His vision had come to an end, and there was a
conclusion of the previous prophecy’ hence their shame at the idols they themselves
had wanted, and their confusion over the gardens which they themselves had
wanted, and their confusion over the gardens which they themselves had longed
for. We commented sufficiently on the way the people of Israel were ashamed of
their idols. Since there was mention of the prophecy about them, however, the
prophet begins by immediately proceedings to a second vision related to it,
indicating the time when the devil’s control would fail, not over part of the
earth or in one country or city, but when there was an utter collapse of the
worship of the idols and their loathsome paraphernalia, and complete removal of
such an ailment affecting the world under heaven along with tyranny of the
unclean spirits. This too was achieved for the people on earth in the last
days, that is, at the end of the present age, when the only-begotten Word of
God appeared, born of a woman, and when he presented to himself the spiritual
Judah or Jerusalem—that is the Church—as a pure virgin without spot or wrinkle
or the like, as the Scripture says, but pure and flawless.
. . .
The spiritual Sion—that is, the Church—on the
other hand, soars above the whole of creation visible and invisible, and
arrives at the very nature that surpasses everything; it is bathed in the
divine light, acknowledge it as creator and artificer of all things, attribute to
it alone control of all things, and bedecks with such glory the mighty king,
god and Lord of all, Accordingly, the house of God would rightly be called a mountain;
it is also manifest, being raised up on the hills. (Cyril
of Alexandria, Commentary on Isaiah, 3 vols. [trans. Robert Charles
Hill; Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2008], 1:62-63)
