Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures

Job xxxi. 26, 27. The worship of Sun and Moon under various names was almost universal.

Gaea or Tellus, the earth; Zeus or Jupiter, the sky; rivers, fountains, &c.

Music, Medicine, Hunting, War, Agriculture, Metallurgy, &c., represented by Apollo, Æsculapius, Diana, Mars, Ceres, Vulcan.

Herodotus, Book II., describes the Egyptian worship of various birds, fishes, and quadrupeds. Leeks and onions also were held sacred: Porrum et caepe nefas violare, Juv. Sat. xv. 9. Compare Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. c. ii. § 39, Klotz.

Eros, Dionysus.

Clement of Alexandria (Protrept. c. iv. § 53, Klotz) states that the courtesan Phryne was taken as a model for Aphrodite. “Praxiteles when fashioning the statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus made it like the form of Cratine his paramour.” Ibid.

Plutus.

τῆς μοναρχίας τοῦ θεοῦ. See note on the title of Cat. VI. Praxeas made use of the term “Monarchy” to exclude the Son (and the Spirit) from the Godhead. Tertullian in his treatise against Praxeas maintains the true doctrine that the Son is no obstacle to the “Monarchy,” because He is of the substance of the Father, does nothing without the Father’s will, and has received all power from the Father, to Whom He will in the end deliver up the kingdom. In this sense Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, speaks of the Divine Monarchy as “that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God.”

Compare Athanas. de Decretis, Nic. Syn. c. vi. § 3 and Dr. Newman’s note. In Orat. iv. c. Arian. p 606 (617), Athanasius derives the term from ἀρχή, in the sense of “beginning:” οὕτως μία ἀρχὴ θεότητος καὶ οὐ δύο ἀρχαί, ὅθεν κυρίως καὶ μοναρχία ἐστίν. See the full discussion of Monarchianism in Athanasius, p. xxiii. ff. in this series, and Newman’s Introduction to Athan. Or. iv.

For φοράν (Bened.) many mss. read φθοράν, “corruption.”

Compare xi. 4, 9, 18.

Τὸν ὅμοιον κατὰ πάντα τῷ γεννησαντι. On the meaning and history of this phrase, proposed by the Semi-Arians at the Council of Ariminum as a substitute for ὁμοούσιον, see Athan. de Syn. § 8, sqq.

ἐνυπόστατος. Cf. xi. 10; Athan. c. Apollinar. I. 20, 21.

The mss. vary much, but I have followed the Benedictine text.

Matt. xi. 27; John x. 15; xvii. 25.

This was a point earnestly maintained by the orthodox Bishops at Nicæa, that the Son begotten of the substance of the Father is ever inseparably in the Father. Athan. de Decretis Syn. c. 20 ; Tertullian c. Marc. IV. c. 6. Cf. Ignat. ad Trall. vi. (Long Recension): τὸν μὲν γὰρ Χριστὸν ἀλλοτριουσι τοῦ Πατρός.

υἱοπατορία. A term of derision applied to the doctrine of Sabellius. Compare Athanas. Expositio Fidei, c. 2: “neither do we imagine a Son-Father, as the Sabellians.” See Index, Υιοπάτωρ.

Λόγος προφορικός, the term used by Paul of Samosata, implied that the Word was impersonal, being conceived as a particular activity of God. See Dorner, Person of Christ, Div. I. vol. ii. p. 436 (English Tr.): and compare Athanasius, Expositio Fidei, c. 1; υἱὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἀνάρχως καὶ ἀϊδίως γεγεννημένον, λόγον δὲ οὐ προφορικόν, οὐκ ἐνδιάθετον. Cardinal Newman (Athan. c. Arianos, I. 7, note) observes that some Christian writers of the 2nd Century

The terms λόγος ἐνδιάθετος, or ‘word conceived in the mind,’ and λόγος προφορικός, or ‘word expressed’ (emissum, or prolalivum), were in use among the Gnostics (Iren. II. c. 12, § 5). As applied to the Son both terms, though sometimes used in a right sense, were condemned as inadequate. Compare xi. 10.

ἀνυποστάτοις λόγοις. Athan. c. Arianos Orat. iv. c. 8: πάλιν οἱ λέγοντες μόνον ὄνομα εἶναι υἱοῦ, ἀνούσιον δὲ καὶ ἀνυπόστατον εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ, κ.τ.λ.

ὁμοιοπαθῆ. Compare Acts xiv. 15; Jas. v. 17.

On the origin of the Docetic heresy, see vi. 14.

Valentinus the Gnostic taught that God produced a Son of an animal nature who “passed through Mary just as water through a tube, and that on him the Saviour descended at his Baptism.” Irenæus, I. vii. 2.

The words which the Benedictine Editor introduces in the brackets are found in Theodoret, and adopted by recent Editors, with Codd. M.A.

Eusebius, Life of Constantine, iii. 28.

The discovery of the “True Cross” is related with many marvellous particulars by Socrates, Eccles. Hist. i. 17; and Sozomen, E. H. ii. 1. A portion was said to have been left by Helena at Jerusalem, enclosed in a silver case; and another portion sent to Constantinople, where Constantine privately enclosed it in his own statue, to be a safeguard to the city. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, iii. 25–30 , gives a long account of the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, but makes no mention of the Cross. Cyril seems to have been the first to record it, 25 years after. Cf. Greg. Nyss. Bapt. Christi (p. 519).

Compare xiv. 18, 19, on the Descent into Hades.

The same Old Testament saints are named in xiv. 19, as redeemed by Christ in Hades.

Matt. xi. 3.

Deut. xix. 15.

Justin M. Dialogue with Trypho, 247 C: We call Him Helper and Redeemer, the power of whose Name even demons do fear; and at this day, when exorcised in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judæa, they are overcome.

Tertullian, de Coronâ, 3: At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the Sign. If for these, and other such rules, you insist upon having positive Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as their observer.

Ps. cx. 1.

Matt. xxiv. 5.

Matt. xxiv. 15. Compare Cat. xv. 9, 15.

Compare xv. 27, where the followers of Marcellus of Ancyra are indicated as holding this opinion.

In xvi. 6–10, Cyril gives a long list of heresies concerning the Holy Ghost.

1 Cor. ii. 10.

Matt. xii. 32.

This clause is not in the Creed of Nicæa, but is added in the Creed of Constantinople, a.d. 381.

Col. i. 16.

θεοποιόν is omitted in Codd. Roe, Casaubon, and A.

The Benedictine Editor argues from Cat. i. 5, “that thou mayest by faith seal up the things that are spoken;” and xxiii. 18: “sealing up the Prayer by the Amen,” that Cyril means by “this seal” the firm belief of Christian doctrine. Compare John iii. 33. But Milles understands by the “seal” the Creed itself, which agrees better with the following context.

ἡ σωτηρία γὰρ αὕτη τῆς πίστεως ἡμῶν, which might be rendered, “this our salvation by faith,” or, with Milles, “this safety of our Faith.” For the rendering in the text compare Heb. iii. 1: ἀρχιερέα τῆς ὁμολογίας ἡμῶν. On εὑρεσιλογία, see Polybius xviii. 29, § 3: διὰ τῆς προς ἀλλήλους εὑρεσιλογίας.

iv. 4.

In the Clementine Homily xvi. 16, the soul having come forth from God, clothed with His breath, is said to be of the same substance, and yet not God. In Tertull. c. Marcion II. c. 9, the soul is the affatus (πνοή not πνεῦμα) of God, i.e. the image of the Spirit, and inferior to it, though possessing the true lineaments of divinity, immortality, freedom, its own mastery over itself.

Tertull. c. Marc. II. 6: It was proper that he who is the image and likeness of God should be formed with a free will, and a mastery of himself, so that this very thing, namely freedom of will and self-command, might be reckoned as the image and likeness of God in him.

Compare Aug. de Civ. Dei. v. 1, where he says that the astrologers (Mathematici) say, not merely such or such a position of Mars signifies that a man will be a murderer, but makes him a murderer. See Dict. of Christian Antiq., “Astrology.”

Is. xlvii. 13.

“The Orphic poets were under the impression that the soul is suffering the punishment of sin, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated and kept (σώζεται) as the name σῶμα implies, until the penalty is paid.” Plato, Cratyl. 400. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. III. iii. 17), after referring to this passage of Plato, quotes Philolaus the Pythagorean, as saying: “The ancient theologians and soothsayers also testify that the soul has been chained to the body for a kind of punishment, and is buried in it as in a tomb.“

Rom. vii. 16.

Is. i. 19, 20.

Rom. vi. 19.

Rom. i. 28.

Rom. i. 19.

Matt. xiii. 15.

Jer. ii. 21.

Apelles, the heretic, attributed the difference of sex to the soul, which existing before the body impressed its sex upon it. Tertull. On the Soul, c. xxxvi.

Irenæus I. vii. 5:

Origen on Romans, Lib. VIII. § 10:

See iv. 18.

On the impure practices of the Manichees, see vi. 33, 34.

Fortunatus, the Manichee, in August. Disput. ii. 20, contra Fortunat. is represented as saying, What we assert is this, that the soul is compelled to sin by a substance of contrary nature.

1 Cor. vi. 19.

μονάζοντες. Compare xii. 33; xvi. 22. The origin of Monasticism is usually traced to the time of the Decian persecution, the middle of the third century. Previously

Bingham, VII. i. 4.

Heb. xii. 16.

Heb. xiii. 4.

1 Cor. vii. 5.

The condemnation of a second marriage, which the Benedictine Editor and others import into this passage, is not to be found in it. τοὺς δευτέρῳ γάμῳ συμπεριενεχθέντας neither means “qui ad secundas nuptias ultro se dejecere,” nor even “who have involved themselves” (R.W.C.), but simply “who have consented to,”—or, “consented together in—a second marriage,” without any intimation of censure. See V. 9; VI. 13: Ecclus. xxv. 1; γυνὴ καὶ ἁνὴρ ἑαυτοῖς συμπεριφερόμενοι; 2 Macc. ix. 27; Euseb. H. E. ix. 9, 7: ἀνεξικάκως καὶ συμμέτρως συμπεριφέροιντο αὐτοῖς; Zeno, ap.

Diog. Laert. vii. 18; τὸ συμπεριφερεσθαι τοῖς φίλοις. Diog. Laert. vii. 13: εὐσυμπερίφορος. Polyb. IV. 35, § 7, and II. 17, § 12. The gentleness with which Cyril here speaks of second marriages is in striking contrast with the passionate vehemence of Tertullian in the treatise de Monogamia, and elsewhere. Aug. de Hæresibus, cc. 26, 38, reckons the condemnation of second marriage among the heretical doctrines of the Montanists and Cathari. In the treatise de Bono Viduitatis, c. 6, he argues that a second marriage is not to be condemned, but is less honourable than widowhood, and severely rebukes the heretical teaching on this point of Tertullian, the Montanists, and the Novatians.

De Bono Conjugali, c. 21: Sacramentum nuptiarum temporis nostri sic ad unum virum et unam uxorem redactum est, ut Ecclesiæ dispensatorem non liceat ordinare nisi unius uxoris virum. On the practice of the Church at various times see Bingham, IV. v. 1–4; Suicer, Thesaur. Διγαμία.

1 Cor. vii. 8, 9.

The Nicolaitans (Apocal. ii. 14, 20); and the Valentinians, of whom Irenæus (II. xiv. 5), says that they derived their opinion as to the indifference of meats from the Cynics. See also Irenæus I. vi. 3; and xxvi. 3.

Ps. cxxvi. 5.

1 Tim. v. 23.

1 Tim. iv. 3.

The various sects of Gnostics, and the Manichees, considered certain meats and drinks, as flesh and wine, to be polluting. Vid. Iren. Hær. i. 28. Clem. Pæd. ii. 2. p. 186. Epiph. Hær. xlvi. 2, xlvii. 1, &c., &c. August. Hær. 46, vid. Canon. Apost. 43.

&c. R.W.C.

Acts xv. 20, 29. The prohibition of blood and things strangled has continued to the present day in the Eastern Church, though already disregarded by the Latins in the time of S. Augustine (c. Faustum. xxxii. 13).

Tertullian (Apologeticus, c. 9) speaks of those “who at the gladiator shows, for the cure of epilepsy, quaff with greedy thirst the blood of criminals slain in the arena,” and of others “who make meals on the flesh of wild beasts at the place of combat:” and contrasts the habits of Christians, who abstain from things strangled, to avoid pollution by the blood.