A SELECT LIBRARY

OF THE

NICENE AND

POST-NICENE FATHERS

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

SECOND SERIES

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH PROLEGOMENA AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.

VOLUMES I-VII.

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF

AND

HENRY WACE, D.D.,

PRINCIPAL OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON.

VOLUME VII

CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, GREGORY NAZIANZEN

T&T CLARK

EDINBURGH

WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

The

Catechetical Lectures

S. Cyril,

Archbishop of Jerusalem,

with a revised translation, introduction, notes, and indices,

Edwin Hamilton Gifford, D.D.

formerly archdeacon of london, and canon of S. Paul's.

Preface.

The present translation of the Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril of Jerusalem is based on a careful revision of the English translation published in the "Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church," with a most interesting Preface by John Henry Newman, dated from Oxford, The Feast of St. Matthew, 1838.

In his Preface Mr. Newman stated with respect to the translation "that for almost the whole of it the Editors were indebted to Mr. Church, Fellow of Oriel College." Mr. Church was at that time a very young man, having taken his First Class in Michaelmas Term, 1836; and this his first published work gave abundant promise of that peculiar felicity of expression, which made him in maturer life one of the most perfect masters of the English tongue. Having received full liberty to make such use of his translation as I might deem most desirable for the purpose of the present Edition, I have been obliged to exercise my own judgment both in preserving much of Dean Church's work unaltered, and in revising it wherever the meaning of the original appeared to be less perfectly expressed.

In this constant study and use of Dean Church's earliest work I have had always before my mind a grateful and inspiring remembrance of one whose friendship it was my great privilege to enjoy during the few last saddened years of his saintly and noble life.

In the notes of the Edition one of my chief objects has been to illustrate S. Cyril's teaching by comparing it with the works of earlier Fathers to whom he may have been indebted, and with the writings of his contemporaries.

In the chapters of the Introduction which touch on S. Cyril's doctrines of Baptism, Chrism, and the Holy Eucharist, I have not attempted either to criticise or to defend his teaching, but simply to give as faithful a representation as I could of his actual meaning. The Eastern Church had long before S. Cyril's day, and still has its own peculiar Sacramental doctrines, which, notwithstanding the efforts of rival theologians, can never be reduced to exact conformity with the tenets of our own or other Western Churches.

The Indices have been revised, and large additions made to the lists of Greek words,

E.H.G.

Oxford,

Introduction.

Life of S. Cyril.

The works of S. Cyril of Jerusalem owe much of their peculiar interest and value to the character of the times in which he wrote. Born a few years before the outbreak of

Arianism in a.d. 318, he lived to see its suppression by the Edict of Theodosius, 380, and to take part in its condemnation by the Council of Constantinople in the following year.

The story of Cyril's life is not told in detail by any contemporary author; in his own writings there is little mention of himself; and the Church historians refer only to the events of his manhood and old age. We have thus no direct knowledge of his early years, and can only infer from the later circumstances of his life what may probably have been the nature of his previous training. The names of his parents are quite unknown; but in the Greek Menaea, or monthly catalogues of Saints, and in the Roman Martyrology for the 18th day of March, Cyril is said to have been "born of pious parents, professing the orthodox Faith, and to have been bred up in the same, in the reign of Constantine." This account of his parentage and education derives some probability from the fact that Cyril nowhere speaks as one who had been converted from paganism or from any heretical sect. His language at the close of the vii^th Lecture seems rather to be inspired by gratitude to his own parents for a Christian education: "The first virtuous observance in a Christian is to honour his parents, to requite their trouble, and to provide with all his power for their comfort: for however much we may repay them, yet we can never be to them what they as parents have been to us. Let them enjoy the comfort we can give, and strengthen us with blessings."

One member only of Cyril's family is mentioned by name, his sister's son Gelasius, who was appointed by Cyril to be Bishop of Caesarea on the death of Acacius, a.d. 366 circ.

Cyril himself was probably born, or at least brought up, in or near Jerusalem, for it was usual to choose a Bishop from among the Clergy over whom he was to preside, a preference being given to such as were best known to the people generally [1] .

That Cyril, whether a native of Jerusalem or not, had passed a portion of his childhood there, is rendered probable by his allusions to the condition of the Holy Places before they were cleared and adorned by Constantine and Helena. He seems to speak as an eye-witness of their former state, when he says that a few years before the place of the Nativity at Bethlehem had been wooded [2] , that the place where Christ was crucified and buried was a garden, of which traces were still remaining [3] , that the wood of the Cross had been distributed to all nations [4] , and that before the decoration of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine, there was a cleft or cave before the door of the Sepulchre, hewn out of the rock itself, but now no longer to be seen, because the outer cave had been cut away for the sake of the recent adornments [5] .

This work was undertaken by Constantine after the year 326 a.d. [6] ; and if Cyril spoke from remembrance of what he had himself seen, he could hardly have been less than ten or twelve years old, and so must have been born not later, perhaps a few years earlier, than 315 a.d.

The tradition that Cyril had been a monk and an ascetic was probably founded upon the passages in which he seems to speak as one who had himself belonged to the order of Solitaries, and shared the glory of chastity [7] . We need not, however, suppose that the "Solitaries" (monazontes)of whom he speaks were either hermits living in remote and desert places, or monks secluded in a monastery: they commonly lived in cities, only in separate houses, and frequented the same Churches with ordinary Christians. To such a life of perpetual chastity, strict asceticism, and works of charity, Cyril may probably, in accordance with the custom of the age, have been devoted from early youth.

A more important question is that which relates to the time and circumstances of his ordination as Deacon, and as Priest, matters closely connected with some of the chief troubles of his later life.

That he was ordained Deacon by Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, who died in 334 or 335, may be safely inferred from the unfriendly notice of S. Jerome, Chron. ann. 349 (350 a.d.): "Cyril having been ordained Priest by Maximus, and after his death permitted by Acacius, Bishop of Caesarea, and the other Arian Bishops, to be made Bishop on condition of repudiating his ordination by Maximus, served in the Church as a Deacon: and after he had been paid for this impiety by the reward of the Episcopate (Sacerdotii), he by various plots harassed Heraclius, whom Maximus when dying had substituted in his own place, and degraded him from Bishop to Priest."

From this account, incredible as it is in the main, and strongly marked by personal prejudice, we may conclude that Cyril had been ordained Deacon not by Maximus, but by his predecessor Macarius; for otherwise he would have been compelled to renounce his Deacon's Orders, as well as his Priesthood.

Macarius died in or before the year 335; for at the Council of Tyre, assembled in that year to condemn Athanasius, Maximus sat as successor to Macarius in the See of Jerusalem [8] . This date is confirmed by the fact that after the accession of Maximus, a great assembly of Bishops was held at Jerusalem in the year 335, for the dedication of the Church of the Holy Resurrection [9] .

It thus appears that Cyril's ordination as Deacon cannot be put later than 334 or the beginning of 335.

Towards the close of the latter year the Bishops who had deposed Athanasius at the Council of Tyre proceeded to Jerusalem "to celebrate the Tricennalia of Constantine's reign by consecrating his grand Church on Mount Calvary [10] ." On that occasion "Jerusalem became the gathering point for distinguished prelates from every province, and the whole city was thronged by a vast assemblage of the servants of God......In short, the whole of Syria and Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, and Libya, with the dwellers in the Thebaid, all contributed to swell the mighty concourse of God's ministers, followed as they were by vast numbers from every province. They were attended by an imperial escort, and officers of trust had also been sent from the palace itself, with instructions to heighten the splendour of the festival at the Emperor's expense [11] ." Eusebius proceeds to describe the splendid banquets, the lavish distribution of money and clothes to the naked and destitute, the offerings of imperial magnificence, the "intellectual feast" of the many Bishops' discourses, and last, not least, his own "various public orations pronounced in honour of this solemnity." Among the Clergy taking part in this gorgeous ceremony, the newly ordained Deacon of the Church of Jerusalem would naturally have his place. It was a scene which could not fail to leave a deep impression on his mind, and to influence his attitude towards the contending parties in the great controversy by which the Church was at this time distracted. He knew that Athanasius had just been deposed, he had seen Arius triumphantly restored to communion in that august assembly of Bishops "from every province," with his own Bishop Maximus, and Eusebius of Caesarea, the Metropolitan, at their head. It is much to the praise of his wisdom and steadfastness that he was not misled by the notable triumph of the Arians to join their faction or adopt their tenets.

In September, 346, Athanasius returning from his second exile at Trèves passed through Jerusalem. The aged Bishop Maximus, who had been induced to acquiesce in the condemnation of Athanasius at Tyre, and in the solemn recognition of Arius at Jerusalem, had afterwards refused to join the Eusebians at Antioch in 341, for the purpose of confirming the sentence passed at Tyre, and now gave a cordial welcome to Athanasius, who thus describes his reception [12] : "As I passed through Syria, I met with the Bishops of Palestine, who, when they had called a Council at Jerusalem, received me cordially, and themselves also sent me on my way in peace, and addressed the following letter to the Church and the Bishops [13] ." The letter congratulating the Egyptian Bishops and the Clergy and people of Alexandria on the restoration of their Bishop is signed first by Maximus, who seems to have acted without reference to the Metropolitan Acacius, successor of Eusebius as Bishop of Caesarea, and a leader of the Arians, a bitter enemy of Athanasius. Though Cyril in his writings never mentions Athanasius or Arius by name, we can hardly doubt that, as Touttée suggests [14] , he must at this time have had an opportunity of learning the true character of the questions in dispute between the parties of the great heresiarch and his greater adversary.

We have already learned from Jerome that Cyril was admitted to the Priesthood by Maximus. There is no evidence of the exact date of his ordination: but we may safely assume that he was a Priest of some years' standing, when the important duty of preparing the candidates for Baptism was intrusted to him in or about the year 348 [15] . There appears to be no authority for the statement (Dict. Chr. Antiq. "Catechumens," p. 319 a), that the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem were delivered by him partly as a Deacon, partly as a Presbyter [16] ."

At the very time of delivering the lectures, Cyril was also in the habit of preaching to the general congregation on the Lord's day [17] , when the candidates for Baptism were especially required to be present [18] . In the Church of Jerusalem it was still the custom for sermons to be preached by several Presbyters in succession, the Bishop preaching last. From Cyril's Homily on the Paralytic (§ 20) we learn that he preached immediately before the Bishop, and so must have held a distinguished position among the Priests. This is also implied in the fact, that within three or four years after delivering his Catechetical Lectures to the candidates for Baptism, he was chosen to succeed Maximus in the See of Jerusalem.

The date of his consecration is approximately determined by his own letter to Constantius concerning the appearance of a luminous cross in the sky at Jerusalem. The letter was written on the 7th of May, 351, and is described by Cyril as the first-fruit of his Episcopate. He must therefore have been consecrated in 350, or early in 351.

Socrates and Sozomen agree in the assertion that Acacius, Patrophilus the Arian Bishop of Scythopolis, and their adherents ejected Maximus and put Cyril in his place [19] . But according to the statement of Jerome already quoted Maximus, when dying, had not only nominated Heraclius to be his successor, which, with the consent of the Clergy and people was not unusual, but had actually established him as Bishop in his stead (in suum locum substituerat). The two accounts are irreconcileable, and both improbable. Touttée argues not without reason, that the consecration of Heraclius, which Jerome attributes to Maximus, would have been opposed to the right of the people and Clergy to nominate their own Bishop, and to the authority of the Metropolitan and other Bishops of the province, by whom the choice was to be confirmed and the consecration performed, and that it had moreover been expressly forbidden seven years before by the 23rd Canon of the Council of Antioch.

Still more improbable is the charge that Cyril had renounced the priesthood conferred on him by Maximus, and after serving in the Church as a Deacon, had been rewarded by the Episcopate, and then himself degraded Heraclius from Bishop to Priest. As a solution of these difficulties, it is suggested by Reischl that Cyril had been designated in the lifetime of Maximus as his successor, and after his decease had been duly and canonically consecrated, but had incurred the calumnious charges of the party opposed to Acacius and the Eusebians, because he was supposed to have bound himself to them by accepting consecration at their hands. This view is in some measure confirmed by the fact that "in the great controversy of the day Cyril belonged to the Asiatic party, Jerome to that of Rome. In the Meletian schism also they took opposite sides, Cyril supporting Meletius, Jerome being a warm adherent of Paulinus [22] ," by whom he had been recently ordained Priest. It is also worthy of notice that Jerome's continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius was written at Constantinople in 380-381, the very time when the many injurious charges fabricated by Cyril's bitter enemies were most industriously circulated in popular rumour on the eve of a judicial inquiry by the second general Council which met there in 381, under the presidency of Meletius, Cyril, and Gregory of Nazianzum [23] . Had Jerome written of Cyril a year or two later, he must have known that these calumnies had been emphatically rejected by the Synod of Constantinople consisting of nearly the same Bishops who had been present at the Council of the preceding year. In their Synodical letter to Pope Damasus they wrote: "And of the Church in Jerusalem, which is the Mother of all the Churches, we notify that the most reverend and godly Cyril is Bishop: who was long ago canonically appointed by the Bishops of the Province, and had many conflicts in various places against the Arians."

The beginning of Cyril's Episcopate was marked by the appearance of a bright Cross in the sky, about nine o'clock in the morning of Whitsunday, the 7th of May, 351 a.d. Brighter than the sun, it hung over the hill of Golgotha, and extended to Mount Olivet, being visible for many hours. The whole population of Jerusalem, citizens and foreigners, Christians and Pagans, young and old, flocked to the Church, singing the praises of Christ, and hailing the phaenomenon as a sign from heaven confirming the truth of the Christian religion.

Cyril regarded the occasion as favourable for announcing to the Emperor Constantius the commencement of his Episcopate; and in his extant letter described the sign as a proof of God's favour towards the Empire and its Christian ruler. The piety of his father Constantine had been rewarded by the discovery of the true Cross and the Holy places: and now the greater devotion of the Son had won a more signal manifestation of Divine approval. The letter ends with a prayer that God may grant to the Emperor long to reign as the protector of the Church and of the Empire, "ever glorifying the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, our true God." The word homoousion, it is alleged, had not at this time been accepted by Cyril, and its use has therefore been thought to cast doubt upon the genuineness of this final prayer, which is nevertheless maintained by the Benedictine Editor [25] . The letter as a whole is certainly genuine, and the phenomenon is too strongly attested by the historians of the period to be called in question. While, therefore, we must reject Cyril's explanation, we have no reason to suspect him of intentional misrepresentation. A parhelion, or other remarkable phenomenon, of which the natural cause was at that time unknown, might well appear "to minds excited by the struggle between the Christian Faith and a fast-declining heathenism to be a miraculous manifestation of the symbol of Redemption, intended to establish the Faith and to confute its gainsayers [26] ."

The first few years of Cyril's episcopate fell within that so-called "Golden Decade," 346-355, which is otherwise described as "an uneasy interval of suspense rather than of peace [27] ." Though soon to be engaged in a dispute with Acacius concerning the privileges of their respective Sees, Cyril seems to have been in the interval zealous and successful in promoting the peace and prosperity of his own Diocese.

We learn from a letter of Basil the Great that he had visited Jerusalem about the year 357, when he had been recently baptized, and was preparing to adopt a life of strict asceticism. He speaks of the many saints whom he had there embraced, and of the many who had fallen on their knees before him, and touched his hands as holy [28] ,--signs, as Touttée suggests, of a flourishing state of religion and piety. Cyril's care for the poor, and his personal poverty, were manifested by an incident, of which the substantial truth is proved by the malicious use to which it was afterwards perverted. "Jerusalem and the neighbouring region being visited with a famine, the poor in great multitudes, being destitute of necessary food, turned their eyes upon Cyril as their Bishop. As he had no money to succour them in their need, he sold the treasures and sacred veils of the Church. It is said, therefore, that some one recognised an offering of his own as worn by an actress on the stage, and made it his business to inquire whence she had it, and found that it had been sold to her by a merchant, and to the merchant by the Bishop [29] ."

This was one of the charges brought against Cyril in the course of the disputes between himself and Acacius, which had commenced soon after he had been installed in the Bishopric of Jerusalem. As Bishop of Caesarea, Acacius exercised Metropolitan jurisdiction over the Bishops of Palestine. But Cyril, as presiding over an Apostolic See, "the Mother of all the Churches," claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of Caesarea, and higher rank than its Bishop. It is not alleged, nor is it in any way probable, that Cyril claimed also the jurisdiction over other Bishops. The rights and privileges of his See had been clearly defined many years before by the 7th Canon of the Council of Nicaea: "As custom and ancient tradition shew that the Bishop of AElia ought to be honoured, let him have precedence in honour, without prejudice to the proper dignity of the Metropolitical See." Eusebius [30] , in reference to a Synod concerning the time of Easter, says: "There is still extant a writing of those who were then assembled in Palestine (about 200 a.d.), over whom Theophilus, Bishop of Caesarea, and Narcissus, Bishop of Jerusalem, presided." If one Synod only is here meant, it would appear that the Bishop of Caesarea took precedence of the Bishop of Jerusalem, which would be the natural order in a Synod held at Caesarea. Bishop Hefele, however, takes a different view [31] : "According to the Synodicon, two Synods were held in Palestine on the subject of the Easter controversy: the one at Jerusalem presided over by Narcissus, and composed of fourteen Bishops; and the other at Caesarea, comprising twelve Bishops, and presided over by Theophilus." In confirmation of this view we may observe that when next Eusebius mentions Narcissus and Theophilus, he reverses the previous order, and names the Bishop of Jerusalem first.

However this may have been, Acacius, who as an Arian was likely to have little respect for the Council of Nicaea, seems to have claimed both precedence and jurisdiction over Cyril. From Socrates we learn that Cyril was frequently summoned to submit to the judgment of Acacius, but for two whole years refused to appear. He was therefore deposed by Acacius and the other Arian Bishops of Palestine on the charge of having sold the property of the Church, as before mentioned. Socrates, who confesses that he does not know for what Cyril was accused, yet suggests that he was afraid to meet the accusations [33] . But Theodoret, a more impartial witness, says that Acacius took advantage of some slight occasion (aphormas) and deposed him. Sozomen also describes the accusation as a pretext (epi prophasei toiade), and the deposition as hastily decreed, to forestall any countercharge of heresy by Cyril (phthanei kathelon). The deposition was quickly followed by Cyril's expulsion from Jerusalem, and a certain Eutychius was appointed to succeed him [36] . Passing by Antioch, which at this time, 357-358, was left without a Bishop by the recent decease of the aged Arian Leontius Castratus [37] , Cyril took refuge in Tarsus with its Bishop the "admirable Silvanus," "one of the Semi-Arians," who, as Athanasius testifies, agreed almost entirely with the Nicene doctrine, only taking offence at the expression homoousios, because in their opinion it contained latent Sabellianism [38] ." Cyril now sent to the Bishops who had deposed him a formal notice that he appealed to a higher Court (meizon epekalesato dikasterion ), and his appeal was approved by the Emperor Constantius [39] . Acasius, on learning the place of Cyril's retreat, wrote to Silvanus announcing his deposition. But Silvanus out of respect both to Cyril, and to the people, who were delighted with his teaching, still permitted him to exercise his ministry in the Church. Socrates finds fault with Cyril for his appeal: "In this," he says, "he was the first and only one who acted contrary to the custom of the Ecclesiastical Canon, by having recourse to appeals as in a civil court." The reproach implied in this statement is altogether undeserved. The question, as Touttée argues, is not whether others had done the like before or after, but whether Cyril's appeal was in accordance with natural justice, and the custom of the Church. On the latter point he refers to the case of the notorious heretic Photinus, who after being condemned in many Councils appealed to the Emperor, and was allowed to dispute in his presence with Basil the Great as his opponent. Athanasius himself, in circumstances very similar to Cyril's, declined to appear before Eusebius and a Synod of Arian Bishops at Caesarea, by whom he was condemned a.d. 334, and appealed in person to Constantine, requesting either that a lawful Council of Bishops might be assembled, or that the Emperor would himself receive his defence. "

In justification of Cyril's appeal it is enough to say that it was impossible for him to submit to the judgment of Acacius and his Arian colleagues. They could not be impartial in a matter where the jurisdiction of Acacius their president, and his unsoundness in the Faith, were as much in question as any of the charges brought against Cyril. He took the only course open to him in requesting the Emperor to remit his case to the higher jurisdiction of a greater Council, and in giving formal notice of this appeal to the Bishops who had expelled him.