Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures

Matt. xxvii. 50.

Mal. iv. 2.

Ps. lxxxviii. 5.

Zech. ix. 11.

Isa. liii. 4, 5.

Ib. vv. 8, 9.

1 Cor. xv. 3, 4.

Isa. li. 1.

Matt. xxvii. 60; Mark xv. 46; Luke xxiii. 50.

Lam. iii. 53: ἐν λάκκῳ, “in a pit,” or “well.” Cf. Jer. xxxvii. 16.

1 Pet. ii. 6.

Gen. ii. 9; iii. 22. Methodius (Sympos. ix. c. 3): “He that hath not believed in Christ, nor hath understood that He is the first principle and the Tree of Life, &c.”

Cf. Cat. iv. 14, note 3; Euseb. (Dem. Ev. ix. 14).

Col. ii. 15.

Ps. lxxiv. 13.

See Cat. vi. 11, note 2.

κατὰ φαντασίαν. Cf. Ignat. Trall. 9, 10; Cat. iv. 9; xiii. 4.

1 Cor. xv. 17.

The house of Caiaphas and Pilate’s Prætorium (§ 41), and Mount Zion itself (Cat. xvi. 18), on which they both stood are described by Cyril as being in his time ruined and desolate. Eusebius (Dem. Ev. VIII. 406), referring to the prophecy of Micah (iii. 12), repeated by Jeremiah (xxvi. 18), that Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, testifies that he had seen with his own eyes the place being ploughed and sown by strangers, and adds that in his own time the stones for both public and private buildings were taken from the ruins.

The Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 a.d.) says, “It is evident where the house of Caiaphas the Priest was; and there is still the pillar at which Christ was scourged:” this pillar is described by Jerome (Ep. 86) as supporting the portico of the Church which by his time had been built on the spot. Prudentius circ. 400 a.d.):—

(Benedictine Editor.)

Cf. Lucian. Antioch. ap. Rufin. Hist. Eccl. ix. c. 6; “Golothana rupes sub patibuli onere disrupta.”

Cf. Cat. xv. 22.

Zech. xii. 10.

Ib. v. 12.

Lecture XIV.

Is. lxvi. 10.

Matt. xxviii. 9, “All hail.” The usual greeting, Χαίρετε, “Rejoice.”

Ps. lxxxviii. 5: Cast off among the dead (R.V.); Cast away (Margin).

ὁ παρών. i.e. in the text. 1 Cor. xv. 4.

Is. lvii. 2: He entereth into peace (R.V.).

Is. lvii. 1: that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come (R.V.).

Is. liii. 9: they made His grave with the wicked (R.V.).

Gen. xlix. 9.

Num. xxiv. 9.

Ps. xxii. 15.

ἐπεσημειωσάμεθα, “noted for ourselves;” Middle Voice. Is. li. 1: quoted in Cat. xiii. 35.

Ps. xii. 5.

Ib. vii. 6: “Arise, O Lord, in Thine anger.

Ps. xvi. 1.

Ib. xvi. 4: “their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer.” The Psalmist abhors the bloody rites, and the very names of the false gods.

John xix 15. Cyril applies to the Jews what the Psalmist says concerning those that hasten after another god.

Ps. xvi. 8.

Ib. 7. Quoting from memory, Cyril transposes these sentences.

Ib. 10. R.V. in Sheol, Sept. in Hades.

Ib. 11.

Ib. xxx. 1.

Ib. 3. R.V. from Sheol, Sept. from Hades.

Ib. 3.

Ib. 5.

Cant. iv. 11.

John xix. 41. See Index, Golgotha.

Cant. iv. 12.

Matt. xxvii. 63, 65.

Job vii. 18:.…try him every moment. Heb. עגרֶֶ “a wink,” as in Job xxi. 13, misinterpreted in both passages by the LXX. as meaning “rest.”

Cant. iv. 15.

Ps. xxxvi. 9.

Zeph. iii. 7: they rose early and corrupted all their doings. The passage is wholly is understood by the Seventy, whom S. Cyril follows.

Zeph. iii. 8: until the day that I rise up to the prey. For דעלְ, to the prey, the LXX. seem to have read דע“לְְ, to the testimony. About ten years before these Lectures were delivered, Eusebius (Life of Constantine, III. c. xxviii.), speaking of the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, a.d. 326, calls it “a testimony to the Resurrection of the Saviour clearer than any voice could give.”

Zeph. iii. 9: a pure language.

Ib. to serve him with one consent (Marg. shoulder).

Ib. v. 10.

Acts viii. 27.

2 Tim. ii. 8.

Ps. lxxxviii. 1, 4, 5.

Ib. v. 4.

Ib. v. 8.

Ib. v. 10.

Ib. v. 13.

Cant. ii. 10: Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

v. 14: in the clefts of the rock.

See Index, Sepulchre.

Cant. ii. 14: in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs. The Revised Version reads, in the covert of the steep place.

Cant. ii. 11. In παρῆλθεν, ἐπορεύθη ἑαυτῷ the LXX. have imitated the pleonastic use of ןֹל after verbs of motion, corresponding to our idiom “Go away with you,” and to the Dativus Ethicus in Greek and Latin. See Gesenius Lexicon on this use of לְ, and Ewald, Introductory Grammar, § 217, l. 2.

Cant. ii. 12: the singing of birds. The Hebrew word (רימִזָ֯ means either “cutting,” as in the LXX. τομῆς, Symmachus κλαδεύσεως , and R.V. Marg. “pruning,” or as in A.V. “singing.”

Xanthicus is the name of the sixth month in the Macedonian Calendar, corresponding nearly to the Jewish Nisan (Josephus, Antiq. II. xiv. 6), and to the latter part of Lent and Easter. On the tradition that the Creation took place at this season, see S. Ambrose, Hexæmeron, I. c. 4, § 13.

Gen. i. 11: grass, the herb yielding seed. The LXX. give an irregular construction, Βοτανὴν χόρτου σπεῖρον σπέρμα.

Gen. i. 26. “The ancient Church very accurately distinguished between εἰκών (image) and ὁμοίωσις (likeness), and the Greek Church does the same in its Confession. The latter phrase expresses man’s destination, which is not to be regarded as carried out at the moment of creation. (Dorner, System of Christian Doctrine, E. Tr. II. p. 78). The image lies in the permanent capacities of man’s nature (Gen. ix. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 7; Jas. iii. 9), the likeness in their realisation in moral conformity with God (ὁμοήθειαν Θεοῦ, Ignatius, Magnes vi).

“The image of God is a comprehensive thing.…To this belongs man’s intellective power, his liberty of will, his dominion over the other creatures flowing from the two former. These make up the τὸ οὐσιῶδες, that part of that divine image which is natural and essential to man, and consequently can never be wholly blotted out, defaced, or extinguished, but still remains even in man fallen. But beside these the Church of God hath ever acknowledged, in the first man, certain additional ornaments, and as it were complements of the divine image, such as immortality, grace, holiness, righteousness, whereby man approached more nearly to the similitude and likeness of God.

These were (if I may so speak) the lively colours wherein the grace, the beauty, and lustre of the divine image principally consisted; these colours faded, yea, were defaced and blotted out by man’s transgression. (Bull, The State of Man before the Fall, Vol. ii. p. 114, Ox.). Cf. Iren. (V. vi. § 1; xvi. § 2); Tertullian (de Baptismo, c. 5); Clem. Alex. (Exhort. c. 12); Origen (c. Cels. IV. 30).

John xv. 1. The Benedictine Editor has a different punctuation: “and the vine which was planted there hath said, And I am the Vine.”

Ps. lxxxv. 11.

Cant. v. 1; iv. 14. Compare Cat. xiii. 32.

Luke xxiv. 1.

John xix. 39.

Cant. vi. 1: my honeycomb with my honey.

Luke xxiv. 37.

Ib. v. 41.

ὁ θεραπευτής. In connexion with “Bridegroom,” and “Him whom my soul loveth” the meaning “Suitor” is more appropriate than “Physician.”

Cant. iii. 1; John xx. 1.

John xx. 13.

Luke xxiv. 5.

Matt. xxvii. 52.

Cant. iii. 3, 4.

Matt. xxviii. 9.

Cant. viii. 7.

Matt. xxviii. 5. The emphatic ὑμεῖς is rightly interpreted by Cyril as distinguishing the women from the frightened sentinels.

Matt. xxvii. 54.

1 John iv. 18.

Matt. xxviii. 7.

Ps. ii. 11.

Isa. xxvii. 11: The women shall come, and set them on fire.

Matt. xxviii. 13.

Isa. xxx. 10.

Cf. Euseb. (Life of Const. III. 36.).

Matt. xxxviii. 14.

Hos. vi. 2.

Instead of τοῖς ᾽Ιουδαίοις the Jerusalem Editor adopts from Cod. A. τοῖς ἰδίοις, “Your own countrymen,” a better reading in this place, if it had more support from mss. The Latin in Milles has only “Cur igitur non creditis?”

The statements of Papias, Irenæus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome, concerning a Hebrew Gospel of S. Matthew are ably discussed by Dr. Salmon (Introduction to N.T. Lect. X.), who comes to the conclusion that the Canonical Gospel was not translated from Hebrew (Aramaic), but originally written in Greek.

This statement may have been derived either from Eusebius (Hist. Eccl.. IV. c. 5), or from the “written records” (ἐγγράφων), from which he had learned that “until the siege of the Jews which took place under Adrian (135 a.d.), there were fifteen bishops in succession there, all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent.” See the list of names, and the notes on the passage in this Series.

Matt. xxvii. 52, 53.

The Archdeacon of Jerusalem, Photius Alexandrides, observes that “by this parenthetic explanation Cyril perhaps wished to refute the opinion which some favoured that these saints which slept and were raised entered into the heavenly Jerusalem.” See Euseb. Dem. Evang. IV. 12.

Matt. xii. 40.

“ἐνέργεια [Forte ἐνάργεια, Edit.].” This conjecture of the Benedictine Editor is recommended by the very appropriate sense “distinctness of the resemblance,” but seems to have no ms. authority.

κατ᾽ οἰκονομίαν.

Jonah i. 6.

Matt. viii. 25, 26.

Jonah i. 12.

Matt. viii. 25, 26.

Hosea xiii. 14.

Matt. xix. 26.

Cf. Cat. iv. 13; xiii. 3.

Matt. xxvii. 52.

Ib. xi. 3.

1 Cor. xv. 55. On the opinion that the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Righteous men were redeemed by Christ in Hades, compare Irenæus (Hær. I. xxvii. § 3; IV. xxvii. §2), Clem. Alex. (Stromat. vi. c. 6), Origen (In Genes. Hom. xv. § 5).

Jonah ii. 2.

Ib. v. 6: (R.V.) I went down to the bottoms of the mountains: the earth with her bars closed upon me for ever.

v. 8.

By lying vanities are meant in the original “vain idols.”

Isa. lxiii. 11; (R.V.), Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds (Marg. shepherd) of His flock? Cyril’s reading, ἐκ τῆς γῆς instead of ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης is found in the Alexandrine ms. of the Septuagint. Athanasius (Ad Serapion, Ep. i. 12) has the same reading and interpretation as Cyril. By “the shepherds” are probably meant Moses and Aaron: cf. Ps. lxxvii. 20: Who leddest Thy people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Heb. xiii. 20: Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, &c. The word “great” is added by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews not by Isaiah.

Rom. i. 3, 4. Cyril in his incomplete quotation of v. 4 makes ᾽Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Κ. ἡμ. depend on ἀναστάσεως. The right order and construction is given in R.V. who was declared to be the Son of God.…by the resurrection of the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom. x. 6, 7.

2 Tim. ii. 8.

1 Cor. xv. 14, 15.

Ib. v. 20.

Ib. 5, 6.

Ib. 7. This appearance of Christ to James is not mentioned in the Gospels. Jerome (Catalog. Script. Eccles. p. 170 D) mentions a tradition that James had taken an oath that he would eat no bread from the hour in which he had drunk the Cup of the Lord, until he should see Him rising from the dead. Wherefore the Saviour immediately after He had risen appeared to James and commanded him to eat.

For τοιούτου τοίνυν ἐπισκόπου πρωτοτύπως ἰδόντος Codd. Roe, Casaub. have τοῦ τοίνυν πρωτοτύπου ἐπισκόπου ἰδόντος, which gives the better sense—“since therefore the primary Bishop saw, &c.” On the meaning of παροικία, and the extent of a primitive Diocese, see Bingham. IX. c. 2.

1 Cor. xv. 8.

1 Tim. i. 13.

If the Crucifixion took place on the 14th of Nisan, the following night would begin the 15th, and the next night the 16th.

Cf. Cat. xiii. 39.

Acts ix. 41.

See § 17, above.

νοητά.

St. Luke (xxiv. 50) describes the Ascension as taking place at Bethany, but the tradition, which Cyril follows, had long since fixed the scene on the summit of the Mount of Olives, a mile nearer to Jerusalem; and here the Empress Helena had built the Church of the Ascension (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III. 43; Demonstr. Evang. VI. xviii. 26). There is nothing in Cyril’s language to warrant the Benedictine Editor’s suggestion that he alludes to the legend, according to which the marks of Christ’s feet were indelibly impressed on the spot from which He ascended.

In the next generation St. Augustine seems to countenance the miraculous story (In Joh. Evang. Tract xlvii.): “There are His footsteps, now adored, where last He stood, and whence He ascended into heaven.” The supposed trace of one foot is still shewn on Mount Olivet; “the other having been removed by the Turks is now to be found in the Chapel of S. Thecla, which is in the Patriarch’s Palace” (Jerusalem Ed.). Compare Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, c. xiv.; Dictionary of Bible, Olives Mount of.

ᾠκονόμησε. In this word, as also in the phrase below, κατ᾽ οἰκονομίαν τῆς Θείας χάριτος, Cyril refers to the order of reading the Scriptures as part of a dispensation established by Divine grace.