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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 80
7:31-35. To what therefore shall I liken the men of this generation, and to what are they like? They are like to children sitting in the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying, We have played unto you, and ye have not danced: we have wailed unto you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came, neither eating bread, nor drinking wine, and ye say, that he hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking: and ye say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine drinker: a friend of publicans and sinners. And wisdom is justified of her children.
THOSE who have a sound mind examine everything, rejecting the false, but receiving and praising that which is without blame. And such the wise Paul also requires us to be, where writing he said: "[1][ ]Be ye wise money-changers; prove all things, and hold that which is good: abstain from every evil kind." We therefore also, as I said, must closely examine with the discerning eye of the mind whatever is done, and search into the nature of actions, that so we may approve of that which is without blame, while we reject that which is counterfeit. But if, making no distinctions, we run the risk of passing an evil sentence upon things highly praiseworthy: and of deeming that which is evil fit for commendation and applause, the prophet's words will apply to us: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil: who call bitter sweet, and sweet bitter: who put light for darkness, and darkness for light." Such was the character of the Israelites, and especially of those whose lot it was to be their chiefs, the Scribes namely and Pharisees: of whom Christ said, "To what shall I liken the men of this generation? and so on."
There was perchance a sort of game among the Jewish children, something of this kind. A troop of youths was divided into two parts: who, making sport of the confusion in the world, and the uneven course of its affairs, and the painful and rapid change from one extreme to the other, played some of them on instruments of music: while the rest wailed. But neither did the mourners share the merriment of those who were playing music and rejoicing: nor again did those with the instruments of music join in the sorrow of those who were weeping: and finally, they reproached one another with their want of sympathy, so to speak, and absence of affection. For the one party would say, "We have played unto you, and ye have not danced:" to which the others would rejoin, "We have wailed unto you, and ye have not wept." Christ declares, therefore, that both the Jewish populace, and their rulers, were in some such state of feeling as this;[2] "For John came, He says, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and they say, that he hath a devil: the Son of man came eating and drinking; and they say, Behold! a man gluttonous, and a wine drinker, a friend of publicans and sinners." By what then wilt thou be won unto the faith, O foolish Pharisee, when thou thus blamest all things indifferently, nor countest anything worthy of thy praise? The blessed Baptist was the forerunner of the Saviour, saying, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand." For he was a man fit to win confidence, and able to persuade, as having even from them the testimony that his life was noble, and worthy of admiration. For he dwelt in the deserts, clad in poor and rough clothing, and scarcely allaying the necessities of the body with locusts and wild honey. Thou wentest out to see him as one who was holy, and had attained to the perfection of all virtue. And dost thou venture afterwards to speak ill of such a one? of one who ought rather to be counted worthy of all admiration? Dost thou say that he hath a devil, who by fastings is mortifying the law of sin that lurks in our fleshly members, and wars against the law of our mind? What is greater than a life of abstinence? For the very fact of being able to rebuke wisely those pleasures that lead to evil, and to cast over them as a bridle the laboriousness of a life of abstinence, how is not this a great and excellent thing! The blessed Baptist was entirely devoted to piety unto Christ; nor was there in him the very slightest regard either for fleshly lusts, or for the things of this world. Having altogether abandoned, therefore, the vain and unprofitable distractions of this world, he laboured at one, and that a very urgent task, of blamelessly fulfilling the ministry entrusted to him. For he was commanded to preach, saying: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Tell me, dost thou think that this man hath a devil?----one over whom the tyranny of Satan had no power; who was the captive of no evil lusts; who had overleapt the pitfalls of the base love of the flesh; who had commanded the herds of demons to be still, and manfully resisted their attacks. For verily he could not have attained to this glory and virtue but through Christ, Who is exalted above Satan, who tempts and gnashes his teeth at the prosperity of the saints. Art thou not ashamed, then, of slandering one who had attained to so great patience and endurance, and had wound chaplets of manly virtue round his head? Hast thou whetted thy tongue even at him, and ventured basely to calumniate him, by affirming that he is a madman, and contemptible, and not in his right mind?
1. [y] Concerning this quotation, which very frequently is met with in S. Cyril, three different opinions have been held: 1°. that of Archbp. Usher, who contended that it belonged to some apocryphal Gospel, as that of the Hebrews: 2°. that of Crojus, who considered that it was collected by the Fathers from Christ's parable of the Talents: and 3°. that of Sylburgius, who referred it to St. Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians, I. v. 21. That the last alone is true, the Syriac here goes far to prove, quoting it expressly from St. Paul, as also do S. Cyril's Greek remains, as his Commentary on Is. iii., on Job. vii. 12., &c. In the previous Sermon also the quotation has already occurred, coupled with a portion of the same text, "prove all things." And Tischendorf gives it as a different reading of the passage in Thes. from Chrysostom, Theodoret, (saec. v.), Ambrosiaster, (saec. iii. vel iv.), and Œcumenius, (saec. xi.) The patristic authority for this opinion is, however, really far greater, as it occurs frequently in their works, in connection with the two other main portions of St. Paul's command. Thus Basil the Great (saec. iv.), in bis homily on the beginning of the book of Proverbs, says: .... And Athanasius, Hom. in Mat. xxi. 8. .... And similar quotations might be multiplied indefinitely. On the contrary, however, Origen, in the Latin version of his Commentary in Johannem, and Jerome, Ep. ad Minerium, quote it as a saying of our Lord's: there can, however, be little doubt that the majority of the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries regarded it as a genuine portion of St. Paul's Epistle, though probably it was not extant in many of the MSS., and so was occasionally quoted as a saying attributed by tradition to our Lord.
2. [z] A passage follows in Mai from B. f. 73, interpreting the mourners by the prophets, and the players by the Apostles, the predictions of the former being generally of woe and punishment, while the latter proclaimed "the grace of repentance." As alien both to the general tenor of the Commentary, and the closeness with which S. Cyril confines himself to the text, it is most probably an interpolation.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary.asp?pg=80
