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St Cyril Of Alexandria's Exegetical Sermons On The PassionAccording To St Luke
 
Sermon on 21:37-22:6.
21:37-22:6.
 And by day He was teaching in the temple, and at night He went out and abode in the mount called of Olives: and all the people came early to Him in the templeto hear Him. And the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover,and the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill Him: for they feared the people. But Satan entered into Judah, surnamed Iscariot, who was of the number of thetwelve, and He went and spoke to the chief priests and captains, how he might deliver  Him to them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money: and he promised,and sought a fitting season when he could deliver Him to them without the multitude.
THE throng of the Jews, together with their ruler, stood up against the glory of Christ, and contendedwith the Lord of all. But any one may perceive that it was against their own souls that they preparedtheir snare, for they dug for themselves pitfalls of destruction, and, as the Psalmist says, “The heathenare taken in the snare which they have made: in the trap which they have laid is their foot taken.’” For the Saviour and Lord of all, though His right hand is almighty, and His power overthrows bothcorruption and death, yet submitted Himself of His own accord by becoming flesh to the tasting of death for the life of all, in order that He might make corruption cease, and do away with the sin of theworld, and deliver those that were under the hand of the enemy from his unendurable tyranny. But thatrebellious serpent perhaps imagined that He had prevailed even over Him, in that He suffered, as I said,death in the flesh for our sakes, as the dispensation required: but the wretched being was disappointedof his expectation. |656Let us then see how he missed his game, and shot wide of his mark, when he made Christ his prey, anddelivered Him into the hands of those murderers. It says then, that “by day He taught in the temple, butlodged during the nights in the mount called of olives.” Now plainly what He taught were things whichsurpass the legal service: for the time had come when the shadow must be changed into the reality. Andthey heard Him gladly; for oftentimes they had wondered at Him, “because His word was with power.”For He did not, like one of the holy prophets, or as the hierophant Moses, call out to men, “Thesethings says the Lord:” but as Himself being He Who of old spoke by Moses and the prophets, and theLord of all, He transferred with godlike authority to a spiritual worship what had been prefigured intypes, and the weakness of the letter: “for the law made nothing perfect.”And He lodged during the nights, as I said, in the Mount of Olives, avoiding the uproars there were inthe city, that He might in this also be a pattern to us. For it is the duty of those who would lead a lifequiet and calm, and, so to speak, full of rest, to avoid as far as possible the crowd and tumult.But let us see the course of the devil’s malice, and what was the result of his crafty designs againstHim. He had then implanted in the chiefs of the synagogue of the Jews envy against Christ, which proceeded even to murder. For always, so to speak, this malady tends to the guilt of murder. Such, atleast, is the natural course of this vice: so it was with Cain and Abel; so plainly it was in the case of Joseph and his brethren; and therefore the divine Paul also very clearly makes these sins neighbours, soto speak, of one another, and akin: for he spoke of some as “full of envy, murder.” They soughttherefore to slay Jesus, at the instigation of Satan, who had implanted this wickedness in them, and whoalso was their captain in their wicked enterprises. For he is himself the inventor of murder, and the rootof sin, and the fountain of all wickedness. And what was the contrivance of this many-headed serpent?“He entered, it says, into Judah Iscariot, who was one of the twelve.” Why not rather into the blessedPeter, or into James, or John, or some other of the rest of the apostles, but into Judah Iscariot? What place did Satan find in him? Of all whom we have here mentioned he could approach |657 none, because their heart was steadfast, and their love to Christ immoveable; but there was a place for him in
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