Section LXXXI

Indeed, after hearing the words of Palladius, “At times, driven by want of heavenly goods, we fall into base and execrable actions,” Cyril¹ immediately replies, οὕτω φημί, “Thus I judge.” But when the other remarks that it befits the divine benignity not to permit us to fall into anything of this kind, he adds:

It does befit God, and indeed especially, and he also wills it, Palladius: εἴη γὰρ ἂν ἥκιστα μὲν ἀγαθός, φιλάρετος δὲ οὐ λίαν, εἰ μὴ τοῦτον ἔχοι πρὸς ἡμῶν τὸν σκοπόν; otherwise he would be by no means good, nor indeed a lover of virtue, unless he had this disposition toward us. But that these things happen to us is our fault, who move the Lord of all to anger.

In the same way², those moved him to anger

who, having been called to the wedding, answered the holy inviters negligently and remissly and through sloth were made exiles from intercourse with Christ, although honor had been offered to them by the benign and clement will of God and the Father.

For the most excellent³ and greatest God of all

wills all men to be saved and to come to the recognition of the truth. Hence, admonishing those who were weak and recalling those who had made their soul of no account to the right and level path, he applies every way and every discourse. For now, shaking them by threats of punishment and terrors of wrath, he leads them back to what is better; but now he entices them by promises of good things and draws them to what is useful.

He therefore employs these arts⁴

because it is the purpose of the God who knows all things always to apply to our souls the medicine most congruent and most conducive.

Ἰατρὸς γάρ ἐστι πνευμάτων, ποτὲ μὲν τοῖς πόνοις, ποτὲ δὲ αὐτοῖς ἐξ ἡμερότητος ἀγαθοῖς τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν παθῶν κατευνάζων τὴν ἀγριότητα. For he is the physician of spirits, sometimes lulling the savageness of the evil affections within us by labors and afflictions, and sometimes by good things offered from meekness.

And, fulfilling this office of physician, Athanasius says⁵, he therefore endured the death of the cross because no other would have been conducive to us:

For if he came for this reason, that he might bear the curse into which we had fallen, how otherwise would he have been made a curse unless he had undertaken the death of the curse? But that is the cross, for it is written⁶: “Cursed is he who hangs upon the tree.” Then, εἰ ὁ θάνατος τοῦ κυρίου λύτρον ἐστὶ πάντων, if the death of the Lord is the price of all, and by his death the middle wall of enclosure is dissolved, καὶ γίνεται τῶν ἐθνῶν ἡ κλῆσις, and the calling of the nations is accomplished, how would he have called us together unless he had been crucified? For only on the cross can one die with hands extended. Wherefore it was fitting that the Lord should suffer this kind of death and extend his hands, that with one he might draw the ancient people and with the other the nations, and unite both in himself. For he himself also said this⁷, σημαίνων ποίῳ θανάτῳ ἔμελλε λυτροῦσθαι τοὺς πάντας, signifying by what death he was to redeem all: “When I shall have been lifted up, I shall draw all (πάντας) to myself.”

And he certainly draws all⁸:

Ἀνθ᾽ ἡλίου γὰρ θεὸς ἀνατέλλει, καταυγάζων τῇ ἑκάστου ψυχῇ, for God arises in the manner of the sun, illuminating the soul of each.

And he illuminates abundantly⁹:

For Jesus scatters the seed δαψιλῶς, lavishly, but the abundance of the fruits exists according to the condition of the soil. For where the earth is stony, the seed easily dries up, οὐκ ἀδυναμίᾳ τοῦ σπόρου, ἀλλὰ τῇ καχεξίᾳ τῆς γῆς, not indeed by the impotence of the seed, but by the vice of the earth… Μονοειδὴς μὲν ὁ σπόρος, διάφορος δὲ ὁ καρπός· διάφοροι δὲ αἱ γνῶμαι τῶν διδασκομένων. For the seed is like itself, but the fruit is diverse, since the judgments of those who are instructed are diverse.