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Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures
Edwin Hamilton Gifford; NPNF2-07 (1894) · Edition commentary
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Translator and historical edition notes (part 11)
passage, and that in Cat. iv. § 9, “begotten of the Holy Virgin and the Holy Ghost,” seems to shew that such a clause formed part of the Creed which Cyril was expounding. The genuineness of both passages is attested by all the mss. and Dr. Swainson was mistaken in charging the Editors of the Oxford Translation with having omitted to “mention that Touttée was himself doubtful as to the words within the brackets” [ἐκ Παρθένου καὶ Πνεύματος ῾Αγίου]. The brackets are added by Dr. Swainson himself, and Touttée had no doubt of the genuineness of the words: on the contrary he believed them to be part of the Creed itself. His note is as follows:
“The words of the Virgin and Holy Ghost I have caused to be printed in larger letters as if taken from the Symbol: although they are wanting in the Title of this Lecture and in § 13, where the third Article of the Creed is referred to. But they are read in nearly all the Latin and Greek Symbols, and are referred to in Cat. iv. § 9.”
ἐνανθρωπήσαντα. The word occurs in the true Nicene formula, where, as Dr. Swainson thinks, it is “scarcely ambiguous,” “it is defective.” Both the Verb and the Substantive ἐνανθρώπησις are constantly used by Athanasius to denote the Incarnation in a perfectly general way, without any indication of ambiguity or defect. In the Creed proposed by Eusebius of Cæsarea instead of ἐνανθρωπήσαντα we find ἐν ἀνθρώποις πολιτευσάμενον; and in the Expositio Fidei ascribed to Athanasius, but of somewhat doubtful authenticity, the Incarnation is described thus ἐκ τῆς ἀχράντου παρθένου Μαρίας τὸν ἡμέτερον ἀνείληφεν ἄνθρωπον Χριστὸν ᾽Ιησοῦν.
In the Apollinarian controversy the attempt was made to interpret ἐνηνθρώπησεν as meaning not that “He became Man,” but that “He assumed a man,” i.e. that “the man was first formed and then assumed” (Gregory, Epist. ad Cledon, quoted by Swainson, p. 83), or else merely that “He dwelt among men.” But the context of the passages in which Cyril uses the word (iv. 9; xii. 3) clearly shews that he employed it in the perfectly orthodox sense which it has in the Nicene Formula and in Athanasius.
See below, § 21 ff. Cyril means that the direct proof cannot be given at once, because there are many errors to be set aside first. Compare the end of § 4.
See Cat. iv. 9, notes 3, 4.
Athanasius (contra Arian. Or. I. § 9) quotes as from Arius, Thalia, “Christ is not Very God, but He, as others, was made God (ἐθεοποιήθη ) by participation.” The Eusebians in the Confession of Faith called Macrostichos (a.d. 344) condemned this view as being held by the disciples of Paul of Samosata, “who say that after the incarnation He was by advance made God, from being made by nature a mere man.” The orthodox use of the word Θεοποιεῖσθαι is seen in Athan. de Incarnat. § 54: αὐτὸς ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν.
John i. 14.
John v. 34.
Gen. i. 26.
Ib. iv. 1.
Numb. xxv. 6.
Micah vii. 2.
Ps. xiv. 3; Rom. iii. 12.
Hosea iv. 2.
Ps. cvi. 37.
2 Chron. xxxiii. 6.
Amos ii. 8: they lay themselves down beside every altar upon clothes taken in pledge (R.V.).
Isa. i. 6.
Ps. xiv. 7.
Ib. lxxx. 17, 18.
Ps. cxliv. 5.
1 Kings xix. 10.
Mal. iii. 1.
Isa. xl. 9, 10.
Zech. ii. 10, 11.
Isa. lxvi. 18.
John i. 11.
Isa. lxvi. 19, a passage interpreted by the Fathers of the sign of the Cross. Eusebius (Demonstr. Evang. vi. 25):
“Who, on seeing that all who have believed in Christ use as a seal the symbol of salvation, would not reasonably be astonished at hearing the Lord’s saying of old time, And they shall come, and see My glory, and I will leave a sign upon them?”
Cf. Cat. iv. 14; xiii. 36.
Ps. xviii. 9. The “feet,” interpreted allegorically, mean the Humanity, and the “darkness” the mystery of the Incarnation. See Euseb. Demonstr. Evang. vi. 1, § 2.
1 Kings viii. 27; 2 Chron. vi. 18.
Ps. lxxii. Title, and v. 6.
Matt. ii. 2.
Ib. ii. 4.
Ps. lxxii. 5.
Zech. ix. 9.
ἀσαγῆ, a rare word, formed from σάγη, “harness.”
Zech. ix. 11.
Zech. xiv. 4. “There is an excellent view from the city of the Mount of Olives which stands up over against it, especially from the height of Golgotha where Cyril was delivering his Lectures” (Cleopas).
Isa. xxxv. 4–6.
Ib. iii. 14.
Cf. Epist. Barnab. § 13:
“For had He not come in flesh, how could we men have been safe in beholding Him? For in beholding the Sun, which being the work of His hands shall cease to be, men have no strength to fix their eyes upon him.”
Exod. xx. 19.
Deut. v. 26.
Heb. xii. 21.
Dan. x. 6.
Dan. x. 12.
Ib. x. 11.
Ib. x. 16, 17.
Ib. x. 18.
Ps. cxiv. 3.
Justin M. (Tryph. § 100):
“Eve, when she was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death: but the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the Angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her.”
Rom. vii. 23.
Ib. v. 20.
1 Cor. ii. 8.
Death is here called “the dragon,” as in xiv. 17 he is called “the invisible whale,” in allusion to the case of Jonah.
On Christ’s descent into Hades compare iv. 11; xiv. 19; and Eusebius (Dem. Evang. x. 50), and Athanasius (c. Arian. Or. iii. 56): “The Lord, at Whom the keepers of hell’s gates shuddered and set open hell. The Lord, Whom death as a dragon flees.”
Isa. xxv. 8. The first clause, He hath swallowed up death for ever (R.V.), is mistranslated in the Septuagint.
ταύτην τὴν παρακαταθηκην. 1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. i. 14.
Gen. xviii. 1 ff.
Ib. xxxii. 30.
Ex. xxxiii. 22.
1 Kings xix. 8.
Luke ix. 30, 31. On the tradition that Mt. Tabor was the place of the Transfiguration, accepted by S. Jerome and other Fathers, compare Lightfoot (Hor. Hebr. in Marc. ix. 2).
Cat. xii. 5. For εὑρεῖν the recent Editors with mss. A.R.C. and Grodecq. have ἐρεῖν.
νεήλυδας·
Heb. xiii. 8. Cyril is supposed to refer to two objections to the Incarnation, one founded on the lateness of Christ’s coming, the other on the Divine immutability. But the meaning of the passage is not clear, and the construction of the second sentence is incomplete.
Deut. xviii. 15; Acts vii. 37.
ἐξεταζόμενον , a clear instance of the Gerundive, or quasi-Future, sense of the Present Participle, common in Cyril. “This intention is not fulfilled in the sequel of these Lectures” (R.W.C.).
Gen. xlix. 8, 10.
According to Cyril (§ 19, below) and other Fathers, the continuance of Jewish rulers ceased on the accession of Herod an Idumean. Compare Justin M. (Tryphon §§ 52, 120); Eusebius (Demonstr. Evang. VIII. 1). On modern interpretations of the passage see Delitzsch (New Commentary on Genesis), Briggs (Messianic Prophecy, p. 93), Cheyne (Isaiah, Vol. II. p. 189), Driver (Journal of Philology, No. 27, 1885).
A full and interesting account of the Jewish Patriarchs of the West established at Tiberias from the time of Antoninus Pius till the close of the 4th century is contained in Dean Milman’s History of the Jews, Vol. III. Compare Epiphanius (Hæres. xxx. § 3 ff.).
Gen. xlix. 11.
Zech. ix. 9, quoted above, § 10.
Ps. ii. 7, 9. The passage is interpreted by Cyril (xi. 5) of the eternal generation of the Son: here it refers to His Incarnation, or perhaps is meant only to identify the Son of God with him who “shall rule with a rod of iron.”
Dan. ii. 44.
Sep. τοῦ ἀποκριθῆναι, a frequent meaning of the Hebrew בישִּׁהָלְ, by which the Greek Translators understood the answer of Darius to the Letter of Tatnai and his companions. Both A.V. and R.V. render the word “to restore.”
Dan. ix. 25.
Darius the Mede (Dan. v. 31) succeeded Belshazzar as king in Babylon b.c. 538, the date assigned in Dan. ix. 1 to the prophecy of the 70 years. But “Darius the king” in whose 6th year (b.c. 516) the Temple was finished (Ezra vi. 15) was Darius Hystaspis, king of Persia, whom Cyril here confounds with “Darius the Mede.” He also fails to distinguish the rebuilding of the Temple, b.c. 516, from the rebuilding of the City by permission of Artaxerxes Longimanus, b.c. 444 (Nehemiah, ii. 1).
In speaking of three supernumeracy hours in the year instead of nearly six, Cyril seems to follow the division of the diurnal period into twelve parts, not twenty-four. The Jews had derived this division either from the Egyptians, or more probably from the Babylonians: see Herodotus, II. 109.
Micah v. 2, quoted also in Cat. xi. 20, where see note.
Ps. cxxxii. 6. The Psalmist refers to the recovery of the Ark, but Cyril interprets the passage mystically of Christ, and the place of His Nativity.
The Benedictine Editor thinks that in calling the place “woody” Cyril refers to a grove planted by Hadrian in honour of Adonis, which had been destroyed about sixteen years before, when Helena built the Church at Bethlehem: see Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III. 43. But Cyril evidently means that the wood of which the Psalmist speaks had remained till a few years before. Ephrâthah is the ancient name of Bethlehem (Gen. xxxv. 19; xlviii. 7), and by “the fields of the wood” is probably meant Kirjath-Jearim, “the city of woods,” where the Ark was found by David (2 Sam vi. 2; 1 Chron. xiii. 6).
Hab. iii. 2: (R.V.) O Lord, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known. The Septuagint gives a different sense: In the midst of two lives (or, living beings) shalt Thou be known: when the years draw nigh Thou shalt be recognised: when the time is come, Thou shalt be shewn. The two latter clauses seem to be different renderings of the same Hebrew words.
ἑξῆς. This clause comes before the preceding quotation: Cyril misplaces them. In the Vatican and other mss. of the Sept. and in some Fathers ζώων (“living creatures”) is found in place of ζωῶν “lives;” but the latter reading is evidently required by the interpretation which follows in Cyril. Origen (de Principiis, I. 4), who recognises both readings (“In medio vel duorum animalium, vel duarum vitarum, cognosceris,”) interprets the “two living beings” of the Son and the Spirit. Eusebius (Demonstr. Evang VI. 15) observes that ζωων is to be read as perispomenon from the Singular ζωή, and interprets it of Christ’s life with God, and life on earth. Theodoret says, in commenting on the passage,
“To me it seems that the Prophet means not “living beings” (ζῶα) but “lives” (ζωάς), the present life, and that which is to come, between which is the appearance of the Righteous Judge.”
Hab. iii. 3. Cyril interprets the word Θαιμάν (Heb. ןמָיתּ”) as a common Noun meaning “South,” and the Vulgate has here “ab Austro veniet.” The prophecy is thus referred to Bethlehem, as lying to the South of Jerusalem. Eusebius (Dem. Evang. VI. 15) mentions this as the rendering of Theodotion in his Greek Version, about 180 a.d. As a proper name Teman denotes a district and town in the southern part of Idumea, so called from a grandson of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 11, 15, 42; Jer. xlix. 7, 20; Ezek. xxv. 13; Amos i. 12; Obad. 9).
The following note is slightly abridged from the Edition of Alexandrides of Jerusalem.
“Previous Editions read ἔξ ὄρους φαρὰν κατασκίου δασέος. This reading is found in Cod. Vat. and other mss. of the Septuagint, but φαράν is omitted in the Aldine and many other copies nor was it read in the mss. of the Sept. in Jerome’s time, as is clear from his comments on the passage. In the mss. of Cyril, Ottob. R.C.V. Monac. I. and II. it is wanting. Paran is the name of the desert towards the S. of Palestine lying between it and Egypt (Gen. xxi. 21; Num. i. 12). There was also a Mount Paran (Deut. xxxiii.
2). But since Cyril applies the prophecy to Bethlehem, and the “shady thickly-wooded mountain” of Habakkuk is identified with “the plains of the wood” of David, we may safely conclude that Cyril did not read φαράν in his copies of the Septuagint, nor write it in his Lecture: but the reading crept in from the later copyists, accustomed to the reading φαράν in the Septuagint.”
Isa. vii. 14. The objection of the Jews that the Hebrew word “Almah” means “a young woman,” whether married or not, is mentioned by Justin M. (Tryph. 43, 67, 71), and by Eusebius (Dem. Evang. VII. i. 315).
Deut. xxii. 27.
1 Kings i. 4. Cyril’s argument is fully justified by the actual usage of “Almah,” which certainly refers to unmarried women in Gen. xxiv. 43; Ex. ii. 8; Cant. i. 3. The same is probably the meaning in Ps. lxviii. 25: “in the midst were the damsels playing with the timbrels.” There is no passage in which the word can be shewn to mean a married woman.
Isa. vii. 11.
Compare Justin M. (Tryph. § 77), Euseb. (Demonstr. Evang. L. VII. c. i. 317).
In the Hebrew the word used is a Participle, and describes what Isaiah sees in a prophetic vision; “Behold, the damsel—with child.”
Ps. cxxxii. 11.
Ib. lxxxix. 22.
vv. 35–37.
Matt. xxiii. 2.
Ib. xxi. 9.
John xii. 13.
Matt. xx. 30.
Luke i. 32.
2 Tim. ii. 8.
Rom. i. 3.
Is. xi. 10; Rom. xv. 12.
Isa. ix. 5.
v. 7.
Ps. xxii. 9.
Jer. i. 5.
Job x. 10, 11.
1 Cor. vi. 19.
Hos. ix. 12. R.V. Woe also to them, when I depart from them. The Seventy mistook ירִוּשֹבְּ, “at my departure,” for ירְשָֹבִּ, “my flesh.”