Lead talent Christ stops sin’s mouth; tin stone; pearl

—and is seen distinguished with the dignities of the Godhead. For God has highly exalted him, and has gifted him the name above every name. And he shuts the mouth of the sin, according to what is hymned in the Psalms: ‘And every lawlessness will stop up its mouth’; having been told to cry down against those who have sinned from weakness, and have been justified in faith. For ‘God is the one justifying; who is the one condemning?’ And Christ having suffered for us, how was it consistent that we ourselves still exact the sentences for our own trespasses?

Palladius: You have spoken most rightly. For we have been justified in Christ, and have very well beaten off the cry-down from the sin. And most gladly I would learn from you, for what cause Christ is signaled as in lead, and the lawlessness appears as in a woman’s person.

Cyril: And indeed this too is easy to see from the holy Letters; for Christ is already likened also to many others, through the quality of the things signaled, of the things understood upon him.

Palladius: What sort of thing do you say?

Cyril: He has become for us a base and security, and an unshaken under-step, and an unbreakable foundation; and because of this he has been named a stone. For ‘Behold,’ he says, ‘I set into Zion’s foundations a chosen stone, a cornerstone, honorable. And the one believing upon him will not be put to shame.’ And again he himself is the bright and worth-admiring treasure of the Church, our spiritual wealth; and he has been said a pearl. For ‘The kingdom of the heavens,’ he says, ‘is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls. And finding one very precious pearl, going away, he was selling all things as many as he had, and bought it.’ And he has joined us through himself to God and Father, having dissolved the enmity in his body, just as it has been written; and indeed he said toward the Father and God in the heavens, concerning those justified in the faith unto him: ‘Father, I wish that just as I and you are one, so also they may be one in us.’ He has been called for this reason a tin stone, for with tin the things being glued are glued. And God said somewhere through Zechariah’s voice, showing us his own Son, as about to come and go according to times: ‘And they will rejoice, and will see the tin stone in Zerubbabel’s hand.’ Thus therefore here too he says him a talent of lead. And what the reason of this is, I will say again. Unapproved silver melted mixed with lead is very well thoroughly cleansed, the lead naturally snatching into itself the filth of what is being burned together; some such thing Christ has also fulfilled unto us ourselves. For being unapproved he was mixed with us bodily and spiritually together, and thus thereafter melted down the filth in us. For he takes up our sins, so that we through him and through him may be both clean and made bright. And