5-10)

Palladius: The word is saving, and worthy of God.

12Cyril: Those who keep the feast in the second month, slaughtering the victim as a type of Christ according to the Passover law, we shall take to be none other than the Jews polluted by the blood-guilt against Christ, carrying uncleanness written upon them for their outrage against Emmanuel. (Num 9:11; Acts 2:23)

Such people necessarily slipped away from our holy feast. They also come late and miss the season in which the pioneer of everyone’s life was perfected through sufferings.

Yet by the mercy of him who wills to save all, in the times afterward — as in a second month — they too will share in Christ and keep festival with the saints called in due season, clearly those from the nations. (1 Tim 2:4; Rom 11:25-26) For see how those in Egypt, once held by the error of idolatry, when far from the holy city, were called later; so also Israel’s fullness waits on the entrance of the nations.

13Cyril: …And the proselyte shall feast with you by the same law and rejoice with those who rejoice. (Ex 12:48-49; Num 9:14) For those who in due seasons take hold of the boasts of faith in Christ we make sharers of the bloodless sacrifice, and we call them to partake of the holy table.

I also think it necessary to add that a custom has prevailed in the Churches — from this law, I suppose — that if the fourteenth of the moon falls outside the first month, they carefully seek the second nearby month and look in it for the appointed day, so that the true season of the feast may not be lost. The matter stands as the ancient law also proclaimed.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly. But tell me this: if it is not for just anyone, and not even if he is on a road…

Cyril: Exactly — the Passover is not to be slaughtered in every chance place, but in the place the Lord your God chooses; for us that place is the Church, the holy city. (Dt 16:5-6; Heb 13:10)

14Cyril: …the law — those who twist what is right, the heretics, slaughter the lamb neither in the holy city nor through the hand of those chosen by the Spirit for priestly service, but, as divine Paul writes for us, ‘taking the honor for themselves,’ and offering in every place. (Heb 5:4)

For like insolent and arrogant bulls they rush indiscriminately toward whatever seems good to them alone. But those who practice such unbridled and mindless leaning will pay bitter penalties to the Judge of such designs.

Let us go back to the familiar and undistorted path, testing that law which was brought forward. You heard him say clearly: ‘Keep the month of new grain, and you shall keep the Passover to the Lord your God…’ and again the continual offerings with the feast holocausts — calves, rams, lambs, and a goat. (Dt 16:1; Num 28:16-25)

15Cyril: ‘…besides the continual holocausts.’ Look then, Palladius, at Emmanuel’s death bearing much fruit, according to what he said clearly and truly: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you: unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’ (Jn 12:24; Num 28:23)

For the lamb is slaughtered as a type of Christ, in the first month according to the law, on the fourteenth day. And calves and a ram and lambs are added for sacrifice and holocausts — signifying, I think, both the multitude of those called through faith into holiness and the measure of spiritual vigor, as in a type. (Ex 12:6)

For if Christ had not died for us, we would not have been received as a fragrance of sweet smell. The two calves hint at the two peoples; the one ram at the unity of faith; the seven lambs at the full course of virtue in the Spirit. (Eph 2:14-16; Eph 4:5)

16Cyril: …and in a lower and still more restrained way. ‘For star differs from star in glory’; and even among the holy angels themselves, I say, the measure of renown stands in many differences — yet in whatever measures the life of the saints may be, it holds cheerfulness; and one must be glad and be fattened by what comes from God. (1 Cor 15:41)

See how the oil was poured not only on the three tenths, but also on two, and on one.

And he calls a sacrifice of continuance and holocausts the lamb slaughtered in the holy tent in the morning and near evening. Through this again one may learn that the fragrance of the holy tent is abundant, and truly unceasing is the sweet smell of the Churches and of the saints in them. (Ex 29:38-42; Num 28:3-8; 2 Cor 2:15) For they make Emmanuel fragrant, and feast of weeks brings new offerings of firstfruits.

17Cyril: The season of new things sketches the mystery of the resurrection; for human nature flourished again in Christ first, wiping off corruption and casting away at last the aging that comes from sin. (1 Cor 15:20; Rom 6:4)

Therefore she also was highly exalted in saying: ‘My soul shall rejoice in the Lord; for he has clothed me with a garment of salvation and a tunic of gladness.’ (Isa 61:10) Garment of salvation and clothing of gladness she named the incorruption from above and from heaven — in Christ altogether.

And he made the law for this festival still clearer, and through many words set the riddle in the open, saying in Leviticus: ‘Speak to the sons of Israel and you shall say to them: When you enter the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest…’ (Lev 23:10-11) Emmanuel paid our debts; the fields are already white for harvest. (Col 2:14; Jn 4:35)

18Palladius: ‘…the harvest already, and the reaper receives a wage and gathers.’ For he likens our affairs to ears and wheat. (Jn 4:36)

Cyril: So Christ is understood as a kind of firstfruit of the ears and a new fruit in the form of a sheaf — the firstborn from the dead, the way of the resurrection for us, the one who remakes all things toward newness and strips away oldness. ‘For the old things have passed away,’ he says; ‘behold, they have become new; and if anyone is in Christ — a new creation,’ according to the Scriptures. (Col 1:18; 2 Cor 5:17)

And the sheaf was brought up before the Lord; for Emmanuel, raised from the dead — the new fruit of humanity and as in incorruption — has gone up into heaven, that he might now appear for us before the face of God and Father. (Heb 9:24; Lev 23:11)

The third-day type and the new dough follow: we wait for the offering until the firstfruit is presented, then we become a fresh lump.

19Cyril: ‘You shall not eat,’ he says, ‘until this very day, until you bring your gifts to your God.’ (Lev 23:14) For the fitting time to share in the new and unstained life would be only — and most reasonably — the time when Emmanuel shone forth. Before him no one at all was able to remake us into new life; he himself is like a firstfruit and first of those created into incorruption, inasmuch as he appeared as man and in flesh with us through likeness to us.

And at once he has brought in a clear sketch of our holy Pentecost, saying that seven weeks must be counted from the bringing-in of the sheaf. (Lev 23:15-16; Acts 2:1) For after the Savior’s resurrection day, stringing seven weeks together, we who have believed keep the feast.

Palladius: And the two loaves baked with leaven as firstfruits — what do they mean?

Cyril: They signal the calling of the two peoples into one new offering, leavened with the good leaven of the gospel. (Lev 23:17; Eph 2:15)

20Cyril: How could this still be thought newness? And how could some still be called a new lump if a remnant of leaven remains in them, and they have not altogether been quit of unholy and abominable baseness?

So one must conceive, according to the word fitting for these contemplations, another kind of leaven that has nothing in itself that must be blamed — rather even admired by the God-breathed Scripture. The Savior likens to leaven the renowned and beneficial power of the divine and evangelical training, saying: ‘The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened.’ (Mt 13:33; 1 Cor 5:7)

For when the life-giving energy of evangelical training enters mind and heart, it leavens soul and body and the whole human being. The scribe discipled for the kingdom brings out of his treasure things new and old. (Mt 13:52) And the move from lambs to calf to rams sketches growth in Christ from beginnings toward maturity.

21Cyril: …of secondary things, they spring up into the perfection understood in Christ. For the rams are perfect in age, marking well in themselves the measure of intelligible perfection. There are two rams, for perfection in Christ is somehow twofold in us — that understood in deed and in knowledge. ‘For whoever does and teaches,’ he says, ‘this one shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens.’ (Mt 5:19; Jas 2:22)

And wine is poured again on the offerings; for gladness must altogether follow those who have pressed on to spring into the perfection understood in Christ. ‘Wine,’ he says, ‘gladdens a human heart.’ (Ps 104:15)

And a goat was slaughtered for sin; two lambs also are added with the loaves for a sacrifice of salvation. What is this again? Co-burial with Christ in baptism, then rising with him into newness of life. (Rom 6:3-4; Col 2:12)

22Cyril: ‘Three times in the year keep a feast to me.’ (Ex 23:14) Since our account of two has already been sufficient, shall we say what the third is, and upon what it is kept? For you learned the occasion of each: the one, that Christ saved us by enduring death for the salvation of us all; the other, that after dissolving corruption he lived again and renewed us into new life — and it was usefully completed.

The season of the first is first among the year’s months and at the beginnings; of the second, the one next and joined to it, in which it was reasonable for the reaper’s iron to press upon the ears, and the other seeds to be gathered — for countless are the things in the fields.

Come then also to the third feast-season — the seventh month — when the year’s storehouse is filled, a trumpet memorial is sounded, and the end-age mystery is sketched. (Lev 23:23-25; Num 29:1; 1 Thess 4:16)

23Cyril: The trumpet’s memorial signals the Lord’s coming, when the archangel’s voice and God’s trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ will rise. (1 Thess 4:16; 1 Cor 15:52; Lev 23:24)

Then comes the Day of Atonement: humbling the soul, putting the earthly members to death, becoming a sweet fragrance to God, and leaving vanity behind. (Lev 23:27-32; Col 3:5; 2 Cor 2:15)

Palladius: So the feast trains us for the end.

Cyril: Exactly — trumpet for waking; propitiation for cleansing; meekness for the kingdom.

24Cyril: Offer your members as a living holocaust: put to death what is earthly in you, and the whole person becomes a sabbath of sabbaths to God. (Rom 12:1; Col 3:5; Lev 16:31)

Then the law leads us into Tent-pitching — Tabernacles — a sketch of paradise rest, leafy shelters, and joy before the Lord seven days. (Lev 23:33-43; Neh 8:14-17)

Palladius: From mortifying to rejoicing — what an order!

Cyril: First death with Christ; then the booth of the coming joy.

25Cyril: Rest on the first day and on the eighth: beginning and new beginning, this age’s edge and the eighth-day world. (Lev 23:35-36; Jn 20:26)

Branches of paradise beauty, and Christ the winter-torrent filling the thirsty; the Spirit given as drink. (Jn 7:37-39; Ps 46:4; Isa 44:3)

Palladius: So Tabernacles already tastes the river of God.

26Cyril: The feast points to the heavenly Jerusalem, where God tabernacles with humanity. (Rev 21:2-3; Heb 12:22)

Zechariah saw the nations going up year by year to worship the King and keep Tent-pitching — and judgment on those who refuse. (Zech 14:16-19)

And the continual sacrifice never ceases in the Church’s praise — morning and evening, an unending fragrance. (Ex 29:38-42; Heb 13:15)

27Cyril: The continual lambs at dawn and dusk teach the Church’s unceasing offering. (Num 28:3-4)

Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God — your reasonable worship — while Christ himself is the Lamb who takes away the world’s sin. (Rom 12:1; Jn 1:29)

Palladius: So the altar never goes cold.

Cyril: Not while faith and love keep vigil.

28Cyril: On the sabbath additional offerings are laid atop the continual ones — a double honor for the rest-day. (Num 28:9-10)

For us the true sabbath is release from sin’s works in Christ; the new moon signals the new age’s bright beginning. (Heb 4:9-10; Col 2:16-17; Isa 66:23)

Palladius: Shadows yield to the body of Christ.

29Cyril: At the new moon we die and live with Christ. (Rom 6:8; Num 28:11-15)

Two calves mark the two peoples; the goat is Christ for sin; without him we can do nothing. (Eph 2:14-16; 2 Cor 5:21; Jn 15:5)

Palladius: Graded offerings, one Lord.

30Cyril: The day of signification — trumpets — returns us to the last awakening. (Num 29:1; Joel 2:1)

The Day of Atonement is rehearsed again; then Tent-pitching with its descending count of calves from thirteen toward seven — pedagogy in numbers for a people being trained toward rest.

Palladius: Why the dwindling calves?

Cyril: That the mind may ascend from many toward the sabbath’s simplicity.

31Cyril: Two eras of pedagogy: under law and under gospel. Calves, rams, and lambs sketch grades of righteousness — beginners, advancing, perfect — as Luke names them righteous before God, walking in all the commandments. (Gal 3:24-25; Lk 1:6; Num 29)

Palladius: So the offerings were a school.

Cyril: A school whose master is Christ.

32Cyril: The law tutors until the sabbath — that is, until Christ, our rest. (Gal 3:24; Mt 11:28-29)

The eighth-day exit after Tabernacles signals the new people leaving the old camp into the world’s bright octave. (Lev 23:36; Heb 13:13-14)

Our sabbathing is in Christ; our city is the one to come.

33Cyril: The land itself keeps sabbath, and the jubilee releases debts and restores inheritance when the trumpet sounds. (Lev 25:8-13; Lev 25:23-28)

So at the last trumpet the meek inherit the earth, and the King says: ‘Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ (1 Cor 15:52; Mt 5:5; Mt 25:34)

Palladius: Amen — to the feast that has no end.

Cyril: Glory to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen.