Cyril of Alexandria — Commentary on Scripture

Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

For that He utterly abolished death, and effaced destruction, and spoiled hell, and overthrew the tyranny of the enemy, and took away the sin of the world, and opened the gates above to the dwellers upon earth, and united earth to heaven: these things proved Him to be, as I said, in truth God.

Exodus 3:6

Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

But the Savior also demonstrated the great ignorance of the Sadducees by bringing forward their own hierophant Moses, who was well and clearly acquainted with the resurrection of the dead. For he has set before us God, he says, as saying in the bush, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” But of whom is he God, if, according to their argument, these have ceased to live? For he is the God of the living; and therefore certainly and altogether they will rise, when his almighty right hand brings them thereunto; and not them only but also all who are upon the earth.

Exodus 12:11

And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD'S passover.

And let us know that the law also of the most wise Moses is found to have commanded something of this kind to the Israelites. For a lamb was sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the first month, as a type of Christ. For our Passover, Christ is sacrificed, according to the testimony of most sacred Paul. The hiero-phant Moses, then, or rather God by his means, commanded them, when eating its flesh, saying, “Let your loins be girt, and your shoes on your feet, and your staves in your hands.” For I affirm that it is the duty of those who are partakers of Christ to beware of a barren indolence. Yet it is a further duty not to have as it were their loins ungirt and loose but to be ready cheerfully to undertake whatever labors become the saints; and to hasten besides with alacrity wherever the law of God leads them. And for this reason he very appropriately made them wear the garb of travelers [at the Passover].

Exodus 14:20

And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.

And it is written also in Exodus that when the ruler of the land of the Egyptians with his warriors was pursuing after the Israelites and was already upon the point of engaging with them in battle, the angel of God stood between the camp of the Israelites and of the Egyptians, and the one came not near the other all the night. There is therefore nothing unbefitting in supposing here also that the holy angel who was the guardian of the synagogue offered supplications in its behalf and prayed for a respite, if perchance yielding to better influence it might yet bring forth fruit.

Exodus 19:19

And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.

And this is pictured for you in the writings of Moses. For the God of all came down in the likeness of fire on Mt. Sinai, and there was a cloud, and darkness, and gloom and the voice of the trumpet with a loud ringing sound, according to the Scripture. The notes of the trumpet were, it says, few at first, but afterwards they waxed longer and became louder and louder continually. What then was it which the shadow of the law signified to us by these things? Was it not this: that at first there were but few to publish the gospel tidings; but afterwards they became many?

Exodus 21:24

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

Such an enactment required a man not to injure others. Supposing him to have sustained an injury, his anger at the wrongdoer must not go beyond an equal retribution. But the general bearing of the legal mode of life was by no means pleasing to God. It was even given to those of old time as a schoolmaster, accustoming them little by little to a fitting righteousness and leading them on gently toward the possession of the perfect good. For it is written, “To do what is just is the beginning of the good way”; but finally all perfection is in Christ and his precepts. “For to him that strikes you on the cheek,” he says, “offer also the other.”

Exodus 28:21

And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.

And on the breast of the high priest were certain stones hanging, twelve in number, in the midst of which were placed two other stones, manifestation and truth. By means of a riddle through these the chorus of the holy apostles is clearly signified being, as it were, in a circle around Emmanuel, who is manifestation and truth. For he manifested the truth by having taken away the worship of God in shadows and in types.

Exodus 34:33

And till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.

The shadows bring forth the truth, even if they are not at all the truth themselves. Because of this, the divinely inspired Moses placed a veil upon his face and spoke thus to the children of Israel, all but shouting by this act that a person might behold the beauty of the utterances made through him, not in outwardly appearing figures but in meditations hidden within us.

Ezekiel 20:40

For in mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the firstfruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.

Admittedly the divine, because it is without a body, is untouchable and entirely intact, because the divine is beyond every creature, both visible and intelligible, and in nature it is incorporeal, immaculate, untouchable and incomprehensible. Since the only-begotten Word of God, having taken a body from the holy virgin, and, as I already said over and over again, having made it his own, offered himself in an odor of sweetness to God the Father as a spotless sacrifice, in this way it is asserted that he endured on our behalf what happened to his flesh. Everything that happened to flesh would rightly be attributed to him, sin alone excepted, for it is his own body. Accordingly, since God the Word became man, he remained impassible as God, but, because he necessarily made the things of his flesh his own, it is asserted that he endured what is according to flesh, although he is without experience of suffering in so far as he is thought of as God.

Ezekiel 33:12

Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth.

When God offers us conversion on whatever day one may be willing to practice it, why do they not instead crown with grateful praises him who aids them, instead of foolishly and (we might say) contumaciously opposing him? For by so doing they bring condemnation on their own heads and call down on themselves inevitable wrath.

Ezekiel 37:27

My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

To be made partakers of Christ, both intellectually and by our senses, fills us with every blessing. For he dwells in us, first, by the Holy Spirit, and we are his abode, according to that which was said of old by one of the holy prophets.

Ezekiel 44:2

Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut.

The word was made flesh without sexual intercourse, being conceived altogether without seed; then he was born without injury to her virginity.

Galatians 4:19

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,

Christ is “formed in you” by nothing else but irreproachable faith and the way of gospel.

Genesis 6:1-4

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

That we rightly understand this passage is also very much confirmed by the interpretation of the other translators. Aquila says: 'When the sons of the gods saw the daughters of men'. On the other hand, instead of 'sons of the gods', Symmachus rendered the expression as 'sons of the rulers'. They called the descendants of Seth and of Enosh sons of the gods, or better, sons of the rulers, because of the piety and godliness which was in them, and because they could defeat all adversaries: while God, I suppose, in all likelihood came to their aid, and made known all around this pious and holy generation, which was not mixed with that other one, that is to say, with the descendants from Cain and, what is more, from Lamech.

Genesis 16:9

And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.

As in concrete image, we see here foreshadowed the fact that once the Emmanuel has appeared and his mystery has been shown to the world, the types of the Mosaic cult necessarily disappear, giving way to the evangelical teachings, the better and more perfect precepts. Of what image am I speaking? Because Sarah had not had children, Hagar, after having given birth to Ishmael, began to show arrogant contempt for her owner, the free woman. Sarah was unable to bear that arrogance and began also to mistreat the Egyptian woman. The latter fled from the house and lost her way in the desert. An angel from heaven asked her where she was going and where she had come from. She replied, “I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarah.” And the holy angel replied, “Return to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hands.” She was ordered then, by the voice of the angel, not to depart from the free woman—from instruction, that is, which summons to the dignity of free persons—and to humble herself instead under the free woman’s hands. The cult according to the law, in fact, which takes place through imag…

As in concrete image, we see here foreshadowed the fact that once the Emmanuel has appeared and his mystery has been shown to the world, the types of the Mosaic cult necessarily disappear, giving way to the evangelical teachings, the better and more perfect precepts. Of what image am I speaking? Because Sarah had not had children, Hagar, after having given birth to Ishmael, began to show arrogant contempt for her owner, the free woman. Sarah was unable to bear that arrogance and began also to mistreat the Egyptian woman. The latter fled from the house and lost her way in the desert. An angel from heaven asked her where she was going and where she had come from. She replied, “I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarah.” And the holy angel replied, “Return to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hands.” She was ordered then, by the voice of the angel, not to depart from the free woman—from instruction, that is, which summons to the dignity of free persons—and to humble herself instead under the free woman’s hands. The cult according to the law, in fact, which takes place through images and types, is as it were the servant of evangelical teachings. In it, obscurely, the beauty of the truth is revealed. At this point in time, the law, which was once established by Moses through the ministry of angels, receives an order from the voice of an angel to bend the neck to the evangelical oracles and to bow and yield, even if unwillingly, to the free woman. This, I maintain, is the spiritual interpretation of Hagar’s imposed submission to the rule of Sarah. We should remember, moreover, that even the venerable Paul sees Hagar and Sarah as prefiguring the two Testaments: “One, who bears children for slavery, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem,” and the other—Sarah—who bears for the dignity of the free.

Genesis 17:11

And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

In what sense is the covenant eternal? One interpretation is that it is eternal according to the One promising, for the things of God are not time conditioned. But relative to us eternal things become time conditioned. Another interpretation is that even when the covenant with Israel was abolished, it was maintained for us, and we are God’s [people] in place of them. Circumcision took over a second territory after the faith [came]. For just as the birth of the illegitimate child came first, after the promise of the legitimate one, because the birth of the latter was likewise belated, so now circumcision came first because the time for the spiritual [circumcision] was not yet; but when this new one appears, the other circumcision is thrown out. For “in Christ Jesus,” we say, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail.” That circumcision was a sign of the covenant, which could be present even in transgressors. But the true circumcision is the perfect observance of the law, the cutting away and removing of everything alien to God and the ability to pass beyond worldly thin…

In what sense is the covenant eternal? One interpretation is that it is eternal according to the One promising, for the things of God are not time conditioned. But relative to us eternal things become time conditioned. Another interpretation is that even when the covenant with Israel was abolished, it was maintained for us, and we are God’s [people] in place of them. Circumcision took over a second territory after the faith [came]. For just as the birth of the illegitimate child came first, after the promise of the legitimate one, because the birth of the latter was likewise belated, so now circumcision came first because the time for the spiritual [circumcision] was not yet; but when this new one appears, the other circumcision is thrown out. For “in Christ Jesus,” we say, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail.” That circumcision was a sign of the covenant, which could be present even in transgressors. But the true circumcision is the perfect observance of the law, the cutting away and removing of everything alien to God and the ability to pass beyond worldly things to approach the transcendent realities through understanding. Of this the eighth day of circumcision is the symbol. For the eighth day is supernatural, even as the Savior, by accomplishing the resurrection on the eighth day, showed the mystery. Likewise appropriate is the text’s reference to extermination, whether of those uncircumcised in the flesh or those whose heart has not been circumcised, the uncircumcised of heart, as one would say using Old Testament terminology.

Genesis 17:13

He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

God’s covenant is “in the flesh” of the person who “does not fight on the terms of the flesh” and who “always carries about in his body the death of Jesus.”

Genesis 17:17

Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

He was not laughing because he did not believe, as some might imagine, but rejoicing because he did. “He laughed” is sometimes put in place of “he rejoiced,” as it is also in the Gospels. And for this reason, he also “fell on his face” and marveled in his heart.

Genesis 19:18

And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:

It seems that now, after the exodus from Sodom, the conversation is no longer with angels but with the Lord. For when one leaves the territory of evil he will find God conversing with him, and he will have the courage and confidence to ask for whatever he wishes.

Genesis 19:22

Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

Great is the loving kindness of God. He who is all-powerful says, “I can do nothing until you arrive there.” He accommodates even the weakness of his servant and tolerates his delay.