Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, Volume 1

Commentary on Hosea, Chapter Two

COMMENTARY ON HOSEA, CHAPTER TWO Say to your brother, My people, and to your sister, Pitied (v.1). T WAS VERY necessary to add this to what had been already said: since he had said that they would all be under a single government, with no further division or separation leading to disharmony, with concord prevailing, and with faith in Christ bringing everyone together in unity of spirit, consequently the Spirit now bade those already enriched with faith and made subject to Christ to be no longer zealous in withholding peace from those who were rightly called Not my people and Not pitied. After all, once Israel was accepted, admitted to forgiveness, and made subject to Christ, what logic would there be in continuing to be separated, and not rather for those called to brotherhood in the spirit of adoption to live in harmony ? O you who are enlightened by faith in Christ, he is saying, and who have attained the ornament of noble lineage, now say My people to your brother, who of old was rightly called Not my people, and say Pitied to your sister, who was Not pitied. It is, in fact, necessary (44) for the peoples subject to the Lord to be of one mind, and for those called to sonship through grace to have the same will as the Father. They should rather rejoice that the remnant of Israel is saved, as well as those formerly rejected for grave disobedience, but now made acceptable and thus sanctified in Christ. Through him and with him be glory to God the Father with the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.1 (45) Pass sentence against your mother, pass sentence, because she is not my wife and I am not her husband (v.2). After foretelling that Israel would rightly be rejected and in addition called Not my people, 64 1. Thus concludes, for reasons of length, Cyril’s first volume—hence the doxology. and in fact that the populace that killed the Lord would unquestionably be Not pitied, and rightly so, he then before long adds to this the future conversion at the endtime through faith in Christ, in saying, “The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be assembled together, and they will appoint for themselves a single government.”2 After explaining the whole divine plan from beginning to end, he then moves to revealing the charges leveled at those properly rejected, and clearly focuses on what it had been their lot to suffer. Accordingly, he says to those pitied, accepted, and made God’s people despite their springing from the unfaithful synagogue, Pass sentence against your mother, pass sentence. In other words, he is saying, if you want to learn the reason why you were Not my people and became and were called Not pitied in the time before your conversion, you will not find me hostile to you and lacking in affection. Pass sentence instead on your own mother for not preserving (46) the sincerity of her love for me, and for denying the relationship . She definitely treated as of little account the purity of the spiritual communion with me, and was unwilling to bear the fruits of my wishes. She is not my wife and therefore I am not her husband. It was not to me but to others that she bore you; I would surely have recognized you. The natural father is not slow to have pity, but he is reluctant to be kind to illegitimate offspring. While you might equally claim that this is said in the person of God, you could likewise reason, and come to a correct understanding, that when the synagogue perversely forsook God and opted instead for worship of the demons, as it were, stretching out its limbs to them like a prostitute, its members proved neither purely and constantly godly nor genuine in their behavior. Rather, they adopted the customs of their forbears, unashamedly embracing what offended God, partly by sacrificing to Baal and the golden heifers, partly by betaking themselves indiscriminately to every form of impurity. They will therefore blame their own mother, and rightly so, and not in her place the truly holy Lord, who loves virtue and who does not deign to keep a prostitute as a COMMENTARY ON HOSEA 2 65 2. Hos 1.11. 66 CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA spouse. The form of prostitution, however, is altogether...