ACC ~ John 12 v20

WHAT WERE GREEKS DOING AT THE FEAST?

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA Anyone might be perplexed at these words and wonder with what motive certain Greeks should be going up to Jerusalem to worship. Note that they were doing this at the time when the feast was being celebrated according to the Law. For surely no one will say that they went up merely to look at the people there. Certainly it was with the intention of participating in the feast that was suitable for Jews and Jews only that they were journeying up in the company of the Jews. What was the point as regards the motive of worship that was common to both Greeks and Jews? …

Since the territory of the Jews was situated near that of the Galileans, and since both they and the Greeks had cities and villages in close vicinity to each other, they were continually intermingling together and interchanging visits, being invited for a variety of occasions. And since it somehow happens that the disposition of idol worshipers is very easily brought to welcome a change for the better, and since nothing is easier than to convict their false worship of being utterly unprofitable, some among them were easily persuaded to change. This does not mean that they fully and perfectly worshiped him who alone is truly God, since they were somewhat divided with regard to the arguments in favor of abandoning idolatry and following the precepts of their own teachers. …

It was then a custom for certain of the inhabitants of Palestine, especially the Greeks, who had the territory of the Jews closely adjoining and bordering on their own, to be impressed in some way by the Jewish habits of thought and to honor the name of one sovereign [deity]. And this was the view current among those Greeks whom we just now mentioned, albeit they did not express it in the same way that we do. And they, not having the tendency to Judaism in full force, nor even having separated themselves from the habits dear to the Greeks but holding an intermediate opinion that inclined both ways, are called “worshipers of God.” People of this kind, therefore, seeing that their own habits of thought were not very sharply distinguished from those of the Jews … were in the habit of going up with the Jews to worship, especially at the national gatherings, not meaning to slight their own religion but as an act of honor to the one all-supreme God. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 8. [1]

[1] LF 48:143-45*. Cyril here provides a sociological-historical observation that helps account for the interest in Christ among the Gentiles prior to his resurrection. Theodore notes that they were also attracted to Jerusalem because of the miracles God had performed among the Jews. See Commentary on the Gospel of John 5.12.20-23 (CSCO 4 3:239).