Festal Letters 1-12

Festal Letter Five

83 FESTAL LETTER FiVE A.D. 417 HERE IS A TIME for everything,”1 says holy Scripture, and that seems to me an excellent view of the nature of things, for nothing can be more harmful to it than missing the proper time. Since, then, no one will deny that to do this is bad, and those of sound mind will certainly agree, it behooves one, by contrast, to prefer the better idea, meaning the time suitable to everything, and fitting to each thing. The present time, then, is that of festival, and we must once again obey holy Scripture when it says, “Blow the trumpet at the new moon, in the glorious day of your feast.”2 What season, then, will shine upon us more gloriously than the present? What is so conspicuous as our all-praised feast, which proclaims the truly genuine new moon, the new age for us of the Savior’s sojourn , “in which everything has become new, and the old has passed away,”3 as Paul says? Let the Church’s trumpet sound, therefore, and let it send forth to us in joy once again its annual proclamation. Will it, though, sound like an army bugle? Does it signal to us that the ranks of the enemy are now upon us? Does it announce the combat that looms, and fear of death, and tell us to take up our weapons as quickly as we can against our attackers? not at all. i know that the sound of my trumpet is different, announcing nothing of the sort; its music is one of victory, sounding most joyously to those who hear it. “Come,” it will say, according to the holy Psalmist, “let us exult in the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to God our Savior.”4 What is it, then, on account of which one knows that the joy- “ 1. Eccl 3.1. 2. Ps 81.3. 3. 2 Cor 5.17. 4. Ps 95.1. 84 ST. CYRiL OF ALEXAnDRiA ful noise comes at the right time and decides that one must exult and lift up to the Savior his death as something sacred? i know that you know, but i will explain it anyway. Death has been conquered, which refused to be conquered. Corruption has been made new.5 invincible suffering has been destroyed. Hell, stricken with insatiable greed, and never satisfied with those who had died, has learned, all unwillingly, what it could not bear to learn earlier. For it does not strive to get hold of those who are still falling, but has disgorged those already taken, having suffered a wonderful desolation by the Savior’s power. For he paid it a visit with the words, “You in prison, come out! You in the darkness, show yourselves!”6 And having made his proclamation to the spirits in hell,7 who had once disobeyed, he ascended victorious , having raised up his own temple8 as a kind of first-fruits of our hope,9 made resurrection from the dead a way on which revived nature can travel, and performed for us other good things as well. 2. it is in these things, beloved, that we have the radiant signal for the feast, and for these reasons that i think we must leap for joy as we say, “The right hand of the Lord has wrought mightily; the right hand of the Lord has exalted me.”10 All others, wherever they may be, honor the custom of festivals, doing their utmost to dress in their finest, and it is regarded as the worst kind of negligence or wickedness to fail to appear dressed in whatever item of value each has. When city-wide feasts are celebrated, accordingly, one may see the common people participating in them arrayed splendidly in flowers, making their way eagerly to a still more splendid table and delighting in the digestive penalties rather than being pained by them. For us, though, the festivals are not conducted in this way, nor do we care to follow the public customs or make efforts to do so. But the garment 5. The Pauline idea that salvation includes deliverance from decay is highly developed in Cyril’s theology and is a common theme in Greek patristics reaching back to irenaeus. See norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 6. is 49.4. 7. Cf. 1 Pt 3.19. 8. Cf. Jn 2.19–21. 9...