On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and Truth, Book 6

Cling to God alone; love with whole soul; after courage, foundations§1

Faith the foundation; first commandment; jealous God§2

Fathers’ sins; vain Name; idols; Trinity without polytheism§3

3to race with ancestral stumblings. For we do not say somewhere that fathers’ sins strike down upon those who have altogether done nothing wrong, although God has cried out expressly: ‘Fathers will not die on behalf of children, nor children on behalf of fathers; each will die in his own sin.’ (Deuteronomy 24:16) Yet if those from them should follow the fathers’ judgments, and be zealots of ancestral impiety, the wrath somehow stretches even unto them. And even if somehow from inborn love-of-humanity the God above all should let go the first ones from needing to be punished, yet late he brings upon the second or the third the anger fitting and owed at the beginnings to the profane race. He was therefore frightening them unto needing to fear, naming himself a jealous God; yet he was also confirming them otherwise unto faith, promising to do mercy unto thousands to those who love him. And he was adding to these a neighboring and sister commandment: ‘For you will not take,’ he says, ‘the name of the Lord your God upon a vain thing; for the Lord will not cleanse the one taking his name upon a vain thing.’ (Exodus 20:7) Some were doing this, fastening the calling of God upon woods and stones, and unlearnedly bringing down the name above every name unto a handiwork and toil of a human hand. And God said somewhere concerning them through Isaiah’s voice: ‘A craftsman choosing a wood stood it in a measure, and in glue shaped it, and made it as a form of a man, and as beauty of a human to stand it in a house; he cut wood from the thicket which the Lord planted, and rain lengthened it, that it might be for humans unto burning, and taking from it he was warmed, and having burned they baked breads upon them; yet the remainder they worked into gods, and they worship them.’ (Isaiah 44:13–20) And after other things: ‘Know that their heart is ash, and they wander.’ (Isaiah 44:20) These take the Lord’s name upon a vain thing. Yet I think those who have already come to be outside a diabolic snare, and have known the true God, must not kneel unto cold thoughts, nor honor the ignoble in this at least with empty talk, being dragged opposite unto needing to know other gods, or to think that any exist at all beside the one and truly. ‘For even if some are called gods and lords, both in heaven and upon earth, yet for us one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we unto him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him; and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things, and we in him.’ (1 Corinthians 8:5-6) For we least of all contract the nature of the Godhead in a Jewish way unto only the one God and Father, yet widening as it were unto a holy and consubstantial Trinity; and indeed also distinguishing by quality of persons and property of hypostasis, we contract again unto one God, because of the sameness of substance, and we will serve him, we will worship him, calling upon the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ‘For there will not be,’ he says, ‘other gods besides me;’ and again: ‘The Lord your God you will wor

One God; no limping both ways; no second baptism after apostasy§4

4ship, and him alone you will serve.’ And since there is one God the Father, and one Lord the Son, and one Holy Spirit proceeding, we will neither carry out the one God from true lordship; nor indeed will we send out the one who is truly and by nature Lord from being God; for lordship will altogether follow the Godhead according to nature; and again to lordship according to truth, the glory of the Godhead.

Palladius: Most rightly and most wisely you have spoken.

Cyril: One God therefore, Palladius, we will know, and upon him we will count no one at all, making the unholy and profane double-souledness, as boastful and truly insolent, farthest from our own soul, in order that a sacred word may not also cry out upon us ourselves: ‘How long will you limp upon both hams? either Baal, or God God.’ (1 Kings 18:21) For we must be seen single-turned, not other-minded and shaken, falling most ready into what is not fitting; as for limping upon both and loving to be tossed, I would say it is of the most godless things. And indeed the ancient law also honors with death the one not secure, for it says: ‘The one sacrificing to gods will be wiped out, except to the Lord alone.’ (Exodus 22:20) Therefore to lift oneself against the divine glory, and to distribute the things fitting it and it alone to whomever someone might choose, and to favor with them those not gods by nature, would be a most shameful of sicknesses, or rather an accusation and indictment of the last impiety. It is necessary therefore to have been freed from such things, the one at least who is truly genuine and God-loving, and not only cleansing the heart, but not even so much as to say ever sending through the tongue the idol name. For it has been written that ‘And you will not remember a name of other gods, nor will it be heard from your mouth.’ (Exodus 23:13) For what it is shameful to know, it is not without penalty to speak. And having chosen to honor the genuine in faith everywhere, it is fitting to remember blessed Paul writing thus: ‘For it is impossible that those once enlightened, and having tasted a good utterance of God, and powers of a coming age, and having fallen aside, be renewed again unto repentance.’ (Hebrews 6:4) For those once brought unto partaking of the heavenly and divine grace through the holy baptism, and having received the true and life-giving word concerning resurrection and Christ’s kingdom, if they should choose to run back toward what was at the beginnings, and to run under the first sickness, they will not be renewed toward cleansing through a second baptism; ‘For their unbelief will not abolish God’s faith (Romans 3:3),’ as divine Paul says. Nor because some have despised going backward the divine grace will we write down the insecure; yet rather the Judge of all will subject to penalties those not declining to slide down unto this impiety, as having trampled the Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant common, and having insulted the Spirit of grace, in whom (Hebrews 10:29)

Pulling down idols, and the blessing of bread, wine, and water§5

5they were sanctified, and have become sharers of the divine nature. For just as a soldier who has thrown away the shield and fled the war must not be honored with second sealings, but already be punished, and pay accounts of unmanliness; in the same manner, I think, those so insulting a reverend and admirable grace must not be honored with a second gift of the Spirit, the first having been set aside, but already it is fitting they lie under penalties. For that those once enlightened must come unto this judgment and steadiness of reasonings—to know one God by nature, and to abominate those introducing something other beside this, and to make finest of desires the leaping upon idols, and shaking down temples, and counting the Greeks’ worships nothing—an ancient word will also teach us. For it has been written in Numbers: ‘And the Lord spoke toward Moses on the west of Moab beside the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you will say toward them: You are crossing the Jordan into Canaan’s land (Numbers 33:51), and you will destroy all who dwell in the land before your face. And you will lift out their lookouts, and all their cast idols you will destroy them, and all their steles you will lift out.’ You understand that those who have passed the Jordan must make altars and precincts from the midst, and pry up without care the idols themselves and steles? as for allotting sparing perhaps to such evils, it would become a clear indication of not having been fixed well, nor dedicating the heart unaccused to God, although he says clearly concerning the godless and evil: ‘You will not worship their gods, nor will you serve according to their works, but with a taking-down you will take down, and crushing you will crush their steles, and you will serve the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread, and your wine, and your water; and I will turn weakness away from you; there will not be barren, nor sterile upon your land; I will fill up the number of your days.’ (Exodus 23:24) For it is not unclear that for those very well fixed and from a healthy mind clinging to the God of all, and having practiced to make a clear demonstration of the matter—the shaking down of altars and steles, and playthings of humans corrupted in mind—it will be a procurer of divine gifts.

Palladius: True.

Cyril: For if indeed you should take down the hand-made things, he says, and should serve God, having hated the customs beside those ones, ‘I will bless your bread, and your wine, and your water.’ (Exodus 23:24–26) The word is mystical and deep; for for those genuine toward God, the partaking of Christ’s mysteries will be unto spiritual blessing, and the grace through the holy baptism. Yet for those still double-souled, moved unto apostasy, wrath and condemnation; and what of the terrible things is the sharing of the spiritual blessing not? and this, (1 Corinthians 10:16)

Worthy Eucharist; smash high places; do not copy nations’ rites§6

6I think, is what wise Paul also said, that ‘The one eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body (1 Corinthians 11:27–28). Yet let a human test himself,’ he says, ‘and then eat from the bread, and drink from the cup;’ (1 Corinthians 11:28) The partaking of the holy mysteries will therefore be unto blessing, he says, for those at least who are truly most God-loving. And they will be freed from softening—that is, from being ready to be sick with what is by nature unjust, and carrying off unto unmanliness; yet neither will there be barren among them, he says, nor sterile. For every God-loving and holy soul is most fertile, and leafy with holy fruits—I mean again the boasts from virtue.

Palladius: So it is.

Cyril: And not allowing to have the heart easy to shake, he skillfully turns us toward needing to choose what stands firm unto faith, and securely unto piety; for sometimes educating by fitting reasonings unto the better, he commands to be eager away from—or rather to turn away altogether, as procurer of ruin—the sacrificing to idols or worshiping, showing such a sickness full of the last slander, or rather of the highest impiety; and sometimes also setting fear—I mean that of being punished—as it were some pedagogue and noble guard for us, he turns us from every side unto what pleases him. And indeed in Deuteronomy blessed Moses says: ‘And these are the ordinances and the judgments which you will keep to do upon the land which the Lord the God of your fathers gives you in a lot all the days which you live upon the earth. With destruction you will destroy all the places in which the nations served their gods there, whom you inherit, upon the high mountains, and upon the dunes, and under a leafy tree. And you will dig down their altars, and smash their steles, and cut out their groves, and the carved things of their gods you will burn with fire, and you will destroy their name from that place.’ (Deuteronomy 12:1-3) The wise and select of Greeks, and poets especially, name some mountain-nymphs and tree-nymphs, or demons. And there are those who having chosen to honor the gods beside themselves with the heights according to place, setting altars on mountains, were eager to sacrifice oxen, and having settled around the more well-grown of the trees groves and images of demons, were using sheep-slaughters. Yet it was necessary that those come to be under God who is according to truth and by nature, dreading nothing, shake down the playthings of the wanderers, and go as far as possible from the customs beside those ones. Therefore he says again: ‘And if the Lord your God should wipe out the nations unto whom you go there to inherit their land, from your face, and you should inherit them, and settle in their land, take heed to yourself, lest you seek to follow along with them after they have been wiped out from your face; you will not seek their gods, saying, How do these nations do to their

No child-sacrifice; false prophet dies; God tests love§7

7gods, I will also do; you will not do thus to the Lord your God; for the abominations which the Lord hated they did to their gods, because they also burn their sons and their daughters in fire to their gods.’ Well does the lawgiver forbid altogether the imitation of the wanderers, and very well commands to stand off from the merciless slaughter of children. And he convicts as destroyers and ruiners of humanity the blood-loving and falsely-named gods, who even savagely dishonor the laws of necessary affection, for the sake of what seems good to them; ‘For God created the all unto being, and the generations of the world are saving, and there is not a kingdom of Hades upon earth. Yet by envy of a devil death entered into the world.’ (Wisdom 1:14) And the divine will overturns death, and dissolves corruption; and hates that the things that are should not be; for he created the all unto being, according as it has been written. Yet those netted unto wandering by the demons’ greediness bring forward to Satan as it were seasonings, and of the most useful and sweet-smelling incense, the destruction of those come to be unto life, and the death of those created unto being. Most skillfully therefore he wished to show that the customs beside those ones are full of the last slander, and nature being wronged, and the ordinances of much-prayed-for love-of-children being trampled, very well hustling the noble and evil-hating mind of the hearers unto needing to honor and choose swiftly whatever he himself would wish and say. And these things were legislated of old unto overturning of the unholiness beside those ones. Yet he also defines death for the one wishing to persuade away the one who has been fixed, and who has received in a God-loving way the knowledge of the truth. For he said thus again: ‘And if a prophet should rise among you or a dreamer of a dream, and should give you a sign or wonder, and the sign or the wonder should come which he spoke toward you, saying: Let us go and serve other gods whom you have not known, you will not hear the words of that prophet or of that dreamer of that dream, because the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love your God from your whole heart, and from your whole soul; behind the Lord your God you will go, and him you will fear, and his commandments you will keep, and his voice you will hear, and him you will serve, and to him you will be added. And that prophet or that dreamer of the dream will die; for he spoke to make you wander away from the Lord your God.’ (Wisdom of Solomon 1:13–14) How holy and fitting to God the law! For if indeed for murderers of bodies death must follow altogether and in every way according to laws, how would the one bringing the ruinous wandering upon a soul, and casting the better than body into pits of destruction, according to the Savior’s own voice, not reasonably be in danger? That the deceiver and buffoon must have the justice upon blood done, God judged right (Wisdom of Solomon 2:24) (Deuteronomy 13:1–5) (Matthew 10:28);

Death for apostasy; love God above kin; broken cisterns§8

8and he votes the equal penalty also upon the easily-carried and light mind of those subjected to such things. For when it was possible easily to flee, he says, waking up toward the true, for what did he make the voluntary running-off unto what wrongs? ‘And if there should be found among you in one of your cities which the Lord your God gives you, a man or woman who will do the evil opposite the Lord your God, to pass by his covenant, and going away they should serve other gods, and worship them—the sun or the moon, or any of those from the cosmos of the heaven, which he did not command you—and it was not announced to you, and you will seek very much, and behold the word has become true, this abomination has come to be in Israel; and you will lead out that human, or that woman, who did this evil deed, and you will stone them with stones, and they will die; upon two witnesses or upon three witnesses the one dying will die; he will not die upon one witness; and the hand of the witnesses will be upon him first to put him to death, and the hand of all the people at the last; and you will lift out the evil from yourselves;’ (Deuteronomy 17:2–7) For when God has been wronged concerning his own worship, to pity is not secure. And altogether harmful is not to be soft at the right time toward unmanly mutual-affections; and this, I think, is what the Lord said: ‘The one loving father or mother above me is not worthy of me.’ (Matthew 10:37) For let even then a law of affection go away, and let a power of natural love depart, and every thing whatever of the things coming unto love-of-humanity, and that we may speak thus, let God be served through a pious hardness. Or do you not say it is holy that those having unexcused the apostasy must be punished without pity, as grieving the glory beyond all, and not declining to insult without guard him whom it was somehow better to gladden with eagernesses unto steadfastness?

Palladius: Holy—for how not?

Cyril: And I will remember him saying through to those more ancient: ‘What wrong did your fathers find in me, that they stood away from me far, and went behind the vain things, and were made vain?’ (Jeremiah 2:5) And as it were astonished at the undiluted unlearnings of those from Israel, he says somehow thus: ‘Heaven was astonished upon this, and the earth shuddered still more very much, says the Lord; because my people did two evil things. Me they left—a spring of living water—and they dug for themselves crushed cisterns, which will not be able to hold water.’ (Jeremiah 2:12–13) For I would think, and very reasonably, that those standing off from the worship unto God, serving the creation beside the Creator and Maker, or still leaping down toward a more shameful wandering, worshiping the works of their own hands, miss every good-counsel; although it was easy, if indeed they should choose to think rightly, to look down upon the beauty of the nature above all and unspeakable from the creation of a world, and from the good-order of the things come to be to understand the orderer and leader and craftsman of this all. Yet having spat upon the so reverend and admirable judgment, some of the (Romans 1:25)

Wood ‘father’; fake piety; God near sees all§9

9more ancient exchanged golden things for bronze, according to the poets beside Greeks. For having let go the needing to worship God who is according to nature, they turned childishly toward useless random-worship; pouring shame and laughter upon their own head, and having chosen a self-called falling-away from the help from above. And indeed God said: ‘As a thief’s shame when he is caught, so will the sons of Israel themselves be shamed, and their kings, and their rulers, and their priests, and their prophets; to the wood they said, You are my father, and to the stone: You begot me. And they turned backs upon me, and not their faces; and in the time of their evils they will say: Rise and save us. And where are your gods, whom you made for yourself? If they will rise and save you in the time of your ill-treatment? because according to the number of your cities were your gods, Judah, and according to the number of Jerusalem’s ways they were sacrificing to Baal. Why do you speak toward me? All you have lawlessly acted unto me, says the Lord.’

Palladius: Terrible truly is the matter, friend.

Cyril: Yet someone sometimes of those finishing among us, not yet very much fixed, yet having practiced a plastered and bastard love unto Christ, and such as putting around himself as it were a fleece the seeming to be God-loving, will be a bitter and unholy beast, both a monkey and facing-both-ways, so as at home and by night—I mean the having-escaped-notice—to cling to the demons’ worships, and somehow to think reasonably that he himself also can run past God, and out-reason the mind of the unspeakable nature. And one would show even very without-toil that the one for whom these things are present to think has chosen the more shameful things of the Greeks’ silliness. For to the wise beside Greeks it seemed to hold rightly that the sun, being created and begotten—the great light-bearer, and made upon this very thing from beside God—sees all and hears all; for they thought that what has been taken along in a God’s rank must be rich with the dignities of the divine nature. And a dignity of the highest nature is to know and look down upon the all. Yet those ones in these things; and to us God was calling of old: ‘I am a God drawing near, says the Lord, and not a God from far; will anything be hidden from me?’ (Jeremiah 23:23) For nothing would escape the one who is truly God by nature. And let blessed David mystagogue saying: ‘Understand already, senseless ones among the people, and fools, sometime be thoughtful; the one who planted the ear, will he not hear? and the one who shaped eyes, will he not understand?’ (Psalm 94:8-9) Some were saying, I think, from ununderstanding: ‘The Lord will not see, nor will the God of Jacob understand.’ (Psalm 94:7) Or is it not altogether silly to say that the supplier of knowledge neither knows, nor to think that the one giving the matter to those come to be from beside him does not hear (Psalm 94:7)?

Worship God alone; no omens; hear the prophet like Moses—Christ§10

10Palladius: Altogether unpersuasive.

Cyril: One must therefore worship the Lord God alone and whole-turned, according to the Scriptures, and no one other beside him. For it has been written that ‘You will be perfect opposite the Lord your God.’ (Deuteronomy 18:9–15) And spiritual perfectness is the being settled in faith, and blameless unto worship, and the unaccused beauty of the love unto God.

Palladius: So I say.

Cyril: Therefore, Palladius, those who have least chosen to worship other gods, or the creation beside the one who created—yet somehow being persuaded by the false-prophecies of the idol-servers—will we free from blame and accusation? or safely show free of the charges unto apostasy to those at least who are truly genuine?

Palladius: Not at all.

Cyril: And star-sorceries and omen-takings and false-prophecies, and demonic trickings, would fit, I think somewhere, only and perhaps those who have most outlandishly been eager to settle into mind the inglorious and cursed idolatry.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly. Since indeed a divine word also charges us that we must abominate the shamefulness unto these at least. And it holds thus: ‘And if you should enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you will not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations; there will not be found in you one purifying his son and his daughter in fire, one prophesying a prophecy, and taking omens, and observing birds, a sorcerer, singing a charm, a ventriloquist, and wonder-watcher, and asking the dead; for every one doing these is an abomination to the Lord your God.’ (Deuteronomy 18:9-12) And after other things again he says: ‘You will be perfect before the Lord your God; these nations, whom you will inherit them, these will hear omen-takings and prophecies; yet not thus has the Lord your God given to you. A prophet from your brothers like me the Lord your God will raise; [him you will hear according to all as many as you asked from beside the Lord your God] at Horeb on the day of the assembly.’ (Deuteronomy 18:15-16)

Cyril: Well done, friend. For we will follow not wonder-watchers and dead-diviners, nor will we receive flights of birds as some true matter, even if they should be borne toward the right, or then unto the left; even if toward evening and toward dawn; for these things are of the last folly. Yet making Christ the prophet for us and among us the leader of the all, from him we will take the knowledge of the necessary things, and we will sit beside him, saying a long wail to the demons’ false-speakings and ‘farewell.’ For to God alone as it were will the needing to make-alive and to rule the all be laid down naturally and specially (John 6:14);

Foreknowledge God’s alone; demons are liars; do not credit oracles§11

11in the same manner, I think, also the having knowledge of all things. And proper to his nature is clearly to know the things about to be, and to have as it were gathered in himself the form of the all. Or is the word upon this not both wise and exact?

Palladius: Very much so.

Cyril: Toward him then we will sin, and toward the highest glory the writing will, if we believe that in profane and unclean spirits there are the things through which he himself would be beautified and is exceedingly splendid. It is already time for those disposed thus to suppose emptily also that Satan can make-alive, and even is a craftsman, if we will gift to him the most exceptional things of all and those specially laid down for God’s nature, and say they have grown upon him; and a proper and exceptional good of the highest nature is the knowledge of the things about to be. Or is what I say not true?

Palladius: Very much. For he says through Isaiah’s voice toward some assigning to the creation the things of God: ‘Remember these things, and groan; repent, you who have wandered, turn in the heart, and remember former things from the age, that I am God, and there is not still besides me one announcing beforehand the last things before they come to be, and at once it was finished, and I said: All my counsel will stand, and all as many as I have counseled I will do.’ (Isaiah 46:8–10) For he was setting for the hearers as it were an indication of there not being any other by nature and truly God beside him—the being able to announce the last things before they come to be.

Cyril: Well done, Palladius. And I would still wish us looking around well at the true also to examine this: in what manner still, if we finish at all among those wishing to live rightly and evangelically, will we follow the flatteries of false-prophecies and indeed also, having attended as if some word from beside them were true, not mark off the Savior’s voice as needing to be false? For he said somewhere also toward the boastful and insolent Jews: ‘You are from your father the devil, and you wish to do your father’s desires (John 8:44); that one was a human-killer from a beginning, and in the truth he has not stood, because there is not truth in him; whenever he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own things, because he is a liar, and the father of it.’ In what manner then will a liar be unerring? and how not altogether and in every way misspeaking, the one not having stood in the truth? Is it then clear, Palladius, already somehow to everyone, that assigning the true to the demons’ voices we will vote against Christ the false-myth, and will say that the truth speaks falsely?

Palladius: We are in danger.

Cyril: And otherwise—for I would add also this to what has been said—we have been taught from beside Christ not to receive the words of the unclean spirits, even if

Christ silences true-speaking demons; Leviticus against mediums§12

12they should sometime wish to bring forward the truth untrodden by them and most unaccustomed.

Palladius: And how do you say?

Cyril: Or do you not hear the holy evangelists having written that the demons, crying out something piercing and great, were coming toward Christ: ‘Ah, what to us and to you, Jesus Nazarene? You have come to destroy us; we know who you are, the Holy One of God. Yet he rebuking,’ (Mark 1:24–25) it says, ‘was not allowing them to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ.’ (Luke 4:41) And yet why ever—for according to likelihood someone might hesitate—did Christ rebuke those crying out the true? Yet the thing done was somehow beneficial unto us. For that one must not cling to the words from beside those ones, even if they should wish to cry out the truth itself, and to say the things clearly genuine, we are taught through this; for weaving sometimes the lie with the truth, they harm the hearers, not in another manner, I think, than as one might watch those who by mixture of honey take away the perception of bitter things, and by intertwining of sweet things wish to steal what sometimes grieves.

Palladius: Altogether slippery then is attending to the oracle-speakers’ trickings.

Cyril: God honors the matter with death, and writes it among the last evils. And he said thus in Leviticus: ‘And a soul which should follow after ventriloquists or enchanters, so as to whore after them, I will set my face upon that soul, and I will destroy it from its people; and you will be holy, because I am holy—Lord your God.’ (Leviticus 20:6) And after other things again: ‘And a man or woman who should become among them a ventriloquist or enchanter, with death let them be put to death, and with stones stone them; they are liable.’ (Leviticus 20:27) For first he refuses that any must love to follow the buffoon star-prophecies, or then necromancies, saying the matter is as far as possible from holy-fitting citizenship, and altogether unfitting for those clinging to God; and he defines death of the second, and says even they themselves are liable; not allowing pity to be allotted from our side to those who have already been driven unto this baseness, as to become a snare of death, and a hunt of guiltless souls, and a door of ruin, and a trapdoor of Hades, and what not of such evils? Yet I think somehow it is wise and unalloyed to understand that God would not have fixed so bitter a justice running beyond every evil upon those able to know and speak to others the things about to be, if indeed they truly had to speak of the things about to be. For a myth of the truth is not punished, yet the speaking-falsely is accursed; yet if someone should be caught doing this, and this as from God, he has somehow slandered the unspeakable nature itself, and assigning the lie to the truth as fitting it, having endured a justice equal to the charges he will go away unto that very much. For the

How to test a prophet, and the question of Samuel at Endor§13

13word rebukes not the things practiced from God—may it not be—as God’s; because they were not making the foretelling free of a lie. Yet since not having taken from truth they speak whatever they should wish, in this at least they have also missed according to themselves.

Palladius: Will we then in this discern whether God is the one giving oracles, or then those ones speak their own things?

Cyril: Very much; for a divine law will also straightway persuade us unto this. For God said thus in Deuteronomy: ‘And if someone should say in a heart: How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? as many as that prophet should speak upon the Lord’s name (Deuteronomy 18:21–22), and the word should not come to be which the Lord has not spoken, in impiety the prophet has spoken; you will not hold off from him.’ You hear that he says the failures in the things foretold will be a clear demonstration of something not having been oracled from God? for the truth loves truth. Some such thing he says through Jeremiah’s voice: ‘I am a God drawing near, says the Lord, and not a God from far; if a human will be hidden in hidden places, will I not also see him? Do I not fill the heaven and the earth? says the Lord. Have I heard what the prophets speak—false things which the prophets prophesy in my name?’ (Jeremiah 23:23–25) Then through the middle having accused not a little those who have despised the divine laws, he gives the truth as a clear demonstration of both the things from God and not. For he said again: ‘The prophet in whom is his dream, and in whom is my word toward him, let him narrate my word upon truth.’ (Jeremiah 23:28) As if something should appear having missed the truth, it would show at once its begetter false-speaking, and speaking from his own heart, not from the Lord’s mouth, according as it has been written.

Palladius: Do you wish we should set something of the necessary things unto a test, or leaving it go wherever your word should carry us?

Cyril: And indeed, Palladius, of the necessary things unto benefit our word is not short; as for not saying the seeming freely I would accuse, and very reasonably; speak then having hesitated at nothing.

Palladius: If some do not speak from the Lord’s mouth, yet belch, as you say, the things from a heart, in what manner then did that ventriloquist woman bring forward holy Samuel already dead to Saul, clarifying for him the end of the things about to be for him? for some think these things have been done thus, and not otherwise.

Cyril: And do you yourself think it does not hold thus, and will you reckon this better, or then do you say emptily that the righteous one’s soul was truly forced out, and came when a little woman was calling (1 Samuel 28:7–14)?

Necromancy not of God; saints’ souls not demons’ playthings§14

14Palladius: I would not have to say clearly. Yet the test, I think somewhere, would show the true.

Cyril: You have spoken well. Therefore let that be busied with before the others for now—whether these things are busied with and wondered and finished through God, or then through evil spirits for whom the practice is a care.

Palladius: And who would come unto this absurdity of reasonings, so as to think that necromancers and ventriloquists and enchanters wonder these things through God? For I will remember the law determining the last penalty for everyone who has chosen to do this. Then how is it not stricken to understand that the one condemned with death is not out of tune with God? for he will not yet fight against his own laws.

Cyril: You think most excellently. And will we think the saints’ souls freed from bodies have been thrown aside, and are counted worthy of no word, and have already come unto this misery, so as even to lie under evil and unclean spirits, and unwillingly to follow those turning them easily wherever they should happen to choose? And yet wise John composing for us the book of the Apocalypse, which has also been honored with the Fathers’ votes, was affirming clearly that he had seen the saints’ souls under the divine altar itself. And if they even drag them from the upper dwellings themselves, and bring them down unsparingly from the most holy places, nothing hindering, heaven is walkable for all the demons, and paradise’s gate is opened for them according to likelihood; and the flaming sword also yields, as it seems, and not only of entrance and exit for them; but if they should wish also to bring out some of those come inside from free-speech; then is this not to tear down the hope in Christ, and to show thrice-wretched the life of those admired?

Palladius: It seems so.

Cyril: And indeed it is not unclear. And how was it better for admirable Paul, to depart, and to be with Christ? For if indeed we are about, having gone away from earthly things, and having come to be with Christ, to lie under the opposing spirits, the faith has been emptied, according to what has been written, and everyone, I think, will then vote that being at home in a body differs incomparably from being with Christ, and what is more unbearable upon this; for still making our pastimes in this life, we have not been yoked under the devil’s wills, yet we tread rather upon snakes and scorpions, and upon all the enemy’s power, according to the Savior’s voice. Then having come to be with Christ, how will we be in worse things? and how does he himself speak truly saying: ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will not perish unto the age, and no one will snatch them from my hands; the Father (Leviticus 20:27) (Revelation 6:9) (Philippians 1:23) (1 Corinthians 15:14) (Luke 10:19) (John 10:27–29)

Father’s hand; Endor narrative begins (1 Samuel 28)§15

15who has given to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch from my Father’s hand?’ And most wise Peter somehow perhaps has cheated the athletes of the piety unto Christ, having written thus: ‘So that even suffering under others according to his will, let them set aside their souls to a faithful Creator.’ (1 Peter 4:19) And if Satan forces a soul set aside to God, leading and carrying wherever he should choose according to times, how would the one standing before the saints be understood faithful, having taken as it were each one’s spirit as a deposit? These things then are nonsense, and a terrible stroke, to think according to truth that a prophet’s voice was dragged down by cold charms of a most foul little woman from the places allotted to her.

Palladius: What then would the word of the contemplations be? for I think one must not even so much as say such shameful things, even if catching them in bare thoughts.

Cyril: Setting beside the sacred Letter itself, we will then make clear the things coming unto mind, holding everywhere tightly of what is fitting. And it holds thus: ‘And Samuel died, and all Israel beat him, and they bury him in Arimathea, in his city; and Saul lifted out the ventriloquists, and the knowers from the land. And the foreigners gather, and come and encamp into Shunem. And Saul gathers every man of Israel, and they encamp into Gilboa. And Saul saw the foreigners’ (1 Samuel 28:5) camp, and feared, and his heart was astonished very much. And Saul asked through the Lord, and the Lord did not answer him in the dreams, and in the clear things, and in the prophets. And Saul said to his servants: Seek for me a ventriloquist woman, and I will go toward her, and seek in her. And his servants said toward him: Behold a ventriloquist woman in Endor. And Saul covered himself; and put around other garments, and goes himself and two men with him, and they come toward the woman by night, and he said to her: Divine then for me in the ventriloquist, and lead up for me whomsoever I should say to you. And the woman said to him: Behold you know as many as Saul did how he wiped out the ventriloquists, and the knowers from the land, and why do you snare my soul, to put it to death? And Saul swore to her, saying: The Lord lives, if injustice will meet you in this word. And the woman said to Saul: Whom shall I lead up for you? And he said: Lead up Samuel for me. And the woman saw Samuel, and cried out with a great voice. And the woman said toward Saul: Why have you out-reasoned me? and you are Saul. And the king said to her: Do not fear; say whom you have seen. And the woman said to him: I have seen gods going up from the earth. And he said to her: What have you known? And she said to him: A man upright going up from the earth, and this one wrapped in a double-cloak. And Saul knew that this is Samuel, and bowed upon his face upon the (1 Samuel 28:3–14)

Endor: demonic idol of Samuel; God may unveil woes even thus§16

16earth, and worshiped him. And Samuel said: Why have you troubled me to lead me up? And Saul said: I am afflicted very much, and the foreigners are warring against me, and God has stood away from me, and has not still heard me, both in hand of the prophets, and in the dreams; and now I have called you to make known to me what I shall do. And Samuel said: Why do you ask me, and the Lord has stood away from you, and has come to be with your neighbor? and the Lord has done to you as the Lord spoke in my hand; and the Lord will tear your kingdom from your hand, and will give it to your neighbor David; because you did not hear the Lord’s voice, and did not fill his wrath’s anger in Amalek, on account of this the Lord has done the word to you on this day; and the Lord will hand over Israel with you into foreigners’ hands, and tomorrow you and your sons with you will fall, and the Lord will give Israel’s camp into foreigners’ hands.’ Is it then still lawful for you to hesitate, that Saul has melted away condemned by his own votes? For since he was fearing the weakness unto battle of those gathered against him, he was claiming to learn the things about to be from God. And when that one was silent, and unveiling nothing, he turns toward grieving the one who has chosen to be silent. And he arrives unto necromancy, although he had wiped out, it says, the knowers—I mean those thinking to know the things about to be. Then he says: ‘Lead up Samuel for me,’ (1 Samuel 28:11) not as if the charm or the magicians’ art were able to bring the holy one’s soul, but as those divinizing always using such a voice; and I have learned that with certain unspeakable words bewitching the demons, and charming water, they look down upon idols and shadows, and as in a mirror shapes of some, the demons perhaps fashionably molding the figures of those said to be brought up. And indeed the little woman said at the beginnings: I see gods going up from the earth. Then after this: ‘And the woman,’ (1 Samuel 28:12) it says, ‘saw Samuel.’ And nothing hard, that in equal and like shape of blessed Samuel a shadow and idol was seen, formed from demonic working. If then someone should think the prophet’s soul was truly called up, and will vote the true for the little woman’s words, since she says she has also seen gods going up from the earth, then let him also gift the lie to the customs of the divination, yet let him think according to truth that there are also some gods of such a rank who have risen from the earth—although God by nature is one and alone.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly. Yet someone, I think, will say: And yet he has spoken true things about to be when Saul was curious. And no small word has been spent by us proving that the truth is not in unclean spirits.

Cyril: For not then. For some unfitting and uncongenial matter is light and darkness, Christ and Belial; yet to those who provoke and are accustomed to grieve, God unveils, and through those by whom one must least sometimes, the things about to be, holy ange

Foreknowledge as firstfruit of wrath; Balaam hired to curse§17

17ls sounding according to likelihood into a human mind, which things if those who have chosen to be curious should learn, they will melt very much, and as it were some firstfruit of the wrath and justice hung over them they undergo the foreknowledge. For upon holy prophets he rests, and often shares, not only the gloomy things alone, and upon which someone having scowled would sit of tears, but also as many as will be for some unto good-cheer and fair-day; yet to unholy and most accursed love-diviners he thoroughly unveils the evils about to be for themselves.

Palladius: And what or from where would the assurance of these things be for us?

Cyril: From the sacred Letters; for a type and manner of mystagogy has been written for us—the things that befell the more ancient. Or do you not know that Balak the of Zippor, the tyrant of Moabites and Midianites, having dreaded Israel’s unconquerable and unbroken multitude, and having believed he would at once be destroyed together with the other nations, was hiring Balaam? ‘Come then,’ saying, ‘curse Israel for me.’ And when the ambassadors had come: ‘Lodge the night,’ he says, ‘and I will answer you a matter which the Lord should speak toward me.’ (Numbers 22:5–12) And seeking cold and demonic dreamlets, and expecting things happening for him perhaps from a charm and also sorcery, he said the Lord would speak to him; for he was pretending to call-upon-God. Yet even if the sacred Letter uses the customary voices of the sorcerers, we would not think, thinking rightly, that God who is by nature and truly sends the true as from love into profane souls, and talks toward a foul man and sorcerer and idolater. Yet, ‘God came,’ it says, ‘toward Balaam, and said to him: What are these humans beside you?’ (Numbers 22:9) And when that one had announced the cause of the arrival, ‘God said,’ it says, ‘toward Balaam: You will not go with them, nor will you curse the people; for it is blessed.’ Behold clearly from God’s person the blessed angel turns away the deceiver and empty-speaker sorcerer from seeking to curse the one blessed beside God, and from setting opposite the votes from above the inventions from human ill-counsel—not as if the curse were strong to wrong, but in order that the one who has unreasonably received such a hope might be clearly and evidently informed, and through him, that Israel would never become catchable for Moabites or Midianites, God shielding and contending, and walling with favors the people clinging to him and having been blessed. Yet these things the divine angel both said and was commanding to do; and when the diviner was baited by the promises of gifts unto needing to walk, having perhaps also truly supposed he would be strong, the blessed angel allows to go, yet was seen in the middle of the road, with a flashing sword, teaching clearly that the war for him is toward both God and angels, if he should wish to curse the blessed ones. And when he had arrived toward the Midianite, he was raising altars, and

Balaam blesses; God scatters false prophecy; stars cannot save§18

18was ordering to sacrifice oxen; yet at once he was a prophet, not the customary and false-speaker, but by a divine and unspeakable power he was turned contrary to hope toward the opposite. For he was cursing not at all, yet was rather blessing Israel, and sends bitter griefs into Balak. And it has been written thus: that ‘Balak was wroth and clapped with his hands, and Balak said toward Balaam: I have called you to curse my enemy, and behold blessing you have blessed this third time. And Balaam said toward Balak: Did I not also speak to your messengers whom you sent toward me, saying: If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I will not be able to pass by the Lord’s word (Numbers 24:10–13) to do it good or evil from myself? as many as God should say to me, these I will say.’ Customary then for the false-diviners also to use voices so deceptive, considering that altogether and in every way they will say the true to those wishing to be curious. Yet understand that saying the exact is foreign to the enchanter’s and magician’s art; and it would sometimes be added from God upon terribly putting to sleep the profane souls by the foretelling of the things about to be.

Palladius: I am persuaded.

Cyril: For that God has hated and loosens such—or rather sorceries and empty-speakings—would become clear when he says: ‘I am the Lord God;’ (Isaiah 44:24) and besides these: ‘Who else will scatter signs of ventriloquists and the prophecies from a heart, turning wise ones backward, and making foolish their counsel, and standing words of his child and making true the counsel of his angels?’ (Isaiah 44:24–26) For the prophecies from a heart he shows stale and false-speaking; yet of his own child—that is Christ—he stands every word; and the counsel of his angels—that is, as many as the heralds of the faith upon him should wish to speak—these he shows all full of truth, witnessing with signs and wonders, and the other workings of the Spirit. And he said somewhere again, reproaching some for the things adulterated by God’s law: ‘Stand then in your charms, and in your much pharmacy, which you were learning from your youth, if you will be able to be benefited; you have toiled in your counsels; let them stand and save you—the astrologers of the heaven, those seeing the stars; let them announce to you what is about to come upon you.’ (Isaiah 47:12–13) You see then how God convicts the cursed star-sorcery as worthy of laughter and altogether useless. And that again the unerring would fit him and him alone, and the readiness unto words about the things expected to be without wandering, hear him saying through Isaiah’s voice: ‘Remember these things, and groan; repent, you who have wandered, turn in the heart, and remember the former things from the age; that I am God, and there is not besides me; announcing beforehand the last things before they come to be, and at once it was finished. And I said:

God alone foretells; fire-purification mocked; Greek myths§19

19All my counsel will stand, and all as many as I wish, I will do.’ Alone then from our side will be laid down for the God beyond all, the being able both clearly to discern, and to foretell without wandering the things about to be; yet otherwise nonsense and old-wives’ little myths, buffooneries and trickings, the things from others, who having corrupted the mind speak the things from their own heart, according as it has been written, and make the lie a starting-point of money-talk.

Palladius: True. For it holds thus, and not otherwise.

Cyril: We will hold off then also from this, and having left a twisted path, we will walk the one unto the straight, clinging to God single-turned, and voting the truth for the saints’ voices.

Palladius: Very much.

Cyril: And why will we not also count that hated besides these, and say it is a portion of Greek godlessness—the loving somehow to be purified around by fire and water, and by some other such manners?

Palladius: And very much. Therefore also a divine oracle said clearly: ‘There will not be found in you one purifying his son or his daughter in fire.’ (Isaiah 46:10)

Cyril: How well the law was sounding these things to us, and refused the doing! For I think the matter is full of emptiness, and lacking the all-best and wise reasoning; for in what manner will fire’s nature benefit us? and torches running around in a circle how would they lift out the one who has sinned? For of bronze or then of some other such material, fire’s cast melts out the filth. Yet of mind and soul’s profanation, in what manner will it make disappear? Are these things then not already of laughter, and inventions of empty thoughts?

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: And I would say as most sweetly to the select of Greeks, who have become inventors of such shameful practices, and introducers to the others: What then doing, O noble and wise ones, that Tityos whom you say was born from earth, you punish in Hades, setting vultures around him as diners of the livers, because having admired a little woman’s beauty he was sick with the desire? And for Tantalus you say a stone has been hung, and you mythologize to the young that he pays justices of an unbridled tongue? And having bound Ixion with long and always-moving turns of a wheel, you say he endures a penalty upon this, not out of tune with the gods from your deceit; yet yourselves and others although having fallen into terrible and most out-of-place evils, you free with fire and shoots, as you somehow think, and gift the washing-off of the charges, although very much condemned. And for Tityos, tell me, and those just now named, have you set a hard and inescapable justice—the perhaps coming to be in lack of fire? And indeed the most thieving according to you and carrier of fire to humans—I mean Prometheus, if somehow that one also was at all—was rich with fire’s use, and before (Deuteronomy 18:10) (Jeremiah 23:16)

True defilement of the soul, which fire and water cannot wash§20

20the others; yet the myths beside you sing that he also has been wrapped in unbreakable bonds; and indeed they say hook-clawed vultures also flew upon him, as indeed also upon Tityos, terrible and wild punishers. Give then, give the cleansing through fire, not to those alone, but if also some of you should rage upon others’ daughters, or wives, doing what is not lawful, let these also having been freed from the charge by fire escape together with the stumblings the indictments; yet upon others at once courts and writings, and the evil-hating of the laws is shaken, yet yourselves practicing the all-shameful and foul-smelling life without discernment, you think to free from every pollution, having been deceived by cold and childish playthings, and taking as helpers unto this those most foul of the others; who also together with the figure, having let go the man-fitting word, are brought down toward women’s habits and manners both in bodies and judgments. Then in what manner will such a one purify? for being disposed thus, you will do some such thing, as if someone also seemed to perfume himself, yet having been smeared with some most unordered mire, then should think to set right and very well what had come unto his mind.

Palladius: You speak well; and I would agree with you speaking true things.

Cyril: And I pass by the folly in this at least, and will be silent for now about the servants of the cleansing, yet I go again unto the matter itself; and indeed I will also say that one would catch the worshipers of the demons living most mindlessly and most unlearnedly, neither understanding the manner of the wiping-out, nor indeed having exacted what ever pollution and profanation is according to truth; for adulteries and the still wilder passions than these, male-intercourses and murders, slanders and envies, false-prophecies and deceits, trickery and false-oath, would be stains and pollutions defiling soul and body, and having a hard-to-wash-out casting-out. Yet neither fire, nor springs of waters would wipe these things. And having left, I think somewhere, even only to know that they spot a soul, and make the mind full of foul smell, they stand off from dead bodies, and abominate the corrupted, dishonoring nature’s laws. And indeed also of foods which they should choose according to themselves they condemn understandingly, and if it should happen perhaps, even unwillingly to touch, at once leaping up they go upon the cleansing through fire or water, as if they should only hold off from these, they will be holy and sincere. For they have been defeated thus of the glory, and have stood out of wits, upon which things one would also say very reasonably: ‘Woe to you, reinless and unlearned ones, straining out the gnat, yet gulping down the camel.’ (Matthew 23:24) For counting worthy of no word what knows how truly to defile, they have shuddered superfluously at the things upon which someone undergoes no harm (Mark 7:14–23).

Burial Phoebizing; true cleansing Christ Spirit baptism§21

21So that even if someone of them should go upon a tomb, and throw himself upon the signs of the dead, having cast off a garment, he strips the head, and shearing it as the hair having been polluted—from which things that it was fitting to stand off and to refuse the imitation, the divine law educated us. For he said again: ‘You will not Phoebize, you will not set a baldness upon a dead one, in the midst of your eyes.’ (Deuteronomy 14:1) For the select of Greeks mythologize Apollo a god, whom they also name Phoebus, that is, clean and undefiled. And they say he is the same as the sun. They used to say then to Phoebize, and again to be Phoebized, according to the Greek custom, the cleansing and being cleansed, according at least to what seems to them, and the laws beside themselves. The divine oracle therefore bars us from such shameful and most unbeautiful practices. For it is not at all fitting to count the death of bodies a pollution of soul, nor indeed to think that the sight upon a dead one impresses filth upon the hearts of those seeing, nor again upon this is it fitting to strip the hair. For the matter is altogether stale and full of the ground-crawling glory. Well then the law says the ‘You will not Phoebize;’ (Deuteronomy 14:1) for such a cleansing will not benefit a soul, yet rather does injustice, both taking away the knowledge of the most beneficial path, and carrying away from the hunt of the advantageous. For let us look thus: Laws beside us of those ruling upon earth are, awarding and refusing the things to be done and not to those everywhere; yet no one would be able to flee the justices upon the transgressions, unless needing to be let go from the king’s mildness granting it to him. In the equal manner then, the one having disregarded the divine laws would not become clean, unless having become rich with the matter by a divine nod. For if we have transgressed laws of fire or water, and the account of the sin looks unto those, let the water wash off the writing, let the fire melt down the filth, and letting go upon authority the charges to whomever they should choose; yet if true is the one saying toward God: ‘Against you alone I have sinned, and I have done the evil before you,’ (Psalms 51:4) for one is the lawgiver and judge, instead of which having let go the lord of both punishing and letting go, they slide down into old-wives’ thoughts, distributing to fire and water the being able to free them from the charges. Away with the bad counsel, O human, approach the God alone according to nature, and you will hear him saying at once: ‘I am the one wiping out your lawlessnesses for my sake, and I will not remember.’ (Psalm 50:6 (LXX 50:6)) This is true cleansing; this is the spiritual brightness; for we have been wiped, having gained by the faith into Christ the forgiveness of the sin, yet having been made holy by the bath of regeneration, and having enriched ourselves with the divine grace, that of the divine Spirit, which also in the manner of fire consumes as some refuse the pollution that has settled into our understandings. For the God-breathed Scripture says thus justly that we have been baptized in Holy Spirit and fire.

Palladius: In a portion of idolatry then will we somehow reckon also the wandering upon this (Titus 3:5) (Matthew 3:11) (Luke 3:16) (Psalm 51:4 (LXX 50:6))?

Fate Fortune Genesis vs free will; Solon reductio§22

22Cyril: Altogether so. For the matter is full of godlessness. And one would reasonably also range with these and number together the thinking that human things are administered by others’ nods, and that the authority of the things according to us has been hung not upon ourselves, but upon those whom the inventors of such unpersuasive doctrines should choose to myth-mold. For Fate and Fortune and Genesis, I do not know how, setting them as it were some steersmen over the life, they say each of us is not a willer or lord of the things to be done; yet to be led as from a necessary bond toward what seems to those ruling. Then what would ever become more irrational than such a thing? And how would Satan have done greater injustice to the race of humans, than when he disposed them to think and reason thus? For how would someone still counsel the useful things, and go willingly-working upon them ever? And having come to be also in the more shameful things, and having thought what one must not, how would he accuse himself and having melted with griefs change counsel to think and do the better things? For just as for those darting through the sea and having chosen to sail through there is somehow every necessity to be led by winds from the stern, and to be forced everywhere toward what seems to the pushing-together; so somewhere altogether also for us ourselves it is necessary to yield, unto whatever Fortune should choose to ferry, and the hard-to-flee winds of Fate according to them. Or will you yourself also think again that these things have been said rightly?

Palladius: For how not?

Cyril: Therefore it is altogether silly to crown the good and fair one with praises, and to count him worthy of honor, yet to count the wicked and unbridled one abominable and spat-upon.

Palladius: In what manner do you say?

Cyril: Because, O Palladius, Genesis and Fortune have conquered according to them, and unwillingly they carry off upon both the thrice-wretched race of those upon the earth. And nothing voluntary is beside us. Or is not what has been born to move something and is able, a cause of being moved for those moved from it?

Palladius: I say so.

Cyril: Come then through equal thoughts unto the human things, and measure the things according to us, and in order that you may look around well at what evil we are in, if not by our own voluntary leanings we go either this way or that way and hurry through, yet we have been overpowered as it were and have been carried under by others’ yokes able to lead and carry the things according to us, whichever way they should choose. For already thinking the likely things, we will still ascribe nothing of the things to be done to ourselves, yet rather we will hang the causes upon all upon those accustomed to helm unto whatever according to their judgment. Therefore just as the just one will stand off from every praise, so also the unjust from penalty, and from needing to be punished.

Palladius: You reason most rightly.

Cyril: In vain therefore the inventors of such doctrines admire Solon the one at Athens,

Draco Lycurgus; laws and pedagogy void if Fate§23

23and Draco and Lycurgus, as introducers of all-beautiful lessons, and as having invented the best laws for the Greeks. For what benefit from this anymore, if nothing is upon us, yet rather our things have been hung upon others? And somehow equal and similar hereafter, to those knowing the laws, also the one having been ignorant of them, if it does not belong to those willing to do freely whatever they should perhaps choose; yet I say the guides of the laws have become most unjust, although having chosen upon themselves as much glory of justice as possible. For they have legislated—I do not know how—that the careless must be punished, and pay bitter justices of the transgression, and they have handed over as it were canons to the young and most praiseworthy manners of pedagogy, either as being upon us ourselves to choose to live through solemnly, or I do not know what having thought. And someone would say, I think: Well, O Solon, you were legislating for those then; yet it was somehow altogether necessary to persuade Fate besides to grant to those being legislated whatever they should wish to think and do. Yet you legislated not having persuaded; and you yourself were somehow perhaps also laughing at the myth, and you understood us lords of the things to be done, and you were scaring away the unjust and blind Fortune of human affairs; for would you not have thought it necessary to suppose the best citizen to be the pious and law-guarding one, and to have hung upon himself the glory of fairness unto the peak, yet again useless and numbered among the most shameful, the one saying farewell to the laws that will counsel darting unto uprightness?

Palladius: Most urbane and very well you have spoken.

Cyril: And what, O friend? Will we not say that the pedagogies and the counsels, and indeed also the challenges unto virtue, as many as fathers would make upon sons, and teachers upon companions, are empty, if it is necessary to descend the path not according to judgment, and to go a life’s track that is sometimes involuntary?

Palladius: And very much.

Cyril: And if indeed also upon one’s own children, or then upon some others having stumbled, someone should urge and make the rebuke straight, would you yourself praise such a one, or will you reckon him unjust, having chosen somehow to leave unrebuked those causes of all evils for us, yet to subject to the justices those led unto these things involuntarily and from necessity?

Palladius: It seems so. For the word has much persuasiveness.

Cyril: And that such a glory for them is full of the last impiety, you will know also from here: for shaking down as it were some steersman and overseer of this all—God—from the glory present to him, and going hereafter unto such boldness as to alienate him altogether from his own boasts, they themselves by their own votes distribute the power of the things according to us to whatever simply comes unto mind; although seeing the whole creation being carried not by unsupervised movements unto the

Creation order; Rom 1; Homer vs Fate; Euripides start§24

24proper things. For what of the things around the creation is not done in order? And what of the things that are has not kept its own taxis, and all but cries out the taxiarch? And that it has been yoked under laws it shouts, and is administered by nods of the one strong to rule—I mean God. Therefore also the divine Paul: ‘For his invisible things,’ (Homer Odyssey 1.32–34) he says, ‘from creation of a world are clearly seen being understood by the things made, both his everlasting power and divinity, unto their being without defense; because having known God, they did not glorify him as God, but were made vain, and their unintelligent heart was darkened; saying to be wise they were made foolish.’ (Romans 1:20–22) For how were they not made foolish counseling themselves and indeed also others to think some other things beside what holds rightly? And yet what ever would someone say to those swimming upon such wretched reasonings, the myth not even pleasing to the poets beside you yourselves? For it seemed well that the administrations of the things to be done have been hung not upon some others, but upon us ourselves. And at any rate Homer, in his own poems, said that your all-best and highest Zeus had dialogued with the other demons about Aegisthus’s adultery, and the penalty upon this: Ah me, how now mortals blame the gods! For from us they say evils are, yet they themselves also by their own recklessnesses have griefs beyond fate. For instead of which, he says, do some accuse the gods as having the evils from them, and do they not rather cry down their own sin, as sending them into calamities, and those beyond fate—that is, also beyond Fate, or what seems to Fate. Therefore if someone should choose to live through rightly, and to make the most well-counseling and fairest occupations in this life, he will walk upright and will swim through the terrible things, having as fruit of a right and undistorted judgment the not falling into evils; and the word is true. For it is upon us ourselves to look upon both—unto the good I mean and the opposite; and those having made in word what is born to be admired and the track unto uprightness will come to be in the beauty of virtue; yet those leaning aside unto the opposite, and having set before the better things what does injustice, themselves destroying their own life, would be caught as certain self-doers and terrible destroyers of their own head having been proven. And that it will lie upon us ourselves to look upon both, just as I said just now, and that having fallen back into pleasures we miss the hunt of the advantageous things, would become clear, another of the poets beside them shouting aloud—this was Euripides. For he was making a little woman upon the stage sick with the unbridled pleasure, then somehow he showed her philosophizing, and saying: Women of Troezen, who dwell this last forecourt of the Pelopian land,

Euripides: know good, not do; inequality under God§25

25Already somehow otherwise in night’s long time I have thought of mortals, how life has been corrupted. And they seem to me not according to nature of judgment to practice worse; for the thinking well is for many. Yet one must look at this thus: The useful things we understand and know, yet we do not work them out—some from idleness, and others having set before the beautiful some other pleasure. And there are many pleasures of life, both long chats, and leisure, a delightful evil. Do you understand how it does not seem to the more ancient ones to accuse Fortune, not Genesis, not Fate, as thrusting us out with force from the known uprightness, and from as many useful things as we should learn? For the life of those upon the earth has been corrupted, he says, not according to nature of judgment—that is, not because they have by nature a wicked judgment; but because they are not willing to work out the known useful things. And what is the pretext of this? Either hesitation, he says, bound them unto idleness, or some of the pleasures according to the life having run in against, he says, and rising up against the advantageous, was carrying away from the hunt of the necessary things, and was leading the mind off as a herd, showing the path unto carelessness smoother. And we would have heaped countless things of those beside them upon these, and most easily. Yet the sufficient thing—that it is sweet to those hearing—who would doubt? Therefore we will also thrust away the crowd of the word.

Palladius: You have spoken rightly. Yet if you wish, they say, leave these things aside. And reason how you will defend wisely, if somehow some should ask what the account of the inequality in us would perhaps be understood to be, and of the up and down beside worth sometimes. For one would behold the wicked prospering and being rich, yet the fair one having often come to be in the opposite things, and full of praises having come unto a limit.

Cyril: Truly hard to spy and altogether hard to reach is the matter, O Palladius, and I myself would say that the wishing to be busy about these things is beyond and highest of humanity’s measures. For it is necessary to yield to divine judgments; and if we should choose to think rightly, hanging the knowledge of the economy upon the highest and undefiled mind alone, alone, we will walk toward the things in hands, which are also found from us scarcely with force, according to the Scriptures. And since I think we must help the word according to what is possible, come let us ourselves also go upon that. Just now we were proving stale the glory of the godless, not using out-of-the-contest reasonings, but showing from necessary thoughts that genesis does not have the rudders of a human’s understanding, nor has a hard and hard-to-flee yoke of Fate been thrown upon us, but that each one’s judgment is lady of the things to be done in choice, and it is upon us ourselves to choose to do what seems—whether good, or base. For I myself would reckon of the prosperity (Romans 11:33) (Romans 11:33 (divine judgments))

Column fragment: manners per sacred Letters§26

26the manners according at least to what holds well for the sacred Letters

True prosperity virtue; God wants equality; Fate excuses§27

27having been supposed to hold, not in the things in which this abominable and earthly little flesh riots, but upon the things in which the soul above body would become able to partake of the eternal life; and these would be, I think, the zealings unto virtue, and the brightness in faith and works. If then it does not belong to those willing to be temperate—even if some should be base, or then good in manners—let those who will prove it come into the middle. Yet if, the setting-right freely whatever someone should wish lying in choice, and it being possible for all with authority to choose to prosper spiritually, and to partake in equality of the glory from above, some have advantages, either having the excesses in wealth, or in little worldly glories, let this not carry us away toward some godless and levered-out-from-true-knowledge glories, so as to think that a yoke of Fate and Fortune has been set upon the things according to us. Yet let someone be written, if he wishes, of those having made the greedinesses in wealth as it were a private good—the common to all—if the account of greediness were absent. Yet let him rather be busy about the will of the one who has made; for wishing the things according to us to be administered and seen in equal taxis, he commands the rich to sell off the gathered wealth, and to distribute to the needs of those being impoverished, and he does not grant to love glory and excess. And that God awards the equality to those upon earth, it is not hard for us to see also from the very construction of the body. For nature does not know the one in poverty and wealth, the low-born and bright, the well-born and cast-down, and the one in glory according to this life; but equal it comes through all without respect of persons, completing each with the same parts unto the freshly holding figure and beauty; and one is the path of all unto genesis, and one the laying-aside of life, not letting one go from nooses, and perhaps making another inside, but bringing upon every thing made a hard and inescapable end. Is it then, tell me, still hard to spy, or rather is it not clear hereafter to everyone, that the aim of the divine counsel is that those upon earth live in equality? And hear him saying, if it seems good, also through one of the prophets: ‘Did not one God create us? Is there not one Father of us all? Why have you each left behind his brother?’ (Malachi 2:10) Therefore if some loosen what seems to the one who has made, having a voluntary lean unto whatever of the things to be done they should choose (for the Craftsman has honored the nature with freedom), nothing toward the word, since indeed also some overlook the laws according to us. Yet I think at least no one, if somehow he should have mind, would blame the delimiters of the laws, yet would rather accuse—and very reasonably—those having chosen to think above the necessary things. Whenever then some having stumbled say: It somehow perhaps seemed to Fortune, and, This was Fate’s aim upon me, what is the nonsense, O these ones, and will it also be said from our side? And why do you write down the nothing, not having condemned your own lightness? Yet the (Malachi 2:10) (Acts 10:34) (Romans 2:11)

Prov folly; sparrows; observing days Gal 4§28

28divine Scripture will sound beside the true to those not having chosen to walk upright: ‘A man’s folly will ruin his ways; yet he will accuse God in his heart.’ Therefore then those having set Genesis and Fate and Fortune—easy to fan away—over the things according to us have missed a true glory, and not rather distributing to God the economy of the affairs; although Christ says: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for one assarion? And one of them will not fall upon the earth without your Father who is in the heavens. And of you the hairs of the head are numbered. Do not then fear; you differ from many sparrows.’ (Matthew 10:29-31) For the Craftsman provides for those upon the earth, yet he grants to each both to do what seems, and whichever path he should wish to walk. And since the race upon the earth has grown sick with the turning-aside, he has given a law at once unto help, according as it has been written. Therefore then it is precarious hereafter for everyone having received the faith into Christ, and having driven through that ancient wandering, to be carried off by old-wives’ myths toward what one must not, and to be carried away from the healthy glory, so as to think that Fortune and Fate—the ones not existing at all—drive this all, or then the human.

Palladius: Most precarious. For such a one would altogether and entirely whet the judge upon himself.

Cyril: And what? Do you not say it is all-shameful and truly next-door to such evils—the watching days, and hours, and seasons, and years, and the waxing and waning of the lunar cycle?

Palladius: And very much. For most clearly the divine Paul makes the matter a charge for those having been saved from the nations, saying: ‘But then not knowing God, you were enslaved to those by nature not being gods; yet now having known God, or rather having been known by God, how do you turn again upon the weak and poor elements, to which you wish to be enslaved again from of old above? You observe days, and months, and years, and seasons; I fear you, lest somehow I have labored into you in vain.’ (Galatians 4:8-11)

Cyril: The watching of hours then and of days—and I would add also that of seasons—is altogether unfitting for those not having been ignorant of the one and by nature God, or rather for those having been known by him through faith, and having been called unto the intimacy through the grace; for he runs back backward, having let go the boast in Christ, the one having chosen to do this; and he has no longer saved his own mind free-loving, yet rather emptily runs under the yoke of the ancient wandering, distributing to the world’s elements an honor which God would have, and crowning with the highest glories the things having been called unto genesis by the nods of the one who has made. And elements of a world he calls the as-it-were portions of the all—seasons and months, and their measurements, being completed through hours and days (Galatians 4:8–11)

Against lucky and unlucky hours and days§29

29For time being continuous, and having an always-flowing carrying unto the forward, God somehow as it were subjected it by mid-cuttings of seasons, hours and days and by recirculations again unto measures and numbers. For it was necessary, necessary, for those not having a beginning-less out-throw unto being, and as good as not yet about to arrive unto the end of their own life, and of such a time perhaps—beginning, I mean, and ending, and as it were co-establishing its own nature with those not always existing. Therefore nothing else having been brought in for those upon the earth through seasons, hours and days, except only the circular run-through and exact measurement, what do some myth-mold—things which it is also laughable to think? And they say some of the hours are good-working, yet others not such, and they make a very exact watching, distributing to them the being able to bring on both the prospering and the opposite, to whomever they should perhaps choose, or to whomever necessity should make them coincide? Are these things then not already nonsense and terrible mind-harm, and some diabolic snare craftily prepared for evil?

Palladius: I say so, and it is clear.

Cyril: For just as we were saying, that they were persuading us to hang the things according to ourselves upon Fates and Fortune and alien nods, showing our carefulness empty, and carrying us away from care on behalf of ourselves; so also here preparing the same wandering for us, they say the things from days and hours have been hung upon those upon the earth as from a necessary yoke, having a hard-to-flee run-out; and the paradoxical thing (for such a myth is old-wives’), although seeing countless failures following the babblings about these things, they do not gift to experience the being able to prove the trickery; yet writing down badness of hours and days, and bringing the same vote upon the sinkings-to-the-less of the lunar cycle, what ever would they say? If indeed someone should wish in one hour and in a day perhaps to number and say those being in prosperities, and those having fallen into the last calamities—although what is base by nature would become for everyone such as it has also been born; if then hour and dawn are harmful for those upon earth, why does the harm from them not walk through unto all in equality; yet some are in the most prayed-for things, and others have sometimes been destroyed altogether, and full of the evil going unto a limit, have become a myth for the life, and a hypothesis of a tragic stage? Yet it is possible to see for those at least wishing exactly to know and work out what is most beneficial, that according to the same day and hour perhaps, this one has been caught of adultery or murder and pays bitter justices to those judging, yet this one again luxuriates in praises of temperance and orderliness and of fairness beyond measure. Yet neither would a day and hour bar the unbridled one from being temperate, nor indeed would it whet the fair and orderly one unto disorder and unbridled pleasures; yet rather the free judgment unto every whatever, and (Genesis 1:14) (Genesis 1:14 (times)

Free lean; fifth eighth day; waning moon mocked§30

30a let-go lean, has prepared the one to come to be in those things, and the other again in these. Therefore in us, and not in the natural qualities of the seasons, it is possible then to be well-spirited, and the not holding thus.

Palladius: It seems so. For the word is straight at once.

Cyril: And they have feared most especially the fifth and eighth day, and they put forward pretexts in sins, yet they have escaped the notice of none of the freshly-thinking ones swimming upon cold and old-wives’ reasonings; for emptily intertwining with them a genesis of certain Erinyes and a showing-forth of demons, which are also wilder than the others, and penalties and justices, and some other things besides these, the wretches do not blush. And if indeed also the cycle of the moon having before been full-shining should run back unto the less—for thus it lathes the recirculation of the monthly intervals, both waning and waxing according at least to what seems to the one who has crafted; they leave off from every work, and they put off even journeys altogether and entirely, thinking that the things according to us wither together with the element, and that human things melt out together with the turnings-back unto the less. Yet if one must say something smiling at those ones’ unintelligence, they receive the fear fitting for oysters and for the most luckless of the vegetables. For let such bodies perhaps, or then the still greater and more advanced, suffer naturally the co-perception, according to the account the Craftsman knows; for the test in these things is precarious, and the non-busy is not without gain, yet the matter will stand off far and somewhere long from a human understanding. For even if the element should perhaps wane, yet the temperate and well-tuned one will be no less such, and the mind would not sink together unto the less with that one’s rays, nor would the nature of affairs be transferred unto the more shameful and the better having been forced by the powers of the element. For somehow always there accompanies the craftsmen of the best things the needing to partake of every good, yet for the workers of the base things, the things most fitting for them. And I marvel that when the moon is waning, and creeping through unto the end of the month, for them being users and very money-loving the interests increase, and the purses of those having lent are completed thicker, yet they have somehow supposed that the other affairs must necessarily thin together with the element and sicken together. Or do you not say these things are full of laughableness and unintelligence?

Palladius: Altogether so.

Cyril: To lead out long words against those having thus emptily supposed, I think somehow empty. For the unbeautiful is sick from itself, even if no one should say. Yet let us rather go upon that now.

Palladius: What sort?

Cyril: Satan seems to me to abominate both the fifth and the eighth day, and the moon’s path backward from full-shining, or then the (Colossians 2:16–18)

Satan hates 5th/8th/14th; Christ hours Cross Pascha moon§31

31season—that is, the fourteenth—for such a cause, even if being all-variegated and sharp unto mischief-working, he intertwines other starting-points for them; for the seasons or then the days in which it has happened that he slipped off from the tyranny against us, when the Only-begotten shone upon us in human form and in the look according to us, he somehow perhaps does not endure to take even in bare thoughts.

Palladius: How then do you say?

Cyril: For is not a fifth season numbered for us, O Palladius—that of our Savior’s sojourn?

Palladius: I understand what you say, from the Gospel parable at least. For Christ said that the one hiring the workers into the vineyard had gone out about the first hour, and the third and sixth, and ninth and eleventh—that is, in the last season, according to which he both appeared and shone upon us.

Cyril: Most mindfully and very rightly you have spoken. And what? Do we not say that he has been handed over on the fifth of the Sabbath, and has come as it were unto beginnings of the whole economy, through which we all have been saved, the one having become human through us having endured the saving cross on our behalf?

Palladius: And very much.

Cyril: And he has abolished death, and has lived again, having spoiled Hades, not on an eighth—that is, the one of the Sabbaths,

Palladius: Not doubtful.

Cyril: And at any rate the ancient law was typing that the circumcision in flesh, some under-type of the one in spirit and truth, be practiced according to the eighth. And the more advanced circumcision than that ancient one—that is, the one in spirit—is a partaking of Holy Spirit, and the grace in beginnings, which, since he lived again from dead ones, Christ renewed again for us, saying: ‘Receive Holy Spirit.’ (John 20:22) And somewhere also the blessed Paul said that ‘Our Pascha was sacrificed—Christ.’ (1 Corinthians 5:7) And a day at least of this saving and much-prayed slaughter is the fourteenth according to moon. Thus also the law was proclaiming beforehand clearly the season of our Savior’s slaughter, which we say he has endured on behalf of the world’s life: ‘For on the tenth,’ (Exodus 12:3) it says, ‘of the first month, let them take for themselves a sheep according to houses; according to a number,’ (Matthew 20:1–7) it says, ‘of soul they will collect, and it will be kept until the fourteenth of this month, and all the multitude of the sons of Israel will slaughter it toward evening.’ (Exodus 12:3-6) Do you hear how having been taken from a tenth, the victim was kept for those of old unto a fourteenth, in order that you may understand the fifth season, according to which having become human he underwent the death on our behalf, the moon already waning, which has also been set unto beginnings of the night? And the matter is a type of a mystery, and seems to signify thinly the devil’s greediness’s path backward, and a sinking as it were the little-by-little unto the strengthless and altogether weak. And somehow he holds a type of moon. For he also rules

Night as ignorance, and the folly of bird omens§32

32of the night—that is, of those still in darkness and nodding, and not having the gleam of the God-knowledge; and that it is custom for the God-breathed Scripture to liken the herd of those wandering-upon to the night, hear what the Master of all says toward Jews, when Jerusalem was running back toward idolatry: ‘I have likened your mother to a night; my people has been likened as not having knowledge.’ (Hosea 4:5–6) Do you understand that he calls night those not having knowledge of the true and according to nature divinity, clearly? Therefore the enemy of all has hated seasons and days according to which he himself has been destroyed, yet we have been saved. And the one hating with that one will be of his portion, and will have a lot with him—the needing to be punished without pause.

Palladius: In a portion then of the truly profane and God-hated idolatry will we also set such things, just as indeed also the empty-myth about the so-called genesis.

Cyril: Know well that it does not hold otherwise, just as also the test of the affairs itself has proven. And besides these things one must abominate very well also the loving to cling to useless bird-watchings, and whisperings and charms; for from lightness of mind some of those beside Greeks have slipped unto this, so as to think that the knowledge of the affairs according to us also lies in the winged ones darting into air. Therefore they are also busy about the flights unto dawn and unto evening, unto right and unto left; and if somehow a crow should appear crying, having set the ear under, they receive it as it were some of the most true things, and they run back rejoicing; and the wretched ones blush not at all, laying up the power of such solemn prophecy upon sparrows. And such a word has been made solemn for them, as they think according to themselves; for the gods show through them, he says. Yet we say the apostate angels are not gods, from whom good and admirable prophets have been voted for us, and knowers of the things about to be—both the screaming crow, and indeed also a swift-winged hawk, and tawny doves, according at least to the words beside Greeks, and the other sparrows—worthy at least the prophets of those sounding into them the chirpings unto us ourselves; and blessed also are you and envy-worthy having obtained such God-speakers; yet you have forgotten as it seems, even while admiring the glories of the poets beside you, that it seemed also to them to laugh the matter through, and to think it nonsense, and nothing of the necessary things. For Homer: Soft one, leave birds, he says, Whether they go upon the right toward dawn and sun, Or upon the left, those toward misty gloom. And Euripides clearly and openly defines the vanity of needing to look down at birds’ flights-through. For he says Theseus is raging upon Hippolytus his own child, and indeed also is attempting to drive him out of the one who bore him. And when that one was saying (Homer Iliad 12.237–240) (Deuteronomy 18:10–11) (Deuteronomy 18:10–14):

Euripides vs birds; no charms; Lord Sabaoth misuse§33

33Neither oath, nor faith, nor prophets’ Sayings having tested, you cast me out of land unjudged. Theseus toward this said: This tablet not having received a lot Accuses you faithfully; yet the birds going above the head, I say farewell much. And indeed God’s voice would become trustworthy, and the faith better than the writing in a tablet, if somehow it is also not unlikely for us to speak false; yet to sin nothing is God’s, and the true is most especially dear. Yet Theseus somehow knew altogether that the birds going above the head are nothing completely. Therefore one must not yet ascribe the knowledge of the things about to be to demons, yet rather we will distribute it to God as exceptional. And trickery will be hereafter—the birds’ prophecies—and a clear proof of an unsafe understanding—the faith upon this. And somewhere also the law itself says: ‘You will not use bird-omens,’ (Leviticus 19:26) knowing the matter abominable, and most especially abominated beside the God ruling all.

Palladius: Thus these things seem to me myself also to hold.

Cyril: And since again this secret and old-wives’ whispering would also be a portion and manner of sorcery. Therefore also the divine Moses clarified the laws from above for us, always joining the stumblings, and somehow as it were setting the charm in brotherhood and same-nature with the drug-working. ‘For there will not be,’ he was saying, ‘in you one prophesying a prophecy, using bird-omens and omen-taking, a drug-worker, a charmer, a wonder-watcher, and a ventriloquist, and one asking the dead.’ (Deuteronomy 18:10–11) Yet the charm is sick with the all-shameful altogether, and with lying very much in evil, yet somehow some have been fluttered unto this, saying that—Lord Sabaoth they name while charming over the sick, the caretakers of such things. In this way then they also hurry to confirm that the practice would not be shameful hereafter. Yet they seem to be carried off by a cold and inactive reasoning unto deceit and mind-harm; therefore this very thing is that the matter is most hard to bear. For we cry out the ‘Lord Sabaoth’ to the God of the wholes, wishing to doxologize; yet to no other of the things that are do we grant to have such a calling. For one and alone is the Lord of the powers. Yet they easily cast aside the thus supernatural and most glorious surname—or then doxology—to whichever of the demons playing together with them they should choose, and to the actors of their wonder-working they gift the glory most fitting for God and him alone, both flattering and being flattered, and distributing the excess of such terrible impiety of the running-together upon whatever they should choose unto a counter-payment. For always God-fighting and most glory-loving is the band of the demons. Therefore we must not be carried off together with those ones’ bad counsels, yet rather stand off as farthest, and not pay attention to wicked healers or wonder-workers—the demons—asking as some wage of the playthings unto us the blasphe

Pray Lord Sabaoth yourself; James 5; no false oaths§34

34mies. And you, if you ache in some of the body’s portions, and have truly believed that the Lord Sabaoth, and such callings which the divine Scripture distributes to the God according to nature, will become loosening for you of the evil, yourself praying on behalf of yourself, cry out the words; for you will do better than those, laying up the glory for God, and not for the unclean spirits. And I will also remember the God-breathed Scripture saying: ‘Is someone weak among you? Let him call the elders of the Church, and let them pray upon him, having anointed him with oil, in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of the faith will save the one laboring, and the Lord will raise him, and if he has done sins, it will be forgiven him.’ (James 5:14–15)

Palladius: Let bird-watching then, and indeed also charm, be ranged together, if it seems good, with those having been accused from law, and with those in most shameful and most abominable glory beside God.

Cyril: And very much, and I would add that also in other manners we will insult God, and someone would owe a writing and words of the impiety unto him, having chosen to false-swear, and to say some reverse-speaking and discordant thing against at least the highest and uppermost glory. For the one is punished with the altogether anger, and with unmanageable penalty, the sickle completing, according as it has been written, the false-swearer’s hearth, and shaking it down unto the complete: ‘For it will enter,’ (Zechariah 5:4) it says, ‘into the house of the thief, and into the house of the one swearing by my name upon a lie, and will dissolve in the middle of his house, and will complete him, and his woods, and his stones.’ (Zechariah 5:3–4) Yet the other—the needing to have died, and to have the justice beyond all the evils. Therefore one must swear not upon a lie; or rather not swear at all. For this the Savior taught us, saying: ‘Let your Yes be yes, and your No, no; and the excess of these is from the devil.’ (Matthew 5:37) For there will not be need of an oath at all for those in a reputation of solemnity, and having made virtue as it were house-mate; for among the lovers of piety the life of such ones has been very much honored, and to hate being disbelieved; and if somehow he should utter something, he is at once crowned with the hearers’ faith. Therefore let our life be well-glorious, and the need of swearing through will altogether somehow be idle, as I think. And if somehow it should come to be, and of some sometimes thinking little of the honor unto holy ones, let God be oath-partner, let another’s name of some not be carried beside. For already some going without looking-around unto loose fadings pretend to be indifferent, saying by heaven, or justice, by Adrasteia, by the light, by the lamp. And collecting some other things according to what seems to them, they somehow perhaps also think to be pious, thrusting aside the divine name, yet gilding with the glory fitting for God the things having been called unto genesis by his nods. Such a wandering we will find Israel having been sick with according to seasons. For confessedly to God they built up the one in Jerusalem (Zechariah 5:4)

Against swearing by heaven, earth, or Jerusalem§35

35temple, and thinking great upon this very thing, and having believed they had come inside the boasts unto piety, and to take very well a most notable glory of the things announced to them through all-wise Moses, thinking little they were being caught carelessly; yet that the matter will not be for them unto good-fame from somewhere, and God does not delight in the buildings from stones, he was teaching saying: ‘The heaven is a throne for me, and the earth a footstool of my feet. What sort of house will you build for me? Or what place of my rest? says the Lord.’ (Isaiah 66:1) For God fills all things, and rests upon heaven, yet also reaches upon the earth; for the divine is not in quantity, but just as it is farthest from bodily fantasy, so also from place and from seeming to have been quantified. And since once Jews were hearing him saying, The heaven is a throne for me, and the earth a footstool of my feet, going unto unsafe thoughts, they were making the heaven an oath-partner, naming it a divine throne, and likewise also the earth, as lying under God’s feet; and indeed also Jerusalem, for it is a city, they were saying, of the God ruling all—although the more ancient holy ones had made the ‘The Lord lives’ (Exodus 22:10–11) in need of an oath. Yet the Savior counterfeited the Jews’ most silly thought, saying one must not swear off, neither in the heaven, because it is God’s throne, nor in the earth, because it is a footstool of his feet, nor unto Jerusalem, because it is a city of the great king; for what those ones were saying while babbling, these things the Savior uttered usefully, proving everywhere their piety in these things at least as plastered-on, and invented from I know not where. Therefore let the wandering upon this also be gone. For we have been taught in the needs of an oath never to have remembered any other at all, yet rather to make unto a safe and worthy faith the Yes, yes, and the No, no. And the law also said: ‘If a deposit should be destroyed toward someone, and the one having given should demand the faith upon this, there will be an oath of God in between both.’ (Exodus 22:11) And humans swear according to the greater; for thus Paul the wise said to us; and we say it is greater than a human, understanding rightly, not by size perhaps, or then excessing in understanding and wisdom and glory, but as the being somehow thus for us.

Palladius: I do not understand what you say.

Cyril: And indeed, O Palladius, clear, as at least it seems to me, and evident is the word. Or do we not say that many of the things made differ incomparably by size from human bodies, and besides the heaven?

Palladius: And very much.

Cyril: And in understanding and wisdom and thinness of bodies, do angels not excel?

Palladius: They excel, but also in honor.

Cyril: And in brightness and glory—I mean the one according to body—is not the sun’s nature incomparably better (Hebrews 6:16) (Matthew 5:34–35);

Palladius: Better.

Swear by God alone; blasphemy vs Spirit; no limping both§36

36Cyril: It has been fixed then, that each of these would reasonably have as toward us the excelling, according to which it has been born to conquer. Will we then make these oath-partners, having left as superfluous the remembering of God?

Palladius: Not at all.

Cyril: Therefore then what is by nature overstretched and having differed by the whole being from the things made—that is, God—seems also to say greater than a human.

Palladius: You speak well.

Cyril: Therefore let the Yes, and the No, beside those having chosen to live best, be both need and power of an oath, and let it have been fixed rightly; for thus will also follow the needing to be believed. And if the Yes and the No should be dishonored by someone, let the need of the oaths be turned hereafter unto the greater than according to us, or rather than according to all the creation. And blasphemy—what would I say hereafter, where it is, and that it may carry off unto evil those using it—which the ancient law also honors with bitter death. And Christ himself has also condemned it with inescapable and endless evils: ‘For whoever should say a word against the Son of the human, it will be forgiven him; yet whoever should say against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in the now age, nor in the coming.’ (Matthew 12:32) Calling Spirit the nature above body, which is God, to whom the one daring to send an unbridled tongue will reap the fruits of doorless-mouthing. ‘For lips of a fool lead him unto evils, according as it has been written. And his bold mouth calls upon death.’ (Proverbs 18:6) Therefore also the divine Melodist was saying: ‘Set, Lord, a guard for my mouth, and a door of enclosure around my lips; do not lean my heart aside unto words of wickedness.’ (Psalm 141:3) And these would be a most unholy shouting-down against God and the unspeakable and undefiled nature.

Palladius: One must then be well fixed, those hurrying to go blamelessly upon the straight, and not enduring to strike against God.

Cyril: Thus I say. For toward those approaching God not from a healthy heart, but from a suspected and corrupted one, and having chosen to be sick with the strengthless and easily-shaken, the prophet says: ‘Until when will you limp upon both your hams, either Baal, Baal, or God, God?’ (1 Kings 18:21) For the neither healthy altogether toward faith, nor indeed loving to have been fixed unto wandering, is to limp upon both, and indeed, what is upon each destroys the genuine. And a pretext of the thus rotten and easily-broken judgment would become for some, I think, the making plastered-on and not true the loving unto God, and to play-act wishing to Christianize, yet not to do this from whole heart, nor indeed having been persuaded by shame toward the true and having honored what holds rightly; but either hunting

Gibeonite hypocrisy; whole love; Book 6 Amen§37

37what is according to pleasure for themselves, or a fear of danger, and a wild approach of ill-day, as it were bewitching, to seem to have come forward to the faith, in order that they may have many who have chosen to contend together, and to lend their own care. Yet a last care will be distributed to such ones, and the lot in the ones most especially cast down; and most dishonored and thrown-away and scarcely gaining the being counted worthy of life, they would be caught when God tests the things hidden in us—such as were those from Gibeon. For they once approached Joshua, and were very much begging to be made intimate with the people of God; yet they were not making the running-toward without evil-working, nor indeed simple and unadulterated, and as from love toward God, but in play-acting and deceit. And they escaped notice at the beginnings. But when being caught doing bitter things, and having been found out both ill-minded and many-judgmented, they were being set in the last things. For they have become both wood-cutters and water-carriers for all the Synagogue. Do you see then where the not-genuine will bring down, and the not having chosen to honor from a healthy understanding the spiritual intimacy toward holy ones. For sometimes some deceive—and I do not say the Christ who knows all, but rather those in his type, that is, those leading peoples. Just as indeed also those ones then brought Joshua into an image and under-type of Christ, and they drive in with deceit of shadowings, in depth of reasonings, and holding forward the play-acting of the wickedness unto mind; yet being condemned—for it is not possible to escape notice—they will be saved scarcely, having the slave-fitting and last portion; for of an unfree judgment, deceit is fruit. Yet we, for whom the aiming is to think healthily the things of God and the remaining things are unspelled, will cling to our own Master and God of the wholes, from a simple heart, from a right understanding, from a whole love, not enduring the double-souled to be sick, yet standing off altogether from Greek habits and thoughts, and going as farthest and very swiftly from the things having been condemned from law. For thus we will be perfect opposite the Lord God, according as it has been written, and bright, and well-approved with the other holy ones in Christ, through whom and with whom to the Father glory with Holy Spirit unto the ages of the ages. Amen (Deuteronomy 18:13) (James 1:8) (Matthew 5:48).