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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 5)
repeat the Doxology silently, so that those who were near could hear only “world without end.” The form which was regarded as the most orthodox, and adopted in the Liturgies ran thus: “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and ever, and to the ages of the ages.” See Suicer’s Thesaurus, Δοξολογία.
Irenæus II. xxviii. 4:
“But since God is all mind, all reason, all active Spirit, all light, and always exists as one and the same, such conditions and divisions (of operation) cannot fittingly be ascribed to Him. For our tongue, as being made of flesh, is not able to minister to the rapidity of man’s sense, because that is of a spiritual nature; for which reason our speech is restrained (suffocatur) within us, and is not at once expressed as it has been conceived in the mind but is uttered by successive efforts, just as the tongue is able to serve it.”
Tertullian, Apologeticus, § 17:
“That which is infinite is known only to itself. This it is which gives some notion of God, while yet beyond all our conceptions—our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is. He is presented to our minds in His transcendent greatness, as at once known and unknown.”
Cf. Phil. Jud. de Monarch. i. 4: Hooker, Eccles. Pol. I. ii. 3: “Whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as He is, neither can know Him.”
Ps. xxxiv. 3.
Gen. xviii. 27.
The opinion of Aristarchus of Samos, as stated by Archimedes (Arenarius, p. 320, Oxon), was that the sphere of the fixed stars was so large, that it bore to the earth’s orbit the same proportion as a sphere to its centre, or more correctly (as Archimedes explains) the same proportion as the earth’s orbit round the sun to the earth itself. Compare Cat. xv. 24.
Is. xl. 22.
Ps. cxlvii. 4.
Job xxxvi. 27: ἀριθμηταὶ δὲ αὐτῷ σταγόνες ὑετοῦ. R.V. For He draweth up the drops of water.
Ecclus. iii. 21, 22.
Ps. cl. 6.
John i. 18. They are the Evangelist’s own words.
Matt. xviii. 10.
John vi. 46.
1 Cor. ii. 10.
Matt. xi. 27.
The Benedictine and earlier printed texts read ὁ γεννηθεὶς [ἀπαθῶς πρὸ τῶν χρόνων αἰωνίων]: but the words in brackets are not found in the best mss. The false grammar betrays a spurious insertion, which also interrupts the sense. On the meaning of the phrase ὁ γεννηθεὶς ἀπαθῶς, see note on vii. 5: οὐ πάθει πατὴρ γενόμενος.
Gr. ὄντα, ἀεὶ ὄντα.
Iren. II. xiii. 3:
“He is altogether like and equal to Himself; since He is all sense, and all spirit, and all feeling, and all thought, and all reason, and all hearing, and all ear, and all eye, and all light, and all a fount of every good,—even as the religious and pious are wont to speak of God.”
μονοειδῆ. A Platonic word. Phædo, 80 B: τῷ μὲν θείω καὶ ἀθανάτῳ καὶ νοητῷ καὶ μονοειδεῖ καὶ ἀδιαλύτῳ καὶ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ἔχοντι ἑαυτῷ ὁμοιότατον εἶναι ψυχήν. See Index, “Hypostasis.”
Iren. II. xxxv. 3:
“If any object that in the Hebrew language different expressions occur, such as Sabaoth, Elöe, Adonai, and all other such terms, striving to prove from these that there are different powers and Gods, let them learn that all expressions of this kind are titles and announcements of one and the same Being.”
See the passages of Irenæus quoted above, § 2 note 4, and § 7 note 3.
John v. 37.
Deut. iv. 15.
Ps. xvii. 8.
Matt. xxiii. 37.
Zech. iv. 10.
Matt. v. 48.
Philo Judæus (Leg. Alleg. I. 14. p. 52). Θεοῦ γὰρ οὐδὲ ὁ σύμπας κόσμος ἀξίον ἂν εἴη χωρίον καὶ ἐνδιαίτημα, ἐπεὶ αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ τήπος. So Sir Isaac Newton, at the end of the Principia, asserts that God by His eternal and infinite existence constitutes Time and Space: “Non est duratio vel spatium, sed durat et adest, et existendo semper et ubique spatium et durationem constituit.”
Is. lxvi. 1.
John i. 3.
The sacred name (הוהי) was not pronounced, but Adonai was substituted.
Job xi. 7 (R.V.): Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? Cyril seems to have understood τὰ ἔσχατα as “the least,” not as “the utmost.”
1 Cor. ii. 9.
Rom. xi. 33.
Is. xliv. 17.
The cat was sacred to the goddess Pasht, called by the Greeks Bubastis, and identified by Herodotus (ii. 137) with Artemis or Diana. Cats were embalmed after death, and their mummies are found at various places, but especially at Bubastis (Herod. ii. 67). “The Dogs are interred in the cities to which they belong, in sacred burial-places” (Herod. ii. 67), but chiefly at Cynopolis (“City of Dogs”) where the dog-headed deity Anubis was worshipped. Mummies of wolves are found in chambers excavated in the rocks at Lycopolis, where Osiris was worshipped under the symbol of a wolf.
The lion was held sacred at Leontopolis (Strabo, xvii. p. 812).
“In the neighbourhood of Thebes there are sacred serpents perfectly harmless to man. These they bury in the temple of Zeus, the god to whom they are sacred.” (Herod. ii. 74.) At Epidaurus in Argolis the serpent was held sacred as the symbol of Æsculapius. Clement of Alexandria (Exhort. c. ii.) gives a fuller list of animals worshipped by various nations. Compare also Clement. Recogn. V. 20.
Juvenal Sat. xv. 7. Illic aeluros, hic piscem fluminis, illic Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam. Possum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu.
Ps. civ. 15.
Gen. i. 11.
Ps. civ. 15.
The early Creeds of the Eastern Churches, like that which Eusebius of Cæsarea proposed at Nicæa, expressly declare the unity of God, in opposition both to the heathen Polytheism, and to the various heresies which introduced two or more Gods. See below in this Lecture, §§ 12–18; and compare Athan. (contra Gentes, § 6, sqq.)
Clement of Alexandria (Exhort. cap. ii. § 37), quotes a passage from a hymn of Callimachus, implying the death of Zeus: “For even thy tomb, O king, The Cretans fashioned.” Adonis, or “Thammuz yearly wounded,” was said to live and die in alternate years.
By the word “falls” (ἀποπτώσεις) Cyril evidently refers to the story of Hephæstus, or Vulcan, to which Milton alludes (Paradise Lost, I. 740):—
“Men call’d him Mulciber, and how he fell From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day.”
The “thunder-strokes” refer to “Titan heaven’s first-born, With his enormous brood” (Par. Lost, I. 510). Cf. Virgil, Æn. vi. 580:— “Hic genus antiquum Terræ, Titania pubes, Fulmine dejecti fundo volvuntur in imo.” Ibid. v. 585:— “Vidi et crudeles dantem Salmonea pœnas, Dum flammas Jovis et sonitus imitatur Olympi.” Clem. Alex. (Exhort. II. § 37):—“Æsculapius lies struck with lightning in the regions of Cynosuris.” Cf. Virg. Æn. vii. 770 ss.
The theory of two Gods, one good and the other evil, was held by Cerdo, and Marcion (Hippolytus, Refut. omnium Hær. VII. cap. 17: Irenæus, III. xxv. 3, quoted in note on Cat. iv. 4). The Manichees also held that the Creator of the world was distinct from the Supreme God (Alexander Lycop. de Manichæorum Sententiis, cap. iii.).
2 Cor. vi. 14. Cyril’s description applies especially to the heresy of Manes. See § 36, note 3, at the end of this Lecture; also Cat. xi. 21. and Cat. xv. 3.
So Irenæus (I. xxiii. 2) says that “from this Simon of Samaria all kinds of heresies derive their origin.”
Acts viii. 18–21.
1 John ii. 19.
Irenæus (I. xxiii. 2):
“Having purchased from Tyre, a city of Phœnicia, a certain harlot named Helena, he used to carry her about with him, declaring that this woman was the first conception of his mind, the mother of all, by whom in the beginning he conceived in his mind the creation of Angels and Archangels.”
Cf. Epiphan. (Hæres. p. 55, B): “He said that he was the Son and had not really suffered, but only in appearance (δοκήσει).”
Irenæus (I. xxiii. 1): “He taught that it was himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, and descended in Samaria as the Father, but came to other nations as the Holy Spirit.” Cyril here departs from his authority by substituting Mount Sinai for Samaria, and thereby falls into error. Simon had first appeared in Samaria, being a native of Gitton: moreover in claiming to be the Father he meant to set himself far above the inferior Deity who had given the Law on Sinai, saying that he was “the highest of all Powers, that is the Father who is over all.”
“Justin Martyr in his first Apology, addressed to Antoninus Pius, writes thus (c. 26): ‘There was one Simon a Samaritan, of the village called Gitton, who in the reign of Claudius Cæsar, and in your royal city of Rome, did mighty feats of magic by the art of dæmons working in him. He was considered a god, and as a god was honoured among you with a statue, which statue was set up in the river Tiber between the two bridges, and bears this inscription in Latin: Simoni Deo Sancto; which is, To Simon the holy God.
“The substance of this story is repeated by Irenæus (adv. Hær. I. xxiii. 1), and by Tertullian (Apol. c. 13), who reproaches the Romans for installing Simon Magus in their Pantheon, and giving him a statue and the title ‘Holy God.’ “In a.d. 1574, a stone, which had formed the base of a statue, was dug up on the site described by Justin, the Island in the Tiber, bearing an inscription—‘Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio Sacrum, &c.’ Hence it has been supposed that Justin mistook a statue of the Sabine God, ‘Semo Sancus,’ for one of Simon Magus.
See the notes in Otto’s Justin Martyr, and Stieren’s Irenæus. “On the other hand Tillemont (Memoires, t. ii. p. 482) maintains that Justin in an Apology addressed to the emperor and written in Rome itself cannot reasonably be supposed to have fallen into so manifest an error. Whichever view we take of Justin’s accuracy concerning the inscription and the statue, there is nothing improbable in his statement that Simon Magus was at Rome in the reign of Claudius.” (Extracted by permission from the Speaker’s Commentary, Introduction to the Epistle to the Romans, p. 4.)
“Justin says not one word about St. Peter’s alleged visit to Rome, and his encounter with Simon Magus.” But “Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (c. a.d. 325), quotes Justin Martyr’s story about Simon Magus (E. H. ii. c. 13), and then, without referring to any authority, goes on to assert (c. 14) that ‘immediately in the same reign of Claudius divine Providence led Peter the great Apostle to Rome to encounter this great destroyer of life,’ and that he thus brought the light of the Gospel from the East to the West’ (ibidem).
Eusebius probably borrowed this story “from the strange fictions of the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, and Apostolic Constitutions.” See Recogn. III. 63–65; Hom. I. 15, III. 58; Apost. Constit. VI. 7, 8, 9. Cyril’s account of Simon’s death is taken from the same untrustworthy sources.
Matt. xviii. 19.
Ib. xvi. 19.
It is certain that S. Paul was not at Rome at this time. This story of Simon Magus and his ‘fiery car’ is told, with variations, by Arnobius (adv. Gentes, II. 12), and in Apost. Constit. VI. 9.
2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.
Cerinthus taught that the world was not made by the supreme God, but by a separate Power ignorant of Him. See Irenæus, Hær. I. xxvi., Euseb. E.H. iii. 28, with the notes in this Series.
Menander is first mentioned by Justin M. (Apolog. I. cap. 26):
“Menander, also a Samaritan, of the town Capparetæa, a disciple of Simon, and inspired by devils, we know to have deceived many while he was in Antioch by his magical art. He persuaded those who adhered to him that they should never die.”
Irenæus (I. xxiii. 5) adds that Menander announced himself as the Saviour sent by the Invisibles, and taught that the world was created by Angels. See also Tertullian (de Animâ, cap. 50.)
Carpocrates, a Platonic philosopher, who taught at Alexandria (125 a.d. circ.), held that the world and all things in it were made by Angels far inferior to the unbegotten (unknown) Father (Iren. I. xxv. 1; Tertullian, Adv. Hær. cap. 3).
Irenæus, I. 26: “Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are like those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates.”
On Marcion, see note 5, on Cat. iv. 4.
John xvii. 25.
Luke xii. 28.
Matt. v. 45.
Marcion accepted only St. Luke’s Gospel, and mutilated that (Tertullian, Adv. Marcion. iv. 2). He thus got rid of the testimony of the Apostles and eye-witnesses, Matthew and John, and represented the Law and the Gospel as contradictory revelations of two different Gods. For this Cyril calls him ‘a second inventor of mischief,’ Simon Magus (§ 14) being the first.
Basilides was earlier than Marcion, being the founder of a Gnostic sect at Alexandria in the reign of Hadrian (a.d. 117–138). His doctrines are described by Irenæus (I. xxvii. 3–7), and very fully by Hippolytus (Refut. omn. Hær. VII. 2–15). The charge of teaching licentiousness attaches rather to the later followers of Basilides than to himself or his son Isidorus (Clem. Alex. Stromat. III. cap. 1). Basilides wrote a Commentary on the Gospel in 24 books (Exegetica), of which the 23rd is quoted by Clement of Alexandria (Stromat. IV. cap. 12), and against which Agrippa Castor wrote a refutation. Origen (Hom. I. in Lucam.) says that Basilides wrote a Gospel bearing his own name. See Routh, Rell. Sacr. I. p. 85; V. p. 106: Westcott, History of Canon of N.T. iv. § 3.