Wise in Law rejected the Word; perfection overturns intelligible Amalek

‘that We are wise, and the Lord’s law is with us? In vain has a false measuring-line come to be for scribes; wise men were shamed, they were terrified and were caught; what wisdom is in them, that they rejected the Lord’s word?’ But for us who do not reject the saving word (for we gladly accept the proclamations through Christ) he himself has become wisdom from God. We have therefore outstripped even in understanding those in law, and we who are catechized with the narrations according to law, having eaten the bread before God, have been trained both to speak and to think the better things. For Jethro gives counsel, and Moses listens. And Jethro would reasonably be as it were a person of those from the nations, and Moses of those according to law.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly.

Cyril: Therefore the perfection through Christ, and the power of the mysteries according to him, both makes us wise, and makes us to be seen better than death, overturning the hidden and intelligible Amalek—that is, Satan. And the Psalmist was saying most rightly: ‘For in God we will make power, and he himself will set at naught those who afflict us.’ And again concerning those made bright in faith he was crying out as toward him: ‘For you are the boast of their power, and in your name they will rejoice the whole day.’ For we boast being saved in Christ, and having him as a weapon of good pleasure, according to the Scriptures. And of this again a type and clear image for us would come to be what is written at the end of the second of Kingdoms; and it holds thus: ‘And David rose early, and a word of the Lord came to be toward Gad the prophet the seer toward David, saying: Go and speak toward David, saying: Thus says the Lord: Three things I will say upon you; choose for yourself one from them, and I will do it for you. And Gad went in toward David, and announced, and said to him: Choose for yourself to come to be, either three years famine come upon you in your land, or three months you flee before your enemies, and they will be pursuing you; or three days death come to be in your land. Now therefore know and see what word I shall answer to the one who sent me. And David said to Gad: Narrow things are for me exceedingly from everywhere even the three; I will fall then into the Lord’s hands, because his compassions are many exceedingly; but into humans’ hands I will not fall. And David chose for himself the death; and the days were of wheat harvest, and the Lord gave death in Israel from morning until the hour of the meal; and the breaking began in the people, and there died from the Lord’s people from Dan even until Beersheba seventy thousand men; and the angel of God stretched out his hand unto Jerusalem to destroy it; and the Lord was comforted upon the evil, and said to the angel destroying in the people: Enough; let go your hand. And the angel of God was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebu—