In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

PREFACE TO THE COMMENTARY ON HAGGAI HE PURPOSE of the prophecy of Haggai we would take as different from some others’, nor would you regard his words as similar to those from the others. The divinely inspired Hosea and those after him up to Zephaniah, remember , foretold what would befall the Jews in due course, and with the time of the captivity still in the future they endeavored to frighten Israel, mentioning here and there the columns of the enemy, the overthrow of cities, the burnings, the plundering , and helpfully predicting the devastation of the whole country to those inclined to be contemptuous. Their conviction was, in fact, that even if they did not elect to perform what was pleasing to God voluntarily, as it were, and to show zeal for better ways, such people would still be scared by the enormity of the calamity.1 Haggai, at any rate, when the time of the captivity had passed (242) and Israel returned to the holy city from the land of the Persians and Medes, delivered his message on themes like the following.2 Cyrus had in fact released them from captivity, and ordered them to go home together with the sacred vessels, to rebuild the divine Temple in Jerusalem, and in addition to this, if they wished, to fortify the city. When this was done, and the foundations of the Temple were laid, some of the people in Samaria—Beltethmus and those in his company—out of envy reported the people of Israel, making a pretense of loyalty to the leaders of the Babylonians, and claiming that Jerusalem had 61 1. Cyril shows his resemblance to the Antiochenes in his interest in determining the skopos of the different authors. 2. Though we have seen Cyril insecure in his grasp of the events, peoples, and personages referred to in the texts of the previous prophets, as also the time of their ministry, he is provided with unmistakable data in the opening of Haggai and also in the deuterocanonical work 1 Esdras. 62 CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA become warlike and hostile, and was intolerant of the very kings of the Persians. They then persuaded them to order the Jews to cease operations, and not to continue building the Temple or be involved in work on the city. After the lapse of a short time, however, when Darius had come to the throne and was in his second year of kingship, some of the Jews in Babylonia made their approach and begged him to allow them to rebuild the divine Temple. Darius gave an order and wrote to those who administered the whole of Phoenicia with instructions not to obstruct the Jews if they wanted to rebuild the Temple; instead, they were to be generous in supplying resources and to allow them to have the cedars in Lebanon brought down by them unopposed so that nothing useful for them would be lacking for the easy accomplishment (243) of the task for the honor and glory of the God who has control of all things. Now, since the facts have been told clearly and in detail in the first book of Esdras,3 I consider it superfluous to trace the course of it minutely at present. Though it was possible, however , for the people of Israel now to go to work, build the divine Temple, offer sacrifices and prayers, and live life in ways corresponding to the Law, the people of Israel became slothful, doing their own thing, completely inclined to whatever suited and appealed to them, and paying extremely little attention to the glory of God. So they once again suffered hardship, with God punishing them, not with war but with famine, infertility, and loss of livestock; he wanted to bring them around, not by subjecting them to penalties commensurate with their faults, but both out of pity for their weariness and likewise from a wish to reform them out of love. This, in a nutshell, is the basis of the prophecy of Haggai; the message is a mixture, the spiritual and interior meaning that is suited to spiritual people being combined with what was done and said factually.4 3. 1 Esdras 2; 4. 4. The procedure will be as before, a movement from what is historikos to what is mystikos for the benefit of a reader who is pneumatikos. ...

Share