Slaves keep mind pure; goring ox = share joy and grief
Cyril: …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.
Greek
τὸ ἔν γε τούτῳ πειθήνιον· ἄχθει μὲν γὰρ τῷ δουλείας τὸν τοῦ σώματος ὑπενεγκόντες αὐχένα, τηροῦσιν ἀθόλωτον ἐν ἑαυτοῖς τὸν νοῦν, καὶ τὸ δεῖν εἰδέναι σαφῶς τε καὶ ἀπλανῶς τὸν περὶ τῆς ἀληθοῦς πίστεως λόγον, πολλοῦ δὴ λίαν, μᾶλλον δὲ τοῦ παντὸς εἶναι ἄξιον πεπιστεύκασι, καὶ τροφὴν τὸ χρῆμα ποιοῦνται πνευματικὴν, οἷά περ ὀδόντι τῷ νῷ κατατρίβοντες τὸ εἰς οὖς ἐρχόμενον, καὶ τὴν τῶν θείων νοημάτων ἀναμασώμενοι δύναμιν.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ὡς σαφής τε ἡμῖν, καὶ ὀρθῶς ἔχων ὁ λόγος.
{ΚΥΡ.} Προσεθίζει δὲ καὶ ἑτέρως ὁ νόμος ἡμᾶς εἰς φιλαλληλίαν, τιμᾷν ἀναπείθων τὸ συγκαθίστασθαι τοῖς ἐγγὺς, καὶ τοὺς τῆς ἀνισότητος καταμυσαττόμενός τε καὶ κολάζων τρόπους.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Πῶς δὴ φής;
{ΚΥΡ.} Ἄκουε δή· γράφει γὰρ πάλιν· «Ἐὰν κερατίσῃ τινὸς ταῦρος τὸν ταῦρον τοῦ πλησίον, καὶ τελευτήσῃ, ἀποδώσονται τὸν ταῦρον τὸν ζῶντα, καὶ διελοῦνται τὸ ἀργύριον αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸν ταῦρον τὸν τεθνηκότα διελοῦνται. Ἐὰν δὲ γνωρίζηται ὁ ταῦρος ὅτι κερατιστής ἐστι πρὸ τῆς χθὲς καὶ πρὸ τῆς τρίτης ἡμέρας· καὶ διαμεμαρτυρημένοι ὦσι τῷ κυρίῳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ μὴ ἀφανίσῃ αὐτὸν, ἀποτίσει ταῦρον ἀντὶ ταύρου, ὁ δὲ τετελευτηκὼς αὐτῷ ἔσται.» Ὁρᾷς τὸ αἴνιγμα, καὶ οἱονείπως ἡμῖν ἐκ παραδείγματος ἐναργεστάτου πρὸς τὸ εὐθὺ διαστείχοντα τὸν ἐπὶ τῷδε λόγον; Εἰ γὰρ γένοιτο τεθνάναι, φησὶ, τὸν τοῦ δεῖνα ταῦρον, καὶ ὑφ' ἑτέρου ταύρου πεσεῖν, διελοῦνται τὸν ταῦρον τὸν ζῶντα, καὶ ἀμφοῖν ἔσται πάλιν ὁ τεθνηκὼς, τουτέστιν, εἰ πλεονεξίας ἐπιγένοιτο καὶ ἀδικίας τρόπος παρ' οὐχ ἑκόντος τινὸς εἰς ἕτερον, ἐντρυφάτω, φησὶν, ὁ ἠδικημένος τοῖς τοῦ λυπήσαντος ἀγαθοῖς, καὶ κοινὰς ἐχέτω τὰς θυμηδίας. Τοῦτο γὰρ, οἶμαι, ἔστι, τὸ διελέσθαι τὸν ταῦρον τὸν ζῶντα· Κοινὰς δὲ ποιείτω, φησὶ, καὶ ἀνεθελήτως προσκεκρουκὼς τὰς τοῦ πεπονθότος συμφοράς· τουτὶ γὰρ οἶμαι παραδηλοῦν, τὸ διελέσθαι τὸν τεθνηκότα. Ὁρᾷς οὖν ὅπως ὁ νόμος αἰνιγματωδῶς ἔτι καὶ κατεσκιασμένως τὸν φιλάλληλον εἰσηγεῖται τρόπον; Ἢ οὐχὶ δὴ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ, «Χαίρειν μετὰ χαιρόντων, καὶ κλαίειν μετὰ κλαιόντων;»
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ἔοικε.
{ΚΥΡ.} Εἰ δὲ δὴ, φησὶν, ὁ πλεονεκτῶν εἰδείη σαφῶς, ὅτι πείσεταί τι δεινὸν ὁ πέλας, τῶν τῆς πλεονεξίας τρόπων οὐκ ἀνῃρημένων, ζημίαν αὐτὸς τὴν ἴσην ὑπομενεῖ, καὶ τὴν τοῦ παθόντος συμφορὰν ἐπαντλήσει μόνῃ τῇ ἰδίᾳ ψυχῇ. Τοῦτο γὰρ αἰνιγματωδῶς, τὸ, «Ἀποτίσει ταῦρον ἀντὶ ταύρου, ὁ δὲ τετελευτηκὼς αὐτοῦ ἔσται.» Οὐ γὰρ μέχρι τοῦ τῶν οἰκείων ἀγαθῶν ἀποπεσεῖν τοῖς ἀδικοῦσιν ὁ λόγος, ἀλλ' ἰδίαν ἕξουσι συμφορὰν, καὶ αὐτῶν ἔσται πάθος, τὸ τῷ πέλας συμβεβηκός.
{ΠΑΛΛ.} Ὡς εὖ γε ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος ἔχει.
About this text
Cyril continues the dialogue with Palladius. Book 8 of a seventeen-book dialogue — not the whole work.
English follows Migne PG 68 (Aubert reprint). The PDF and a cleaned text of the same print were checked against each other. This page is Book 8 of seventeen. This is a reading translation for study, not a new critical edition of the Greek.
Witnesses
- Copy-text Migne PG 68 De adoratione Book 5 (Aubert reprint) (Greek · Book 8)
- Checked print PDF of PG 68 De adoratione (Greek · Book 8)
English is newly prepared for study from the stated edition. Open Greek on each section for the source text. This is not a complete critical edition.