A READING FROM A COMMENTARY
ON ISAIAH BY ST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA
In
the last days the mountain of the Lord will stand out clearly and the house of
the Lord will be on top of the mountain. It will be raised high above the
hills, and all nations will stream toward it. This prophecy came true for the
benefit of the whole human race in the last days, that is to say, in the final
age of this world, when the Word of God, his only Son, appeared, born of a
woman. Then, as Scripture says, he presented to himself the Church, the
spiritual Judea or Jerusalem, as a pure virgin without stain or
wrinkle or any other imperfection, holy and unblemished.
All
nations will stream toward it and many peoples will come and say: Let us go up
to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his way and we will walk in
it. There is no need of a lengthy argument to
prove that, through faith, all nations have been brought together into the
Church. The fact speaks for itself. This great multitude of peoples was called
together not by instruction in the law, nor by the holy prophets, but by the
secret working of God’s grace enlightening their minds and making them long for
Christ to save them.
First they climb the mountain and then they seek to have
the word of God preached to them. They promise to walk in the way the Lord,
which is that of the Gospel, the entry to which is through the purification
accomplished by faith. For those seeking to learn the way of the Lord must
first renounce their past errors. We cannot long for something better until we
reject what we held before.
Who was their spiritual guide who brought them to a
knowledge of the truth and persuaded them to regard as ridiculous their old way
of thinking and to adopt a new one? Who but God? It was he who illumined their
minds and hearts and led them both to say and to believe that the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
The blessed prophet announced that the time was determined
for the calling and the conversion of the Gentiles. This would take place, he
said, when the God of the whole world, the universal King and Lord, judges all
the nations and establishes justice among them. Previously, injustice was
rampant as the nations plundered one another and practised every kind of
cruelty and excess. But when such things are done away with, justice will be
given us by God. When Christ, who is peace, rules the nations all discord,
strife, contention, and every kind of oppression will be banished, together
with the injuries that give rise to war and the terrors that follow in its
wake. The will of him who said, I leave
you peace, my peace I give you, will be victorious.
St Cyril of Alexandria Lib. 1, Oratio 2 (PG 70, 67-74), from
Word in Season 1
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