The Law shows sin; it does not perfect

Palladius went on with Cyril: '...that is according to Christ, not that according to the Law.' For if what is under sin is still a slave, and the Law justifies least of all — it condemns rather, and writes down those who transgress — how would it not be clear to everyone that all justification is in Christ, and the perfecting in the Spirit through sanctification, through him and in him? And so the all-wise Paul writes, 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live from faith.' And he writes down the uselessness and weakness of the old Law in this, saying, 'That no one is justified in the Law before God is clear, because the righteous shall live from faith. And the Law is not from faith, but the one who has done them shall live in them.' So in Christ we are justified through faith, and we have been redeemed from the intelligible slavery.

Palladius: Is the Law useless, then?

Cyril: I do not say that. For it was not oracled in vain. It was given rather 'for help,' according to what is written. As far as tutoring goes, and knowing what is a fault, and needing to take first principles and elements of the oracles of God, how would it not be thought useful? But it is slower toward the washing-off of sin, and toward being able to perfect into sanctification. And so divine Paul said to us, 'We know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those in the Law, so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become accountable to God, because from works of Law no flesh will be justified before him; for through Law is knowledge of sins.' So the Law is a shower of sin, not a bringer of boasts toward virtue. For to say, You shall not fornicate, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not swear falsely, and whatever is fitted to such things, belonged to one marking the kinds of worthlessness and putting people out of uncleanness — not bringing in a knowledge of virtue, nor making the knowledge of the unadulterated life most clear to the hearers. That one must not do the more shameful things is, I think, a dull thing to enroll among the ways of the exceptional life. I think we must, and very reasonably, only then barely bind on ourselves the vote for all the things that are praised, if, having let go of the evil and pushed it away and left it to stay down somewhere — the thing not yet rid of the reputation of worthlessness and profane abomination — we leap up onto the very boasts of virtue. And so our Lord Jesus Christ says, 'Amen, amen I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of the heavens.' You understand, then, that the Savior has commanded us to choose the righteousness beyond that according to the Law. And knowing the thing to be best, the wise Paul writes, 'If anyone else thinks to have confidence in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,'