764
CYRILLUS
CYKILLUS
another. And many of the Nitrian monks, whosefierce zeal had been intensified by the monasticesprit de corps , hastened to Alexandria, en-countered the prefect in his chariot, and de-nounced him as a pagan idolater. “I am aChristian,” he replied; “ I was baptized by thebishop of Constantinople.” Thereupon a monknamed Ammonius flung a stone, which woundedOrestes in the head. The people seized the monk,who was tortured with a severity which provedfatal; and Cyril so utterly forgot himself as togive the dead man a grand church funeral, tospeak of him as Thaumasius, and to panegyrisehim as a martyr. The “sober minded” Christianswould not recognise such a saint, and Cyril erelong allowed the whole affair to sink into oblivion.But a‘ more famous tragedy followed. Thegifted female philosopher, Hypatia, was theboast of Alexandrian paganism. Fired with thenotion that she incensed Orestes against Cyril, afurious mob of so-called Christians, headed by a“ reader ” named Peter, one day dragged herfrom her carriage, bore her into the great Caesa-rean church, so often referred to in the Athana-sian history, killed her with sharp shells, toreher body to pieces, and burned it at a place calledCinaron. This hideous crime, done in a sacredplace and in a sacred season—it was the Lent of415—brought, as Socrates expresses it (vii. 15)“ no small reproach on Cyril and the church ofthe Alexandrians.”
Here one question inevitably suggests itself.Was this foul murder indeed what Gibbon in onepassage calls it, an “ exploit of Cyril’s ? Did hetake any part in it, or did he approve it ex postfacto ? It has been said that “ Cyril wassuspected, even by the orthodox, of complicityin the murder” (Stanley’s Led. on East. Ch.293). Socrates, as sympathising with Novatians,has been considered to do Cyril less than justice:but in this case he does not intimate such asuspicion against the archbishop, any more thanhe does against the whole church of Alexandria.He says, and has a perfect right to say it, thatthis church and its chief pastor were to someextent disgraced by the occurrence of such adeed among its members. As for Damascius’sassertion that Cyril really prompted the murder(Suidas, p. 1059), we cannot consider as evi-dence the statement of a pagan philosopherwho lived about 130 years after the event,and was a thorough hater of Christianity.We are justified in regarding it, with CanonRobertson (Hist. Ch. i. 401) as “an unsup-ported calumny”; but with the same writerwe will add that “ the perpetrators were mostlyofficers of his church, and had unquestionablyderived encouragement from his earlier proceed-ings ; and his character deservedly suffered inconsequence.” His was the too common case ofa man who stirs up a force of passions whichfrequently outrun his control. The turbulentand furious “ parabolani ” and others, who shedHypatia’s blood at the foot of the altar, wereout “ bettering the instruction ” which had letthem loose upon the synagogues. Their bishophad let his indignant zeal virtually persuade himthat the wrath of man could work the righteous-ness of God; he was bent on making the king-dom of Christ assert itself, as a sovereign power,in the face of the world, and he would haveargued that rough-handed means must not be
declined in the cause of the church, amid herstrife with Jewish fanaticism and a pagansociety foul and rotten to the core. His namehas paid dearly for the error, and the greatdoctrinal cause which he upheld so stoutly inafter years has suffered for the faults of hisearlier life.
It was but natural that the government shouldin the next year restrain the clergy from poli-tical action, and, in particular, by restrictions onthe number and conduct of the parabolani.
Cyril had inherited his uncle’s animosityagainst John Chrysostom, who, in his opinion,had been canonically deposed; he rejected withbitterness the advice of Atticus of Constanti-nople to place “John’s” name on his churchdiptychs (Ep. p. 204); and it was not until afterthe memory of that persecuted saint had beenrehabilitated at Constantinople as well as at An-tioch, that the archbishop of Alexandria, urgedby Isidore of Pelusium not to perpetuate a pri-vate feud under the pretext of piety (Isid. i. 370),consented in 417 to follow these precedents, andso to resume for his church communion withRome and the West in general, which had heldaloof from all who did injustice to “ John’s ”memory—a memory which Cyril never learnedto love. (See Tillemont, xiv. 281.)
We may pass over several uneventful years,during which Cyril must be supposed to haveoccupied himself in ordinary church affairs andin theological literature. He wrote his yearlyPaschal addresses, and composed his work onAdoration in Spirit and in Truth , his treatise onthe Holy Trinity, his commentaries on the Pen-tateuch, Isaiah, the minor prophets, and theGospel of St. John, and his refutation of Julian’streatise against Christianity.
We now come to the great controversy withwhich Cyril’s name is pre-eminently associated.In the end of the year 428 he became aware ofthe excitement caused in Constantinople by thepreaching of the archbishop, Nestorius. Theline of thought which Nestorius had enteredupon, under the influence, as it seems, of Theo-dore of Mopsuestia, led him to explain away themystery of the Incarnation by reducing it to amere association between the Eternal Word anda human Christ. The Alexandrian see had agentsat Constantinople, who would be careful to keepCyril well informed of all events of ecclesias-tical interest: and the denial, by Nestorius andhis supporters, of the strict personal onenessbetween “ God the Word ” and the Son of Mary—a denial of which the formula was, “ Let noone call Mary Theotocos ”—was an event which,as it ere long called forth an indignant protestagainst the archbishop’s teaching on the part ofa layman of Constantinople, Eusebius, after-wards bishop of Dorylaeum, was certain to excitethe vigilant zeal of a prelate like Cyril, opposed,alike by temperament and antecedents, to allopinions which undermined the mysteriousmajesty of the Christian faith. Very early inJanuary 429 Cyril entered on the subject in hisPaschal letter or homily for that year, theseventeenth of the series; in which, while affirm-ing with great vividness and emphasis the realityand permanence of Christ’s manhood, he en-forced the singleness of his Divine Personality,and even applied to His human mother, in twodistinct passages, a phrase stronger than Ibco-