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Cyril of Jerusalem

4th century · AD 386 · Eastern & Byzantine · 315 passages

Background on Cyril of Jerusalem

In his own words on Joshua

  • Joshua 2:11

    Pass now, pray, to the others who were saved by repentance. Perhaps even among the women someone will say, "I have committed fornication and adultery. I have defiled my body with every excess. Can there be salvation for me?" Fix your eyes, woman, upon Rahab, and look for salvation for yourself too. For if she who openly and publicly practiced fornication was saved through repentance, will not she whose fornication preceded the gift of grace be saved by repentance and fasting? For observe how she was saved. She said only this: "Since the Lord, your God, is God in heaven above and on earth below." "Your God," she said, for she did not dare call him her God, because of her wantonness. If you want scriptural testimony of her salvation, you have it recorded in the Psalms: "I will think of Rahab and Babylon among those who know me." The salvation procured by repentance is open to men and women alike.

    Catechetical Lecture 2:9

  • Joshua 3:1

    But Jesus [Joshua], son of Nave [Nun], was a type of him in many things; for when he began to rule the people, he began from the Jordan; thence also did Christ begin to preach the gospel after he was baptized. The son of Nave [Nun] appoints the twelve to divide the inheritance;2 and Jesus sends forth the twelve apostles, heralds of truth, into the whole world. He who was the type saved Rahab, the harlot, who had believed;4 the true Jesus … says, Behold: "the publicans and the harlots are entering the kingdom of God before you." With but a shout, the walls of Jericho collapsed in the time of the type;6 and because of these words of Jesus, "There will not be left here one stone upon another," the temple of the Jews just opposite us is fallen; not that this sentence was the cause of its ruin, but rather the sin of the transgressors.

    Catechetical Lecture 10:11

Quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations of the fathers — Aquinas's Catena Aurea, the Ante-Nicene and Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, and related editions. Each quotation links to its source.