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Translated by R. Payne Smith
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 24
2:48. Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing.
His mother certainly knew that He was not the child of Joseph, but she so speaks to avoid the suspicions of the Jews. And upon her saying, that "Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing," the Saviour answers;
2:49. Did ye not know that I must be at My Father's?
Here then first He makes more open mention of Him Who is truly His Father, and lays bare His own divinity: for when the holy Virgin said, Child, why hast Thou so done unto us? then at once shewing Himself to transcend the measure of human things, and teaching her that she had been made the handmaid of the dispensation in giving birth to the flesh, but that He by nature and in truth was God, and the Son of the Father That is in heaven, He says, Did ye not know that I must be at My Father's? [34] Here let the Valentinians, when they hear that the temple was God's, and that Christ was now at His own, Who long before also was so described in the law, and represented as in shadows and types, feel shame in affirming, that neither the Maker of the world, nor the God of the law, nor the God of the temple, was the Father of Christ.[35]
3:1-6. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet.
The blessed Isaiah was not ignorant of the scope of John's preachings, but of old, even long before the time, bearing witness of it, he called Christ Lord and God: but John he styled His minister and servant, and said that he was a lamp advancing before the true light, the morning star heralding the sun, foreshowing the coming of the day that was about to shed its rays upon us: and that he was a voice, not a word, forerunning Jesus, as the voice docs the word.[36]
3:4 Prepare ye the ways of the Lord, make His paths straight,
John, being chosen for the Apostleship, was also the last of the holy prophets: for which reason, as the Lord was not yet come, he says, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. And what is the meaning of "Prepare ye the way of the Lord?" It is put for, Make ready for the reception of whatever Christ may wish to enact: withdraw your hearts from the shadow of the law: cease from the types: think no more perversely. "Make the paths of our God straight." For every path that leadeth unto good is straight and smooth and easy: but the other is crooked that leadeth down to wickedness them that walk therein. For of such it is written, "Whose paths are crooked, and the tracks of their wheels awry." Straightforwardness therefore of the mind is as it were a straight path, having no crookedness. Such was the divine Psalmist's character, who thus sings, "A crooked heart hath not cleaved unto me." And Jesus,[37] the son of Nun, in exhorting the people, said, "Make straight your hearts unto the God of Israel:" while John cries, "Make straight your ways." And this means, that the soul must be straight, displaying its natural intuition as it was created: and it was created beautiful and very straight. But when it turns aside, and its natural state is perverted, this is called vice, and the perversion of the soul. The matter therefore is not very difficult: for if we continue as we are made, we shall be virtuous. [38]
But when some one, as it were, exclaims against us, saying, How shall we prepare the way of the Lord? or how make His paths straight? for there are many impediments in the way of those that will live well,----Satan, who hates all that is beautiful, the unholy throng of wicked spirits, the law of sin itself that is in our fleshly members, and which arms itself against the inclinations of the mind to what is good, and many other passions besides, that have mastery over the mind of man:----what then shall we do, with so great difficulty pressing upon us? The word of prophecy meets these objections, saying, Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked way shall become straight, and the rough ways shall become smooth: and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." [39]
34.[l] The style of the short extract that follows is entirely unlike Cyril's. Mai says, that the Catenae ascribe it to Origen as well as Cyril.
35.[m] Mai's next extract upon v. 52. may serve as an instance of the manner in which the Catenists joined with the utmost neatness passages from various works. It commences with S. Cyril's Commentary on John i. 14, Op. iv. 96: after which there follow a few lines, which may possibly be from the Commentary on Luke: and finally, we have the 28th assertion of the Thesaurus, Op. v. pt. i. 253. The doctrine of these extracts is nearly identical, all affirming that our Lord's increase in wisdom and stature and grace cannot be said of Him considered as the Word, but either must be understood of the increase of admiration on the part of all who beheld Him, and daily witnessed a fuller manifestation of His glory: or, as the two latter extracts teach, it refers to the human nature. As I have not been able to find the second extract in S. Cyril's collected works,, I give it entire: "And observe, that that which increases in any thing is different from that in which it is said to increase. If therefore He is said to increase in wisdom, it was not the wisdom that increased, but the human nature that increased in it. For as the Godhead day by day unveiled and manifested Itself in Him, He ever became an object of greater admiration to those that saw Him."
36.[n] This fragment is referred by two of Mai's MSS. to Chrysostom as well as Cyril, and by Corderius to Cyril and Basil.
37.[o] The name Joshua, as a corruption of the Jews, (certainly after the time of Josephus, but prior to Jerome, who once mentions it; cf. Com. in Os. I. 1.,) ought to be everywhere rejected; but the ΝΑΓΗ of the LXX. is an error of the copyists for ΝΑΓΝ. The Masorites have twice punctuated the name correctly in the case of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak. (Ez. ii. 2., iii. 2.)
38.[p] The style of this comment, so unlike Cyril's, and the extraordinary conclusion, both suggest caution in attributing to him the latter part of this extract.
39.[q] The next extract is from the Commentary on Isaiah, Op. ii. 506, and is therefore omitted.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary.asp?pg=24
