A READING FROM A COMMENTARY
BY ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA
In
earlier days a life of moral excellence was a road difficult of access to
nearly everyone and evangelical behaviour a path untrodden. All minds were
ruled by worldly and earthbound desires and were swept away by the inordinate
impulses of the flesh. But when God became man – or was made flesh, as the
Scripture says – he abolished sin in the flesh: he overthrew the principalities
and powers and the world rulers of this universe. He made our path to godliness
into a level road on which travelling is easy, where nothing is too steep or
too high, and nothing lies down in a hollow: a road smoothed out into a plain.
All the devious tracks have been straightened.
But
there is more: The glory of the Lord will
be revealed, and all flesh will see the salvation of God, because the Lord has
spoken. The prophet says that the glory will be revealed, but how will this
be done? Christ is the only Son of the Father and the Word of God, subsisting
as God and born of the Father in a way no words can explain in the sublimity of
the Godhead, far above all heavenly
rulers, authorities, thrones, and dominations and every title that can be given
in this world or the next. He is the Lord
of glory, and we have come to recognize his glory even though formerly we did not
know it, because by becoming a man like us he revealed himself in his
incarnation. He was revealed who is equal in power to God the Father, equal to
him in action and equal in glory; he was revealed who upholds the universe by his mighty word, accomplishes miracles with ease, rebukes inanimate creation,
raises the dead, and achieves without effort all the rest of his wonderful
works.
Thus the glory of the Lord has been revealed, and all
flesh has beheld with wonder the salvation of God; that is, the saving act of
the Father who sent his Son from heaven to be our saviour and redeemer. For since the law brought nothing to perfection and
since the sacrifices that were only types had no power to cleanse us from sins,
we were made perfect in Christ, freed from every stain and honoured by the gift
of the Spirit who makes us by adoption sons of God. And in the intention of the
One who saves, the grace given in Christ will extend to all flesh; that is, to
the whole human race.
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