16. Such is not the Holy Ghost; God
forbid! For His doings tend the contrary way, towards what is
good and salutary. First, His coming is gentle; the perception of
Him is fragrant; His burden most light; beams of light and knowledge
gleam forth before His coming In this contrast
between the evil spirit and the Spirit of God Cyril’s language
rises to true eloquence, far surpassing a somewhat similar description,
which may have been known to him, in Euseb. Dem. Evang. V.
132.. He comes
with the bowels of a true guardian: for He comes to save, and to
heal, to teach, to admonish, to strengthen, to exhort, to enlighten the
mind, first of him who receives Him, and afterwards of others also,
through him. And as a man, who being previously in darkness then
suddenly beholds the sun, is enlightened in his bodily sight, and sees
plainly things which he saw not, so likewise he to whom the Holy Ghost
is vouchsafed, is enlightened in his soul, and sees things beyond
man’s sight, which he knew not; his body is on earth, yet his
soul mirrors forth the heavens. He sees, like Esaias, the Lord
sitting upon a throne high and lifted up Is. vi. 1.;
he sees, like Ezekiel, Him who is above the Cherubim Ezek. x. 1.; he sees like Daniel, ten thousand times
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands Dan. vii. 10.;
and the man, who is so little, beholds the beginning of the world, and
knows the end of the world, and the times intervening, and the
successions of kings,—things which he never learned: for
the True Enlightener is present with him. The man is within the
walls of a house; yet the power of his knowledge reaches far and wide,
and he sees even what other men are doing.