Life of Cyril
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
assembly, and, holding a council separately, deposed Pope Julius and other Nicaean leaders. A very few of the Eastern bishops-Maximus among them-stayed at Serdica with the Western bishops, and this council deposed a number of the Eastern leaders, including Acacius.24 Thus Maximus deposed his own metropolitan. It must be assumed that Acacius promptly retaliated.
4. Life of Cyril Only within this context can the life of Cyril be understood. Cyril firmly believed in the true divinity of Christ, but he disliked the Athanasian theology. In 346 Cyril's predecessor, Maximus, reaffirmed his support of Athanasius by convening a small council of fifteen Palestinian bishopsl who received Athanasius into communion and sped him on his way to Alexandria. Some time before his death in 348/9
Maximus, like his predecessor Macarius, appointed and consecrated his successor, one Heraclius, to prevent Acacius of Caesarea securing the appointment of an anti-Athanasian. The well informed St. Jerome, describing Cyril's election,2 says that on the death of Maximus "the church of Jerusalem was invaded by Arians, first by Cyril .... " According to Jerome,
Acacius and his allies in the province made it a condition, in giving the see to Cyril, that he renounce his priestly ordination by Maximus and submit to reordination. This is probably true, as by Eastern canon law Acacius' deposition of Maximus would have been valid and Maximus' subsequent ordinations invalid. Socrates and Sozomen say that Acacius and Patrophilus expelled Maximus and replaced him by Cyril.s This
24 Sozomen 3.11-13; Athanasius, Apol. c. Arian 50 fin.
I Probably a few of them were from Syria outside Palestine; Socrates 2.24.1-2.
2 Chronicle, at the 11th year of the Sons of Constantine (PL 27.501-2).
In the terminology of Jerome, Epiphanius and (usually) Athanasius, all non-Homoousians are Arians.
3 Socrates 2.38.2; Sozomen 4.20.1.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
is unlikely. Up to 350 Constantius was held in check by the powerful Western emperor, Cons tans; it was only after Cons tans' assassination early in 350, indeed only after the defeat of Magnentius in late 351, that a strong anti-Athanasian policy became possible. E. Bihain has shown that Socrates
2.38.2 belongs between 2.27.7 and 2.28.1; we may probably infer that its strictly orthodox and bitterly "anti·Macedonian" source represented Cyril's installation in Jerusalem as part of the general anti-Nicene revanche of 351, which included the replacement of Paul by Macedonius in the see of Cons tantinople.4 Consequently, Heraclius may have ruled the see of Jerusalem for a short time after the death of Maximus.
Jerome's text suggests that on Cyril's accession Heraclius was persuaded reluctantly to retire into the ranks of the presbyters. This episode implies no unorthodoxy in Cyril; but (unlike his two immediate predecessors), a product of the Eastern theological tradition, Cyril was in decided sympathy with the determination of the Eastern Church to affirm the divinity of Christ in the terminology of its traditional formulas.
Not later than 355 Cyril quarrelled with his metropolitan Acacius: 5
After being entrusted with the bishopric of Jerusalem, Cyril quarrelled with Acacius of Caesarea concerning metropolitan rights, on the ground that he ruled an apostolic see. From that they proceeded to personal feuding, imputing to each other unsound doctrine. For even previously both had been suspect, surmise attributing
Arian views to Acacius and to Cyril sympathy with the "homoousion." In this mood Acacius, acting with the bishops of the province who shared his views, got his blow in first and deposed him.
Socrates6 does not know the charges against Cyril.
4 This, probably coincidental, association of Cyril with Macedonius at the beginning of his public life may explain why so often in the Socrates....Sozomen tradition he is later classified as a "Macedonian."
5 Sozomen 4.25.2. The emendation homoiousion for homoousion has been suggested.
6 Socrates 2.40.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Doctrinal differences, if relevant at all, were secondary. The issue was certainly the jurisdiction or privileges of Jerusalem.
Sozomen apparently meant that Cyril claimed the metropolitanate of Palestine for Jerusalem. This, like the reference to the apostolicity of the see of Jerusalem, is clearly an anachronism. But a legal dispute was inevitable owing to the self-contradictory 7th canon of Nicaea, which at once guaranteed full metropolitan rights to Caesarea, and to Jerusalem ancient rights which (I suppose) had in ante-Nicene times qualified Caesarea's metropolitan rights in regard to Jerusalem. Since Theodoret7 also describes the quarrel as a struggle "for the primacy" and Socrates reports that for two years Cyril refused to appear to stand his trial, it is fairly certain that, while a claim by Jerusalem to be the metropolitan of Palestine was at this time out of the question, the issue was some alleged infringement by Caesarea of Jerusalem's traditional rights or a revival by Cyril of an ancient claim by Jerusalem to be virtually a second metropolitan see in the south of Palestine. Since a metropolitan court could do nothing worse to Cyril than depose him, his refusal to attend it is most naturally interpreted as based on a denial of the competency of the court, apparently a Palestinian court convened at Caesarea. Cyril's appeal to a higher jurisdiction fits into the same picture; and the Emperor's sanctioning of the appeal is interesting.
While his appeal was pending, Cyril requested the Emperor to have his case tried by a higher court, i.e., by a more broadly representative council. Constantius assented. Meanwhile (357)
Cyril found a friendly welcome with Silvanus of Tarsus. There were canons forbidding the reception into communion of a deposed bishop and Acacius took advantage of them to protest, but Silvanus neatly riposted with the remark that Cyril's preaching had made him such a favorite with the people that expulsion or suspension was impossible.
7 Theodoret, Hist. eccles. 2.26.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Towards Seleucia In the fifties the Emperor used Sirmium, a fortress town and imperial residence in the Balkans, as a meeting-place for his theological advisers from East and West. The arianizing
Eudoxius was now bishop of Antioch and the irreverent dialectician Aetius had risen to notoriety. The year 357 saw the promulgation of the disquieting ambiguous Second Formula of Sirmium.8 Banning discussions of "substance" and the formulas "homoousion" and "homoiousion," this creed confessed "one God, the Father Almighty ... not two Gods"; the Son is "God of God, Light of Light," subordinate to the Father from whom He was begotten before the ages. "Likeness" was not formally asserted. The document, whose tone was agnostic rather than apophatic, raised the question whether it regarded the Son as God in a merely titular sense.
The East took fright. Basil of Ancyra summoned a council (358) and, aided by George of Laodicea, campaigned successfully for the formula "homoiousion, of like substance," really probably "of the same generic substance or nature."9
Basil converted the Emperor Constantius and Macedonius of Constantinople to this formula. Flushed with success, Basil banished over seventy "Arian" bishops, including Eudoxius.
Constantius and the Homoeousians then decided to hold a general council to achieve unity in orthodoxy. East and West were to meet at Seleucia and Rimini respectively, and a theological commission from each council was then to repair to Constantinople, where it would be determined how far the decisions reached agreed with Scripture. But a reaction against Basil and his formula set in. The formula finally drawn up at Sirmium (the FourthlO [Third] of Sirmium, the "Dated
Creed," 22 May 359) as a norm or basis for the conciliar dis8 Text in Hilary, De synodis 11; Athanasius, De synodis 28. Cf. Den· zinger, nn. 138·39.
9 Text of Basil's encyclical conciliar letter in Epiphanius, Haer. 73.2-11; dogmatic epistle of Basil and George, ibid. 12-22.
10 Fourth, if one counts the unoriginal formula (Sirmium 358) as the Third.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
cussions asserted not "like in substance" but "like in all things." At the critical moment Basil had been to some extent displaced in the Emperor's confidence by a group (including
Acacius?) which stood somewhat to his left and disliked any formulas embodying ousia.
The Letter of Basil and George (allies of Cyril's friend, Silvanus) preserved by Epiphanius seems to show the Homoeousian leaders planning a line of argument in this situation.
The relationship of Father and Son, it says, is better expressed by the terms Father and Son, which imply essential likeness
(identity of specific or generic nature), than by "Unbegotten"
(or "Unoriginate") and "Begotten," which imply some sort of unlikeness and contrast. Moreover "Unbegotten" is, like ousia, unscripturaI. No doubt some or many (though their numbers are perhaps usually exaggerated) of the moderate party thought that Basil had made a fatal mistake in accepting the compromise "in all points." This Letter points out that "like in all points," i.e., "complete likeness," includes likeness in substance. The formula has now, Basil says, been accepted by all parties and approved by the Emperor; so it is the other side that has been outwitted.
The council of Seleucia (27-30 September 359) is unfortunately as obscure as it is interesting and important.H
Cyril came to Seleucia under the wing of Silvanus and mingled with the Homoeousian leaders. Many of the leading bishops were deposed or had charges lying against them, and the council was intended to settle these questions also. The council could not agree and soon split into two parties. According to Philostorgius the Basilians, meeting separately, ratified the "homoiousion." This is improbable. According to Socrates and Sozomen, although there was a sharp debate about the "homoiousion," the Basilians adopted the Dedication Creed of Antioch (341). This account appears to be cer11 Socrates 2.39-40, Sozomen 4.22-23; Philostorgius, Hist. eccles. 4.11,
Epiphanius, Haer. 73.23, 27; Athanasius, De syn. 29, Hilary (who claims to have attended the council), Liber ad Constantium Augustum,
Theodoret 2.26.2-27.2.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
tified by the preamble of the extant ekthesis of the Acacians.
The Antioch formula was a good orthodox creed which had been accepted by Pope Liberius along with the First Sirmium.12
The Acacian creed (Syn. 29) declared full agreement with the Antioch creed and anathematized the anomoion ("unlike"), but, rejecting homoousios and homoiousios as unscriptural terminology and affirming "God of God" with a weak "like" formula, it resembled the Nike formula, i.e., the weakened 4th (3rd) Sirmium finally accepted by Rimini. The omission of kata panta (Cyril's formula) was very regrettable.
The discussion included a debate of "likeness in substance," maintained by the Basilians, as against "like in will and action." The Basilians claimed that Acacius had previously committed himself in writing to "likeness in all respects" and (Sozomen) "likeness in essence." Sozomen's statement perhaps means that the Basilians argued that universal likeness included likeness of nature or substance. But the occasion referred to may be a written votum submitted by Acacius to Macedonius or Constantius in the course of the deliberations of the theological experts at Sirmium (358-359) in the period when the Basilians were in the ascendant.
Sozomen reports Eleusius, a moderate, as saying: "Any deal that Basil or Mark may have made on their own, or the mutual accusations made by them and the Acacians, are no affair of the Council. Neither need the Council concern itself with the question whether their credal formula is, or is not, a good one"; then he urged the reaffirmation of the Antioch creed.13 The interpretation of this remark depends to some extent on the sequence of events, which is uncertain.
Perhaps Acacius had accused the moderates of betraying him 12 Liberius' four letters in Hilary's Fragmenta; Denzinger, nn. 138, 141143 (all new to the 32nd ed.); Athanasius, Hist. Arian_ 41; Sozomen
4.15. Pressure had been brought to bear on Liberius, but he insists that he acted freely and in the interests of peace and unity. He seems genuinely to have come to see the Eastern point of view and to have recognized the legitimacy of their Problematik and terminology.
13 Sozomen 4.22.22; d. 4.27.1 and Socrates 2.45 init. But see also Athanasius, De syn. 37-38.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
by not accepting the Sirmium formula and Basil and Mark had countered that he had betrayed them by weakening that formula. But some of the moderates may have thought that to proclaim the "homoiousion" just when the West seemed ready to abandon logical and metaphysical mysteries in favor of the acknowledgment of the mystery of the divine Being itself, was to surrender everything they had fought for when they were in sight of victory. Alternatively it is possible that the majority were deterred from affirming the "homoiousion" by Sirmium's ban on ousia; in general, however, the Seleucian majority showed little respect for the imperial will. Moreover, bishops unable to be present themselves, and perhaps including some of the left-wing bishops banished by Basil, were allowed to vote by proxy at the council.
Theodoret represents the council as breaking down over the question of Cyril. When Acacius, he says, found Cyril among the assembled bishops, he demanded that, as being deposed, he withdraw, but, though his demand won some support,
Cyril refused, and then Acacius left the assembly and joined the Eudoxians. This, however, is incredible. Such intransigence would have been suicide on Cyril's part, and the greater folly as he appears to have had the sympathy of the majority.
Theodoret has been carried away by his liking for the dramatic and the personal. His reference, a little earlier, to Cyril as "a zealous champion of the apostolic decrees" (i.e., apparently of Nicaea) shows that he is thinking of the later
Cyril of the Establishment and comparing his presence at Seleucia to the presence of Athanasius at Sardica, where the tactical situation was different. The presence of a number of deposed and accused prelates was clearly a cause of complaint at Seleucia, but there is no reason to doubt the statements of Socrates and Sozomen14 that the complaint chiefly concerned the late arrivals, Macedonius and Basil, and that all the bishops challenged by Acacius withdrew.15 Moreover Acacius
14 Socrates 2.40 ad init., Sozomen 4.22.10-11.
15 See also Sozomen 4.22.25.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
seems to have been in partial sympathy with the Eudoxians since 357.
Probably the difference between the Antioch creed and the Acacian formula, though superficially not very great, was critical. It was apparently Acacius' mission to win the council's assent to the same weakened Sirmium formula which was to be forced upon the West. For this purpose the Antioch formula would not quite serve. But the major episcopal trials pending were also an important issue (not unconnected with the doctrinal issue), and Acacius seems to have found himself facing a strong bloc, a bloc, moreover, that was planning to replace Eudoxius by Anianus at Antioch. Within this political pattern of personal and "cathedral" rivalries the question of Cyril was not unimportant-especially to the metropolitan of Palestine. Epiphanius, who in 359 was still living in his monastery near Eleutheropolis, states that Eutychius of Eleutheropolis, though a Nicaean, cast in his lot with the Acacians out of enmity for Cyril.16 As Eleutheropolis lies to the southwest of Jerusalem, Cyril may have been interfering in Eutychius' diocese on the ground that it formed part of his
"province" or sphere of influence.
Continuing to meet on their own after Leonas and the Acacians had signified their intention of boycotting the council, the majority deposed, among others, George, Eudoxius and Acacius-the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch and Caesarea!
-and presumably acquitted and reinstated Cyril, and ordained Anianus bishop of Antioch. The Acacians and ten deputies representing the Seleucia majority repaired to Constantinople, where they met the ten deputies from Rimini and a number of other bishops who happened to be in the capital on business. The ten Seleucian deputies finally accepted the revised Rimini creed. Sozomen17 reports that they abandoned the term "substance" only when the Acacians assured them on oath that the dropping of the term by no 16 Epiphanius, HaeT. 73.23, deleting the negative with Petau.
17 Sozomen 4.23.5.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
means implied the view that the Son was unlike the Father in substance, a doctrine which they were ready formally to condemn. We may perhaps accept the sincerity of the Acacians in this matter and the truth of Philostorgius' statement18 that when (early 360) Acacius deposed both the (arianizing)
Aetians and the Basilian leaders, he deposed the former for their heterodoxy and the later because of his vendetta with them.
Among those deposed by this Acacian council and banished by the Emperor in 360 were Macedonius, Eustathius, Basil,
Silvanus, Sophronius, Eleusius, Anianus, Neonas of Seleucia and Cyril.19
A.D. 360-387
Thereafter Cyril seems to have shared the fate of the Eastern "conservative" bishops. Recalled (January 363) under Julian, repossessed of his see under the orthodox Jovian (d.
Feb. 364), he was banished by the Homoean Valens in late 366 or 367 and returned finally to his see when Gratian
(autumn 378) recalled the bishops exiled by Valens.20
Cyril's activities and views during this long period are obscure. He was powerful enough to secure the appointment of his nephew Gelasius to the see of Caesarea on the death of 18 Philostorgius 4.1, 12; 5.1; 6.4. But if Socrates 2.45 and Sozomen 4.29 are accurate, I am probably wrong. Whereas Athanasius (De syn. 31) judged Acacius a secret Arian, Philosotorgius (who characterizes him as a liar and a master of Machiavellian arts) thought him a hypocritical Arian who double-crossed the Eudoxians by appointing
"Homoousian" bishops in 360. Philosotorgius does not formally contradict Athanasius' statement that Acacius appointed Arian bishops, since in Athanasius' vocabulary "Arian" means anyone who does not accept the "homoousion," while in Philostorgius' vocabulary "Homoousian" means anyone who believes that Christ is God and not a creature.
The only reliable evidence for anyone's belief in this period is thtl creeds he signed. The allegations of Acacius' Aetianism in Antioch in 361 may arise from a popular misunderstanding of the favorite
Homoean theme that there are not "two Unbegottens." It is rather surprising that both Constantius (who was in Antioch) and Acacius should so suddenly change from persecutors to adherents of Aetianism.
19 Sozomen 4.25.1-5; Theodoret 2.27.2.
20 Socrates 4.35; Sozomen, 4.30.3.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Acacius in 366. Though soon ousted, Gelasius later regained the see and still held it at the time of the first council of Constantinople (381).
When did Cyril accept the "homoousion"? Hort's view that he accepted it in the years 362-364 rests largely on his assumption that Cyril was an ally of St. Meletius of Antioch, whose name headed the signatures to the Nicene confession sent to Jovian by the bishops assembled at Antioch in 363.21 Tillemont had linked this event with Theodoret's story22 of how between June 362 and March 36323 Cyril received from Meletius at Antioch and smuggled over to Palestine the convert son of a pagan priest attached to the court of the apostate Julian.
It seems certain, however, that Cyril did not sign the memorial to Jovian, since Socrates, drawing on Sabinus, apparently gives the complete list of signatories, and Cyril is not among them.24 Moreover, there is far more evidence for a friendship between Meletius and Acacius than between Meletius and Cyril. Meletius voted with the Acacians at Seleucia,25 and Epiphanius seems to say that his action was motivated by enmity towards Cyril. In 361 Acacius secured Meletius' nomination to the see of Antioch. Acacius was a cosignatory with Meletius to the memorial to Jovian in 363.
If Cyril during this period was an active member of any group, there is a stronger case for the conjecture that he was one of the homoeousian "Macedonians" who, anticipating the Meletians and led by Basil and Silvanus, petitioned Jovian in 363 and were rebuffed.26 It seems to have been approximately the same group which, led by Silvanus and Eustathius, in the autumn of 365 or spring of 366 sent a deputation to the Western Emperor Valentini an, Pope Liberius and the Western bishops, accepted the Nicene creed and were re21 Hort. Two Dissertations 97-107, esp. 95·97; 106 n. 5.
22 Theodoret. Hist. eccles. 3.10.
23 Dates established by Clinton.
24 Socrates 3.25 (cf. 27. 28). This council at Antioch seems to have been in the late summer or autumn of 363.
25 Epiphanius, Haer. 73.23; Socrates 2.44.
26 Socrates 3.25 init.; Sozomen 6.4 init.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
ceived into communion by Liberius.27 The second name on the list of the addressees of Liberius' letter is "Cyril." But it is a common name, and Socrates and Sozomen, though they describe the "Macedonians" as led by those bishops of the Seleucia majority deposed by Acacius in 360, never actually mention Cyril among them. Sometimes, without characterizing his position, they seem to distinguish him from them. Again, if Socrates and Sozomen are at all correct in ascribing to the "Macedonians" heretical views about the Holy Spirit, Cyril
(unless the Catecheses are more heavily stratified or interpolated than the evidence presently available suggests) cannot have belonged to their group.28 In the years following
360 he may have played a lone hand. It is noticeable that Socrates, in describing the position on the accession of Valens, mentions Cyril without characterizing his doctrinal position.29
If the "Niceno-Constantinoplitan" creed is a revision and expansion of the Jerusalem creed, and if the former's appearance in the Ancoratus of Epiphanius30 is authentic, then Cyril must have accepted the "consubstantial" by 374.31 Yet in this case it is surprising that neither Socrates nor Sozomen mentions Cyril's conversion to formal, as distinct from substantive, Nicene orthodoxy, for the overt gesture of the acceptance or the rejection of the "homoousion" is just the sort of thing
27 Socrates 4.12; Sozomen 6.10-11. In their letter to Liberius this group glossed the "homoousion" as meaning "Very God" and "like to the Father in all things," both characteristic Cyrillic phrases. For the later theological history of this group, see Socrates 4.12 fin., 5.4; Sozomen
7.2.2-4.
28 That is, after they fell into heresy, in 361. Sozomen 4.25.1 (cf. 24.9, 16) suggests that Cyril's original trouble with Acacius stemmed from his association with the Homoeousian Seleucians including the eccentric ascetic Eustathius, whom in 358 a council at Melitene deposed in favor of Miletius. Was the group already the champions of the "homoiousion" before its banning by Second Sirmium in 357? The charge against Cyril in 360 was that he had held communion with Eustathius and Elpidius after their deposition (unless there were two councils of Melitene) and with Basil and George after his own deposition.
29 Socrates 4.1. ad fin.
30 Ancoratus 118.
31 And, if so, probably by 366.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
they understand and are competent to record. In fact, however, both Socrates and Sozomen represent Cyril at Constantinople in 381 as a recent convert to the "homoousion,"32 which suggests that Cyril accepted it only when Theodosius I became the Eastern Augustus Oanuary 379) and made its subscription mandatory. The group which (above) accepted the "homoousion" in 365·6 soon recanted.
Cyril's substantive orthodoxy, of course, is attested from the first by the Catecheses. If we measure orthodoxy by the confession of the true divinity of Christ and not by acceptance of a philosophical term, Cyril never wavered in orthodoxy. The story of his life shows him steadfastly refusing all complicity with heresy and bears out the encomium of the Second
Ecumenical Council, which in its synodal letter33 of 382 to Pope Damasus and the West declared that Cyril had "on various occasions valiantly combated Arianism." In that first council of Constantinople (381 A.D.) Cyril probably played a leading part. Socrates names him second and Sozomen third among the leading prelates. It is probably an index not only of Cyril's personal prestige but also of the authority of his see that both Socrates and Sozomen34 name him among the four leading prelates of the orthodox majority, the others being Timothy of Alexandria, Meletius of Antioch and Gregory of Nazianzus, whom Theodosius had transferred to the see of Constantinople, 27 November 380.
Cyril's influence was probably great at the later sessions of the council when Meletius had died, Gregory had left,
Timothy had been discredited by his support of the claims of the adventurer Maximus to the see of Constantinople,
Constantinople itself was represented by Nectarius who had been only a catechumen when the council opened, and Cyril's nephew Gelasius presided over the church of Caesarea. While
Cyril was no doubt suspect in Western eyes (St. Jerome was 32 Socrates 5.8 ad init.; Sozomen 7.7.3.
33 Text in Theodoret 5.9.
34 Socrates 5.8; Sozomen 7.7.3.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
still calling him an Arian in his Chronicle, ca. 380), it is very improbable, especially after his acceptance of the "homoousion," that (as Hort suggested) he needed to vindicate his orthodoxy at the Eastern council of Constantinople by producing the traditional creed of Jerusalem.35 But, while the minutes of the council have for the most part perished, it is not unlikely that the Eastern bishops perceived the tactical usefulness of the unimpeachable creed of "the Mother of all the Churches" as a symbol of the orthodoxy of their non-homoousian past. The council may well, therefore, have commissioned Cyril to expand his creed into a form which should, taking into account present needs, represent the faith of the East. E. Schwarz suggested that the tomos mentioned in the council's reply to the West (382) referred to the "Constantinopolitan" creed (C); and it is significant that that reply implies that Cyril's theological respectability had been impugned by the West. While, then, it is not even certain that the "Niceno-Constantinopolitan" creed (i.e., the present liturgical creed of East and West, commonly miscalled the "Nicene" creed) was either composed or adopted by the council of Constantinople, the internal evidence for this great creed's being based on the Jerusalem creed (J) and possibly being the work of a committee chaired by St. Cyril at Constantinople, is briefly as follows. The first thirty-six (Greek) words of the two creeds are identical,36 except that the phrase
"true God" is held over in C; only ten words of J are not included in C, and of these three are accounted for by merely prepositional changes; while the amount of detail, or degree of expansion, in the key third clause of J is uncertain, all the phrases of C's very full third clause coincide with the phrases emphasized and "demonstrated" in Catechesis 12. In his main contention, therefore, Hort may well have been right.
35 And still more improbable if he had accepted the "homoousion" in 362-364; these two parts of Hort's hypothesis are mutually contradictory.
36 I.e., down to "before all ages" inclusive. The next thirty (Greek) words come from N.