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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 16)
John viii. 29.
Rom. v. 14. “ἄχρι from ἄκρος, as μέχρι from μῆκος, μακρός” (L. and Sc.). It is not always possible to mark this distinction in translation: cf. Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 14; Viger, De Idiot. Gr. p. 419.
2 Cor. iii. 14, 15.
Ib. x. 14, 15, 16.
1 Cor. xv. 25.
Heb. iii. 13.
Dan. vii. 14, 27.
1 Tim. vi. 20.
Lecture XVI.
Matt. xii. 32.
At the end of this section there follows in the Coislin ms. a long interpolation consisting of two parts. The former is an extract taken word for word from Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica, ii. c, which may be read in this series: ᾽Αλλ᾽ ὡς Θεοῦ Λόγον ἀκούσαντες .…σύνδρομον ἔχουσαν τῇ βουλήσει τὴν δύναμιν. Of the second passage the Benedictine Editor says:
“I have not been able to discover who is the author. No one can assign it to our Cyril, although the doctrine it contains is in full agreement with his: but he explains all the same points more at large in his two Lectures (xvi. xvii.). The passage is very ancient and undoubtedly older than the eleventh century, which is the date of the Cod. Coislin. Therefore in the controversy of the Latins against the Greeks concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost it is important to notice what is taught in this passage, and also brought forward as a testimony by S. Thomas (Aquinas), that “The Holy Ghost is of the Godhead of the Father and the Son (ex Patris et Filii divinitate existere).” To me indeed these words seem to savour altogether not of the later but of the more ancient theology of the Greeks, and to be earlier than the controversies of the Greeks against the Latins.”
This second passage is as follows:—
“For the Spirit of God is good. And Thy good Spirit, says David, shall lead me in the land of righteousness. This then is the Spirit of God in which we believe: the blessed Spirit, the eternal, immutable, unchangeable, ineffable: which rules and reigns over all productive being, both visible and invisible natures: which is Lord both of Angels and Archangels, Powers, Principalities, Dominions, Thrones: the Creator of all being, enthroned with the glory of the Father and the Son, reigning without beginning and without end with the Father and the Son, before the created substances: Who sanctifies the ministering spirits sent forth for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation: Who came down upon the holy and blessed Virgin Mary, of whom was born Christ according to the flesh; came down also upon the Lord Himself in bodily form of a dove in the river Jordan: Who came upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost in form of fiery tongues; Who gives and supplies all spiritual gifts in the Church, Who Proceedeth from the Father: Who is of the Godhead of the Father and the Son; Who is of one substance with the Father and the Son, inseparable and indivisible.”
Cf. Cat. iv. 33; vii. 6. Irenæus, Hæres. III. xxi. 4; IV. ix. 1. In Eusebius, E.H. V. 13, Rhodon says that Apelles attributed the prophecies to an adverse spirit and rejected them as false and self-contradictory. Similar blasphemies against the holy Prophets are imputed to Manes by Epiphanius (Hæres. lxvi. 30).
Matt. xxviii. 19. The same text is used with much force by S. Basil (De Spir. S. cap. xxiv.).
Cat. xi. 4, note 3. See Newman’s notes on Athanasius, Contra Arian. Or. I. viii. 1; Ib. Or. III. xxv. 9; Ib. xxvii. 3. Marcion’s doctrine of three first principles (τριῶν ἀρχῶν λόγος) is discussed by Epiphanius (Hæres. xlii. 6, 7). See also Tertull. Contra Marcion. I. 15; Euseb. Hist. Eccles. V. 13.
συναλοιφήν, iv. 8; xi. 16; xv. 9.
Cat. xvii. 13. Epiphanius (De Mensuris et Ponder. c. 14):
“And he (Hadrian) found the city all levelled to the ground, except a few houses, and the Church of God which was small: where the Disciples, on their return after the Saviour was taken up from the Mount of Olives, went up into the upper chamber: for there it had been built, that is on Sion.”
Cf. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, c. xiv. 3:
“Within the precincts of that Mosque (of the Tomb of David) is a vaulted Gothic chamber, which contains within its four walls a greater confluence of traditions than any other place of like dimensions in Palestine. It is startling to hear that this is the scene of the Last Supper, of the meeting after the Resurrection, of the miracle of Pentecost, of the residence and death of the Virgin, of the burial of Stephen.”
Ps. cxl. 3.
Irenæus is called “the interpreter” in the same general sense as other ecclesiastical authors (Cat. xiii. 21; xv. 20), on account of his frequent comments upon the Scriptures. The full title of his work was A Refutation and Subversion of Knowledge falsely so called (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. V. c. 7). Cyril’s expression (ἐν τοῖς προστάγμασι) is sufficiently appropriate to the hortatory purpose professed by Irenæus in his preface. But the Benedictine Editor thinks that the word προστάγμασι may be an interpolation arising from the following words πρὸς τὰς.…The meaning would then be “in his writings Against Heresies,” the usual short title of the work.
Cat. vi. 14, note 10.
Irenæus (I. xxix § 4; xxx. § 1).
Ib. I. ii. §§ 5, 6.
Cat. vi. 25.
Cat. iv. 33. See § 3, note 3, above.
i.e. as well as into the Father and the Son.
See Dict. Christ. Biography, Marcion, p. 283; and Tertullian (Adv. Marcion. IV. 6): “His whole aim centres in this that he may establish a diversity between the Old and New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to the rival god, and as alien from the Law and the Prophets.
Cf. § 4, note 5, above.
Phrygians, or Cataphrygians (οἱ κατὰ φρύγας) was the name given to the followers of the Phrygian Montanus. See the account of Montanism in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. V. xvi., and the note there in this Series.
The charges of lust and cruelty brought against the Montanists by Cyril and Epiphanius (Hær 48) seem to rest on no trustworthy evidence, and are not mentioned by Eusebius, a bitter foe to the sect.
On Manes, see Cat. vi. 20. ff.
Luke xxiv. 49.
Acts viii. 17.
Acts viii. 19. ἀκτήμοσι. Cf. § 19: ἀκτημονοῦσι, and § 22: ἀκτημοσύνην.
Ib. v. 20.
Ps. cxxxix. 21.
Gen. iii. 15.
The words ἁγίων πατέρων are not found in the mss. Mon. 1. Mon. 2. Vind. Roe. Casaub. nor in Grodecq. Whether meant to refer, as the Benedictine Editor thinks, to the writers of the Old Testament, or to Christian authors, they are an evident gloss.
Prov. v. 15.
John iv. 14, quoted more fully at the end of the section.
Ib. vii. 38, 39.
Compare a similar passage on rain in Cat. ix. 9, 10.
1 Cor. xii. 11.
Ib. vv. 7–11.
See Cat. x. 11; xi. 1.
Ps. cxlvi. 4.
Zech. xii. 1.
Ps. civ. 4.
Ps. xlviii. 7.
Is. vii. 2.
Ps. cxlviii. 8.
John vi. 63.
Acts viii. 29.
Ezek. xi. 5.
Acts xiii. 2.
Ib. xx. 23.
John xiv. 26.
Ib. vi. 63. The Holy Spirit is more than words pronounced by the tongue, even than our Lord’s own words, which he called spirit.
Hosea iv. 12.
Origen, de Principiis, i. § 2: “It is the custom of Holy Scripture, when it would designate anything contrary to this more dense and solid body, to call it spirit.”
Luke x. 18.
In this contrast between the evil spirit and the Spirit of God Cyril’s language rises to true eloquence, far surpassing a somewhat similar description, which may have been known to him, in Euseb. Dem. Evang. V. 132.
Is. vi. 1.
Ezek. x. 1.
Dan. vii. 10.
Acts v. 3.
Ib. v. 4.
Ib. iv. 13.
Ps. cxxxix. 12.
Acts v. 8.
2 Kings v. 25.
Matt. x. 8.
Micah iii. 12; ascribed by Cyril to Isaiah.
Cf. Euseb. Dem. Evang. vi. 13:
“In our own time we have seen with our eyes the Sion of old renown being ploughed by Romans with yokes of oxen, and Jerusalem in a state of utter desolation as the oracle itself says, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. As Cyril at that time saw the Prophet’s prediction fulfilled, so we also to the present day see most plainly the fulfilment of the divine oracle, and Sion ploughed before our eyes: for except the Church of the Apostles, with the houses lying around it, and the house of Caiaphas and the cemeteries, all the remaining space of this hill, lying without the city, is under plough.”
(Jerusalem Editor).
Isa. i. 8. ὀπωροφυλάκιον is the hut of the watchman who guarded the crop when ripening for harvest. Σικυήλατον is explained by Basil in his comment on the passage of Isaiah as “A place that produces quick-growing and perishable fruits.” This agrees with the etymological sense of the word as “a forcing-bed for cucumbers” (Hippocrates apud Fritzsche, “Der Brief des Jeremia,” v. 70). On the form σικυηράτῳ, see the notes on the Epistle of Jeremy in the Speaker’s Commentary.
παστάδας. On the meaning of παστάς see the notes on Herodotus, II. 148, 169 in Bähr, and Rawlinson. Here it appears to mean the cloister or colonnade which gave access to the bridal chamber, θάλαμος.
ἐν παλατίοις.
Compare Procat. § 9; Cat. xx. 3.
Wisdom vi. 16. Compare the saying in Clem. Alex. Quis dives salvetur? § 31: αὐτὸν ζητεῖν τοὺς εὖ πεισομένους ἀξίους τε ὄντας τοῦ Σωτῆρος μαθητάς. The Jerusalem Editor quotes from Origen (Prolog. in Cantic.) a passage which may have been known to Cyril: “This Comforter therefore goeth about seeking if He may discover any worthy and receptive souls to whom He may reveal the greatness of the love which is in God.”
Rom. viii. 26.
Ps. xxviii. 14; xxxvii. 34.
Rom. viii. 18.
Luke xii. 11, 12.
1 Cor. xii. 3. Μαρτυρῆσαι, “to bear witness by death.”
Codd. Monac. Vind. Roe. Casaub. add καὶ τί πιστεύομεν.
The terms παροικία, the See of a Bishop, and ἐπαρχία, the Province of a Metropolitan, were both adopted from the corresponding divisions of the Roman Empire. See Bingham, Antt. Book IX. i. §§ 2–6.
S. Basil (De Spiritu S. c. xvi. § 38), after quoting the same passage, Col. i. 16, proceeds—εἴτε κυριότητες, καὶ εἴ τινές εἰσιν ἕτεραι λογικαὶ φύσεις ἁκατονόμαστοι. The last word shews that Basil had in mind this passage of Cyril, who after the names of nations in § 22, adds καὶ τοὺς λοίπους ἀκατονομάστους ἡμῖν.
Heb. i. 14.
1 Cor. ii. 10, 11.
Matt. xi. 27.
John xvi. 13, 14.
In regard to the caution with which St. Cyril here speaks, we must remember that the heresy of Macedonius had not yet given occasion to the formal discussion and determination of the “nature and substance” of the Holy Ghost.
1 Cor. xii. 11.
Num. xi. 24, 25. “Modad” is the form of the name in the LXX.
The apocryphal book of Eldad and Modad is mentioned by Hermas, Shepherd, Vis. ii. § 3. S. Basil, Liber de Spir. S. cap. 61, referring to Num. xi. 26, says that the Spirit rested permanently only upon Eldad and Modad.
Num. xi. 28.
Num. xi. 29.
Deut. xxxiv. 9.
Acts viii. 18. On this passage of Cyril, see the section on “Chrism” in the Introduction.
Gen. xli. 38.
Ex. xxxi. 1–6; xxxvi. 1.
Judges iii. 10.
Ib. vi. 34.
Ib. xi. 29.
1 Sam. ix. 9.
2 Sam. xxiii. 2.
Ps. li. 11.
Ps. cxliii. 10.
2 Chron. xv. 1.
Ib. xx. 14.
Ib. xxiv. 20, 21.
Neh. ix. 20. Ezra and Nehemiah form one book “Ezra” in the Hebrew Canon.
πνευματοφόρων, used only twice in the Sept. (Hosea ix. 7; Zeph. iii. 4), and in an unfavourable sense. With Cyril’s use of it compare Theophilus, Ad Autolyc. ii. 9: Θεοῦ ἀνθρώπους πνευματοφόρους Πνεύματος ἁγίου.
Mic. iii. 8.
Joel ii. 28.
Haggai ii. 4.
Ib. v. 5.
Zech. i. 6.
Is. xi. 2.
Ib. xliv. 1; xlii. 1.
Ib. xliv. 3.
Ib. xlviii. 16.
Is. lix. 21.
Is. lxi. 1.
Ib. lxiii. 10.
v. 11.
Ezek. xi. 5.
Gen. xlvi. 29; Luke xv. 20.
Ezek. xi. 24.
Ib. xxxvi. 25; Cat. iii. 16.
Ib. v. 26.
Ib. v. 27.
Ezek. xxxvii. 1.
Susanna, v. 45.
Dan. iv. 9.
Ib. ii. 26, 31.
Lecture XVII.
ταῖς τῆς ὑμετέρας ἀγάπης ἀκοαῖς. Compare § 30, below: συγγώμην αἰτῶ παρὰ τῆς ὑμετέρας ἀγάπης. Ignat. Philadelph. c. iv. (Long recension): θαρρῶν γράφω τῇ ἀξιοθέῳ ἀγάπη ὑμῶν. “Caritas” is constantly used in the same manner.
1 Cor. ii. 13.
Cat. vi.
Ib. vii.
Ib. viii.
Ib. ix.
Cat. x. xi.
Ib. xii. xv.
1 Cor. xii. 11.
Compare Basil. de Sp. Sancto, c. 38:
“By the Father’s will the ministering spirits subsist, and by the operation of the Son they are brought into existence, and by the presence of the Holy Ghost are perfected: and the perfection of Angels is sanctification and continuance therein.”
1 Cor. xii. 8.
John xvi. 13.
Ib. v. 7.
John xiv. 26.
Ib. vv. 16, 17.
Ib. xv. 26.
John i. 32.
Rom. viii. 14.
Matt. x. 20.
Eph. iii. 14–16.
Acts v. 9.
Rom. viii. 9.
Gal. iv. 6.
1 Pet. i. 11.
Phil. i. 19.
Rom. i. 4.
Ib. viii. 15.
Eph. i. 17.
Ib. v. 13.
Heb. x. 29.