On Adoration and Worship in Spirit and Truth, Book 8

Book 8 opens: still brother-love; Exod 22 calf/sheep theft§1

1ON ADORATION AND WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH — BOOK EIGHT. Still concerning the love toward the brothers, and against the one who steals a calf or sheep.

Cyril: From every side then already, O Palladius, it is present for you to understand that the ancient law also commands that the words of the mystagogy be made both upright and exceedingly exact. And setting the matter as not without penalty for those accustomed to deceive some of the simpler ones, he said again: ‘And if someone should steal a calf or a sheep, and should slaughter or sell it, he will repay five calves instead of the calf, and four sheep instead of the sheep. And if the thief should be found in the dig-through, and having been struck should die, there is no murder for him; but if the sun should rise upon him, he will be liable, he will be killed in return. And if it should not exist for him, let him be sold instead of the theft; and if the theft should be caught and found in his hand, from donkey even unto sheep, alive, he will repay them double.’

Calf/sheep = faithful flock; thieves sell souls to Satan; night vs sunrise§2

2Palladius: The word is not very clear. But you, try to tell me what it is that is somehow oracularly spoken as in a riddle.

Cyril: The law usefully defines a penalty of the one wanting to grasp more, and somehow reins in the unbridled toward desire of whatever the neighbor or brother might happen to have, so that even if it should happen, he says, that the one condemned for this should die in the very act of stealing, no blame is rubbed onto those who have killed him. And he also dishonors him by saying that it is fitting to sell him if he cannot hold out toward payment of ransom, driving him with terrors unto needing to choose to live well. But the hidden mind of the history would be much other than this, and we must also say it as well as possible. Calf then and sheep, both pure and holy, and brought up to God unto a smell of fragrance. But the calf is in superiority and greatness of body; the other not so. For the sheep is less than a calf. Calves then and sheep as somehow pure and most holy animals are the holy multitude of those justified through faith, and splitting the hoof and bringing up rumination according to the law, and workers of cultivated fruits; for the calf works the ground; and the sheep also is fruitful, and the flock of the called has been shut into the divine courts, that is, in churches; and very many are the thieves around it, digging through and slipping in, and by manifold deceits drawing out the souls of the simpler ones, and all but selling them down to the destroying Satan; yet the one who has done something such will repay five calves, he says, instead of one, and four sheep instead of the sheep; for fivefold upon the calf is the judgment for the one who has stolen, and fourfold must come upon one sheep, he says, according somehow, I think, to the measure of the spiritual quantity according to virtue of those who are being destroyed, having set the punishment. And the bodily would be a type and shadow of the quantity in virtue; for the greater or less in fair dealings is easy to see among those who have believed, since not all are by chance in equality; ‘But each of us has his own gift from God, one thus, another thus.’ And if still stealing and digging through, and fulfilling the works of robbery, he should be caught as in night and darkness, he says, then let him also have died; and the matter is not murder, nor a charge against the doer. For the one who fell is grasping and violent, and has been wounded by the law of war; but when the sun has risen, and the time of the robbery has already passed, it restrains the hand of the one striking, and defines a murder-charge of the daring. For as long as the intelligible thief damages the soul of the one who has believed unto Christ, and draws it out from love unto God, if he should be caught in the very wrongs, he would suffer not unjustly also the need to have died; for he killed a soul, the better than body; but when the sun has risen also for him according to mind, and true knowledge is shining as in the order of light and day,

Sunrise = knowledge/repentance; sell unrepayable; soul-trafficking death§3

3Cyril: …he does not allow to be in danger, for the works of night and darkness are punished, but the things as in light thereafter no longer. And God has justified release from the ancient charges, and from those in ignorance and darkness. And indeed let it also be said to those who have arrived from sin unto the intelligible light, ‘You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord.’ Thus the Lord has also justified the divine Paul, who was formerly a blasphemer and persecutor and insolent man; for beyond measure he persecuted the Church of God and was laying it waste.

Palladius: You have spoken most excellently.

Cyril: And if he should not be able, he says, five calves instead of one, and four sheep instead of one, let him be sold instead of the theft. You see how the law clearly writes down the slavish dishonor of those who have continuous and unwashed-out sin, and who are not even able, so to speak, to beat off the charges with ransom, both through weakness of resolve not enduring to sweat unto repentance, and through the labors unto this to propitiate God? So he says very well that they are to be sold. For he does not allow those so polluted to be numbered among those freed through the divine grace. And being thrust out from the honor fitting for free persons, they also will hear: ‘Behold, you were sold for your lawless deeds.’ And if he should be caught having stolen, he says, but not yet having destroyed—that is, if someone of those accustomed to think otherwise should be caught having begun deceit and trickery unto others, but not yet having conquered and brought the hearers down unto destruction—he will repay double. For the master of the flock will take back what is his own, and the buffoon will also be required to give accounts; for this would be the thing in the double; and he will endure the penalty unto death. For what he wished to do unto others, he himself would suffer, and very fittingly.

Palladius: How truly destructive and altogether terrible is the matter of the deceivers, concerning whom I think somehow Christ himself also foretold: ‘Take heed from those who come toward you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are rapacious wolves.’

Cyril: Rightly then the law adjudges that every such one must have died as of wild beasts. For it has been written in Exodus: ‘If someone should steal one of the sons of Israel, and having overpowered him should sell him, and he should be found in him, let him die by death.’ And in Deuteronomy: ‘And if a human should be caught stealing a soul from his brothers, the sons of Israel, and having overpowered him should sell him, that thief will die.’ For it is not lawful that the holy race in Christ be laid waste, and be brought down somehow into an unfamiliar slavery by those accustomed to do this; for just as those who deceive boys separate them from city and households, and sending them out from free persons’ boasts, bring them under the yokes of forced slavery; in the same way, I think, those who lead away those who have chosen to think uprightly, and who practice the life fitting for free persons, onto

No greeting to heretics; virgin/betrothed laws quoted (Exod/Deut)§4

4Cyril: …what seems most mindless to themselves, carrying them off by intricate deceits of thoughts, will fittingly endure the charge of robbery upon human souls; and the penalty for them is death. To such ones, ‘Do not even say Welcome,’ says the disciple of the Savior, not training us unto savagery of manners, but because the sheep is not suited unto dispositions with the wolf; and those accustomed to think otherwise are somehow incompatible with one another; ‘For what portion has a believer with an unbeliever?’ And in addition to these things, the divine Paul writes that one must not be intertwined with the fornicators of this age. So that then some may not be snatched as from a paternal hearth—the Church of God—and be carried off into churches of those doing evil, selling down as it were their own mind by turnings unto baseness—‘For bad associations corrupt good characters’—the law defines death as the judgment for those who have most unholily desired to do this. And you would see the law hinting the same to us sideways again, and through another oracular saying. For it orders worldly matters unto what has uprightly, through the more manifest and ready contemplation for those who wish to grasp it. For we will not abolish the history among the things most useful as stale. For even the letter itself will sometimes benefit the hearers, and it somehow travails in depth the spiritual things, and has the power of the thinner thoughts as in fine shadows. And he said again in Exodus: ‘And if someone should deceive an unbetrothed virgin, and should sleep with her, he will dowry her with a dowry for himself as wife. And if refusing he should refuse, and her father should not wish to give her to him as wife, he will repay silver to the father according as is the dowry of the virgins.’ And somehow widening the divine commandment for us, the divine Moses says in Deuteronomy: ‘And if a human should be found sleeping with a woman cohabiting with a husband, you will kill both, the man sleeping with the woman, and the woman, and you will remove the evil from the sons of Israel. And if there should be a virgin betrothed to a man, and a human finding her in a city should sleep with her, you will lead both out upon the gate of their city, and they will be stoned with stones and will die; the young woman, because she did not cry out in the city, and the human, because he humbled the wife of his neighbor; and you will remove the evil from yourselves. And if in a field a human should find the betrothed woman, and having forced her should sleep with her, you will kill only the human who slept with her; and to the young woman you will do nothing; there will be for the young woman no sin of death, because as if a human should rise up against his neighbor and murder his soul, so is this matter, because he found her in the field, the betrothed young woman cried out, and there was no one to help her.’ The matter of the history then, I think, will somehow need no word for some to be able to understand; for it is very clear and evident.

Soul wed to Christ; betrothed = catechumen; city vs field begins§5

5Cyril: But we must, as it seems, having set these aside for the present, go the inward and hidden path.

Palladius: Very much so.

Cyril: I say then that just as among wrongs unto a woman the most grievous of all would be adultery, undoing another’s marriage and making a divorce of those already joined, in the same way, I think, among charges unto human souls the most impious and most unbearable of all is to practice the corruption not simply unto any chance soul, but unto the one already somehow cohabiting and united to Christ, the bridegroom from above and from heaven; for we are united to him both through the faith and further through having a share of holy Spirit; ‘For the one clinging to the Lord is one spirit,’ according to the Scriptures. So the law justly honors with death together with the adulterer also the woman who has fornicated—him as putting in the seeds of the impiety present in him, and her because, dishonoring the law of genuineness, she has become another’s, and opening her mind to his corruptions she received the pollution from human inventions.

Palladius: The word is persuasive.

Cyril: To a woman then, cohabiting with a husband according to laws, one must very well liken the soul cohabiting and united to Christ through faith and Spirit. And we will reckon as a betrothed virgin the one called unto beginnings of true knowledge, not yet wholly united to Christ, and still awaiting as somehow a marriage and a truer mode of joining the grace through holy baptism and the participation of the holy Spirit, having received as earnest and as beginning of converse the word of catechesis. Thus our divine mystagogue—Paul this is—brought the Church from the nations to Christ; for he writes thus: ‘For I betrothed you to one husband, to present a pure virgin to Christ.’ And the Bridegroom himself somehow says through a voice of prophets: ‘And I will betroth you to myself unto the age, in righteousness and in judgment and in mercy and in compassions; and I will betroth you in faith, and you will know the Lord.’ If then the charges of the corruption should come about, he says, also upon some such soul, let the matter be written as adultery; for the betrothed woman is under obligation, and already under the hand of the bridegroom after a little. But if the wrong should come about in a city, he says—that is, either in Christ’s Church, and in the city of the living God, which angels and holy men inhabit, leaders and teachers able to help those in danger and being deceived—let the suffering virgin also die together with the deceiver. For it being possible readily to flee the corruption, if she had reported to the teachers who know how to save, she sickened the suffering as voluntary, and does not have the leading-away unto the base from necessity. And if it should not come about, he says, in Church, nor in

Field without teacher; unbetrothed soul; heretics snatch Gentiles/Jews§6

6Cyril: …the city of the living God, but somehow in a field and in a countryside, where there was no helping mystagogue, and much emptiness of those accustomed to persuade unto the better, and the deceit as in scarcity of pedagogues, let only the one who forced be in danger; for the deed is already grasping, and a suffering without help, and a necessity somehow hard to flee will turn aside the charge; or shall we say it is not superfluous to blame those upon whom things have been brought unwillingly as involuntary?

Palladius: Altogether so; for the law is holy.

Cyril: You speak well; and it makes the examination of the deeds thinner, and somehow measures the angers to the wrongs, neither releasing altogether the lesser wrong from needing to be punished, nor setting it in equality with what is beyond this, but somehow turning the motion equal-sized to the charges. For he said again: ‘And if someone should find the virgin girl who has not been betrothed, and having forced her should sleep with her, and it should be found, the human who slept with her will give to the father of the young woman fifty didrachms of silver, and she will be his wife, instead of those things for which he humbled her; he will not be able to send her away for all time.’ So adultery made the one joining with a betrothed woman liable, according clearly to the modes already said. And if she should appear, he says, still unjoined, and not yet pledged to Christ through the faith, as a soul in the form of a virgin, and then someone should be caught having defiled her with words unto impiety, and having led her aside from wandering unto wandering—such a thing as heretics do, sometimes snatching those from the nations and from Jews, and persuading them to follow themselves—he will find the attempt not without penalty. For he will repay to the Father of spirits—that is, to God—the accounts of the wrong, the penalty being very well typed as in a loss of money. And ‘She will be his wife’ is useful to the history.

Palladius: I understand what you say; for the law is double—fleshly and spiritual.

Cyril: And observe how not even the word of the ancient commandment was ignorant of what Christ said concerning man and woman: ‘What therefore God has yoked, let a human not separate.’ For let her be his wife, he says, instead of those things for which he humbled her; he will not be able to send her away for all time. And in addition to this, consider how high as in boasts is the height of all-holy virginity; for the word of the God-inspired Scripture both knows and thinks fit to name as humiliation the taking-away of virginity, and as it were the putting-off of solemnity.

Palladius: You have spoken uprightly.

Cyril: Having then declared as God-hated and truly unholy the deceit of the otherwise-thinking, and the turning unto baseness of those accustomed to corrupt those who have chosen to walk uprightly, and the leading-away onto what it does not fit

Idle word-fights; pregnant struck; faith as embryo; Galatians travail§7

7Cyril: …he has also invented something other, which the divine Paul himself also made for us a most excellent of lessons, saying: ‘Not to word-fight upon nothing useful, or upon overturn of the hearers.’ For superfluous dialogues, and the contentious altogether about inquiries, generate fights not necessary, and strike the mind of the hearers; for some, from lightness, sometimes receive readily and ignorantly what is not upright and said, and are eager to praise it; and others, bringing the more shameful vote upon the best things, having sickened the equal lack of education with the others, would be caught; and altogether few are those who know how to discern, and to set what benefits before what is naturally harmful. And these barely keep the mind unstruck in the word-fights of the others. So that the matter will not be without penalty for those wanting to do it, the law again hints to us, saying: ‘And if two men should fight, and should strike a woman having in belly, and her child should come out not yet formed, he will be fined with a fine, according as the husband of the woman should lay on, and he will give with dignity. And if it should be formed, he will give soul instead of soul.’ A word then: in the womb the embryo is barely seen human-formed, and goes into a type of the body according to us then, when also a number of a fortieth day is completed upon it. For this very reason they say that Moses the all-excellent, somehow travailing and reshaping Israel from the wandering in Egypt unto the life in law, abstained from foods and drinks; ‘For bread,’ he says, ‘I did not eat, and water I did not drink forty days.’ And unto us ourselves one must suspect that Christ both did and endured this. For in him the nature was reshaped unto sanctification through self-control, having from unbridled appetite in beginnings in the first-formed sickened the pollution unto sin and transgression. These things it is not unpersuasive for us to think; yet however the word of the history may somehow hold, let it be set aside now; but how it would be fitting to understand that a woman having in belly is struck by those accustomed to word-fight—come already, come, let us examine; for to speak very thinly in these things is not unpleasant. So a fruit and conception of mind would be the faith unto Christ, reshaping us unto him through complete knowledge, and forming us into a divine type; and indeed those who have believed through a voice of Isaiah, marking this somehow, I think, have cried out very well: ‘Through your fear, Lord, we received in belly, and we travailed, and we bore, we made a spirit of your salvation upon the earth.’ So a fruit and spiritual and saving conception of mind would be the faith unto Christ, which also seals the divine characters in us. To those then who from more perfect knowledge have flowed ignorantly unto the lesser and more incomplete—Galatians these are—the divine Paul was addressing, saying: ‘My little children, whom I again travail, until Christ should be formed in you.’ For having begun in spirit, the

Formed faith = soul-murder if aborted; beast-torn; mixed seed/vineyard§8

8Cyril: …completion according to flesh they were practicing, having been transferred unto the worship of the law; for this very reason they were also making the formation of Christ in themselves incomplete, somehow aborting the good lying in themselves as in a womb. So the perfect in knowledge and the unmixed unto faith will house the formation of the Savior in the souls of all of us, and this in us will be as somehow a divine sowing. Whenever then some should be scandalized as from the word-fight of certain ones; and then the soul that has suffered this should abort the faith and knowledge lying as in travails and treasured within unto mind—if it should be, he says, not yet formed, that is, if still incomplete and less beautiful, the cause of the scandal will altogether and in every way endure a penalty, which the bridegroom of this one should lay on, he says—that is, Christ; and he will give with dignity, that is, let him also confess grace, not having undergone the penalty unto complete destruction. And if the intelligible conception of the soul should be formed, he says—that is, if there should be knowledge and faith of Christ wearing formation—he will be subject to the accounts concerning the last things, as already also a murderer. For death of soul is the putting-off of the blameless faith, and the loss of knowledge that holds rightly. Therefore he says that needing to share unholy teachings, and whatever words a man would make, having become devilish prey, and somehow food of the herd of demons, is a pollution; and he forbids again, saying as in a riddle, ‘And flesh taken by beasts you will not eat; throw it to the dog.’ For it is custom of the divine Scripture to name as dog the shameless and unclean human. And every word somehow foul and stinking would be fitting for such a one, I think, and composed from Beelzebul himself, as of a wild beast having eaten down the soul that fell under him and serves unto this; ‘For no one says, Anathema Jesus, except in Beelzebul.’ And for holy ones to come into participation of thoughts and words so shameful or adulterated is altogether unfitting. ‘For there is no communion of light toward darkness.’

Palladius: Truly.

Cyril: And that it is fitting for those allotted to lead, and leaders of flocks, to stay awake, he again oracled. And what manner of our fairness unto this would become, he hints, saying in Leviticus: ‘You will not make your cattle mount with a differently yoked animal, and you will not sow your vineyard with different seed.’ For to herds of goats and sheep, or indeed to a vineyard, one must very well liken the multitude under hand. For the divine Peter heard: ‘Simon of Jonah, do you love me? Feed my lambs, shepherd my sheep.’ And concerning those from Israel, the prophet Isaiah was saying: ‘For the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and

Shepherd keeps flock pure; bestiality type of alien teaching; slaves next§9

9Cyril: …a human of Judah, a beloved newly planted.’ So a virtue of a shepherd is not to let loose upon sheep some animal of another form, so that they fall under somehow foreign mountings, lest it bear something of another nature, and having bent away from the natural good birth present in it; and the caretaker of vineyards, if he should be sensible and have practiced farming most excellently, would never endure the dry of the seeds to grow under the vines themselves, lest, the moisture being spent for them unto the alien, they themselves fall short concerning what is their own. Come then already somehow from an image now unto the spiritual: let us not allow the rational flocks to be led unholily under the sowings of the otherwise-teaching—intelligible ones clearly, and the introductions as in word; for the fruit from dissimilar resolve is very ugly, and the words of those not of like faith would become providers of base conceptions for those who have received them; and we being vineyards, and lying in the order of orchards, it is somehow fitting to be crowned with single-formed fruit, and to decline the double-natured mode. For there is no word unto natural likeness for wheat and clusters. So let there be for none of us a place of alien seeds.

Palladius: You speak well.

Cyril: And in another way also he shows the differently mannered as unjoined and incompatible, and split from communion toward one another, having set beside as a type the most outlandish and altogether strange joining of the rational animal toward what is not such, but of another form and out of tribe. And indeed he also says in Exodus: ‘Whoever should sleep with a beast, you will kill him by death.’ And more clearly again in Leviticus: ‘And whoever should give his lying in a four-footed animal, let him be put to death by death, and you will kill the four-footed; and a woman who should approach unto every beast to be forced by it, you will kill the woman and the beast; let them be put to death by death; they are liable.’ For converses and as it were intelligible mixings and joinings toward those for whom it would least be fitting, and for whom the mind has sickened unto unreason the last, are providers of death, both for those who corrupt and for those who endure the corruption as voluntary.

Palladius: Most uprightly and very holily the law speaks.

Cyril: And you would still marvel also at this; for there were somehow some who, as from unbearable grasping, even if they should not wish to endure the corruption from uprightness of thoughts unto what holds sideways, also somehow from necessity, perhaps not without tears, suffer the wandering. So the law did not think fit to overlook even such a race as without help.

Palladius: What sort of thing do you mean?

Cyril: The one bound tight with a yoke of slavery and held down by the authorities of those who have bought them.

Slave eye/tooth → free if soul harmed; leave masters who lead into error§10

10Palladius: And in what manner then has the law also helped these?

Cyril: For it loosens from bond and necessity, if the harm should be about soul, and it has clearly justified that the wronged may run off if he should wish, nothing tripping him. For he said thus sideways in Exodus: ‘And if someone should strike the eye of his house-slave, or the eye of his maidservant, and should blind it, he will send them out free instead of their eye; and if he should cut out the tooth of his maidservant, or the tooth of his house-slave, he will send them out free instead of their tooth.’ As far as concerns outward contemplation and a ready mind, it checks the boldness, and makes the angers of the owners measured, and does not wish to go as far as those things through which the subordinated would come to be the loss unto being well. And it nowhere allows the things from passion to go unbridled, and already to be practiced unto the nature itself, of which the Creator alone would be understood as existing Master; for slavery and the suffering upon it is not a natural sickness, but brought in from grasping. In Christ then God and Father reshapes the whole nature at once unto what was in beginnings. ‘For if someone is in Christ, a new creation.’ And the shame of slavery is altogether taken away; for Paul writes that ‘In Christ Jesus there is neither slave nor free.’ And for the present the law, training on toward the perfect, takes away the unbridled of the authority, and what is beyond the measure of what is fitting, setting as penalty for those who slight the law the release of the wronged. But these things unto letter and shadow, if someone should also choose to understand this way; and if the aim of the law should be interpreted spiritually, you would also strike, O Palladius, in another way the contemplations in it; for this worldly light we receive and marvel at with the eyes of the body; but the divine and intelligible light rises in our hearts; and the food of the body is ground with teeth, and the matter will be a path unto life; but the things of the divine contemplations, hard and hard to reach, are all but crushed with the strength of the understanding as with a tooth, and feed a soul. And indeed Wisdom, opening for us the divine and spiritual table, ‘Come, eat my bread,’ she says. So even if harm should somehow befall a house-slave concerning some of such things, a master going astray and forcing him to slip from uprightness of dogmas unto outlandish wandering, let the bond be loosed, he says, and let there be no word of a necessary yoke. And let the terror of the authority also be thrown somewhere, and let the yoked one go thereafter wherever the unharmed holding would be found for him; for nothing was better than soul. And in order that he may save, he says, let him have been released from slavery. And you would see the word true, and still being fulfilled in times according to us; for house-slaves do not endure masters who lead them unto wandering, having nobly withdrawn from the authority hung over them

Slaves keep mind pure; goring ox = share joy and grief§11

11Cyril: …the obedience in this at least; for having borne the neck of the body under the burden of slavery, they keep the mind unmuddied in themselves, and they have believed that needing to know clearly and without wandering the word concerning the true faith is worth very much, rather the whole, and they make the matter a spiritual food, as if grinding with the mind as with a tooth what comes into the ear, and chewing again the power of the divine thoughts.

Palladius: How clear for us, and uprightly holding, is the word.

Cyril: And the law also habituates us otherwise unto mutual love, persuading us to honor sitting-together with those near, and both abhorring and punishing the modes of inequality.

Palladius: How then do you say?

Cyril: Hear already; for he writes again: ‘If someone’s bull should gore the bull of the neighbor, and it should die, they will give back the living bull, and they will divide its silver, and they will divide the dead bull. And if the bull should be known that it is a gorer before yesterday and before the third day; and they should have been testified to its master, and he should not make it disappear, he will repay a bull instead of a bull, and the dead one will be his.’ You see the riddle, and the word upon this somehow going straight for us from a most clear example? For if it should come about that so-and-so’s bull has died, he says, and fallen under another bull, they will divide the living bull, and the dead one will again be for both—that is, if a mode of grasping and wrong should come about from someone not willing unto another, let the wronged one luxuriate, he says, in the goods of the one who grieved him, and let him have the joys in common. For this, I think, is dividing the living bull; and let the one who has struck unwillingly also make common, he says, the misfortunes of the one who has suffered; for this I think hints, dividing the dead one. You see then how the law still riddlingly and shadowedly introduces the mutual-loving mode? Or is this not the thing, ‘To rejoice with those rejoicing, and to weep with those weeping’?

Palladius: It seems so.

Cyril: And if indeed, he says, the grasper should know clearly that the neighbor will suffer something terrible, the modes of grasping not having been taken away, he himself will endure the equal penalty, and will pour the misfortune of the sufferer upon his own soul alone. For this riddlingly is, ‘He will repay a bull instead of a bull, and the dead one will be his.’ For the word is not only as far as falling away from their own goods for those who wrong, but they will have their own misfortune, and the passion will be theirs, what has befallen the neighbor.

Palladius: How well the word holds for us.

Seek others’ things; grazing field; heretics devour Lord’s vineyard§12

12Cyril: And Paul the divine also was setting for us a wise law of the love unto one another, saying thus: ‘Not seeking the things of themselves, but also the things of the others.’ For love does not seek the things of itself; but it rather looks around also at the things of the others, and how the things of the brothers would hold well. This again the ancient Writing somehow hints to us; and it holds thus: ‘And if someone should graze down a field or a vineyard, and should let his beast go to graze down another field, he will repay from his field according to its produce; and if he should graze down the whole field, he will repay the best things of his field, and the best things of his vineyard.’ For the one letting his own beast loose upon others’ fields benefits the things according to himself, and somehow seeks the things of himself, yet not from what the neighbor is gladdened, nor upon what one of those near would be pleased, but from what would happen to be grieved and wronged. So one must seek what benefits us—that is, the things of ourselves—not through grasping unto others, but through what would come about to go unto this, wronging nothing, and the neighbor’s good cheer standing uprightly. For this would clearly be seeking also the things of the others. Or let someone know, he says, if he should choose unguardedly to leave brothers behind, and should hold the neighbor without foresight, looking perhaps only unto his own, he will endure the equal penalty, and will provide as cause of destruction for the things most dear to him the mode of the seeming benefit. For this, I think, is, ‘He will repay the best things of his field and of his vineyard.’ And the power of the things set forth would also fit, as at least it seems to me, the inventors of the heresies, whose abominable and most mindless disciples, in the manner of irrational beasts, feed down the master’s grain-fields and vineyards, unto judgment and punishment of the inventors of the heresy; for the loss of the most beautiful things will befall those—that is, the destruction about the soul itself; for of a vineyard, or perhaps a grain-field, and of each of the things understood according to us part by part, the best in it is the soul.

Palladius: So we say then that a fruit of love is needing to seek the things of the others, and not indeed only the things of ourselves.

Cyril: Very much so, O Palladius, and needing to fulfill the loving unto brothers, as most sweet to God, yet he does not economically allow the love to be overloaded with the superfluous and more of misuse from our side; for what leaps upon it not measuredly, but rather with a hard-to-meet impulse, easily damages even the mind that has stepped well, even if it should happen to be in a beautiful state of whatever virtue.

Palladius: How much then do you say? For I do not understand clearly.

Cyril: Or do you not say that the gentle and the forbearing of evil is a virtue?

Palladius: How not so?

Gentleness has measure; glean ears not sickle; do not bottle teachers’ ad-lib§13

13Cyril: But if somehow someone should heap griefs and insults upon the one practicing gentleness and forbearance of evil, and the things through which the angers come—if it should come about measuredly, he would sometimes endure and bear it nobly, and will make the matter an exercise of gentleness and unanger. And if someone should go beyond the measured, and run beyond the bounds of forbearance, nothing unlikely, that the virtue somehow forced would also briefly grow slack.

Palladius: You speak well; for the good somehow is drunk among humans, and with no one shaking it, it stands scarcely.

Cyril: Come then already, if it seems good, also upon the loving itself. For it is the preeminent virtue, and the more excellent of the others. Yet it does not endure the too-great misuse. Which again the law guides for us as in a form of parable and clear example, saying: ‘And if you should enter into the harvest of your neighbor, and should gather ears in your hands, you will not set a sickle upon the harvest of your neighbor; and if you should enter into the vineyard of your neighbor, and should eat grape as much as for your soul to be filled, you will not cast into a vessel.’ For gathering a few ears with hands, or shearing a cluster unto desire or food, would have no harm. For he will bear it, I think, with good cheer; these things are the law of love, and the matter does not appear beyond the measure. But also bringing iron while reaping upon the things of the neighbor somehow swims over and thereafter leaps over the mutual-loving, and goes into the bounds already of grasping. So this is a clear example of not needing to misuse the lovings of the brothers, and of honoring also the mutual-loving with self-sufficiencies. And it is not inelegant, as I at least think, to fit the word upon this again also to certain others among us, who plucking as some intelligible food the voices of those teaching in the Churches, whichever would come about from the immediate and ready, do not endure to remain as far as this, but going somehow beyond the measure, and casting as into a vessel, also deposit them in tablets—being very fond of learning, yet somehow wronging brothers unto suspicion, because they deposit at once in writing what was improvised, as if something of the things very much prepared. But the law, O best ones, I would say to them, has clearly commanded to cast nothing into a vessel.

Palladius: So then it is slippery to pry up as it were a virtue of soul, and to dare all but to shake the mind that has stepped well by the superfluous of the misuse.

Cyril: The word is exact. For the God of the wholes has clearly justified that we must not plot against virtue, but rather share, if it should happen, the goods from virtue. And he makes the riddle dim upon this, and in altogether small things he paints the things incomparably overlying. For it has been written in the

Bird-nest: take chicks, spare mother-virtue; return enemy’s ox§14

14Cyril: …Deuteronomy: ‘And if you should meet a nest of birds before your face in the way, or upon every tree, or upon the earth, with chicks or eggs, and the mother should warm upon the chicks or upon the eggs, you will not take the mother with the children. Sending away you will send away the mother, and the young you will take for yourself, that it may become well for you, and you may be many-dayed.’

Palladius: And what then is this? For the riddle is not clear to me.

Cyril: Or do you not clearly understand? That if someone should take the bird still nesting, or sitting on eggs, let him make the things from her a benefit and a find; yet let him send her away—he has done no harm.

Palladius: Yes; for this would be the aim of the Writing.

Cyril: So observe the hidden, and as if having unfolded the shadow, look down intelligibly upon the truth. For each virtue is somehow a mother and generation of the goods from it—as if someone should say kindness, love of the poor, gentleness, long-suffering. For someone is kind not more for himself than for others; and those who have needed it would share love of the poor, and likewise gentleness and long-suffering. So each virtue would be understood as a mother, and somehow a beginning of the goods in it and from it. And nests as of virtues are the souls travailing them and having chosen them in themselves. So the law says then that those who happen upon men in whom virtues would be as gathered into a nest must make the gains from them, yet must not still love to damage virtue, the mother of the best right-doings; and virtue is wronged when shaken by someone, according at least to the modes already said.

Palladius: How deep the riddle!

Cyril: Yes; you speak uprightly. But, that we may say something agreeing with the voices of the blessed Paul, ‘Does God not care about the sparrows? Or does he speak altogether because of us?’ For the word of the commandment through Moses interprets for us types of matters, not the matters themselves clearly; and you would see how he also brings us up little by little already into modes of the uppermost mutual love. For he tries to persuade us to love even those who have struck against us, and to be seen better than grief unto enemies, not being conquered by the evil, but rather conquering the evil in the good. For he said again in Exodus: ‘And if you should meet the ox of your enemy, or his beast of burden, wandering in the way, having turned back you will give it back to him; and if you should see the beast of burden of your enemy fallen under its load, you will not pass it by, but you will raise it with him.’ And in Deuteronomy: ‘Having seen the calf of your brother, or his sheep, wandering in the way, do not overlook them; turning back you will turn them back to your brother; and if the

Return brother’s lost; help enemies; deaf/blind scandal ban begins§15

15Cyril: …brother should not draw near to you, nor should you set him over it, you will gather them inside into your house, and it will be with you until your brother should seek them, and you will give them back to him; thus you will do his donkey, and thus you will do his garment, and thus you will do according to every loss of your brother, whatever should be lost from him, and you should find, you will not be able to overlook them; you will not overlook the donkey of your brother, or his calf fallen in the way; do not overlook, raising you will raise them with him.’ You understand then how most urbanely he trains us toward the already somehow and perfectly good, commanding to make as it were a practice of not remembering evil—the sparing unto the beasts of the one who has grieved, whom he also crowns above and below with the name of brotherhood, checking, I think somewhere, the intense unto angers, and the superfluous unto smallness of soul, and bringing in the law of nature as somehow an umpire of love. For if you should find, he says, a wandering beast, or a lost garment, you will save them around for your brother; and if something of those accustomed to bear burdens should slip down to earth to be crushed under the load itself, you will work with and raise with. And this is nothing other than benefiting the owner, and a practice toward mercy, and a training toward love of one’s own, and seeking to push grief far away, and to decline differences, for the sake at least of not seeming to strike against love and the law unto brother-love. And it is likely that the oracular saying also somehow hints something other; for if such care has come about for the lawgiver, that even if something of the irrational should be what has suffered, he stretches out the help for us, how would the sparing unto humans, and the mutual love owed to those of like race, not please him more greatly? So even if an enemy should somehow wander, let him learn the straight way, and through us let him nod toward what benefits. Thus also Christ, though he was being struck with stones by those from Israel, was nevertheless calling out: ‘While you have the light, walk in the light, that darkness may not overtake you.’ And if someone of those who have struck against us should be squeezed in toil and trials, and somehow as thrown to earth should be pressed by inescapable necessities, he says, let him be helped by us, and let the differing one be better than grief. Or is this not the thing, ‘Do good to your enemies, and pray for those who insult you’?

Palladius: You have spoken most excellently.

Cyril: So then it is holy-fitting to suffer-with those who labor, and not rather to make the things upon which it was better to pity a pretext of grasping against them, still leaping upon and being angry at those who have been wronged. And even if someone should be able to finish the modes of the plot secretly, the law says very well that one must also hold off from the evil-doings upon this; for he said again: ‘You will not speak badly of a deaf person, and before a blind person you will not add a scandal.’ And yet how is it not better, and most fitting for the very fair ones, to have as it were a bridle in

No slander of deaf; open bowels to poor; stranger/widow/orphan; pledge§16

16Cyril: …tongue, and to decline speaking-down upon whatever, rather upon every human? For ‘Do not speak against one another, my brothers,’ says the disciple of the Savior. And now the law says: ‘You will not speak badly of a deaf person,’ wanting somehow, I think, through a riddle to mark that those truly fair in manner must necessarily depart from wrongdoing, even if being able readily to suffer should befall some; for a deaf or blind person is not free of weakness; for they are sick in the things from the body, and have been maimed in the senses—I mean sight and hearing. And the deaf would not hear the one wanting to speak against, nor would a blind person look down upon the one adding a scandal. So then it is nothing hard to escape notice, even if someone should wish to plot against them. But those whom one ought rather to pity, as already weakened from the misfortune from home, will also be caught wronging in addition—crushing with a scandal the blind person who does not know, and with insults the deaf person, sometimes even persuading him to smile as upon good reports, yet striking often even somehow into the most vital things themselves. So the evil-doing upon both would be hidden, if someone should choose, yet it would not pass out from a charge of hardness and of the too-great hate of one another.

Palladius: Truly.

Cyril: For that it also sets us as mutual-loving and pity-loving, even the ancient oracle, you would more easily learn hearing him say, at one time, that ‘Opening you will open your bowels to your brother who is in need among you’; and at another time again, ‘And a sojourner you will not mistreat, nor will you afflict him; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Every widow and orphan you will not mistreat; and if with evil you should mistreat them, and having cried out they should cry down toward me, with hearing I will hear their voice, and I will be angered with wrath, and I will kill you with a sword, and your women will be widows, and your children orphans. And if you should lend silver to your poor brother beside you, you will not be pressing him, nor will you set interest upon him; and if you should take in pledge the garment of your neighbor, before sunsets you will give it back to him. For this is his only wrapping, this the garment of his shame; in what will he sleep? If then he should cry down toward me, I will hear him; for I am merciful.’ You hear how, setting forward the sweet lesson of mutual love, he threatened the anger? And all but also apologizes kindly to those about to undergo it, if they should not make the compassion unto brothers a matter of eagerness? ‘For I am merciful,’ he says—that is, being good by nature, and pitying as God, I will altogether receive the cry-down of the one who has suffered, and I will readily pity the tear of those weighted down by poverty. So then the speaking-down of the poor man is to be declined. For that it is fitting to be sharing, and to think love of the poor worthy of the most urgent eagerness, he has again put to shame in Deuteronomy, saying, ‘You will not deprive a wage of a poor man, or of one in need from your brothers, or from the sojourners

Same-day wage; sell and give; gleanings; no interest to brother§17

17Cyril: …of those in your cities, you will give back his wage the same day. The sun will not set upon him, because he is poor, and upon him he has the hope; and he will not cry down against you toward the Lord, and there will not be sin in you.’ You understand then that he persuades to dread the cry-down of the poor man, driving together unto mutual love? And the new Writing also through Christ, bringing in the perfectly good, ‘Sell the belongings,’ it says, ‘and give alms, and behold all things will be well-wayed for you’; which indeed some of those who have believed have also done. ‘For they were bringing prices of fields and houses, and were setting them beside the feet of the apostles, and it was being distributed to each, according as anyone had need.’ And since the law is an elementary teacher, and carries back unto beginnings of the oracles of God, it commands to make as somehow a fore-practice of the path unto this the ungrudging as in few things; for this reason it says: ‘And if you should reap your harvest in your field, and should forget a sheaf in your field, you will not turn back to take it; it will be for the poor and the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the works of your hands; and if you should gather olives you will not turn back to glean the things behind you, it will be for the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, and you will remember that you were a house-slave in the land of Egypt, for this reason I command you to do this word. And if you should vintage your vineyard, you will not vintage it again the things behind you, it will be for the sojourner and the orphan and the widow, and you will remember that you were a house-slave in the land of Egypt. For this reason I command you to do this word.’ For it is beautiful in good cheer to remember labors, and the more ancient affliction; for the matter calls toward love of the poor, and the breadth of fair weather does not allow forgetting the evils in want.

Palladius: Truly.

Cyril: And see how most craftily and very urbanely he unhabits us from the worse things, and persuades us to be eager away from the unpitying, and leads us toward the better, and embarks us into the modes of mutual love; for he urges, if they should somehow need something, to lend out to brothers, and he bars interests, and commands to push away increasings. And having further ordered that one must not be burdensome, nor lie upon those who owe, he bids to make a release of debts. And he writes thus: ‘You will not take interest from your brother—interest of silver, and interest of foods, and interest of every matter—what you should lend to the alien, you will not take interest; that the Lord your God may bless you in all your works upon the earth which you are entering there to inherit.’ For as far as concerns the lawgiver’s wish, the right-handed and honor-loving of the things in breadth of surplus would have lain ungrudgingly for alien and brothers together; ‘For to everyone asking you give,’ says Christ, ‘and from the

Law pedagogue to Christ; seventh-year release = remission in Christ§18

18Cyril: …one taking your things, do not demand back.’ And since the mind of those in beginnings upon righteousness is not very strong, unto being able to finish the good blamelessly, the law goes forward little by little upon it as pedagogue, and measures out the mode of righteousness; as unto brothers and neighbors, the exact of compassion, and the ungrudging unto aliens, and the sharing unto all, keeping by the more perfect pedagogy—for the shadows are until a time of correction; and this time was that of Christ’s presence.

Palladius: You have spoken most urbanely.

Cyril: Having then further ordered the needing to lend across, and having cut off increasings, and promising blessing to those who choose to do this, when seven years are left upon the debts, he commands to let go, honoring the time of the release of all—that is, of Christ’s presence—according to which we all have been justified by the faith, gaining the amnesty of the ancient failings, he having nailed to his own cross the handwriting against us, and having made out of the midst the accounts which we owed the judge. And he says thus again in Deuteronomy: ‘Through seven years you will make a release, and thus the ordinance of the release: You will release every private debt which the neighbor owes you, and you will not demand back from your brother, because a release has been called upon the Lord your God. The alien you will demand back whatever should be for you with him. And to your brother you will make a release of your debt, because there will not be a needy one in you, because blessing the Lord your God will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you in a lot to inherit.’ And after other things again: ‘And if there should be in you a needy one from your brothers, in one of your cities, in the land which the Lord your God gives you, you will not turn away your heart, nor will you tighten your hand from your brother who is in need. Opening you will open your hand to him, lending you will lend him as much as he should need, and according as he falls short. Take heed to yourself lest there should ever become a hidden word in your heart, a lawless thing saying: The seventh year draws near, a year of release, and your eye should do evil to your brother who is in need, and you should not give to him, and he will cry against you toward the Lord, and it will be a great sin for you; giving you will give to him, and lending you will lend him as much as he should need of you, and you will not be grieved in your heart when you give to him; because for this word the Lord your God will bless you, in all your works, and in all where you should set your hand.’ You will not be grieved, he says, in the heart when you give to him; ‘For God loves a cheerful giver,’ according to the voice of the blessed Paul.

Palladius: Then how does this seventh year make clear the presence of our Savior, according to which the time of the release of all was shown, or rather the mode has been perfected?

Age as week; Sabbath Christ; Our Father debts; Edom embassy begins§19

19Cyril: Or will you not remember us having also said in the things already passed, that it is customary for the divine Scripture to liken the whole interval of the present and standing age to a week, because of the cycling-back unto the beginning of the days? For an end of a week is the Sabbath, and neighbor at once is the eighth, bringing in for us as somehow a new beginning of an age, through the resurrection of Christ.

Palladius: I will remember.

Cyril: He has visited then according to the Scriptures, upon a completion of the present age, and somehow as on a Sabbath—Christ—when he also released all, bound tight with cords of their own sins, and having owed him the accounts of the transgression. Therefore also in the Gospels he likens us to debtors saying: ‘Two debtors were to one human; the one owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And not having to give back, he gifted both.’ And still shaping for us the type of the prayer, ‘Thus then you pray,’ he says: ‘Our Father who is in the heavens, let your name be hallowed, let your kingdom come, let your will become as in heaven and upon the earth, give us today our bread for the coming day, and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ So sideways then and riddlingly the law was hinting the divine mystery for us, commanding to make the release through seven years, and embarks us upon the paths of kindness, teaching to make better than money the loving unto brothers, persuading us to be ready to share and communal, and as somehow setting the gentleness unto brother and neighbor for now as a practice of the more ungrudging reverence unto all.

Palladius: Thus it holds. For I would agree with you wanting to speak most excellently.

Cyril: And the still greater, if you should learn, you would marvel, O Palladius.

Palladius: What sort?

Cyril: For the law wants us to advance unto this of kindness and mutual love, so as to consider nothing equal-balanced to the love unto brothers. And to follow so nobly the distresses upon them, as also to be seen stronger than anger, even if they should not become toward us such as they must be and be seen, and should choose to grieve by unlovingnesses. You have also the type of this in Numbers: ‘For Moses sent,’ he says, ‘messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: Thus says your brother Israel: You know all the toil that found us, and our fathers went down into Egypt, and we sojourned in Egypt many days, and the Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers, and we cried up toward the Lord, and the Lord heard our voice, and having sent an angel, led us out from Egypt, and now we are in Kadesh city, from

Edom refuses passage; Israel turns aside; no spite; forty stripes§20

20Cyril: …a part of your borders. We will pass through your land; we will not go through fields, nor through vineyards, nor will we drink water from your cistern; by a royal way we will go; we will not turn aside right or left, until we pass your borders. And Edom said to him: You will not go through me; and if not, in war I will go out unto meeting you. And the sons of Israel say to him: Beside the mountain we will pass; and if I and my beasts should drink of your water, I will give you a price; But the matter is nothing; beside the mountain we will pass. And he said: You will not go through me. And Edom went out unto meeting him in a heavy crowd, and in a strong hand. And Edom did not wish to give Israel to pass through his borders, and Israel turned aside from him.’ You hear how those from the blood of Israel, usefully counting out the miseries in Egypt, and composing above and below the modes of the grasping, urbanely ask the favor that wrongs nothing, all but being eager to make the one of like race a fellow-helper—for they were brothers of Jacob from Esau; and the others, though it was necessary to pity, and to allow them to do what they would know useful and beneficial for them, hard and unsoftened and not knowing how to suffer-with, were convicted through the matters themselves; for they shut them out from a way, though the people said clearly that they would damage neither vineyards nor the good fruits of fields anywhere, but would also draw water not without silver. And he, if they should not wish to withdraw from the things asked, not only threatened the attack, but was already also in arms, and with the whole army was arrayed. And what then toward this? Israel was stronger than smallness of soul; for he turned aside from him, it says, pushing away the quarrelsome toward brothers, and having honored the law of near-kinship with the too-great forbearances. Or will you not think these things hold thus?

Palladius: And very much.

Cyril: So then checking angers and reining in wraths, and measuring out the judgments proportionally to each one’s failings, and indeed also that the judgments upon each must be practiced by us upright and altogether unslanderable, we will reckon as a fruit and result of the love unto brothers.

Palladius: And very justly.

Cyril: It is present then already for you if you wish, to be persuaded again, when he says at one time, ‘And you will not bear a grudge against the sons of your people’; and at another time again: ‘And if there should become a dispute in the midst of humans, and they should come forward unto judgment, and they should judge and justify the just and condemn the impious, and if the one doing impiously should be worthy of blows, and having sat him down before the judges, they will also whip him before him, according to his impiety, with a number of forty they will whip him, they will not add; and if they should add to whip him, more blows beyond these, your brother will be unseemly before you.’

Forty stripes shadow Christ’s passion; fifth hour and eighth day§21

21Palladius: And what word would again be seen by us, of needing those condemned to be struck with blows by a number of forty alone? And how it shames some, say the thing beyond this.

Cyril: In many modes for us the mystery of Christ is well sketched through the ancient commandment, and the saving passion is somehow molded for us, in which and through which we have been released from everything able to harm, and casting us into incurable misfortunes; and as I said just now, the being released through seven years of those who have owed somehow hints the time of the release of all. For we have been justified in Christ, and have been taught to say in prayers, toward the Father and God in the heavens, ‘Forgive us our debts’; so also here, the advancing as far as forty blows for those striking, or being struck, the outrages through whips, shows the thrice-longed time for us of the economy with flesh of the Only-begotten, according to which by his bruise we were healed, and he himself has been softened because of our sins, those from Israel having insolently treated him, and Pilate having brought the blows upon the back, yet we have been taken out from penalty and punishment. For of old many were the whips of the sinner, according to what has been written, but Christ was whipped for us; for just as he died for all, so also again he was being whipped for all, being one worth all. And having cut the forty-day number into five times eight, you will find useful for the signifying of the time the five and the eight, for the Only-begotten has visited in a fifth time, according at least to the Gospel parable; for someone was hiring the workers into the vineyard; and going out about the first hour, and third and sixth, and ninth and eleventh; and he has been raised according to the eighth, having dissolved the power of death, and destroying together with it the mother of the brought-in corruption—that is, sin—which having been taken away, whips also must be idle, and the penalties and punishments through it. Therefore the law does not allow the whip still to overrun the fortieth number, as far as the presence of Christ and somehow standing the punishments, and marking down the time of the release. For the types of the truth travail the beauty. And one must know that Israel having struck against, was wandering the desert a fortieth year; for God swore with an oath not to lead them into the land of the promise. And this was a bound for them of the anger, and the time having passed, the anger has been loosed, and those from them crossed the Jordan, and entered into the land, the indignation not having overrun the fortieth year. So then a clear type also of this is some being struck as far as forty blows, for the time after this is of release, bringing in for us the mystical crossing of the Jordan, and indeed also flint knives—that is, the circumcision in spirit—and the generalship of Jesus

Christ after Moses; just judges; no alien ruler; Antichrist foreshadowed§22

22Cyril: …ship; for Christ has become a leader for us, after Moses and law.

Palladius: I am persuaded.

Cyril: So then that the things falling in may be discerned uprightly and without bribes, and the modes of grasping may be made to vanish, ‘Judges,’ he says, ‘and scribes-introducers you will set for yourself in all your cities which the Lord God gives you, according to tribes, and they will judge the people a just judgment. They will not turn aside judgment, nor will they recognize a face, nor will they take gifts; for the gifts blind eyes of wise ones, and take away words of just ones.’ For the law thought it necessary, and very fittingly, that those who would have been led unto judging also be seen better than loving to make money, and not granting to reverence toward certain ones the stepping-beyond of what holds well and without slander, and indeed also shaking off the otherwise-leaning as unholy, and weighing each of the matters lawfully, and imitating the judge of the wholes—that is, Christ—whom the law itself also has clearly pre-announced, knowing him also as being judge as God. And he said thus again: ‘And if you should enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you in a lot, and should inherit it, and should dwell upon it, and should say, I will set a ruler upon myself just as also the remaining nations around me, setting you will set upon yourself a ruler whom the Lord your God should choose; him from your brothers you will set upon yourself as ruler; you will not be able to set upon yourself an alien human, because he is not your brother.’ For we must not worship the creation beside the God who created, casting ourselves as inward to lean toward the words of the truth, and to call in as into the holy land—that is, the promise of God through faith in Christ; and thus to set upon ourselves as ruler and judge the Son born from God, even if he should be understood with flesh; and he says concerning us: ‘And I was set king by him, upon Zion his holy mountain, announcing the ordinance of the Lord.’ And altogether upon him we will receive no other, and we will not put the neck under yokes of aliens; for one leader is for us—Christ. For the wretched Jews have remained outside through unbelief, and least of all have they received Christ upon themselves unto ruler and judge, though brought down from heaven, by will and good pleasure of the God and Father, and in addition to these things that they have also elected upon themselves an alien human—the son of destruction—that is, the Antichrist, out-of-tribe and other-born, and not even from blood of Israel, though the law said clearly, ‘You will not be able to set upon yourself an alien human, because he is not your brother.’ And they were hearing also Christ himself saying

Christ vs own-name coming; no vain hearing; poor not favored in judgment§23

23Cyril: …of Christ: ‘I have come in the name of my Father, and you do not receive me. If another should come in his own name, that one you will receive.’ For Christ has visited unto glory of God the Father. And the son of lawlessness will come according to times, not unto glory of God the Father—for this I think is the, In the name of the Father—but setting around his own head, the wretched one, the name of the divinity. ‘For he will sit into the house of God showing himself, that he is God.’ But Jews would not worship him, nor would they ever receive him as Christ while keeping the law; for that Christ would spring up from blood of Israel, it has clearly pre-announced. But they, having also let this go as stale, will receive an alien and other-born human.

Palladius: So then they will eat the fruits of their own way, and will carry home the equal-balanced judgment of the shameful random-counsel.

Cyril: You have spoken well; for God who judges the just things will distribute then altogether to each according to his work. And let these things hold thus for us here, and let the word be sufficient. But indeed to those led unto judging others, and unto the seat fitting for those judging, the law was calling out again: ‘You will not receive a vain hearing’—that is, a false word and full of sycophancy; ‘You will not be added with a multitude to turn aside with more, so as to turn aside judgment.’ And again after other things: ‘You will not twist a judgment of a poor man in his judgment; from every unjust saying you will stand away.’ For the blameless in words would most of all be fitting for those masters of judging, and the one owing to vote upon each of the accused what seems good to the lawgiver must speak uprightly. And usefully also the, ‘A poor man you will not pity in judgment,’ has been brought on. For it is a ready and predisposed matter among those judging to look upon both sides, when the one judged is not rich, and altogether easy to run toward grasping is a man weighted down by poverty; and he has not incapably sometimes also toward being able to force down the word of the just, calling the softer of those judging unto pity. So then the law shuts out both needing to be grasped-against and pitying those in want and misery, keeping the beauty of just-judging uncorrupted, and setting the one judging everywhere as president of equality; ‘For justly you will pursue the just,’ he says. As what grieves the law, even if something should seem to exist of the goods, would fittingly be understood not without fault; ‘For there is a just one being destroyed in his just,’ according to what has been written. So then the good needs good craft, and pitying not in season would not flee a charge of wrong unto law. Those then caught in measured accusations he corrects with the outrages through whips. And see how slavish the matter is and altogether unfree, and do not marvel; for a spirit of slavery was in them. For this reason blows no longer follow the ordinances through Christ

Sons not slaves; murder vs injury; turn other cheek; slave rod; cities of refuge begin§24

24Cyril: …as also to the ancient law. But rather the things fitting for free persons are set forward—bright and worthy-of-taking gifts, and firstfruits and promises of spiritual goods, and beatitudes fitting for right-doings, and no longer a threat, but rather invitations unto virtue. For Moses was speaking toward house-slaves as a house-slave and fellow-slave, to the more ancient ones, but Christ toward sons as Son, and as toward brothers according to placement, the true and genuine from God the Father.

Palladius: It holds uprightly.

Cyril: And indeed he fines the one murdering with death, and by bringings-on of equals he reins back the unbridled boldness, and punishes the no-longer-bearable anger with an unbearable judgment and with evils going unto an end, proving very well beforehand the aim of the doer; and if the wronged should be willing, he takes away the pity. And he does not allow mutual-love to be unseemly, being crumbled not in season, and upon what least must, somehow being dragged down unto the softer. For he said thus: ‘And if someone should set upon the neighbor to kill him by deceit, and he should flee, from my altar you will take him, to put him to death.’ And if the suffering of the one forced advances for the striker only as far as being weak; he measures out the judgment, and commands the damage to become as far as money. For he said thus again: ‘And if two men should revile, and someone should strike the neighbor with a stone, or with a fist, and he should not die, but should be laid down upon a bed, if the human having stood up should walk outside upon a staff, the one who struck will be guiltless, yet he will repay of his idleness, and the medical costs. And these things the law. But the Savior, bringing in the perfectly good: ‘To the one striking you,’ he says, ‘upon the right jaw, turn to him also the other.’ And concerning house-slaves he legislates these things: ‘And if someone should strike his boy, or his maidservant, with a rod, and he should die under his hands, he will be avenged with judgment; and if he should live through one day or two, he will not be avenged; for it is his silver.’ So then he honors the anger altogether with death; for it is not because we have become masters from grasping, and to shut out life itself

Cities of refuge; high priest’s death = Christ; Leviticus purity begins§25

25Cyril: …thus there those fleeing upon involuntary failings. And he defines again a time of release also for those who have done wretchedly here—the death of the overlying and preeminent priest. And he writes thus in Numbers: ‘And if suddenly not through enmity you should push him, or should throw upon him every vessel, not from ambush, or with every stone with which he will die in it, not knowing, and it should fall upon him, and he should die, and he himself was not his enemy, nor seeking to do evil, and the Synagogue will judge between the one who struck and between the one near-kin for the blood according to these judgments, and the Synagogue will take out the one who murdered from the one near-kin for the blood. And the Synagogue will restore him into the city of the refuge-flight where he fled; and he will dwell there until the great priest should die, whom they anointed with the holy oil.’ Then after other things: ‘And after the great priest has died, the one who murdered will turn back into the land of his possession.’

Palladius: So then a loosing of the everlasting-flight for them is the death of the priest just now said to us.

Cyril: This is a figure for the types. And the shadows travail the mystery of Christ.

Palladius: In what manner?

Cyril: It is not unpersuasive, O Palladius, to think somehow that those caught in the sins are as somehow murderers of their own soul, and have slipped into this misery not willingly, but somehow forced into stepping-beyond, and into striking against God, because the understanding of the human lies upon the evil things from youth, and because of the law that tyrannized in the members of the flesh of the untamed love of pleasure. Therefore the wretched soul of the human is fined with the flight from world and body, and having sat as into some city of refuge-flight in the recesses of death, was continuing through long times, and was released scarcely when Christ the great priest died, who having endured the death for all, has gone down into Hades, and opened gates for those below, and was releasing from bonds, ‘saying to those in bonds, Come out, and to those in the darkness, Be uncovered.’

Palladius: How clear the word.

Cyril: And the law, not persuading the more ancient ones to be well-reputed in one mode alone, but to have been well composed through all, and to hold most excellently, that the human of God may be fitted, equipped toward every good work, also orders marital joinings toward the solemn, and so that these things may be practiced blamelessly before God and humans, he sets clearly. So then he banishes fornication and uncleanness altogether, and makes male-lying and adultery as far away as possible, saying in Leviticus: ‘And toward the wife of your neighbor you will not give a lying of your seed, to be defiled toward her, and with a male

Abominations self-condemned; divorce bill; false virginity charge begins§26

26Cyril: …you will not sleep a womanly lying; for it is an abomination.’ From itself, he says, such things suffer the having-been-condemned, and much the foul smell melted into them is found without toil, and those led unto this of abomination will not need a long word unto proof, as having from home so shameful and unbeautiful a glory, and the writing from nature itself. Therefore having set such things aside, he examines the things done lawfully, and not outside reason, saying in Deuteronomy: ‘And if someone should take a woman and should cohabit with her; and it will be, if he should not find favor before him; because he found in her an unseemly matter, he will write for her a book of standing-away, and will give it into her hands, and will send her out from his house; and if having gone away she should become to another man, and the last man should hate her, and should write for her a book of standing-away, and should give into her hands, and should send her out from his house, or also her last man should die, who took her for himself as wife, the former man who sent her out will not be able, having turned back, to take her for himself as wife, after she has been defiled, because it is an abomination before the Lord your God, and you will not defile the land which the Lord your God gives you in a lot.’ For to make a genuine cohabiter of the woman parted from a husband upon reasonable charges and having endured insolence under another is not safe, rather altogether also unlearned. ‘For the one holding,’ he says, ‘an adulteress, is foolish and impious.’ And just as he forbids needing to be pleased with the things manifestly shameful and unambiguously condemned, so again he does not allow to slander the solemn things as unsolemn. For in an equal word of fault will lie both thinking worthy of affection what is better to flee, and stripping of disposition what fear declines. ‘For woe,’ he says, ‘those who say the sweet bitter, and the bitter sweet; the beautiful evil, and the evil beautiful; those who set the light darkness, and the darkness light.’ So then he does not allow to adopt again the woman who has become sent-away, nor yet does he permit harms from word-loving to be brought upon those not yet condemned. And he said thus again: ‘And if someone should take a woman, and should cohabit with her, and should hate her, and should set upon her pretexting words, and should bring down upon her an evil name, and should say, I have taken this woman, and having come toward her I have not found her virginities; and the father of the child and the mother, having taken, will bring out the virginities of the child toward the elders upon the gate, and the father of the child will say to the elders: I have given this my daughter to this human as wife, and this one now having hated her sets upon her pretexting words, saying, I have not found virginities for your daughter; and these are the virginities of my daughter. And they will unfold the garment before the elders of the city, and the elders of that city will take that human, and will discipline him, and will fine

Fine for slandered virgin; parapet house; tree-fruit years = law ages begin§27

27Cyril: …him a hundred shekels, and they will give to the father of the young woman, because he brought out an evil name upon a virgin Israelite, and she will be his wife. He will not be able to send her out for all time.’ You understand then how he has commanded that the one who unjustly slighted the woman not yet condemned must not altogether depart from the council without penalty. For I think one must very well tend the good, and not hastily rush toward seeming to choose to sycophant the solemn as unsolemn; but rather try to think reverence worthy, to lie beside every beautiful thing, and to love to dwell-with the best unto good report. For the one not admitting the carelessnesses through the midst of the matters finishes the aim upon what would become well. And that it is fitting for us to be such the law was again hinting, calling under: ‘If you should build a new house, you will make a crown for your roof. And you will not make a murder in your house, if the one falling should fall upon it.’ For just as a house empty of a fillet is unbeautiful, and of the after-buildings not having been brought upon it, in the same way, I think, every good work is altogether unpersuasive for us, if it should not be led toward the end fitting for it; and not only as far as these things, but danger will also follow those who are idle. For this, I think, is someone slipping down from the house. ‘For woe,’ he says, ‘those who do the work of the Lord carelessly.’ So through however many myriads the law carries us away toward what benefits. And it does not yet set beside the manly and more solid food, but nurtures with milk as being infants, carrying the more ancient ones little by little toward the mystery of Christ. For that the law is spiritual, and as far as concerns shadow and types, somehow not edible, nor yet necessary unto spiritual food it would become, yet will be such, if at least it should be reshaped toward Gospel contemplation, and unto the mystery of Christ, you will understand very well from the all-wise Moses having written thus about it. For he said in Leviticus: ‘And when you should enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, and should plant every edible tree, you will clean around its uncleanness; its fruit will be for you three years uncleansed-around, it will not be eaten. And in the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, praiseworthy to the Lord. And in the fifth year you will eat its fruit. An addition for you its offspring. I am the Lord your God.’ For the Writing of Moses seems to us like most well-growing gardens, travailing a many-formed sprout of oracles, and leafy as with trees—the laws upon each. But upon each tree you will clean, he says, its uncleanness—that is, you will cut off the random of the history, and will take around the somehow wooden of the letter, and you will come upon the heart of the plant itself—that is, you will busy-around the inward fruit of what has been oracled, and will make it food. ‘But it will be,’ he says,

Three unclean ages; prophets holy; fifth = Christ; new and old treasure — Amen§28

28Cyril: …‘its fruit, three years uncleansed-around; it will not be eaten.’ He sets the year unto a time; for first three times have become, according to which the law was still uncleansed-around, weighted down with the thickness of the history, and somehow lying around as random refuse—the shadow. And three times I say there are—that of Moses, that of Joshua, that of the Judges; a fourth time was after those, according to which the bright chorus of the holy prophets grew up. Then the fruit of the law became both holy and praiseworthy. For from holy prophets the things in law began to be set aside, and the things as in shadows not even to be named, and the truth to be preached openly, and the mystery of Christ’s presence to be praised. And at once the forerunner was a neighbor, both crying out and saying: ‘Repent; for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’ So then in a fourth time toward beginnings of the things in law being thoroughly cleaned it has become, and the fruit was already somehow holy. Yet, in a fifth edible, according to which the presence of Christ is witnessed both through the law and through the prophets. For this reason he says, ‘Its fruit will be an addition for you.’ For toward the Gospel preachings also the legal training, led toward spiritual contemplation, is most needful for those loving to learn; and indeed the Savior was saying that ‘Every scribe having been discipled to the kingdom of the heavens is like a rich human, who casts out from his treasure new things and old’; saying new things—the Gospels—and old things—the things in law—bringing in together for us not ignobly the knowledge in Christ; to him the glory unto the ages of the ages, Amen.