Commentary on the book of the prophet Zephaniah

Between 412 and 418 St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote a series of interpretations on the minor prophets - a total of 12 parts, according to the number of prophetic books. The preface to each book describes the historical setting and purpose of the prophecies. The beginning of the preface to the interpretation of the Book of the Prophet Hosea is an introduction to the entire corpus of interpretations. Interpretations of St. Kirill are reduced to the unity of typological (proto-educational), spiritual (anagogical) and literal (historical) methods. In his opinion, the books of the prophets do not need allegorical interpretation to clarify their Christological meaning, since by their nature they prophesy about Christ. For St. Cyril of Alexandria, there are only two meanings of Holy Scripture: literal and spiritual, which seem to penetrate each other. The area of ​​spiritual interpretation certainly includes the disclosure of moral meaning, examples of which are contained in these comments. Zephaniah prophesies in Jerusalem. According to the flesh, he was not of an unknown race, and did not belong to those who were in the habit of telling lies and presenting their words to their listeners as divine, about whom Ezekiel said: “They who prophesy fiercely from their hearts..., but not those who see” (Ezekiel 13:3); and the God of all things through the mouth of Jeremiah: “The prophets did not send, but they did not speak; they did not speak to them, and they prophesied” (Jer. 23:21). On the contrary, he was a true prophet, conveying verbs from the mouth of the Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit, and pouring out good things as if from the good source of his heart; for the tongue of saints does not know how to speak lies. The purpose of his prophecy is to censure the two tribes that were in Jerusalem, I say, Judah and Benjamin; for he accuses them of wickedness and godless devotion to idolatrous errors and of excessive inclination towards everything displeasing to God. It is not without benefit that an indication of the time of his reign was added here, during which he pronounced this (prophecy) before the offenders (of God), so that we, studying the then state of affairs, would understand why and how great was the wrath of God against them. You might be interested in: