1 Cor 13 finishes; just weights; gospel exceeds law’s equality

the things of herself, is not provoked, does not reckon the evil, does not rejoice upon the injustice, yet rejoices with the truth; covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—the love never falls out.’ Yet these things are clear to all, as at least I think, and the word about them would become very long, if somehow someone should choose to collect finely the things beside the New Writing. Yet we will turn now toward the shadows from law, and the things having been oracle-spoken for those of old as still in types.

Palladius: You reason best.

Cyril: The law was a practice unto justice and as it were some pre-entry of the Gospel manly-deeds. For it has been written: ‘A beginning of a good way is to do the just things.’ For the law pedagogues unto Christ, and of the life understood in him it would not have a falsified glory, if it should be understood spiritually. And it stands unto justice, yet carries off still beyond this—the Gospel lesson. And manners of justice—first, honor and loving, the one unto the one and by nature God; and neighboring as it were and after that at once the one unto brothers and same-raced, the reverence unto parents having been set beforehand. In a fitting order then the Word goes forward for us, after at least the piety unto God, and the carefulness unto parents, that it is fitting that we also make the showing of fairness also unto others, he announces. For everywhere the law is seen legislating, providing for equality, and making the exact test of the just. For it has been written in Deuteronomy: ‘There will not be in your bag a great or small weight; a true just weight will be for you, and a true just measure will be for you, in order that you may become many-dayed upon the earth which the Lord your God gives you in a lot, because an abomination to the Lord your God is everyone doing these things, everyone doing an unjust thing.’ And again in Leviticus: ‘In measures and weights, and with balances—just balances, and just weights, and a just chous will be for you.’ And with measures and weights and balances he was hurrying very well to equalize the manners of the justice, and very rightly; for a straight and justice-loving mind somehow balances and measures thoroughly the natures of the affairs, and tests the account of the equality, more finely and more exactly than someone would think those testing the coin upon a scale-pan and balance; and he measures out as it were for each of the things contemplated what is most fitting for it, neither loosing the beauty of the exact equality by the excess, nor indeed by the under-bringing toward the less allowing the sufficient as in equality to be counterfeited. Let there then be, he says, just balances and weights, and a just chous; and these would be, I think, as it were some types and clear examples, showing under for us manners through which the account of the exact equality would be searched through for us, and the knowledge of the justice will appear. And understand that the things in law are measured together, and have the justice as a boundary, yet the greater is rich, and the things through Christ run very much beyond. For beyond just is the good—that is, the glory of the citizenship in Christ.