And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
All Commentaries on Genesis 28:12 Go To Genesis 28
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
This is, I believe, the stairway, the running to and fro of the holy spirits, who “are sent forth to minister for those who shall be the heirs of salvation.” Christ is firmly placed on top of the stairway for those holy spirits who can reach him, who have him as their overseer, not as someone who exists among them but as God and Lord. In another passage David says to all people who want to live in the protection of the Most High: “He shall give his angels charge concerning you to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up on their hands, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread on the asp and the basilisk, and shall trample on the lion and the dragon.” We trod on serpents and scorpions and on every power of the enemy, thanks to the power given to us by Christ. Those who are in Christ are also worthy of the divine look, so that he may promise them that he will be by them and help them, and will save them everywhere and will declare them fruitful. “I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” The fact that the blessed disciples were enriched and made the fathers of innumerable nations by their faith in Christ, and as by a spiritual generation, is manifest to everybody. Paul himself said clearly to those who believed through him: “Though you have one thousand teachers in Christ, yet you have not many fathers: For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” Therefore their seed was made as numerous as the grains of sand and was spread to the east and the west, to the left and the right, to the south and the north. ,
