762
CYRILLUS
CYRILLUS
Amm. Marcell. xxii. 5). On his way to Jerusa-lem he visited Meletius at Antioch, who com-mended to his protection the son of the high-priest of Daphne, who had become a convert tothe faith, and feared the consequences of hisfather’s wrath. He accepted the charge, andcarried away the lad by night (Theodt. iii. 14).At Jerusalem he calmly watched the attempts ofJulian to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, andis said to have foretold that it must fail (Socr. iii.20; Rufinus, i. 37). This is not the place to enteron the vexed question of the supernatural por-tents by which this impious attempt to give the lieto the express words of Christ was frustrated.It will be enough to remind the reader thatthough they are not mentioned by Jerome, aredoubted by the candid Lardner, and, of course,scoffed at by Gibbon, the facts are confirmed tous, not only by the evidence of early Christianwriters, who might be only too ready to give cre-dence to them (Socr. iii. 20 ; Soz. v. 22 ; Theodt.iii. 20; Chrysost. c. Jud. et Gent. i. 709, 789,790; Greg. Naz. Oratio adv. Julian, ii. 9-12;Ambros. Epist. xl. ii. 946, &c.), but “strangeas it may seem,” to quote Gibbon’s words, c.xxiii., “ by the unexceptionable testimony ofAmmianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 1), the philo-sophic soldier,” and a heathen. The statementthat Julian had resolved to sacrifice Cyril,and other leading adherents of the faith to hishatred for Christianity, on his return from Persia,may probably be regarded as a calumny of thecareless and untrustworthy Orosius (Oros. Hist.vii. 20).
During the reign of the orthodox Jovian Cyril’sepiscopate was undisturbed, and the accession ofYalens and Yalentinian found him in quiet pos-session of his see, 364. In 366 his old enemyAcacius died, and Cyril was not slow to assertthe claim to priority for the see of Jerusalem,which had been the cause of such bitter strifebetween them. In apparent defiance of thecanon of Nice he immediately claimed thenomination to the see of Caesarea, and appointedPhilomenus. He was deposed by the Eutychhmfaction, and another Cyril substituted. He, inreturn, was deposed by Cyril, who consecratedhis sister’s son Gelasius in his room, A.D. 367(Epiphan. Haer. lxxiii. 37).
The year 367 saw Cyril for a third time de-posed, and driven into exile by the edict of theArian Yalens, in company with all the prelatesrecalled by Julian (Socr. ii. 45; Soz. iv. 30;Epiph. Haer. lxvi. 20). His banishment lastedtill the death of Yalens and the accession ofTheodosius, Jan. 19, 379, when he once more, andfor the last time, resumed the occupation of hissee, which he retained quietly for the eight re-maining years of his life (Hier. Vir. HI. c. 112;Socr. v. 3; Soz. vii. 2). On his return he foundJerusalem rent with schisms, infested with almostevery form of heresy, and polluted by the mostflagrant crimes and other viciousness of life. Tocombat these evils he appealed to the councilheld at Antioch, 379, which despatched GregoryNvssen to his aid. But the disease was too deeplyseated to admit of an easy or speedy remedy.Gregory departed hopeless of a cure, and in his“Warning against Pilgrimages,” drew a darkpicture of the depravation of morals in the HolyCity (Be Euntibus Hieros. p. 656).
In 381 Cyril was present at the second Oecu-
menical council held at Constantinople, whenhe took rank with the chief metropolitans, thebishops of Alexandria and Antioch. On this oc-casion he declared his full adhesion to the Nicemjfaith, and his acceptance of the test word, Ho-moousion (Socr. iv. 8; Soz. iv. 7). The followingyear the bishops who were present at the capital,in their letter declining Damasus’s invitation to acouncil at Rome, vindicated the episcopal rankof Cyril, as canonically unquestionable, togetherwith that of Nectarius and Flavian, and spoke ofhim in the terms of high respect already quoted(Theodt. v. 8).
Cyril’s death is stated to have occurred March18, 386 (Socr. v. 15; Soz. vii. 14; Bolland, March18, p. 625 b). He was bishop of Jerusalemfor thirty-five years, sixteen of which he passedin exile.
Cyril’s works consist of eighteen “ Catecheticallectures,” addressed to catechumens {Karijxho-eis(ptan^o/xevup) and five “ Mystagogical lectures,”addressed to the newly baptized (/ xvaraywytKalTrpbs robs veocpcoriaTOvs). These, aswe have seen, were composed in his youth (&s ivri) ve6rT]Ti (rvveral-ev, Hieron. de Vir. III. c.112), about 347, while he was still a presbyter.The genuineness of these lectures, received bythe whole Church as the work of Cyril, hasbeen severely questioned by Rivet ( Grit. Sac. lib.iii. c. 8; Oudin, Scr. EccL Ant. i. 461-464);Rossler {Bibl. der Kirchcnvat. Th. 5, p. 441), andothers. The internal grounds for suspicion areso feeble, that we may say with Mosheira, thatthey are such as could only have suggested them-selves to minds anxious at all costs to get rid otevidence damaging to themselves. The externalgrounds are also worth little. They arise fromthe fact that in the Augsburg MS. the last fivelectures bear the name of John, bishop of Jeru-salem ; and In a Roman MS., those of Cyril andJohn jointly; as well as that they, especially thefive last, are not so often quoted or referred toby ancient writers as we might have expected.These arguments are well confuted by Touttd’e,and Schrockh ( Kirchengesch. xii. 375-382). Theyare quite worthless against the Consensus Ec~clesiae , confirmed by the large quotations madefrom them by Cyril’s contemporary Rufinus, inhis Expositio Symboli, and by the reference to the4th lecture by Theodoret {Dialog, ii. 106). Thehomogeneous structure of the whole work, andthe references contained in them to the precedinglectures equally forbid the severance of the fivemystagogical lectures from the Catechetical.Vossius {de Tribus Symbol. Dissert, i. 35-36),though accepting their authenticity generally,holds that they have been very largely interpo-lated. But his arguments are feeble. Cyril’s“Catechetical lectures” possess considerable in-terest, as being the earliest example extant ofanything in the shape of a formal system oftheology. Their value is also great from thetestimony they bear to the canon of Scripture,the teaching of the church on the chief articlesof the creed, and on the sacraments, and from thelight they throw on the ritual of the church ofthe fourth century. The perfect agreement ofhis teaching, as Dr. Newman remarks {Libraryof the Fathers , vol. ii. part i. pp. ix.-x.), as re-gards the doctrine of the Trinity, with the d:-vines of the Athanasian school, of whom he wassuspicious, and suspected by them, is of great