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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 78
Having prefaced therefore thus much by way of preparation, and to explain the connection of the ideas, come now. and let us examine the actual words. As I have already said then, He exalts the divine Baptist to a great height, and crowns the Forerunner with surpassing honours purposely; that thou mayest the more thoroughly admire faith; as that which makes believers to have a grandeur far surpassing even that of men thus illustrious. He asks the Jews, then, saying "What went ye out into the wilderness to see? a reed shaken by the wind?" Now He compares to a reed,----a thing tossed about, and, so to speak, reeling and shaken to and fro by the violence of the winds,----the man who lives in worldly honours and pleasures, and in the grandeur of temporal sovereignty. For there is nothing stable or firm or unshaken with such persons, but things change frequently in an unexpected manner, and to that which they did not anticipate, and their prosperity lightly passes away. For true it is, that "all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass: the grass withereth, and the flower falleth." Did ye then, He says, go out into the desert to see a man like a reed? This, however, possibly he is not, but of a different character; one of those who live in pleasures, and are wont to be clad in beautiful garments, and value childish honour. And yet one does not see persons such as these dwelling in the desert, but at the courts of kings: and as for the blessed Baptist's raiment, it was of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle upon his loins.
What then did ye go out to see? Perhaps ye say, A Prophet. Yea, I also say as well as you. For he is a saint and a prophet: nay, he even surpasses the dignity of a prophet; for not only did he announce before that I am coming, but pointed Me out close at hand, saying? "Behold the Lamb of God, That beareth the sin of the world." Moreover, he was testified of by the prophet's voice, "as sent before My face, to prepare the way before Me." And I bear him witness that there hath not arisen among those born of women one greater than he: but he that is least----in the life I mean according to the law----in the kingdom of God is greater than he. How and in what manner? [24][ ]In that the blessed John, together with as many as preceded him, was born of woman: but they who have received the faith, are no more called the sons of women, but as the wise Evangelist said, "are born of God." "For to all, he says, who received Him, that is, Christ, He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them who believe on His Name: who have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." For we have been born again to the adoption of the sons, "not of corruptible seed," but, as Scripture saith, "by the living and abiding Word of God." Those then who are not of corruptible seed, but, on the contrary, have been born of God, are superior to any one born of woman.
24.[x] The passage in Mai, p. 213, from B. f. 72. agrees, as far as it goes, with the Syriac. It is preceded, however, by two passages, the second of which from B. f. 71. is much too rhetorical to be really S. Cyril's, and is given by Cramer anonymously, following one taken from Titus of Bostra, whose style it much more resembles. It explains, however, more fully what Cyril very shortly refers to, viz. that John was more honourable than the prophets, as being himself the object of prophecy: and guards against a misinterpretation of the word angel in the prediction, "Behold I send My angel before Thy face." The other passage from A. 118. has the appearance of being a summary of S. Cyril's argument respecting John being the greatest of those born of women, though it includes new matter in an important interpretation of Luke xvii. 21.: to the effect that "the kingdom of heaven signifies the gift of the Holy Ghost," according to the words, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." Soon after this quotation it runs into the Syriac, at the sentence with which B. 72. ends, with some verbal differences. This sentence will be found in my translation at the commencement of the paragraph in page 148: "Even though, therefore, we be inferior to them, &c." But soon afterwards it diverges again to explain more fully than the Syriac does, that our Lord's words that from the days of John the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, would not justify the conclusion, that the saints of the old dispensation did not gain admission therein.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary.asp?pg=78
