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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 17)
Cat. xvi. 28; Ps. cxliii. 10.
ἡγεμονικῷ, Sept. Ps. li. 12: R.V. Uphold me with a free spirit.
Is. xi. 2.
Origen, in the Catena on St. John iii. 8:
“This also shews that the Spirit is a Being (οὐσίαν): for He is not, as some suppose, an energy of God, having according to them no individuality of subsistence. And the Apostle also, after enumerating the gifts of the Spirit, immediately added, But all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally as He will. Now if He willeth and worketh and divideth, He is surely an energizing Being, but not an energy”
(Suicer, Thesaurus, Πνευμα).
ἐνυπόστατον. Cf. Cat. xi. 10; xvi. 13, note 5.
Cat. iv. 16; xvi. 4.
Luke i. 35.
John i. 3.
Luke i. 35.
Luke i. 41.
Ib. v. 43.
Ib. v. 67.
Ib. v. 76.
Luke ii. 26–35.
Cat. iii. 6.
Matt. iii. 11.
Luke xii. 49.
John i. 33.
Matt. iii. 16.
τὰς ἀπαρχὰς καὶ τὰ πρωτεῖα. The order is inverted in the translation. Cf. Hermas, Sim. viii. 7 ἔχοντες ζῆλόν τινα ἐν ἀλλήλοις περὶ πρωτείων.
The Benedictine Editor adds the two last words τύπον παραδηλοῦν from mss. Roe. Casaub. as necessary to the construction, and adds the following note. “The text thus emended is capable of two senses. The first, that the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, a pure and harmless bird, to shew that He is Himself as it were a mystic dove in His simplicity and love of children, for whose new birth and remission of sins at Baptism He unites His prayers with Christ’s, as Cyril teaches in Cat. xvi. 20: and that Christ was for the like cause mystically foreshown in Canticles as having eyes like a dove’s. The other sense is, that the Spirit descended in the form of a dove on Christ’s Humanity in order to shew this to be as it were a dove in innocence, holiness, love of children, and concurrence with the Holy Spirit in their regeneration.
…Either sense is admissible, and maintained by many of the Fathers: but I prefer the former.” This interpretation is confirmed by Tertullian (de Baptismo, c. viii.), who says that the Holy Spirit glided down on the Lord “in the shape of a dove” in order that the nature of the Holy Spirit might be declared by means of a creature of simplicity and innocence.”
Cant. v. 12. ἐπὶ πληρώματα ὑδάτων (Sept.). The usual meaning of ὀφθαλμοφανῶς is “manifestly to the eyes,” Esther viii. 13.
Tertullian, ibid.
“Just as after the waters of the deluge, by which the old iniquity was purged—after the baptism, so to say, of the world—a dove was the herald which announced to the earth the assuagement of celestial wrath,.…so to our flesh, as it emerges from the font after its old sins, flies the dove of the Holy Spirit, bringing us the peace of God, sent out from heaven where the Church is, the typified ark.”
Compare also Hippolytus, The Holy Theophany, §§ 8, 9, a treatise with which Cyril has much in common.
John iii. 5.
Luke xi. 13.
John iv. 23.
Matt. xii. 28.
Ib. v. 31.
John xiv. 16.
Ib. v. 25.
Ib. xv. 26.
Ib. xvi. 7.
Ib. v. 8.
Ib. v. 12–15.
John xx. 22.
Gen. ii. 7: and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Compare Cat. xiv. 10.
Nahum ii. 1. The Septuagint, followed by Cyril, differs widely from the Hebrew: (R.V.) He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face.
Luke xxiv. 39.
John xiv. 16.
Cat. iii. 7; xvi. 5. Bp. Pearson (Lectiones in Acta Apost. I. § 18):
“Rightly said Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, ‘All prerogatives are with us.’ And the Emperor Justin called her ‘Mother of the Christian name.’ Jerome also (Ep. 17, 3), said: ‘The whole mystery of our Faith is native of that province and city.‘”
Acts i. 5.
Acts ii. 2.
Ib. v. 4.
Acts ii. 8.
John iii. 8: (R.V.) The wind bloweth: (Marg.) Or, The Spirit breatheth. It is impossible to preserve the double meaning in English.
Acts ii. 13.
Ib. v. 15.
Ps. xxxvi. 8.
John xv. 5.
Acts ii. 25, and 15.
Joel ii. 28.
John iii. 34, 35.
Joel ii. 29.
Is. xl. 9.
Acts ii. 42.
Ib. iii. 1.
Is. xxxv. 6.
Acts iv. 13.
Ib. v. 8.
Ib. v. 32.
Acts v. 12.
Ib. vv. 13–16.
Ib. v. 32.
Acts v. 42.
Ib. vi. 3.
Ib. v. 8. Στέφανος, “a crown.”
Ib. v. 10.
Ib. v. 15.
Ib. vii. 51.
Ib. v. 55.
Ib. viii. 5.
Ps. lxviii. 31.
Acts ix. 17.
Rom. xv. 19.
κλειδοῦχος. Cf. Matt. xvi. 19; Cat. ii. 19; xi. 3.
Acts x. 11–16.
Ib. v. 19.
Ib. v. 44.
Ib. xi. 24.
Ib. v. 26. Cf. Is. lxv. 15.
Acts xi. 28.
Ib. xiii. 2–4.
Heb. x. 1.
Acts xv. 28, 29. ἐπιστολή means a message or injunction whether verbal or written.
See note 1 on § 1, above.
Acts xix. 1–6.
Ib. v. 12.
Ib. v. 19.
Ib. xx. 9–12.
Ib. v. 23.
Ib. xxvi. 28. Cyril evidently understood ἐν ὀλίγῳ to mean “almost” (A.V.): but the more correct rendering is, “In brief thou wouldest persuade me to become a Christian.”
Ib. xxviii. 25.
1 Cor. ii. 4.
2 Cor. i. 22.
Rom. viii. 11.
2 Tim. i. 14: (R.V.) by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.
1 Tim. iv. 1.
Eph. iii. 5.
Heb. iii. 7.
Ib. x. 15.
Eph. vi. 17.
Ib. v. 18, 19.
2 Cor. xiii. 14.
John iv. 24.
Lam. iv. 20. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord: referring to the captive king.
John xiv. 25.
The distinct mention in the Creed of three Persons excludes the error of Sabellius in confusing them. Cf. Cat. iv. 8; xvi. 14.
Rom. xi. 20.
Cf. Bingham, Antiquities, II. xx. 9.
“When Cyril directs his Catechumens how they should behave themselves at the time of Baptism, when they came either before a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, in city or village,—this may be presumed a fair intimation that then deacons were ordinarily allowed to minister Baptism in country places.”
See further ‘Of the power granted anciently to deacons to baptize,’ Bingham, Lay Baptism, I. i. 5.
Eph. i. 13. Cf. Cat. i. 2, 3.
Cf. Procat. § 4: “The water will receive, but the Spirit will not accept thee.”
στρατολογία. Cf. Cat. iii. 3, μέλλετε στρατολογεῖσθαι.
The same twofold grace is ascribed to Baptism in Cat. xiii. 23: “Thou receivest now remission of thy sins, and the gifts of the King’s spiritual bounty.”
πραγματεία. Cf. 2 Tim. ii. 4; and Luke xix. 13: Trade (πραγματεύεοθε) till I come.
Eph. iv. 30.
Gal. v. 22, 23.
Lecture XVIII.
Acts xvii. 32; xxvi. 24.
Cf. § 12, below.
Tertull. De Resurr. carnis, cap. 2: “They acknowledge a half-resurrection, to wit of the soul only.” Compare Iren. I. xxiii. 5, on Menander’s assertion that his disciples attain to the resurrection by being baptized into him, and can die no more, but retain immortal youth: ib. xxiv. 5. Basilides taught that “salvation belongs to the soul alone.” On the other forms of heresy concerning the Resurrection, see Suicer, Thesaurus, ᾽Ανάστασις.
The objections noticed in § 2 are discussed by Athenagoras, De Resurr. capp. ii., iv.—viii.; Tatian. Or. ad Græcos, cap. vi., Tertull. De Resurr. Carn. cap. 63.
Is. xl. 12.
On the argument from God’s power compare Athenagoras, De Resurr. c. ix; Justin. M. De Resurr. c. v; Theophil. ad Autolyc. c. xiii.; Iren. V. iii. 2.
The argument from God’s justice is treated by Athenagor. De Resurr. c. x. and xx.–xxiii.; Justin M. De Resurr. c. viii.
τὴν στεφανηφορίαν. Roe. Cas. A. Cf. Pind. Ol. viii. 13; Eurip. Electr. 862.
Athenag. De Resurr. c. iii.:
“If, when they did not exist, He made at their first formation the bodies of men, and their original elements, He will, when they are dissolved, in whatever manner that may take place, raise them again with equal ease.”
Lactant. Institt. VII. 23 fin.: Apost. Const. V. 7.
An eloquent statement of the argument for the resurrection from the analogies of nature occurs in Tertull. De Resurr. c. xii. That it was not unknown to Cyril, seems probable from the concluding sentence:
“And surely if all things rise again for man, for whom they have been provided—but not for man unless for his flesh also—how can the flesh itself perish utterly, for the sake and service of which nothing is allowed to perish.”
Tertullian himself was probably indebted, as Bp. Lightfoot suggests, to Clemens. Rom. Epist. ad Corinth. xxiv. Cf. Lactant. Div. Inst. vii. 4.
Cf. Cat. iv. 30. These passages shew that the Lectures were delivered in a year when Easter fell early, as was the case in 348 a.d.
In such cases there is, of course, no actual death.
The μυοξός is supposed by the Benedictine Editor to be the toad (“Inventusque cavis bufo,” Virg. Georg. i. 185), by others the marmot (mus Alpinus). More probably it is the dormouse (myoxis glis), which stores up provisions for the winter, though it sleeps through much of that season.
The story of the Phœnix as told by Herodotus, II. 73, is as follows:
“They have also another sacred bird called the Phœnix, which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phœnix dies.…They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible; that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body.”
The many variations and fabulous accretions of the story are detailed by Suicer, Thesaurus, Φοῖνιξ, and by Bp. Lightfoot in a long and interesting note on Clemens Rom. Epist. ad Cor. xxv. Cyril borrows the story from Clement almost verbally, yet not without some variations, which will be noticed below. The legend with all its miraculous features is told by Ovid, Metamorph. xv. 392, by Claudian, Phœnix, and by the Pseudo-Lactantius in an Elegiac poem, Phœnix, included in Weber’s Corpus Poetarum Latinorum, and literally translated in Clark’s Ante-Nicene Library. See also Tertull. De Resurr. Carn. c. xiii.
μονογενὲς ὕπαρχον, Clem. Rom. ubi supra. Cf. Origen, contra Celsum, iv. 98: Apost. Const. V. 7: “a bird single in its kind, which they say is without a mate, and the only one in the creation.” Pseudo-Lactant. v. 30. “Hoc nemus hos lucos avis incolit unica, phœnix, Unica, sed vivit morte refecta suâ”
“By day, in the sight of all” (Clem. R.) The city was Heliopolis, according to Herodotus and the other ancient authors. But Milton, Paradise Lost, V. 272— ‘A phœnix gaz’d by all, as that sole bird, When to enshrine his reliques in the Sun’s Bright temple to Ægyptian Thebes he flies.’ Why does Milton despatch his bird to Thebes rather than Heliopolis?” (Lightfoot).
Ovid, Met. xv. 405: “Fertque pius cunasque suas patriumque sepulcrum.” See the Commentaries on Job xxix. 18: I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand. Margin R.V. Or, the phœnix.
The mode of reproduction in bees was regarded by Aristotle as mysterious, having in it something supernatural (θεῖον): De Generatione Animal. III. 10. 1, 27. In the story of the phœnix Herodotus makes no mention of the “worm.”
μονοειδής.
For a similar argument, see Lactant. De Resurr. c xvii.
Clem. Rom. Epist. ad Cor. xxiv: “Day and night shew unto us the resurrection. The night falleth asleep, and day ariseth; the day departeth, and night cometh on.”
Tertull. de Resurr. Carnis, xii.: “Readorned also are the mirrors of the moon, which her monthly course had worn away.”…“The whole of this revolving order of things bears witness to the resurrection of the dead.”
Ex. iii. 6. Cf. Matt. xxii. 32: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
Gen. xviii. 25.
Job xiv. 9.
Gen. ii. 7.
The anomalous construction ὅταν γέγραπται .…καὶ ἀπιστῶσιν may be explained by the consideration, that the uncertainty expressed in ὅταν attaches only to the latter Verb. See Winer’s Grammar of N.T. Greek, P. III. sect. xlii. 5.
Ps. i. 5: The wicked shall not stand in the judgment (R.V.).
Job vii. 9.
Ps. cxv. 17.
As to the bearing of this passage on the doctrine of Purgatory and prayer for the dead see note on xxiii. 10.
Job xiv. 7–10.
There is no indication of a question in the Septuagint version of the passage, which means in the Hebrew, and where is he? (A.V. and R.V.): Vulg. ubi, quæso, est?
Job xiv. 14: For if a man die, shall he live again? (A.V. and R.V.). By omitting the interrogation here, and inserting it above in v. 10, Cyril exactly inverts the meaning.
Ib. v. 14: (A.V.) All the days of my appointed time (R.V. of my warfare) will I wait, till my change (R.V. release) come.
Job xix. 26: (R.V.) and that he shall stand up at the last upon the earth: and after my skin hath been thus destroyed, &c. Cyril, as usual, follows the Septuagint.
Is. xxvi. 19.
Ezek. xxxvii. 12.
Dan. xii. 2.
Matt. xxvii. 52.
1 Cor. xv. 20.
2 Kings iv. 34.
“The worship of relics, and the belief in them as remedies and a protection against evil, originated in the 4th century. They first (?) appear in writings, none of which are earlier than the