And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins; and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
All Commentaries on Genesis 17:11 Go To Genesis 17
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
: In what sense is the covenant eternal? One interpretation is that it is eternal according to the One promising, for the things of God are not time conditioned. But relative to us eternal things become time conditioned. Another interpretation is that even when the covenant with Israel was abolished, it was maintained for us, and we are God’s [people] in place of them. Circumcision took over a second territory after the faith [came]. For just as the birth of the illegitimate child came first, after the promise of the legitimate one, because the birth of the latter was likewise belated, so now circumcision came first because the time for the spiritual [circumcision] was not yet; but when this new one appears, the other circumcision is thrown out. For “in Christ Jesus,” we say, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail.” That circumcision was a sign of the covenant, which could be present even in transgressors. But the true circumcision is the perfect observance of the law, the cutting away and removing of everything alien to God and the ability to pass beyond worldly things to approach the transcendent realities through understanding. Of this the eighth day of circumcision is the symbol. For the eighth day is supernatural, even as the Savior, by accomplishing the resurrection on the eighth day, showed the mystery. Likewise appropriate is the text’s reference to extermination, whether of those uncircumcised in the flesh or those whose heart has not been circumcised, the uncircumcised of heart, as one would say using Old Testament terminology.
