The Procatechesis
THE PROCATECHESIS
PROLOGUE TO THE CA TECHETICAL LECTURES
LREADY, MY DEAR
CANDIDATES for Enlightenment,l ~. scents of paradise are wafted towards you; already you are culling mystic blossoms for the weaving of heavenly garlands;2 already the fragrance of the Holy Spirit
I.e., Baptism; also intellectual "enlightenment," for pre-baptismal instructions impart the revealed system of (supernatural and esoteric) knowledge; d. 6.29. Light is a prominent theme in the Bible from the second verse of Genesis to the last chapter of the Apocalypse. Particularly important in the Johannine writings, the symbol was used also by the Qumran community (d. the war between "the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness") as well as in Zoroastrianism and the Greek mystery religions. Cf. T. Halton, "Baptism as Illumination,"
Irish Theol. Quart. 32 (1965) 28-41.
For literary and rhetorical reasons (note the anaphora, the thrice repeated ede, "now," "already''), the "paradisal scents" and "mystic blossoms" seem to refer to the candidates' recent enrollment and subsequent ceremonies rather than to the graces of the lower grade of the catechumen ate. Cyril means that the candidates' registration has brought them so close to the Paradise of which the sacramental initiation will seize them that already its exciting scents are sometimes borne to them along the breezes. Compare the "yet brighter and more fragrant meadow of this Paradise" of Myst. 1.1. The imagery, inspired by the Song of Songs, favorite reading of Cyril, would be more appropriate and natural if spring had already appeared in the land-implying a later Easter. But in 14.10, four or five weeks later,
Cyril says the date is about March 25th and this implies an early Easter. In 18.7, he says the season is "wintry" and adds: "The trees no~ stand as if they were dead: where are the leaves of the fig-tree?
There is no contradiction if the language in Procat. I is purely metaphorical. For other evidence about the season, d. 4.30; 13.18.
2 The garlands are probably those worn at banquets, especially marriage feasts. Cyril refers to the nuptials between the soul and Christ
(the Bridegroom) at Baptism, a spiritual wedding consummated in the Eucharist, itself the pledge and foretaste of the marriage-feast of
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has blown about you. Already you have arrived at the outer court of the palace: 3 may the King lead you in! Now the blossom has appeared on the trees; God grant the fruit be duly harvested! Now you have enlisted; you have been called to the Colors.4 You have walked in procession with the tapers5 of brides in your hands and the desire of heavenly citizenship in your hearts; with a holy resolve also, and the confident hope which that brings in its train. For He is no liar who said: "For those who love Him, God makes all things conspire to good." Yes, God is generous and kind; nevertheless He requires in every man a resolve that is true. That is why the Apostle adds: "For those who are called in accordance with a resolve." It is the sincerity of your resolution that makes you "called."6 It is of no use your body being here if your thoughts and heart are elsewhere. the Lamb; d. Procat. 3 and 4, Cat. 3.1.
"Mystic": noi!ta, intelligible. Thus early Cyril introduces the Platonic category of the sensible-intelligible, adapted to Christian spirituality and sacramental theory.
3 I.e., at the threshold of Baptism, which is the portal of the Paradise of the Church conceived eschatologically. Cf. Procat. 15·17, Cat. 18.34.
4 In Myst 1.2-9, the candidates, immediately before Baptism, renounce Satan and take Christ for their Lord and Master. Roman army recruits took an oath (sacramentum) pledging their personal fidelity to the emperor. For the adaptation of this idea to the Christian mysteries
(called sacramenta, "sacraments," in the West) d. Tert., Ad Mart. 3.
The Latin New Testament translated mysterion by sacramentum. Cf.
Col. 1.13, Eph. 2.1·2, 1 Pet. 2.9; and St. Augustine's doctrine (City ot God) of the two kingdoms or realms, each with its own king, laws, goods, destiny, principle, and life.
5 Apparently, therefore (for this passage seems to be the chief or only evidence), at some ceremony following their registration, perhaps, in a formal entrance procession into the church for the opening lecture, the candidates carried lighted tapers or torches, "a significant symbol both of the marriage of the soul with Christ, and of its enlightenment by faith" (Gifford, xvii)-and also of the heavenly teaching which, as illuminandi, they were about to receive.
6 Cyril stresses the importance of human effort to the point of mis· interpreting Rom. 8.28. His successor, John, refused to condemn
Pelagius at a diocesan synod at Jerusalem, July 28, 415, as a Palestinian synod at Diospolis (Lydda) also did in December 415; d. John Ferguson, Pelagius (Cambridge 1956) 82-89. This is not to say that John was a Pelagian, still less Cyril, who is not asking whether sincerity too is not God's gift, but only rhetorically insisting upon the necessity of cooperation with grace. Cf. also Ch. 8. and Sermon,
Ch. 4 and 5 fin.
PROCA TECHESIS
(2) Why, there was a Simon the Sorcerer7 once who approached the baptismal waters: he was dipped in the font, but he was not enlightened. While he plunged his body in the water, his heart was not enlightened by the Spirit;8 physically he went down and came up, but his soul was not buried with Christ, nor did it share in His Resurrection. If 1 mention these examples of falls, it is to prevent your downfall. "Now all these things happened to them as a type, and they were written for the correction"9 of those who approach the font to this day. Let none of you be found tempting grace, "lest some bitter root spring up to poison"lo your heart. Let no one enter saying: "I say, let us see what the believersll are doing; I'm going in to have a look and find out what's going on." Do you expect to see without being seen? Do you imagine that while you are investigating "what's going on," God is not investigating your heart?
(3) We read in the Gospels of a busybody who one day decided to "investigate" a wedding-feast.12 Without dressing
7 Although, according to Acts 8.13, Simon Magus "believed," Cyril invariably assumes that he had been insincere from the first, at least in the sense that he had not "believed from the heart" (which implies more than an intellectual response); cf. 1 John 2.19.
8 Cf. Origen, Hom. in Num. 3.1: " ... neque omnes qui loti sunt aqua, continuo etiam Spiritu Sancto loti sunt." Origen illustrates from the hypocrisy of Simon.
9 1 Cor. 10.11.
10 Cf. Reb. 12.15.
11 I.e., apparently the upper class of catechumens, i.e., the candidates (phOtizomenoi-iliuminandi) who, contrary to the custom of other churches, at Jerusalem were assimilated to the faithful and no longer called catechumens.
12 Cf. Matt. 22.1-14, esp. verses 11-13. Perhaps what was originally a separate parable begins at verse 11. If the two parables are read as one, it is not clear-since the guests have been hastily collected from the highways and by-ways-how one could be blamed for not being in his "party clothes."· Cyril, without mentioning the difficulty, offers an answer: "Should not your eyes have informed you?" Or perhaps
(Telfer) Cyril realized that the two parables were independent and felt free to invent the circumstances of the unmannerly guest's entry.
K. Stendahl thinks that there is no problem in oriental parable, where the details can be forgotten once they have served their purpose or be supposed to change appropriately as required by the unfolding story (Peake's Commentary on the Bible [London-New York 1962] ad lac.). The defective dispositions which mark Cyril's "intruder" seem
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correctly for the occasion, he entered the dining room and, unchallenged by the bridegroom, took his place at table.
Etiquette, of course, demanded that, seeing everybody's white garments, he should conform; but in fact, though fully the match of his fellow.guests as a trencherman, he did not match them in his dress (I mean, his resolve). The bridegroom, for all his large-heartedness, was not undiscerning and, while going the rounds of the company and observing his guests individually (it was not what they ate, but the correctness of their behavior and dress that interested him),13 he saw a stranger without a wedding garment, and said to him: "Pray, sir, how did you get in? What a colorl What effronteryl14
The doorkeeper did not stop you in view of the liberality of the host? Quite so. You didn't know the correct dress for a festive occasion? Quite. Nevertheless, you came in; you saw the glittering clothes of those at table. Should not your eyes have been your teachers? Should not a timely exit then have been the prelude to a timely return? As it is, your untimely entrance can lead only to your untimely ejection." Turning to his attendants, he ordered: "Bind those feet" which presumptuously intruded; "bind the hands" which had not the wit to put a bright garment on him; and "cast him into the outer darkness"; for he is not worthy of the bridal torches. to be not so much imperfect faith as moral: the lack of the determination to make a decisive break with the old life in favor of the new life with the ethical quality demanded by the Gospel. See
Ch. 3. In the era introduced by Constantine's conversion, when Christianity became first a tolerated and then a privileged religion in the Empire, the merely curious or the dilettante might be found among the candidates. In first-century Palestine, "the wedding garment was not, apparently, a special garment, but ordinary clean clothes"
(1. C. Fenton, Saint Matthew [Pelican Gospel Commentaries, 1963] ad loc.). While on the night of their Baptism the candidates would be literally all in white (the Easter color, as Lancelot Andrewes observed), in the Greek Koine "white garments" meant simply
"dressed in one's best" (Telfer). In Ch. 4, Cyril explains and applies the metaphor; cf. 3.2.
13 Reischl encloses this parenthesis in square brackets, presumably as an interpolation, but his justifying note is obscure.
14 Or, keeping the apparently universal meaning of syneidesis, "What a conscience!" Then the phrase is probably either Cyril's interpretation of, or a scribal gloss upon, "What a colorl"
PROCATECHESIS
Ponder, I bid you, the fate of that intruder, and look to your own safety.
(4) For our part, as Christ's ministers we have given a welcome to every man and, in the role of porter, have left the door ajar. You, maybe, have come in with your soul befouled with the mire of sin and with your purpose15 sullied.
You came in; you were accepted;16 your name was entered in the register. Do you see the majesty of the Church? Do you behold, I ask, its order and discipline, the reading of the Scriptures, the presence of the ecclesiastical orders, the regular sequence of instruction? You are on holy ground; be taught by what you see. Withdraw in a good hour now, and come back in a right good hour tomorrow. If the fashion of your soul was avarice, put on another fashion, and then come in.
Put off, I say, lewdness and impurity; put on the bright robe of chastity. I give you timely warning before Jesus, the Bridegroom of souls, comes in and sees the fashions. You cannot plead short notice; forty days are yours for repentance; you have opportunity in plenty for undressing, for laundry-work, for dressing again and returning. If you persist in an evil
15 Proairesis (resolve, intention, motive, project) is important in the Catecheses as also in first-century Jewish proselyte baptism, where conversion had to be intended or chosen for its own sake and not as a means, or as incidental, to something else; cf. D. Daube, The New
Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (Oxford 1956).
16 (Katexiothes) Apparently, therefore, in Cyril's time acceptance for registration was not automatic. In Aetheria's time (ca. 390?; Peregrinatio 45) intending candidates, having previously given in their names to a priest who jotted them down, on the eve of Lent attended a formal scrutiny by the bishop who inquired of their neighbors whether they could give them a good character. If so, he formally entered their names in the register; else "he told them to go out and reform themselves ... and then approach the Laver." Cyril probably means that, like his imaginary door-keeper in the parable, he had given the candidates the benefit of any doubt, reflecting no doubt that only God can read the heart. He regularly (cf. Telfer) puts the responsibility on the candidates; cf. 1.3. Nevertheless, the first sentence of Ch. 15 reminds us that in most churches there were periodical scrutinies during the final stages of preparation for Baptism. Candidates for admission to the Qumran community were examined to test their "spirit and learning"; while they practiced periodical ritual bathing, it is disputed whether admission to the order was by a bath after a period of instruction and probation.
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purpose, the preacher is guiltless, but you must not expect to receive the grace. Though the water will not refuse to receive you, you will get no welcome from the Spirit.u If anyone is conscious of a wound in himself, let him have it dressed; if any has fallen, let him rise. Let there be no Simon among you, no hypocrite-and no Paul Pry.
(5) Perhaps you have come with a different motive: perhaps you are courting, and a girl is your reason-or, conversely, a boy. Many a time, too, a slave has wished to please his master, or a friend his friend. I allow the bait, and I welcome you in the trust that, however unsatisfactory the motive that has brought you, your good hope will soon save you. Maybe you did not know where you were going, or what sort of net it was in which you were to be caught. You are a fish caught in the net of the Church. Let yourself be taken alive: don't try to escape. It is Jesus who is playing you on His line, not to kill you, but, by killing you, to make you
17 Here as in Ch. 2, Cyril seems to attribute the reception of the Spirit to water (rather than to chrism). In 3.3 also, the "spiritual grace" is given "with the water," and it is natural to read 3.3 as saying that it is in the baptismal bath that the Holy Spirit seals souls, as is said explicitly in 3.4. In 3.5, "the gift" of "grace" (charis) is
"given through water," the fairest of the four elements, and Cyril quotes Gen. 1.1. In 1.2 also, "the grace" is given, along with the new birth, in the "Holy Bath," and 1.5 shows that "the grace" includes "the communication of" (or "participation in") the Holy Spirit as well as the forgiveness of sins (3.2, 12, 15, 16). It is natural to read
1.2 and 3.3 as meaning that the Seal, like regeneration and adoption, is given in "the Holy Bath," as is stated explicitly in 3.4. Thus, while the Catecheses think of the Holy Spirit as working in the Baptismal water, in the Mystagogica, by contrast, the descent of the Holy
Spirit upon Christ at Jordan is (3.1) distinguished from His actual baptism, and (3.1-2) in the sacramental initiation the unction is correspondingly distinguished from water-baptism and it is in the post-baptismal unction that the Holy Spirit descends. In the Mystagogica, therefore, the Chrismation rivals Baptism in importance and it is (3.5) only after Chrismation (Confirmation) that one becomes really entitled to the name of "Christian." Many scholars, however, have argued that the Catecheses and Mystagogica can be harmonized by supposing that in the Catecheses "Baptism" often refers to the whole initiatory rite and thus includes Chrismation. To settle this question, one must notice what effects the Catecheses ascribe not simply to "Baptism," but to the water. It is, I think, impossible to harmonize the two works on this point.
PROCATECHESIS
alive. For you must die and rise again. Did you not hear the Apostle say: "dead to sin, but living to justice"?18 Die, then, to sin, and live to righteousness; from today be alive.
(6) What honor Jesus bestows! You used to be called a catechumen, when the truth was being dinned into you from without:19 hearing about the Christian hope without understanding it; hearing about the Mysteries without having a spiritual perception of them; hearing the Scriptures but not sounding their depths. No longer in your ears now but in your heart is that ringing; for the indwelling Spirit henceforth makes your soul the house of God. When you hear the texts from Scripture concerning the Mysteries,2o then you will have a spiritual perception of things once beyond your ken.
Do not suppose that it is a small thing that you are being given. You, a pitiable creature, are receiving the family name of God. Listen to Paul saying: "God is faithful."21 Listen to another Scripture saying God is "faithful and just."22 It was because he foresaw this-because men were to bear a name which belongs to God-that the Psalmist, speaking in the person of God, said: "I have said: you are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High."23 But take care that you do not, while rejoicing in the name of "faithful," have the resolve of the faithless. You have entered for a race: run the course; you will not get the like chance again. If it were your wedding day that was fixed, would you not, ignoring everything else, be wholly engaged in preparations for the marriage
18 Cf. Rom. 6.11; I Pet. 2.24.
19 The word-play of the Greek depends on the derivation of "catechumen," etc., from eche, "a ringing sound" (d. "echo"), katecha then means "sound a thing in a person's ears," hence "teach by word of mouth," and finally, "instruct in the elements (of Christianity)."
20 "Mystery" in the Greek Church corresponds to the word "sacrament" in the Latin Church, especially the initiatory rites. In Cyril, "mysteries" also covers (e.g., 6.29) the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which Cyril equates with the Creed. In this broad sense, "the Mysteries" cover the subjects of both series of Catecheses.
21 1 Cor. 1.9.
22 1 John 1.9.
23 Ps.80.6.
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feast? Then, on the eve of consecrating your soul to your heavenly Spouse, will you not put by the things of the body to win those of the spirit?
(7) A man cannot be baptized a second and a third time.
Otherwise, he could say: "I failed once; the second time I shall succeed." Fail once, and there is no putting it right.
For, "one Lord, one faith, one Baptism." It is only heretics who are rebaptized, and then because the first was no Baptism.24
24 Here we abandon RR, who adopted M 1 's "splendid text" ("praeclara lectio"), "some heretics," and follow the great majority of MSS and Toutee. Toutee judged that Reg.'s omission of this sentence was due to haplography and not to the scribe's being shocked by Cyril's contradicting the teaching of the (medieval Western) Church. There seems, however, little doubt that Reg.'s omission and M l's variant
("too good to be true") are due to some such scruple. If M l's text were the original, the variants would be inexplicable. But, whereas since Augustine and probably since the Council of ArIes (314; can. 9
[8]) heretical Baptism, if administered in the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has usually (but see Nic. Can. 19) been deemed valid in the Western Church, Eastern practice has been much less uniform.
Even the decision of Nicaea (Can. 19, and cf. 8) that convert Paulianists, though not Novatians, must be rebaptized (anabaptizesthai), explained by Athanasius (Orat. c. Arian. 2.42-43) in relation to their defective Trinitarian faith, is much closer to Cyril's principle, than to ArIes' since most fourth-century heresies were
Trinitarian.
Telfer takes Cyril to mean that certain heretical sects do "repeat baptism," i.e., practice frequent ritual ablutions. This, though ingenious, seems less probable. The PGL seems to show no parallel for this meaning of baptizomai; rather, the ana implies the repetition (cf. anablepo, anapneo) of an act or state conceived of as normally unrepeatable or unrecoverable. Cyril seems to interpret "One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism" as excluding both the repeatability of a Baptism associated with the one Faith and the possibility of a true
Baptism apart from it. Lest, however, we rashly judge Cyril a bigoted rigorist, we must remember that for him (Cat. 4.3-18; 5.12) "the Faith" was almost synonymous with the Creed. The "heretics" to whom he refers were no doubt the far-out Gnostic sectaries and particularly, perhaps, the Manichees, who were scarcely Christians at all (6.12). For in 6.14, he says: "The inventor of all heresy was
Simon Magus" (the reputed founder of Gnosticism) and in 6.20 he speaks of hating "all heretics" but especially Mani, though the Manichees (6.21) were "not of Christian origin." To the groups whom he thought of as "heretics," Cyril's attitude was uncompromising:
4.37; 6.35; 15.9 (probably referring to both Arians and Sabellians, cf. 4.8; lLl3, 16, 17); 4.2. For an English translation of the principal documents in the third-century re-baptism controversy, cf. J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius (London 1957) 251-257, 323, 360-364.
PROCATECHESIS
(8) God requires of us only one thing, sincerity. Do not go on saying, "But how are my sins blotted out?" I answer: "By assenting, by believing." Could any answer be more succinct?
If, however, not your heart but only your lips proclaim your assent, well, it is the "Reader of hearts"25 who is your Judge.
From today cease from every evil deed; let not your tongue speak unholy words, nor your eye commit evil or rove after vanities.
(9) Let your feet take you swiftly to the catachetical instructions. Submit to the exorcisms devoutly.26 Whether you are breathed upon or exorcised, the act spells salvation.
Imagine virgin gold alloyed with various foreign substances: copper, tin, iron, lead. What we are after is the gold alone; and gold cannot be purified of its dross without fire. Similarly, the soul cannot be purified without exorcisms, exorcisms which, since they are culled from the divine Scriptures, possess divine power. The veiling of your face is to foster recollection, lest a roving eye make your heart also stray. But the veiling of the eyes does not hinder the ears from receiving salvation.27
Just as goldsmiths with their delicate instruments direct a blast upon the fire and, by agitating the surrounding flame, cause the gold hidden in the crucible to bubble up and so gain their object, in the same way when the exorcists inspire fear by means of the divine Spirit28 and regenerate the soul by fire in the crucible of the body, our enemy the Devil flees, and we are left with salvation and the sure prospect of eternal life; and henceforth, the soul, purified of its offenses, has
25 Cf. Acts 1.24; 15.8.
26 In Aetheria's time (Peregr. (6), the candidates were exorcized daily by "the clerics" after the dawn service in the Church of the Resurrection. The exorcizing and teaching (in the Great Church, i.e.,
"Golgotha" or "The Martyry'') occupied three hours, from six to nine.
27 Whereas for Greek philosophy, knowledge tends to be the analogue of visual perception of form and so objective, impersonal and universal, in the biblical tradition saving knowledge is a matter of a personal response of faith, and obedience to an audible word of invitation and command.
28 In Hebrew (d. Gen. 1.1 and 2.7), Greek, and Latin, the same word means "spirit" and "breath."
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salvation. Let us, then, my brethren, persevere in hope; let us commit ourselves in hope: so will the God of all, seeing our resolution, cleanse us from our sins, grant us a good hope of our estate, and bestow on us repentance unto salvation. It is God who has called, and it is you that He has called.
(10) Be faithful in your attendance of the catechizing. Even though we protract our discourse, do not let your mind yield to distraction. You are taking up arms against the enemy.
You are taking up arms against heresies, against the Jews, against the Samaritans, against the Gentiles. Your enemies are many: take plenty of ammunition; you have targets in plenty. You must learn how to shoot down the Greek and do battle with heretic, Jew, and Samaritan.21l Your weapons are sharp, and sharpest of all is "the sword of the Spirit."30 But your own right hand must strike with a holy resolution, to fight the fight of the Lord, if you would conquer the opposing powers and make yourself proof against every stratagem of heresy.
(11) Let this also be included in your battle orders: study what you are told and guard it forever. Do not confuse the pre-baptismal instructions with the ordinary sermons. Ex29 This could suggest (cf. Toutee, ad loc.) that the program of the Catecheses is largely apologetics. For apologetics against the pagans by rational argument, cf. 12.27 and 18.5·10; against the Samaritans, Cyril could appeal to the authority of the Pentateuch (18.11-13); against the Jews, he appeals to the Old Testament and the fulfillment of its prophecies in the New; against heretics, he argues from all Scripture as handed down in the Church (4.35) from the Apostles. Ch. 11, however, suggests rather a program of systematic theology. Since even of the groups mentioned in Ch. 10 only the pagans (not important in the Catecheses) are routed by rational argument, and even they can only be taught the revealed truth through the exposition of the inspired Scriptures, the method of the Catecheses is predominantly systematic in a broad sense (they have the same sort of unity as the Creed) and dogmatic. Essentially, the Catecheses are the "demonstration" of the Creed, itself regarded as "collected" from Scripture
(5.12; 4.17 and passim); this is the saving knowledge. But the argument, prominent in the Catecheses, from miracles and especially prophecy, is predominantly "apologetic," though Cyril handles it somewhat dogmatically, everywhere assuming the inerrancy of Holy
Scripture.
30 Eph. 6.17.
PROCA TECHESIS
cellent and reliable as those are, still, if we neglect their lessons today, we can learn them tomorrow. But the systematic instruction about the laver of regeneration-if that be neglected today, when shall the loss be made good? Imagine it is the season for planting trees: unless we dig, and dig deep, when can the tree be planted aright that has once been planted amiss? Or let me compare the catechizing to a building. Unless we methodically bind and joint the whole structure together, we shall have leaks and dry rot, and all our previous exertions will be wasted. No: stone must be laid upon stone in regular sequence, and corner follow corner, jutting edges must be planed away: and so the perfect structure rises. I bring you as it were the stones of knowledge; you must be instructed in the doctrine of the living God, of the Judgment, of Christ, of the Resurrection. Many things have to be said in order, which are now being touched upon at random but will then be brought together into harmonious system.31 Unless you achieve this unity of design, holding the beginning and the sequel in your mind together, the builder may do his best, but your house will be a ruin.
(12) If after the class a catechumen asks you what the instructors have said, tell outsiders nothing. For it is a divine secret that we deliver to you, even the hope of the life to come. Keep the secret for the Rewarder. If someone says,
"What harm is done if I know about it too?," don't listen to him. So the sick man asks for wine, but, given to him at the wrong time, it only produces brain-fever, and two evils ensue: the effect on the sick man is disastrous, and the doctor is maligned. So with the catechumen, if he is told the Mysteries by one of the faithful: not understanding what he has been told, the catechumen raves, attacking the doctrine and ridi31 The time-notes favor Toutee's (different) interpretation: the Catecheses systematize what the candidates have heard in the ordinary sermons. But how can they have heard the doctrines of the Creed in the ordinary sermons? Cf. Ch. 12. Is there, then, after all (cf.
Ch. 14 and 16.27), something in Cabrol's theory that, as in Aetheria's time (Peregr. 46), the Lenten teaching fell into two parts? Improbably, on the evidence at present available.
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culing the statement, while the believer stands condemned as a traitor.
You are now a man standing at a frontier: so, no careless talk, please. Not that these are not fit subjects for discussion, but that your interlocutor is not fit to hear them. You yourself were once a catechumen; I did not then describe to you the country which lay ahead. When you grasp by experience the sublimity of the doctrines, then you will understand that the catechumens are not worthy to hear them.
(13) All you who have been enrolled are the sons and daughters of one Mother. When you come in before the exorcisms are due to begin, let the conversation of each of you be such as to excite devotion. 1£ anyone is absent, make search for him. 1£ it were to a feast that you had been invited, would you not wait for your fellow guest? 1£ you had a brother, would you not seek what is good for your brother?
Finally, do not indulge in idle curiosity-no asking "what the city has done," or the ward, or the Emperor, or the Bishop, or the priest. Lift up your eyes: now, as your hour strikes, you need Him who is above. "Be still, and know that I am God."32 1£ you see the believers not recollected when they are ministering, well, they are safe; they know what they have received; they possess the grace. Your fate is still in the balance, to be accepted or not. Instead of copying the carefree, cultivate fear.
(14) During the actual exorcism, while waiting for the others, let men be with men, and women with women. For now I need Noe's ark, that I may have Noe and his sons together, separate from his wife and his sons' wives.33 For, although the ark was one and the door was, closed, yet decorum was observed. So now, though the church doors are barred and you are all inside, let distinctions be kept: men with men, women with women. Let not the principle of salvation be made a pretext for spiritual ruin. Keeping close
32 Ps. 45.11.
33 Cf. Gen. 7.7-9,13.
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together is a good rule, provided that passion is kept at a distance.
Furthermore, let the men have some profitable book in their hands while they sit waiting, and let one read from it and another listen. Or, if there is no book available, let one pray and another talk about something useful. Let the virgins likewise form a separate band, singing hymns or reading; silently, however, so that, while their lips speak, no other's ears may hear what they say. For, "I suffer not a woman to speak in church."34 Let the married woman imitate them: let her pray, and her lips move, but her voice not be heard. So shall Samuel come among us: your barren soul, that is to say, shall bring forth the salvation of "God who has heard your prayers."35 For that is the meaning of "Samuel."
(15) I shall be watching the earnestness of each man and the piety of each woman. Let your heart be fired to piety; let your soul be tempered like steel, as the stubborn metal of unfaith is hammered on the anvil till the dross scales off and the pure iron is left. Let the rust flake away, leaving the authentic metal.
May God one day show you that night whose darkness is daylight, the dark of which it is said: "Darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as the day."36 Then, may the gate of Paradise be opened to every man of you and every woman. Then, may you enjoy the fragrant, Christbearing waters. Then, may you receive Christ's name37 and 34 1 Cor. 14.34; cf. 1 Tim. 2.11-12.
35 Cf. 1 Kings 1.12-14.
36 Ps. 138.12. The reference is to Holy Saturday night during which the candidates were baptized in the Church of the Resurrection, brilliantly illuminated to symbolize the return of the risen light and their own sacramental enlightenment.
37 This (d. Ch. 13 fin. and Myst. 3.5) suggests that it was only proleptically and by courtesy that the candidates were styled "believers."
Still, the evidence (Procat. 6, 12, 13, 17; Cat. 1.1, 4; 3.15; 5.1; 10.16; 11.9; 18.26), though it does not prove that at Jerusalem (unlike other
Churches) the candidates were quite consistently classed as "believers," does show that the important distinction there was between the catechumens on the one hand and the candidates and believers on the other.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
the power of things divine. Even now, I beseech you, in spirit lift up your eyes; behold the angelic choirs, and the Lord of all, God, on His throne, with the Son, the Onlybegotten, sitting on His right hand, and the Spirit, too, and the Thrones and Dominations ministering, and every man of you and every woman receiving salvation. Even now let there ring in your ears that excellent sound which you shall hear when the Angels, celebrating your salvation, chant: "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,"38 on the day when, like new stars of the Church, you will enter, your bodies bright, your souls shining.
(16) Great is the prize set before you in Baptism: ransom for captives, remission of sins, death of sin, a new, spiritual birth, a shining garment, a holy seal inviolable, a Heavenbound chariot, delights of Paradise, a passport to the Kingdom, the grace of the adoption of sons. But a dragon lies in ambush for the traveler; take care he does not bite you and inject his poison of unbelief. Seeing this numerous company winning salvation, he selects and stalks his prey.39 In your
38 l;'s. 31.1.
39 Cyril refers to the "roaring lion" of 1 Pet. 5.8. Ps. 90.13 couples the dragon and the lion. Is this dragon who "lies in wait" (terei) for the foot of the initiate traveling to "the Father of souls" related to the serpent of Gen. 3.15? Cf. also "the croucher" (sin or the Tempter) of Gen. 4.7. There are perhaps traces in the Catecheses of Gnostic as well as apocalyptic and mystery-religion language and imagery. Jerusalem was not far from Samaria, the home of Simon
Magus (Acts 8.9), whom Cyril (6.14), like other Fathers, oversimplifying, made the origin of Gnosticism. But many Christian
Gnostic ideas were themselves borrowed from much older sources.
Cyril's suggestion that the dragon may bite without hurting is interesting. The same dragon reappears just below (and d. 3.11-12) as the sea-dragon Leviathan of Isa. 27.1 (d. 51.9 and Job 41) who is related to the chaos-dragon of the Gilgamesh epic (who stole the hero:s herb of immortality when he was bathing). who is related to Tiamat of the Babylonian creation epic. baptized as Tehom (chaotic abyss), the symbol of disorder and evil in Gen. l.l (d. Ps. 73.13-14). The home of the dragon was the Jordan (Job 40.23. leet. dub.), though probably his earlier dwelling was "old Nile." The dragon is important in the Apocalypse, but Cyril for some reason excluded the Apocalypse from the Canon (4.36). While Cyril's strong doctrine of the divine transcendence (not to mention 9.7 and the Blitzkrieg on Gnosticism in Cat. 6) excludes any suspicion of Gnostic dualism.
Myst. 1 takes very seriously the (biblical) theme of the Christian'S
PROCATECHESIS
journey to the Father of souls, your way lies past that dragon.
How shall you pass him? You must have "your feet stoutly shod with the gospel of peace,"40 so that, even if he does bite you, he may not hurt you.
With Hope invincible for your sandals and with Faith the guest of your heart, you may pass through the enemy's lines and enter into the house of the Lord. Prepare your heart for the reception of teaching and the fellowship in the holy
Mysteries. Pray more frequently, that God may count you worthy of the heavenly and eternal Mysteries. Never be idle, day or night, but so soon as sleep falls from your eyes let your mind occupy itself with prayer. If you· notice that an evil thought has entered your mind, hold tightly to the saving remembrance of Judgment. Apply your mind to learning, that it may forget low things. If you find someone saying to you: "So you are to go down into the water? What's wrong with the new public baths?," be sure that this is a ruse of "the Dragon that is in the sea." Attend not, then, to the lips of the speaker of guile, but to the Spirit of unbelief and deceit who works in him.41 Guard your own soul if you would war against the Powers of Darkness. For the (thoroughly Scriptural)
"up and down" theme in the Catecheses, see, e.g., 4.1, 9, 11-15; 11.10; 15.1; 12.2, 5, 10; 14.3, 25; 17.13-15; IS.15; 3.12, and perhaps cf.
Aetheria's report (Peregr. 42) that the Church of Jerusalem, probably ca. 390, went to Bethlehem to keep the vigil of the Ascension, and "the bishop and presbyters preached sermons appropriate to the day and the place." But for Dekkers' alternative explanation of this surprising Bethlehem "station" (which incidentally would date the Pilgrimage to 415-417), cf. Cross, p. xviii n. 1.
40 Eph. 6.15. The weapons and equipment mentioned here and in Ch. 10 echo the theme of the Christian warfare visualized in Eph. 6.10-20 as a conflict against evil angelic powers-"virtually the sole significant remnant of Jewish apocalyptic" in Ephesians (H. Chadwick, ad. lac. in Peake's Commentary of the Bible [London-New York 1962]).
The "panoply" or "whole armor of God" reappears in the Myst., where (3.4) it is completed by the "mystical Chrism," so that only after the Chrismation can the neophyte challenge and vanquish the Adversary; d. Cat. 3.13. The Powers of Darkness are probably thought of as embodied in the heretics, Jews, Samaritans and Greeks (pagans) whom the candidates are being armed against; d. 4.1 and 6.35 and the reading adopted at the end of this chapter; see next note.
41 Deserting RR and Toutee for the Paris MS (cod. Reg.): cf. Eph.
2.1; 2 Thess. 2.7-12. Most MSS have: "Attend not to the lips of the
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
avoid being trapped and would inherit, after standing fast in hope, everlasting salvation.42
(17) These, then, are the instructions, these the battle orders, that I (so far as a man may) give to you. To make our house "hay, straw" and chaff is to risk its total loss by fire; no, make the work of "gold, silver, precious stones."43
For it is mine to speak, yours to translate my words into action,44 and God's to perfect the work. Let us prepare our hearts, straining every nerve and sinew of soul and mind.
The race is for our souls; we have set our hearts on an eternal prize. God, who knows your hearts and discerns who is genuine and who is only acting a part, is able both to keep the sincere safe and to make a believer of the hypocrite. Yes, even of the unbeliever God can make a believer if only he gives his heart.45 May He "cancel the decree against you";46 may He grant you an amnesty for your former sins; may He set you as His sons in His Church and enlist you in His own service, arraying you in the armor of righteousness. May He fill you with the heavenly treasures of the New Covenant and sign you with that seal of the Holy Spirit which no man shall break forever, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
TO THE READER47
These Catechetical Lectures, addressed to candidates for Enlightenment, may be given to those going forward for Bapspeaker, but to God working in him," where "the speaker" is the preacher. But Cyril seems to mean that the serpent speaks in the tempter.
42 Cyril's emphasis on hope is notable. As Gabriel Marcel has shown, this Christian theme needs stressing in our time.
43 1 Cor. 3.12, 15.
44 Diffidently following Toutee instead of RR with most MSS, "to resolve."
45 Or perhaps "if only He give the heart."
46 Col. 2.14.
47 The work referred to in this note clearly did not include the Mystagogical Catecheses. The authorship and date of the note, for which
PROCATECHESIS
tism and to the already baptized faithful. They may, on no account, be given to catechumens or to other classes of nonChristians. Anyone making a copy is hereby adjured, as in the sight of the Lord, to preface it with this warning. cf. Ch. 12. are uncertain. The "rule of the secret" excluded pagans and ordinary catechumens from the Lenten lecturing in the Jerusalem of 350; cf. Procat. 12. Cat. 5.12
(where. incidentally. the copyists omitted the text of the Creed); 6:29; 16.26 fin.
LENTEN LECTURES
( Catecheses ) I-XII Translated by
LEO P. McCAULEY, S.J.
Boston College Chestnut Hill) Massachusetts
FOREWORD TO THE CATECHESES
HE FIRST THREE DISCOURSES of Cyril develop the topic, "and in one baptism for the remission of sins," though the first Catechesis, like the Procatechesis, is largely introductory in character. There is great diversity in the manuscripts which have preserved the second Catechesis.
Worthy of note is the opinion of Cyril (Cat. 3.7) that the baptism of John remitted sin.
The fourth Catechesis is a summary exposition of the fundamental Catholic doctrines. The details concerning the separate cells of the translators of the Septuagint, and the miraculous agreement of their versions (Ch. 24) were apparently an invention of Philo Judaeus, but accepted by some of the Fathers.
Cyril proceeds to discourse on Faith (5), the Unity of God (6), God the Father (7), Omnipotent (8), and Creator (9).
There follow the lectures on One Lord Jesus Christ (10), the Only-begotten Son of God (II), who was made flesh (12), and was crucified and buried (13), and rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father (14), and who is to come with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there is no end (15). Cyril devotes two lectures to the Holy Spirit (16-17), and concludes the Catecheses on the Creed with a discourse on the words: "And in one Holy Catholic Church, and in the resurrection of the flesh, and in life everlasting" (18). The bizarre story of the Phoenix (d. Herodotus 2.73), advanced as an argument for the resurrection of the flesh (Cat. 18.8), seems to have been believed by some of the Fathers.
As he completes the exposition of the Articles of Faith,
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Cyril promises further instruction on the reception of Baptism on Easter day itself, and on the days following Easter other discourses on the various mysteries of which the baptized are to become partakers.
To the modern reader Cyril's accommodation of Scripture texts will often seem strained or farfetched. Assuming that the record of the Old Testament is prophetic, he is constantly discovering what he believes to be prophetic anticipation of the events in the life of our Lord. This is particularly true in connection with His passi~m, death, resurrection and second coming. As for Cyril's position on the Trinity, I would here state that I do not accept some of the findings set out in pp. 34-60 above.
In the rendering of Cyril's biblical quotations into English, use has been made of the version published under the patronage of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. When the Confraternity rendering is based on texts that do not correspond with Cyril's Greek, the necessary adaptations have been made.
LEO P. MCCAULEY, S.J.