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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 60
(6:24) [From the Syriac. [2][ ]MS.14,551.] * * * * * * * * receive those things that will lead you unto life eternal. For it is written, that "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that goeth forth from the mouth of God." All Scripture, indeed, is inspired of God; but this is especially true of the proclamations in the Gospels: for He Who in old time delivered unto the Israelites by the ministry of Moses the law that consisted in types and shadows, the very same having become man spake unto us, as the wise Paul testifies, writing; "God, Who in divers manners spake in old time to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son:" and "we are taught of God:" for Christ is in truth God and the Son of God. Let us therefore fix our careful attention upon what He says: and scrupulously examine the very depth of His meaning. For "Woe, He says, unto you rich, in that ye have received your consolation."
Very fitly is this added to His previous discourse: for having already shewn that poverty for God's sake is the mother of every blessing, and said that the hungering and weeping of the saints would not be without a reward, He proceeds to speak of the opposite class of things, and says of them, that they are productive of grief and condemnation. For He blames indeed the rich, and those who indulge immoderately in pleasures, and are ever in merriment, in order that He may leave no means untried of benefitting those who draw near unto Him, and chief of all the holy Apostles. For if the endurance of poverty for God's sake, together with hunger and tears:----by which is meant the being exposed to pain and afflictions in the cause of piety:----be profitable before God, and He pronounce a threefold [3] blessedness on those who embrace them; as a necessary consequence, those are liable to the utmost blame, who have prized the vices, that are the opposites of these virtues.
In order therefore that men may be won by the desire of the crowns of reward unto willingness to labour, and voluntary poverty for God's sake; and, on the other hand, by fear of the threatened punishment, may flee from riches, and from living in luxury and merriment, that is to say, in worldly amusements, He says that the one are heirs of the kingdom of heaven, but that the others will be involved in the utmost misery: "for ye have received, He says, your consolation."
And this truth we are permitted to behold beautifully delineated in the Gospel parables like as in a painting. For we have heard read that there was a rich man decked in purple and fine linen [4], at whose gate Lazarus was cast, racked with poverty and pain; and the rich man felt no pity for him.----But Lazarus, it says, was carried to Abraham's bosom; while he was in torments and in flame. And when he saw Lazarus at rest and in happiness in Abraham's bosom, he besought saying, "Father Abraham have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger [5] in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." But what was blessed Abraham's reply? "Son, thou hast received thy good things in thy life, and Lazarus evil things; but now he is here in happiness, and thou art tormented." True therefore is what is here said by Christ of those who live in wealth and luxury and merriment, that "ye have received your consolation:" and of those who now are full, that they shall hunger, and that those who laugh now shall weep and lament.
2.[t] The principal Syriac MS. commences here, but the first leaf is in part illegible, and the three following sermons are entirely lost.
3.[u] One for poverty, one for hunger, and one for tears.
4.[x] After scholars had satisfactorily decided on philological evidence that the 'byssus' was cotton, the microscope has proved it to be linen. The main points of the argument were that the Hebrew word shesh, always rendered 'byssus' by the Septuagint, is the Arabic modern term for fine muslin: and that cotton garments are mentioned on the Rosetta stone as supplied by government for the use of the temples, being in great request, according to Pliny's account (xix. 8.), by the Egyptian priests. Herodotus however says, that the mummies were enveloped Σινδόνος βυσσίνης τελαμῶσι (ii. 86.), and Mr. Thompson (on the mummy cloth of Egypt, as quoted in Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, iii. 113.) has shewn, that the wrappers are invariably of linen, though occasionally so fine as not to be distinguishable from muslin, until the microscope revealed the different texture of the filaments.
5.[y] The Syriac makes the smallness of the request more apparent, by using a term peculiar to the little finger.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary.asp?pg=60
