SOURCE: Wilkin, Robert L. “Worship in Spirit and in Truth: The Transformation of the Old.” In Judaism and the Early Christian Mind: A Study of Cyril of Alexandria's Exegesis and Theology, pp. 69-92. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971.

In the following excerpt, Wilkin discusses Cyril's early exegetical works—particularly his De adoratione et cultu in spiritu et veritate—as they explore the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, and demonstrate Cyril's sense of the former religion as a “transformation” of the latter.

For a man burdened with the responsibility of a large and unruly patriarchate Cyril engaged in extraordinary literary activity. During the first few years of his reign he composed the four major exegetical works on the Old Testament and may have written other commentaries. Of these works the earliest are the two on the Pentateuch, the Adoration and Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth...