St Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on Luke (First Part)

Translated by R. Payne Smith

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This Part: 128 Pages

Page 90

For that there is no obedience without reward, and on the other hand, no disobedience without penalty, is made plain by what God spake by His holy prophet to those who disregarded Him: "Behold, they who serve Me shall eat, but ye shall suffer hunger: behold, they who serve Me shall drink, but ye shall suffer thirst: behold, they who obey Me shall rejoice, but ye shall lament: behold, they who serve Me shall exult in happiness, but ye shall groan, and wail from contrition of your heart." For let us see, if you will, even from the writings of Moses, the grief to which disobedience has brought us. We have been driven from a paradise of delights, and have also fallen under the condemnation of death; and while intended for incorruption:----for so God created the universe:----we yet have become accursed, and subject to the yoke of sin. And how then have we escaped from that which befel us, or Who is He that aided us, when we had sunk into this great misery? It was the Only-begotten Word of God, by submitting Himself to our estate, and being found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto the Father even unto death. Thus has the guilt of the disobedience that is by Adam been remitted: thus has the power of the curse ceased, and the dominion of death been brought to decay. And this too Paul teaches, saying, "For as by the disobedience of the one man, the many became sinners, so by the obedience of the One, the many became righteous." For the whole nature of man became guilty in the person of him who was first formed; but now it is wholly justified again in Christ. For He became for us the second commencement of our race after that primary one; and therefore all things in Him have become new. And Paul assures of this, writing, "Therefore every man who is in Christ is a new creation; and the former things have passed away: behold, they have become new."

In order then that Christ may win us all unto obedience, He promises us surpassing honours, and deigns us the highest love, saying, "My mother and My brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it." For who among men is so obdurate and ungentle, as to refuse to honour, and accord the most complete love to his mother and brethren? For the all-powerful law of nature, even without our will, obliges us to this. When therefore, bowing our neck to the Saviour's commands, we become His followers, and so are in the relation of a mother and brethren to Him, how does He regard us before God's judgment seat? Is it not with gentleness and love? What doubt can there be of this? And what is comparable to this honour and goodness? What is there worthy of being matched with a gift thus splendid and desirable? For He takes us unto Him, that where He is, there we also may be with Him. For this He even deigned to promise us, saying, "I will go, and make ready a place for you: and return again and take you with Me, that where I am, there ye also may be with Me."

Servitude, therefore, is a thing worth our gaining, and the pledge of noble honours. And this, we say, is fulfilled not by our merely hearing the words of God, but by our endeavouring to perform what is commanded. This thou learnest from what one of the holy Apostles declares: "But become doers of the law [6], and not hearers only. If any be a hearer of the law, and not a doer, he is like a man regarding his natural face in a mirror. For he has regarded himself, and gone away: and at once forgotten what manner of person he was. But he who hath, looked into the perfect law of liberty, and wrought: not being a forgetful hearer, but an active doer,[7][ ]he shall be blessed in his doing."

6. [l] The reading νόμου for λόγου in this and the following verse is found in very few even of the inferior MSS., but occurs in the Aethiopic and Arabic versions.

7. [m] Owing to the paucity of adjectives in Syriac, an attribute is generally expressed by the addition of a substantive, and this idiom is frequent in the Greek of the N. T., but nowhere more so than in St. James. As, therefore, "the mammon of unrighteousness" is "the unrighteous mammon," and "a hearer of forgetfulness," "a forgetful hearer;" so a "doer of doings" is "an active doer."

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