Mystagogical Lecture V
FIFTH LECTURE ON THE MYSTERIES
The Eucharist (II): The Liturgyl "Laying aside, then, all malice, deceit and slander" etc.2
(1) By the mercy of God you have in our former assemblies received sufficient instruction about Baptism, Chrism, and the partaking [communion] of the Body and Blood of Christ.s
We must now pass on to the next subject, intending today to crown the work of your spiritual edification.
The Hand-Washing (2) You saw the deacon4 who offers the water for the washing of hands to the celebrant and to the presbyters who 1 This lecture is not a liturgical text, but a commentary, with short quotations, upon the Jerusalem rite, which resembled the rather
Semitic and partly archaic "Addai and Mari" (Dix 178-180). It is often closely paralleled by Theodore and ApCo 8.11-15 and was probably the nucleus of the Liturgy of St. James (A.D. 450-). For an mteresting commentary on Myst. 5 see Dix, esp. 187-203; but, pace
Dix, Myst. 5 is unlikely to antedate 390.
2 Cf. 1 Peter 2.lff.
3 Note the three distinct sacraments co-ordinated; but among the manuscripts the group Cl family lacks "Chrism."
4 Entirely omitting the Proanaphora, with which the newly baptized would be familiar (and which was no doubt in any case omittedcf. ApTrad-in the Easter Mass), the commentary starts with the Lavabo, whose origins presumably lie in the Jewish grace with meals or the ablution preceding the cui tic berakah (benediction, = Greek
"eucharist" or eulogia). The people's offerings of bread and wine have just been set upon the altar by the deacons. Cf. ApTrad 4.2:
"[To the Bishop] let the Deacons bring the oblation, and lie with all the Presbyters laying his hand on the oblation shall say giving thanks
[eucharistizing] thus .. ,"
(Dialogue and Preface fOllOW).
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encircle the altar of God.5 Not that he offered this water on account of any bodily uncleanness: of course not; for we did not originally enter the church unwashed. No; the ablution is a symbolic action, a symbol of our obligation to be clean from all sins and transgressions. The hands symbolize action; so by washing them we signify evidently the purity and blamelessness of our conduct. Did you not hear the blessed David supplying the key to this ceremony in the divine mysteries when he says: "I will wash my hands among the innocent: and will circle thy altar, 0 Lord"?6 The hand-washing, then, is a symbol of innocence.
The Kiss (3) Next the deacon cries: 7 "Welcome one another," and "Let us kiss one another."8 You must not suppose that this kiss is the kiss customarily exchanged in the streets by ordinary friends. This kiss is different, effecting, as it does, a commingling of souls and mutually pledging unreserved forgiveness. The kiss, then, is a sign of a true union of hearts, banish5 In Syria the altar sometimes stood against the rear wall of the apse
(J. Lassus, Sanctuaires chretiens de Syrie [Paris 1947]; art. "Syrie,"
Dictionnaire d'archeoiogie chretienne et de liturgie 15.2 P9531 18551941); alternatively it was placed on the chord of the apse (e.g., Gerasa,
St. Peter and St. Paul); in N. Africa it sometimes stood in the nave near the chancel steps (d., e.g., the Tabarka [Thabraca] mosaic); and sometimes it stood in a central position in the nave (e.g., Sabratha,
Forum Basilica) rM. Moretonl6 Ps. 25 (26).6, Sept. Possibly the whole of this psalm was chanted.
7 Bishop, deacons and the holy people (laity) had each their proper "liturgy" in the common action (d. 1 Clem. 40.5·41.3). The deacon presented the offerings (bread and wine) brought to church by the people and in later times, when in the East the celebrant was secluded first by the veil, then by the solid screen, he acted as the link between priest and people, who gradually became passive spectators. But there are already some late elements in Myst. 5. Note the people's responses in the Myst.
8 The liturgical kiss of peace (origin in Jewish nonliturgical practice?) is a token of that "unity of spirit in the bond of peace" which for St. Paul was the foundation of the "one Body" (1 Cor. 10.17). Syrian
Didascalia (d. Ethiopic) 2.45 tells of private Christian courts for the peaceful settling of disputes.
MYSTAGOGICAL LECTURE V
ing every grudge. It was this that Christ had in view when He said: "If, when you are bringing your gift to the altar, you suddenly remember that your brother has a grievance against you, leave your offering by the altar; first go and make your peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift."9 The kiss, then, is a reconciliation and therefore holy, as the blessed Paul said somewhere when he commanded us to "salute one another with a holy kiss";lO and Peter: "Salute one another with a kiss of charity."l1
The Dialogue (4) Then the celebrant cries: "Lift up your hearts."12 For truly it is right in that most awful13 hour to have one's heart on high with God, not below, occupied with earth and the things of earth. In effect, then, the bishop14 commands everyone to banish worldly thoughts and workaday cares and to have their hearts in heaven with the good God.
Assenting, you answer, "We have them lifted up to the Lord." Let no one present be so disposed that while his lips
9 Matt. 5.23, 24; d. Didache 14.1·2.
10 1 Cor. 16.20.
11 1 Peter 5.14.
12 This part of the Dialogue is apparently of purely Christian ongm and early, d. ApTrad 4.3. The real action of the liturgy takes place beyond time "in the Age to Come." That is, the Eucharist is eschatological: Christ is Host at the Messianic Banquet, already realized by anticipation (Dix p. 127).
13 This awe and fear of the sacrament was apparently a late fourthcentury Syrian development and something of a revolution. Not so much earlier, Dix (p. 480) remarks, Christians had been accustomed to communicate themselves at home with the reserved Sacrament.
Jungmann (J. A. Jungmann, Die Stellung Christi im liturgischen Gebet [Liturgiegeschichtliche Forschungen 7/8; Miinster in W. 1925]
217) also thinks that it marks Myst. 5 as late (380-400). Even ca. 374, "All the solitaries in the desert, where there is no priest, communicate themselves, keeping the communion at home. And at Alexandria and in Egypt the laity commonly keep the communion in their houses, each communicating when he likes" (St. Basil the Great, Letter 93).
14 Literally "priest," but the title is reserved for the bishop, priests (d.
5.2) being styled "presbyters"; so in the Latin Fathers "sacerdos" and "presbyter."
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form the words, "'Ve have them lifted up to the Lord," in his mind his attention is engaged by worldly thoughts. At all times we should commemorate15 God, but at least, if this is not possible to human weakness, we must aspire to it in that hour.
(5) Then the priest says: "Let us give thanks [make eucharist] to the Lord."16 Indeed we ought to give thanks to 15 The Eucharist is an anamnesis ("commemoration" in a pregnant sense) and, if Dix and P. Audet are right, is modelled, as a literary form, upon the Jewish cultic berakah which had three basic elements:
(i) a benediction or brief invitation to praise God; (ii) the motive, i.e., the wonderful works of God in creation and, especially, in salvation history; in recalling (anamnesis) these, the people also recalls, and anew identifies itself with, its own past history, which, as salvation history, is a history with God; (iii) a doxology; in ch. 6 the Sanctus (Trisagion) is called a "doxology." M's use of the word mnemoneuteon ("mention, commemorate, make anamnesis") at this point, therefore, is probably not accidental; d. Exod. 20.4: "In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you."
16 The great puzzle of Myst. 5 is the absence, in the Eucharistic Prayer, of any reference to the Mystery of Salvation, Christ's historic redemp· tive work (incarnation, passion, resurrection). But since the Great
Prayer (I take it) begins here (eucharistesomen), the triple hoti (giving thanks "because of' or "for" three things) is highly significant. Here
"ought" implies "is." Even allowing for the possibility that the reference is to the ground of the obligation rather than to the expressed content of the thanks and is, directly, to the baptismal grace, nevertheless this passage points to the commemoration of Christ's work. The solution cannot be (F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western I [Oxford 1896] 469) that the Mystagogue "skips" and "is only expounding the salient points of the rite," for the repeated
"next" and "after that" show continuity and, while the "great gap" occurs between chaps. 6 and 7, chap. 7 (the Epiclesis) clearly follows immediately upon 6 (the Trisagion, Sanctus); moreover the anamnesis of Christ, the very heart of the Eucharist, is surely a "salient point."
The explanation probably is that what is being expounded is that part of the service which the congregation were allowed to hear and see, as distinct from the prayers recited by the celebrant in a low voice and perhaps behind a curtain (veil, screen). The prominence, in Myst. 5, of awe and dread shows that this document is not prior to the great liturgical revolution of the late fourth century which transformed the primitive Christian Eucharist: "The Eucharist, at the beginning a simple Lord's Supper in the private homes of the Christians, takes the form more and more of a court ceremonial"
(Quasten, Patrology III 4-5). This "byzantinizing" of the Eucharist involved chanting and, very soon, performance of the most sacred parts by the celebrant privately. Since, except for extensive additions, the great Eastern liturgies have remained stationary since the fifth cen-
MYSTAGOGICAL LECTURE V
the Lord for calling us, when we were unworthy, to so great a grace, for reconciling us when we were enemies, and for vouchsafing to us the spirit of adoption.
Then you say: "It is meet and just." In giving thanks we do indeed a meet thing and a just; but He did, not a just thing, but one that went beyond justice, in deigning to bestow on us such marvellous blessings.
Memorial of Creation: Sanctus (6) After that we commemorate the heavensp the earth and the sea; the sun and moon, the stars, the whole rational and irrational creation, both visible and invisible: Angels and Archangels; Virtues, Dominions, Principalities, Powers, Thrones and the many-faced Cherubim: equivalently saying with David, "0 magnify ye the Lord with me."lS We commemorate also the Seraphim whom Isaia in the Holy Spirit tury, we have probably the clue to Myst. 5 in the relatively modem form of, e.g., the Armenian liturgy as given by Brightman, pp. 412·57.
There the parts performed aloud before the screen are precisely those commented upon in Myst. 5-the Hand-washing with Ps. 25.6, the Kiss, the Dialogue introducing the Eucharistic Prayer, and the Sanctus
-while the Eucharistic Prayer itself is recited secretly, the clerks meanwhile prolonging the Sanctus with angelic hymns up to the Epiclesis. J. A. Jungmann noted an exactly parallel phenomenon in medieval and later times in the West, where the celebrant had reached the words of institution by the time the choir had finished singing the Sanctus (Missarum Sollemnia I [Vienna 1958] 172-73).
From the people's point of view, then, the Epiclesis (or words of institution) did follow immediately upon the Sanctus. Thus the Jerusalem liturgy very probably had a rich christo logical anamnesis, including, as Myst. 4 suggests, the institution narrative. But both
Preface and Anaphora may have been still variable in length and content. The Peregrinatio of Aetheria/Egeria, while very reticent about the Mass, is compatible with the hypothesis that it was quite simple in Jerusalem ca. 395 and that, so thorough was the preaching about the Lord's life, much could be taken for granted.
17 (Mnemoneuomen) Or "make mention of"; but "commemorate" brings out the literary structure; creation, redemption, the Institutionnarrative, the Saints of the time of the Church (5.9) are all contents of the same one Eucharist or Anamnesis; the Last Supper takes its place, a central place, in salvation history. And cf. "commemorate
God" in 5.4E.
18 Ps.33.4.
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saw encircling the throne of God, "with two wings veiling their faces19 and with twain their feet, while with twain they did fly,"20 as they chanted: "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of HostS."21 It is to mingle our voices in the hymns of the heavenly armies that we recite this doxology which descends to us from the Seraphim.22
Epiclesis (Invocation) and Consecration (7) Next,23 after sanctifying ourselves by these spiritual songs, we implore the merciful God24 to send forth His Holy
Spirit upon the offering to make the bread the Body of Christ and the wine the Blood of Christ.25 For whatever the Holy
Spirit touches is hallowed26 and changed.
19 Gk. prosopon, singular. Dix (197) interprets "His face"; cf. Origen, Peri archon 4.3.14. Myst. 5.6, however, envisages not two, but a considerable number of Seraphim, and as they "surround" God, it is not clear how all of them could veil His face.
20 Really "treading air," as they are apparently stationary.
21 Cf. Isa. 6.2-3, Sept.
22 Apparently explaining the "with me" above. The liturgy takes place in the heavenly courts; cf. ch. 4_ I read touto with the "I family instead of the untranslatable to.
23 Here, since the exposition clearly goes straight from the Sanctus to the Epiclesis, comes the alleged "great gap." But see n. 16 above.
24 For the phrasing compare "the invocation of the Holy Spirit," Myst.
3.3, and "the invocation of the adorable Trinity," 1.7.
25 So it is the Invocation which consecrates and changes the elements.
Compare 3.3; 4.3 and Greg. Nyss., In bapt. Chr. (PG 46.581): "The bread [after the consecration] is called, and becomes, the Body of Christ. So also the mystic oil, so the wine: of little worth before the blessing, they both after the consecration of the Spirit have a new efficacy." Now too there is a clear "moment of consecration"; in Chrysostom, Hom. 2 de proditione Iudae 6, this moment is when the Words of Institution are pronounced: "'This is my body,' [Christ] says. This word transforms the oblation." There is an Epiclesis in ApTrad (4.12) after the Words of Institution; there, however, it is not a petition for the action of the Holy Spirit upon the oblation itself, but upon the minds and hearts of the communicants (R. H.
Connolly, "The Eucharistic Prayer of Hippolytus," Journ. Theol.
Stud. 39 [1938] 367). There is a remarkably close parallel in (spurious?) Irenaeus, frag. 37 (ANF vol. I, p. 574); see also frag. 13. Note that in Myst. 1.7 the Eucharistic Epiclesis is an invocation of "the adorable
Trinity."
26 Or "consecrated."
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The Intercession (8) Next, when the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless worship, has been completed,27 over that sacrifice of propitiation we beseech God28 for the public peace of the Churches, for the good estate of the world, for the Emperors,29 for the armed forces and our allies,so for those in sickness, for the distressed: for all, in a word, who need help, we all pray and offer this sacrifice.
(9) Then we commemorate also those who have fallen asleep:Sl first of all, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that God through their intercessory prayers may accept our supplication. Next we pray also for the holy
Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep, and generally for all who have gone before us, believing that this will be of the greatest benefit to the souls of those on whose behalf our supplication is offered in the presence of the holy, the most dread Sacrifice.
27 (apartisthenai) One could translate "has found its completion in that sacrifice of propitiation"; but the latter will still be the spiritual and unbloody sacrifice. The text perhaps implies that the Myst. here skips, in its exposition, part of the liturgy, possibly the anamnesis of Christ's work. Compare Chrys. De prod. Iud. 1.6, where the Words of Institution "complete" (apertismenen) the sacrifice. To the objection that as in De prod. Iud. the Words of Institution effect both the Presence and the Sacrifice, so that the Myst. may understand the Epiclesis as effecting both, it may be replied that (1) unlike the Words of Institution, the typical Epiclesis does not signify the Sacrifice, and (2) the Myst. seem to view the Epiclesis as effecting only the Presence.
If the liturgy commented on in the Myst. did include an Institutionnarrative, we must revise Dix's remark (pp. 278, 280) that in Myst. 5
Christ plays a purely passive role, especially as in De prod. Iud.
Christ is Priest as well as Victim. Not that a Eucharist without an Institution-narrative is unthinkable; "Addai and Mari" probably had none, and there is none in what is probably a Eucharist, Didache 9-10.
28 The intercessions in this liturgy are unusually developed and prominent (Dix 201).
29 Plural: Theodosius and Gratian?
30 Cl. Beukers, S.J., "For our Emperors, Soldiers and Allies," Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961) 177·84, argues learnedly and persuasively that the reference can only be to the convert Visigoths planted in Moesia and, 3 October 382, granted the status of socii by Theodosius.
31 "Cemetery," a Christian word, is the Greek form of Latin "dormitory."
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(10) Let me use an illustration for an argument. For I know that many of you say:32 "What does it avail a soul departing this world, whether with or without sins, to be remembered at the Sacrifice?" Well, suppose a king banished persons who had offended him, and then their relatives wove a garland and presented it to him on behalf of those undergoing punishment, would he not mitigate their sentence? In the same way, offering our supplications to Him for those who have fallen asleep, even though they be sinners, we, though we weave no garland, offer Christ slain for our sins,33 propitiating the merciful God on both their and our own behalf.
The Lord's Prayer (11) Then, after this, we recite that prayer which the Savior delivered to His own disciples, with a clear conscience designating God as our Father, saying: "Our Father who art
32 Was the teaching, then, a novelty that met resistance? In the time of Cyprian (Ep. 39.3) "sacrifices were offered for" martyrs at their annual commemoration in the liturgy; but Cyprian speaks of their "crowns," and their passion was linked with Our Lord's. Presumably TertuIlian
(Cor. mil. 3) referred to the same custom. Martyrs are commemorated much earlier.
33 The Myst. clearly teach that the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice.
But in what sense? Clearly not, as was maintained by F. Clark (Eucharis.tic Sacrifice and the Reformation [Westminster, Md., and London 1960] 256-257, etc.) in the sense that, in the Eucharist,
Calvary is literally made present, for then the Mass would be neither (5.8A) a "spiritual sacrifice" nor a "bloodless service." St. Thomas
Aquinas emphatically rejects any such view; cf. Sum. theol. 3.83.1; 3.81.4, (ad 1 quite fits this picture) and passim. Nor (against Vonier) is a dead Christ offered; in the case of Christ the perfect participle has not this connotation, since His death was "once for all" and He is "the Crucified and Risen One." But the glorified Christ remains forever the Victim and bears the scars of His Sacrifice on even His glorified Body Gohn 20.19-29). Priest and Victim are the same
(Council of Trent, Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion symbolorum 1743). See A. A. Stephenson, "Two Views of the Mass," Theological
Studies (Woodstock, Md.) 22 (1961), 588-609. In the case of any other than Christ, Gk esphagiasmenon would imply that the victim was stilI dead.
Compare Chrys., Priesthood 3.4: "When you see the immolated Lord .•. and the High Priest standing and praying over the sacrifice, and the whole congregation empurpled by that precious
MYSTAGOGICAL LECTURE V
in heaven."34 Oh, the greatness of the mercy of Godl To those who had revolted from Him and been reduced to the direst straits He has granted so liberal a pardon for their crimes, He has been so prodigal of His favor, that they may even call Him "Father": "Our Father who art in heaven."
They also are a "Heaven" who "bear the likeness of the heavenly man," since God is dwelling in them and mingling with them."35
(12) "Hallowed be thy name." God's name is by nature holy, whether we call it so or not. But because it is sometimes profaned among sinners according to the words:
"Through you my name is continually blasphemed among the Gentiles,"36 we pray that the name of God may be hallowed in us: not that from not being holy it becomes holy, but because it becomes holy in us when we are sanctified
[hallowed 1 and our actions correspond to our holy profession.
(13) "Thy kingdom come." It is the mark of a pure soul to say without reserve: "Thy kingdom come." For it is the man who has listened to Paul saying: "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body"37 and has purified himself in action, thought and word, who wiIl say to God: "Thy kingdom come."
(14)' "Thy wiIl be done on earth as it is in heaven." God's heavenly, blessed angels do the wiIl of God, as David said
Blood ... " Often, like Myst. here, which remarkably anticipates the tone of Late (post-Thomistic) medieval theology, Chrysostom uses very realistic language. Once, however, (fortunately) he explains: "Yes, we offer (the Victim of Calvary), but (only) making the commemoration (anamnesis) of His death ... We offer, not a different sacrifice
(from Calvary), but the same; or rather, we make the commemoration (anamnesis) of that Sacrifice" (Rom. 17.3 in Reb.). An "anamnesis" is not a "bare commemoration" (Denz.-Schonm. 1753), for in the Sacrifice of the Church the true Priest/Victim is present, and the benefits of the once-for-all Sacrifice are made available.
34 Matt. 6.9-13. The Lord's Prayer seems to have been introduced into the Eucharistic liturgy after ca. 375. Only sons can celebrate the Eucharist. With 5.11 compare 5.5; 5.2.
35 Cf. 1 Cor. 15.49; 2 Cor. 6.16; Lev. 26.11-12.
36 Cf. Isa. 52.5, Sept.; Rom. 2.24.
37 Rom. 6.12.
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in the Psalm: "Bless the Lord, all ye his angels: you that are mighty in strength, and execute his word."38 In effect, then, this is what you mean by this petition: "As in the angels thy will is done, so on earth be it done in me, 0 Lord."
(15). "Give us this day our superessential bread."39 Ordinary bread is not "superessential"; but this holy bread is superessential in the sense of being ordained for the essence of the soul. Not of this Bread is it said that it "passes into the stomach and so is discharged into the drain";40 no: it is absorbed into your whole system to the benefit of both soul and body.41 By "this day" he means "daily," as in Paul's
"while it is called to-day."42
(16) "And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For our sins are many; we err both in word and in thought, and do many a deed which deserves condemnation. Indeed, "if we say that we have no sin, we are liars," as John says.43 So we make a bargain with God, begging Him to condone our offenses according as we forgive our neighbours. Bearing in mind, then, the disproportion of this quid
38 Cf. Ps. 102.20.
39 Whether we translate "superessential" or, with the PGL (s.v. epiousios), "essential" ("substantial"), the general meaning is the same: this Bread is the true Bread, which nourishes the real, inner or noetic self.
Cf. 4.5 and Origen (In Matt. 85, PG 13.1735): "This Bread ... is the Word-nourisher of our souls; (it is) the word proceeding from the God-Word." Cf. Origen, Prayer 27.1-9, esp. 7-9. The translation depends on whether our author assumed the Platonist or Stoic definition of substance there expounded. Aristotle, followed by Aquinas
(Sum. theol. 1.66.2), held against Plato that the heavenly bodies were composed of a fifth element (quintessence). For "superessential" d. epignosis in PGL, s.v., 1. Human soul and body provide a possible analogy for the relation of the Body of Christ to the bread.
40 Matt. 15.17.
41 A close parallel in Origen, Prayer 27.9. But what is surprising about the Myst., if John II be its author, is how little it owes to Origen.
For the physical assimilation of the Heavenly Bread, d. Cat3.3, 4, 12; Myst. 3.3, 7A; the unique relation of the sacramental figure to the reality makes it possible to say of the material element (almost) everything that is true of what it signifies.
42 Heb.
(3.13), whose Pauline authorship Clement affirmed, Origen hesitated over: d. R. P. Hanson, in JTS 49.25; Eus_ H. E. 6.25.
43 Cf. I John 1.8.
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pro quo, let us not delay or put off forgiving one another.
The offenses committed against us are small, paltry and easily settled; but the offenses we have committed against God are great-too great for any mercy except His. Beware, then, lest, on account of slight and trifling transgressions against you, you debar yourself from God's forgiveness of your most grievous sins.
(17) "And lead us not into temptation," 0 Lord. Is it this that the Lord teaches us to pray for: not to be tempted at all? How, then, is it said in another place: "A man untempted is a man unproved"?44 And again: "Esteem it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations"?45 But "entering into temptation" could mean being overwhelmed by temptation. For temptation is like a raging torrent which defies the traveller. Some people in time of temptation manage to cross this torrent without being overwhelmed by the raging waters, their prowess as swimmers saving them from being swept away by the tide. But if others who are not of the same mettle enter, they are engulfed: like Judas, who entered into the temptation of avarice and, failing to swim across, was overwhelmed and drowned-physically and spiritually. Peter entered into the temptation of the denial; but, though he entered, he was not drowned, but manfully swam across and was delivered from the temptation. Listen again, in another passage, to a company of triumphant saints giving thanks for their deliverance from temptation: "For thou, o God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us by fire, as silver is tried. Thou hast brought us into a net: thou hast laid afflictions on our back: thou didst let men ride over our heads.
We have passed through fire and through water: and thou didst lead us out into a refreshment."46 You see them celebrating their escape from the trap.47 And "thou hast brought
44 Cf. Sir. 34.9-10.
45 Cf. James 1.2.
46 Ps.65.10-12.
47 Touttee's conjecture, accepted by Piedagnel; d. Ps. 68.15, Sept.
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US out," he says, "into a refreshment": their being "brought into a refreshment" refers to their rescue from temptation.
(18) "But deliver us from the Evil One." If "lead us not into temptation" referred to not being tempted at all, He would not have said: "but deliver us from the Evil One."
The Evil One from whom we pray to be rescued is our adversary, the Devil.
Then, after completing the prayer, you say "Amen," which means, "So be it," thus setting your seal upon the petitions of the prayer which we owe to the divine teacher.
The Communion (19) Next the priest says: "Holy things to the holy." Holy are the offerings after they have received the visitation of the Holy Spirit; and you are holy after you have been privileged to receive the Holy Spirit.48 So things and persons correspond: both are holy. Next you say: "One is holy, one is the Lord,
Jesus Christ." For truly One only is holy-holy, that is, by nature; yet we also are holy, not, indeed, by nature, but by participation, training and prayer.
(20), After this you hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to communion in the holy mysteries, in the words: "0 taste and see that the Lord is good."49 Entrust not the judgment to your bodily palate, but to unwavering faith.
For in tasting you taste, not bread and wine, but the antitypical 50 Body and Blood of Christ.
48 Like much of Myst. 5, closely paralleled in Theodore of Mopsuestia.
49 Ps.33.9.
50 Or "the antitype of the Body"; d. the anarthrous Myst. 3.3. Cf. the Paschal Mass of ApTrad 23.1 (Lat.): " ... And (the Bishop) shall eucharistize the bread into the representation (Gk. 'anti type') of the Flesh of Christ, and the cup mixed with wine for the antitype (Gk., homoiiima, 'likeness') of the Blood ... "; d. ApTrad 32.3. Cf. Serapion:
"the likeness (homoiiima) of the Body of the Only-begotten ... the likeness of His death"; ApCo 7.25: " ... for the precious Body ... and Blood, the representation (antitypes) of which we perform"
(Quasten). After ca. 430, however, this usage was deprecated, and the Second Council of Nicaea (A.D. 787) equivalently forbade the
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(21) Coming up to receive, therefore, do not approach with your wrists extended or your fingers splayed, but making your left hand a throne for the right (for it is about to receive a King) and cupping your palm, so receive the Body of Christ; and answer: "Amen." Carefully hallow your eyes by the touch of the sacred Body, and then partake, taking care to lose no part of It. Such a loss would be like a mutilation of your own body. Why, if you had been given gold-dust, would you not take the utmost care to hold it fast, not letting a grain slip through your fingers, lest you be by so much the poorer? How much more carefully, then, will you guard against losing so much as a crumb of that which is more precious than gold or precious stones!
(22)' After partaking of the Body of Christ, approach also the chalice of His Blood. Do not stretch out your hands, but, bowing low in a posture of worship and reverence as you say,
"Amen," sanctify yourself by receiving also the Blood of Christ.
While It is still warm upon your lips, moisten your fingers with It and so sanctify your eyes, your forehead, and other organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer and give thanks to the God who has deigned to admit you to such high mysteries.
(23) Preserve this traditional teaching untarnished; keep yourselves unsullied by sin. Never cut yourselves off from the fellowship [communion], never through the pollution of sin deprive yourselves of these sacred, spiritual mysteries. "And may the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,"51 whose is the glory now and evermore, world without end. Amen. elements to be called "antitypes" after the consecration (Hardouin.
Acta Conciliorum [Paris 1714-1715] 4.372A. d. 369D).
51 1 Thess. 5.23.
SERMON ON THE
PARALYTIC
(Homilia eis ton paralytikon ton epi ten kolymbethran) Translated by
ANTHONY A. STEPHENSON
University of Exeter England
INTRODUCTION
[(I YRIL'S SINGLE EXTANT sermon is found in only two manuscripts so far edited, B (Bod!, Roe 25, xi s.) and R (Paris, B. N. graec. 1447 [Regius 2030; ca.
1100)),. There is a lacuna in B, but R is apparently entire.
The evidence, on balance, strongly favours the Cyrilline authenticity of the Sermon. The silence of the monk Alexander and the Armenian tradition,l which know only the Lenten
Lectures and the Letter to Constantius, is not very significant, for, unlike the catechetical lectures, the Sermon had no special interest for the Armenian Church and, unlike the Letter, it had no public interest. A comparison with the Lenten
Lectures strongly suggests authenticity, for the differences in style between the two works are explained by their different subjects, and the distinction drawn in Cat. 13.9 between the method of the Lenten Lectures and the devotional mode of the ordinary sermon (d. Procat. II), with its mystical/allegorical (theoretike, not "speculative") exegesis, prepares us for exactly what we find in the Sermon. When in the Lenten
Lectures Cyril yields to his attrait, we find there passages very like the Sermon, notably Cat. 13.30-31 and 10.13, which summarizes many of the themes of the Sermon. A difficulty, however, arises from the reference to "our Father's teaching" in chapter 20. Touttee, assuming that on Sundays there were several sermons preached by presbyters in ascending order of seniority, the bishop preaching last, assumed that Cyril was senior presbyter. But Cyril was not ordained presbyter until
1 The Armenian life is published by E. Bihain, Le Museon 76 (1963) 341-48 (cf. 333-38 for Cyril's literarY activity). For the monk Alexander, see above p. 145.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
after Serdica (A.D. 342), and in the last years before Bishop Maximus' death in 348/9 relations between them were probably strained.2 But see notes to chapter 20. The Sermon resembles the Lenten Lectures in its anti-Jewish polemic, but its attitude to sex and marriage in chapters 10-12, where the imagery of the Song of Songs is taken to apply to the Passion, is more negative than in Cat. 4.24-26.
Cyril's text apparently lacked John 5.4, since there is no reference to the angel, but apparently included verse 3b (d. ch.9).
The text of the Sermon, like that of the Mystagogical Lectures, is rather extensively corrupt and presents the translator with many troublesome problems.
For an appraisal of the sermon, see Vol. 1 (FOTC Vol. 61) pp.6-11.
2 Vol. 1 (FOTe Vol. 61), pp. 21, 22.
SERMON ON THE PARALYTIC
A sermon of our Blessed Father, Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, on the Paralytic at the POOll
(1) Wherever Jesus appears, there is salvation. If He sees a revenue officer .sitting in his office, He makes him an apostle and evangelist. Laid in the grave, He raises the dead to life.2
He bestows sight on the blind, hearing on the deaf.3 When, as now, He visits the public baths, it is not out of interest in the architecture,4 but to heal the sick.
(2) By the Sheep Market in Jerusalem there used to be a pool with five colonnades,5 four of which enclosed the pool, while the fifth spanned it midway. Here large numbers of sick would lie (unbelief also was rife among the Jews),.6 The physician and healer of both souls and bodies showed fairness in choosing this chronic sufferer to be the first recipient
I John 5.2, 3, 5-14. For the absence of verse 4, see above, p. 208. There had also been a reading from St. Paul to the Romans; see below at n.66.
2 Cf. Matt. 27.53.
3 Cf. ch. 9 fin., and Cat. 10.5.
4 As the Greeks specialized in temples, so the Romans' great architectural achievement was their baths. The baths of Caracalla occupied, with their gardens and gymnasia, over thirty-three acres. The five colonnades or porches of John 5.2 suggest that the Pool of the Sheep
Market (?) was a public bath.
5 As R has "there was the Sheep Pool," our two MSS reproduce the same divergence as the New Testament MSS. The pool is probably to be identified with the trapezoidal double pool of St. Anna, over a hundred yards long, recently uncovered by excavation in the property of the White Fathers.
6 It is tempting to emend to astheneia .. (and the Jewish nation was sorely sick)," the spiritual nature of this malady being only implied;
B has apisteiai (dative).
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
of His gift, that he might the earlier be released from his pains. For not for one day only, nor for two, had the poor man lain on his bed of sickness-nor was it now the first month, no, nor the first year-but for eight-and-thirty years.
His long-standing illness, rendering him a figure familiar to passersby, now made him ocular evidence of the power of his healer. For the paralytic was known to all by reason of the length of time.7 But though the master physician gave proof of His skill, He was rebuffed by those who put an unfavourable construction on His work of mercy.
(3), As He walked round the pool, "He saw." He did not elicit the information by asking questions, for His divine power obviated any such need. Not "asking," but "seeing" how long the invalid had lain there; "seeing," He knew; indeed He knew before He saw. For if in the case of secrets of the heart "He had no need to question anyone concerning man, for He himself knew what was in man,"s much more was this the case when it was a question of diagnosing diseases with visible symptoms.9
(4) He saw a bedridden man weighed down by a sore sickness; for the paralytic'S heavy load of sins aggravated the longdrawn agony of disease.lO A question addressed to the sufferer hinted to him his need: "Wilt thou be healed?" Not a word more; He left him with the question half spoken. For the question was ambiguous; it was because he was sick not only in body but also in soul (compare His later saying: "Behold, thou art cured; sin no more, lest something worse befall thee") that He asked him: "Do you want to be healed?" What mighty power that implied in the physician, making relief depend only on the patient's willing! It is because salvation is from faith that He asked "Do you want to be healed?" that his
"Yes" might give Jesus His cue. This "Wilt thou?" is the 7 Is this sen tence a gloss?
8 Slightly emending the text which conflates John 2.25 and 16.30, to give the required sense.
9 But Touttee renders: "qui ab exterioribus causis inducuntur."
10 A gloss?
SERMON ON THE PARALYTIC
word of Jesus only; it belongs not to doctors who heal the body. For those who treat bodily ailments cannot say to any and every patient: "Wilt thou be healed?" But Jesus grants the will,n accepts the faith, and freely bestows the gift.
(5) Once when the Savior was passing by,12 two blind men were sitting by the roadside. 13 Though their bodily eyes were sightless, their minds were open to the light. The blind men pointed out Him whom the Scribes did not recognize. For the Pharisees who, for all that they had been taught the Lawyes, had studied it from childhood to old age-had neverthe11 This, as Touttee also remarked, makes nonsense of the whole chapter.
The repeated charizetai is also highly inelegant. Cyril must have written simply "He accepts the will and bestows the grace," which some medieval scribe changed and interpolated to make Cyril conform to a later, Western orthodoxy, crediting him with: "He grants the will," i.e., the theology of Augustine and the Second Council ot
Orange. Though Touttee felt obliged to follow the text of the MSS, he thought it incredible; it contradicts the "semi· Pelagian" tenor ot the chapter, of the Sermon as a whole and of the Pre-baptismal
Lectures. Just above Cyril has said, "putting relief in the power of his will." Cyril's doctrine is clear and consistent. Man needs salvation, and he cannot save himself; only God, through Christ, can save him.
But while the Savior offers salvation, our reception of it depends on our willing it. Cyril sometimes inserts a further term, "faith,"
"believing"; but he holds that believing depends on ourselves. We choose to believe or not; in Cyril's terminology, "choosing, willing" and "believing" are almost synonymous. Cf. Procat. 8; "How are my sins blotted out?" "By willing, by believing"; and in Procat. 1 Cyril gives a doctrine of election: "Your sincere intention makes you called."
Cf. Cat. 1.1-5, where "grace" is neither an abstraction nor a quality, but the concrete gift bestowed in baptism, i.e., the forgiveness of sins and the impartation of the Holy Ghost. Salvation is like a race: in Procat. as in Cat. 1.5 fin., the candidate is "running for his life"
(or his "soul"). As Cat. 2.5 (fin.) and the very emphatic 7.13 show, Cyril is concerned to assert moral responsibility and earnestness against the teaching of certain Gnostics that men are good or evil, saved or lost, by nature. Cf. Cat. 17.37 (init.) and ch. 5 below. If this was the Jerusalem tradition, one can understand why (d. Introd. to Myst.) Pelagius was in 415 acquitted at a diocesan Council of Jerusalem and a Provincial Council at Lydda. Perhaps it was because he knew of this tradition that Pelagius chose Palestine as the place of his exile. It is not, of course, here suggested that Cyril was a Pelagian.
12 Adopting Touttee's conjecture pareiei for perieiei.
13 Cf. Matt. 20.30-34.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
less grown old still uncomprehending,14 now said: "As for this man, we do not know where he comes from"15 (for "he came unto his own, and his own received him not").16 But the blind men kept on crying out: "Son of David, have mercy on us." Those whose eyes did not serve them to read knew
Him whom the students of the Law failed to recognize.
Going up to them, the Savior said: "Do you believe that I can do this for you?" and "What will you have me do for yoU?"17 He did not say: "What will you have me say to you?" but "What will you have me do for you?" For He was a doer, a maker-a giver of life, too-not now beginning to do for the first time (for His Father works always, and He works with His Father);18 He was the maker of the whole world at His Father's command.19 Alone begotten, without intermediary,20 of the Alone, He questions the blind men, saying: "What will you have me do for you?" Not that He did not know what they wanted, for it was obvious: but He chose to make His gift depend on their answer, that they might be justified out of their own mouths. The reader of hearts could not be ignorant what they would say; but He waited upon their words; now His question was their cue.
(6) He stood by the cripple, the doctor visiting the sick man, nor is it so strange that He condescended to attend the invalid by the pool, for had He not visited us from Heaven? He asked him: "Wilt thou be healed?" by the question leading him on towards the saving knowledge, raising a question in his mind. A gift, truly, of grace! No fee was charged; else the patient would not have had the physician coming to him.21
14 Cf. Isa. 46.3 (Sept.). Partly missing in R. Cf. Cat. 4.2: "studied [the Scriptures] from childhood to old age and nevertheless had grown old still uncomprehending."
15 John 9.29.
16 John 1.11.
17 Matt. 9.28, another account of the healing of two blind men.
18 Cf. John 5.17.
19 A favourite theme of the Cat., e.g. 11.22,24.
20 Parallels, not verbally exact, in Cat. 7.4 and 11.7.
21 In this paragraph Cyril seems to be alluding to the greater cost of
SERMON ON THE P ARAL YTIC
He said to Him: "Yes, sir;22 for the long duration of my illness makes me desire health; but, desire it as I may, I have no man ... " Do not lose heart, my good fellow, because you "have no man"; God you have standing by you, One who is at once man and God under different aspects;23 for both must be confessed. The confession of the humanity without the confession of the divinity is unavailing, or rather earns a curse. For "cursed is he who puts his trust in man."24
So with us: if, hoping in Jesus, we hope in the man only, not including the divinity, we inherit the curse. But as it is, we confess both Goq. and man, and both truly: in worshipping
Him as God truly begotten of the true Father and as man not merely in appearance, but really and truly born, we receive a real and true salvation.
(7) "Yes, I do want to be healed, but I have no man ... "
Maybe it was because of his dire straits that Jesus came to his rescue. For the generality of the sick had relatives,25 friends too, and maybe other helpers. But the poor cripple, crushed by a literally universal want, utterly destitute, abandoned, alone, found the Son of God, the Only-begotten, coming to his aid.
"Wilt thou be healed?" "Yes, Lord, but I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool." No, but you have the spring itself. "For with thee is the fountain of life,"26 the fountainhead of all fountains. "He who drinks of this water,27 out of his belly shall flow rivers,"28 not of the water that flows downwards but of that water that springs having a visit from the doctor than of receiving treatment at his dispensary (iatreion). Archiatros means both a medical officer for the community and, by metaphorical adaptation, "the Supreme Physician."
22 This is Cyril's importation. In John 5 the cripple nowhere makes an act of faith. Odd.
23 For Cyril's Christology cf. ch. 9 below and Cat. 4.9 and 11.20.
24 Jer. 17.5.
25 Adopting Milles's conjecture (Oxford 1703), oikeious (B has oikeias) instead of R's "houses" (oikias).
26 Ps. 35.10.
27 Cf. John 4.14.
28 John 7.38.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
up-for the spring inspired by Jesus' draught, unlike man's puny leap which lands him back on earth again, carries us up to the sky;29 the water "bubbles up unto life everlasting."30
Jesus is the wellspring of all blessings.
(8) Why, then, fix your hope on a pool? You have Him who walks upon the waters, who rebukes the winds, who holds sovereign sway over the ocean; who not only Himself walked on the sea as on a firm pavement31 but vouchsafed the like power to Peter. For when the night was black and the Light, though it was there, was not recognized (for Jesus, walking on the waters, passed unrecognized in face and features; it was the characteristic timbre of His voice that betrayed His presence), they, thinking they were seeing an apparition, were frightened until Jesus said to them, "It is I, do not be afraid."32 Peter said to Him: "If it be Thou whom
I know, or rather whom the Father revealed to me, bid me come to thee over the waters"; and Christ, generously sharing what was His own, said: "Come."
(9) There stood by the waters of the pool the Ruler and Maker of the waters. To Him the cripple said: "I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool."
The Savior said to him: "Why do you await the troubling of the water when you can be cured with no trouble at all?
Why wait for the movement that is seen? More swiftly is the mind's command performed by the word. Only look down into the swirling power of the spring33 and glimpse there
29 Cf. Letter to Constantius 2.
30 John 4.14.
31 In Cat. 13.9 Cyril quotes "Thy way is in the sea" (Ps.77.19).
32 Matt. 14.27.
33 A combination of some of the following ideas: (a) Cat. 14.5 fin.: "But who is the 'sealed fountain' (Cant. 4.12), the 'well of living water'
(Cant. 4.15)? It is the Saviour Himself .... " (b) Since to know two of three proportionally related terms is to know the third (2:4 :: 4:?), the image in the pool of "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1.15) is the clue to the supreme and saving knowledge, that of the Father.
(c) As being relatively immaterial, the fleshless reflection of Christ in the pool is more like the Word than is His bodily form. (d) The water welling up from the depths of the spring symbolizes the Son streaming forth from the fountainhead (pege) of Deity.
SERMON ON THE PARALYTIC
God clothed in flesh; consider not the man whom your eyes see, but the invisible God who works through Him whom you see."34
"I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool." He said to him: "Why set such narrow bounds to hope, intent on some poor water-cure? Arise: He who commands it is the Resurrection."
Everywhere the Savior becomes "all things to all men";35 to the hungry, bread; to the thirsty, water; to the dead, resurrection; to the sick, a physician; to sinners, redemption.
(10) "Rise, take up thy pallet and walk." But first rise, cast away your sickness; afterwards you can put muscle on faith. Exert your strength first upon the bed that used to carry you; learn to carry away on a wooden stretcher those passions by which you were for so long carried away.36 He was ordered to carry his wooden litter by that Savior of whom it was said: "The King hath made him a litter of the wood of Lebanon. The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of purple, the inside paved with mosaic."37 The imagery represents the Passion, this imagery reserved in the Song of Songs for sober and chaste bridals.
For you must not, accepting the vulgar, superficial interpretation of the words, suppose that the Canticle is an expression of carnal, sexual love. No; it is the language of bridals with an immortal Lover,38 bridals pure and chaste.
If you do not divine the sense of the Canticle, go to the Book of Proverbs. Make an indirect approach, mounting by 34 Cf. the Bethlehem passage in Cat. 11.20; also 4.9.
35 Cf. I Cor. 9.22. Cf. ch. I above and Cat. 10.5, though there the list is mostly different.
36 Adopting Touttee's first conjecture, se bastasanta.
37 Cant. 3.9, 10.
38 While in classical Greek nymphikos means simply "bridal," sometimes in the Fathers it is a mystic word; cf. Greg. Nyss., Hom. 1 in Cant. (PG 44.772B) and (?) Basil of Ancyra, De virgo 50 (PG 30.768C).
Here the word not only does not imply but positively excludes any idea of sex; cf. English "nympholept" and (biological) "nymph."
By an extension of this mode of thought Cyril reads the passionate imagery of the Canticle as referring to the Passion of Christ.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
degrees to the Canticle. "Wisdom hath built herself a house," it says, as though speaking of a woman, "and hath sent her servants."39 Elsewhere it says: "Love her, and she will protect thee."40 This is not the love of woman, but of wisdom, which drives out carnal love. For where wisdom is stored, there carnal love is banished; not passions but wise thoughts house with wisdom. "They are become as stallions frenzied in heat":41 an urge unworthy of reason. If, then, in the Canticle you hear talk of a bride and a bridegroom, do not read into such language a reference to sexual passion (that would be to fall back to earth)',42 but sublimate the passions by the passionless.
(11) Meditate on the heavenly lessons of the Song, a Song that breathes chastity and tells of the Passion of Christ. In describing the Passion of the Savior, it even names the place:
"I am come into my garden,"43 referring to the Garden of His burial. It mentions the spices too: "I seized aromatic spices in handfuls";44 for the divine purpose reached its fulfillment.
After His resurrection He said: "I have eaten my bread with my honey."45 For "they gave him honey from the honeycomb."46 Again, referring to the wine mingled with myrrh, the Canticle says: "I will give thee a cup of spiced wine."47
Of the perfume poured over His head it says elsewhere:
"While the King was at his repose, my spikenard sent forth the odor thereof";48 for "when he was reclining at table in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came in and broke an alabaster box of ointment of precious spikenard, which 39 Provo 9.1, 3.
40 Provo 4.6.
41 Cf. Jer. 5.8.
42 For this expression d. Cat. 11.7 and ch. 7 above.
43 Cf. Cant. 5.1. Following Touttt~e's suggestion, I have changed this and the next quotation to the first person. Cf. Cat. 13.32 init.; 14.5 init., 11.
44 Cf. Cant. 5.5?
45 Cant. 5.1 (Sept.).
46 Luke 24.42 (omitted in most modern texts). Cat. 14.11 fin.
47 Cant. 8.2., Cat. 13.32.
48 Cant. 1.11 (12).
SERMON ON THE PARALYTIC
she poured over his head."49 So of the Cross:"
. a litter of wood"-the wood of the cross which carried Him-"the pillars thereof he made of silver." The commencement of the cross was silver, the betraya1.5o For as a beautiful chamber is crowned with a golden roof, the whole structure soaring upon pillars, so of both the crucifixion and of the resurrection of Christ the beginning was silver.51 For if Judas had not betrayed Him, He would not have been crucified. Therefore it was, as symbolizing the beginning of His famous Passion, "the pillars thereof he made of silver."
(12) "The coverings of purple." Therefore they also "clothed Him in purple":52 in mockery, of course, but fulfilling the prophecy; doing it under inspiration, for He was a King. However much they did it in a spirit of derision, still they did it; His royal dignity was emblematically heralded.
So, likewise, though it was with thorns they crowned him, it was still a crown. And it was soldiers who crowned Him; kings are proclaimed by soldiers. 53 "The covering of purple, the inside paved with mosaic":54 the devout children of the Church know Lithostrotos or "Gabbatha" in Pilate's palace.
(13) But this is a digression; when on the subject of the pallet, I was led on to speak of the litter in the Canticle.
He said, therefore, to him: "Rise, take up thy pallet and walk." The disease was long-standing, the remedy swift. The paralysis had lasted for years; the strengthening of the sinews was instantaneous. For the creator of the sinews, He who provided a variety of remedies for the blind, He who gave that incongruous salve by anointing with clay (for a plaster of clay, applied to sound eyes, deprives them of sight, but 49 Mark 14.3.
50 Cf. Cat. 13.9-10.
51 Apparently the glorification (Cross and Resurrection) of Jesus is symbolized by the golden canopy over the dais or by the golden roof of the throne room. Cf. Cat. 13.6, 22, where the Passion is a coronation.
52 Mk.15.17.
53 Close parallels in Cat. 13.17.
54 Cant. 3.10 (Sept. lithastratas).
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Jesus by means of clay bestowed sight upon the blind) ...
His power reached others by yet other means. 55
Where He simply said: "Rise, take up thy pallet and walk," what astonishment, do you think, seized the beholders! Yet, marvellous as the sight was, it was the faithlessness of the onlookers that was really strange. A years-old disease is healed, but an obstinate incredulity was not healed. Instead the Jews' malady persisted; they did not want a cure.
(14)' If they were right to be amazed by the incident, they should have gone on to adore the healer of bodies and souls.
But they murmured; for they were the children of murmurers, of those who twisted good into evil, calling bitter sweet and sweet bitter. It was quite in accordance with the divine "economy"56 that Jesus worked on the sabbath, performing deeds transcending the sabbath, that the deed might convince. It was because an assertion can be met by a counterassertion, while there is no answer to the deed, 57 that He used to heal on the sabbath; the lesson is, instead of relying on arguments, which only provoke counterarguments, to let deeds convince the onlookers.
(15) They said to him: "It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for thee to take up thy pallet." The Lawgiver was present, and another says: "It is not lawful for thee"? "Appoint, 0
Lord, a lawgiver over them":58 it was spoken of the Savior.
The man who had just been cured both in soul and body immediately retorts with a wise word from Wisdom.59 Unable to give a legal answer, he makes a brief one: "You all know," he says, "my long-standing sickness and the long years I was
55 The text and construction are hereabouts a little uncertain.
56 "Economy": a technical word: the divine plan or strategy; cf. John 5.17. Probably Cyril is playing on the word. Instead of empty talk,
Jesus acts; and His action is economical, since He heals by the one word "Arise." Similarly in ch. 15 Cyril praises the paralytic's economy of words. Or else translate: "It was quite deliberately that. ... "
57 In Cat. 13.8 arguments are met by counterarguments, while the fulfillment of prophecy convinces.
58 Ps. 9.21 (Sept.).
59 The invalid's spiritual cure implies enlightenment and the gift of wisdom.
SERMON ON THE PARALYTIC
bedridden, my destitution in my distress. Not one of you ever took pity on me, taking me and putting me first into the pool that 1 might be cured. Yet, when then you showed no pity, how have you now assumed the office of lawgivers, saying: 'You're not allowed to take up your pallet'? My answer, then, in a nutshell is this: 'I did it at the command of Him who cured me.' However little account you make of me, yet the deed should impress you. He applied no salve; He employed none of the expedients or remedies known to medicine.
He spoke a word, and the work followed; He commanded, and 1 executed His command. 1 am only obeying the command of Him who by his command healed me. For if He who commanded had been powerless by His command to cure me, 1 should not be obliged to obey His commands. But now that His word of command has caused a palpable and inveterate illness to disappear, 1 have every right to listen to Him to whom my disease listened and, listening, was ended.
He who made me well, he it was who said to me: 'Take up your bed.' "
(16) The miracule did not know the identity of his healer.
We have here a striking instance of our Savior's shunning of vaingloriousness. For after working the cure He turned aside to avoid receiving recognition for the cure. We do just the opposite. If we are fortunate enough to have a vision in a dream or to succor someone by the imposition of hands or to drive out a devil by invoking the Lord,60 so far are we from hiding our little triumph that, even unprompted, we boast about it. Jesus gives us an object lesson in not talking about oneself. After the cure He immediately turned aside to avoid recognition.61 He comes and goes as the occasion calls.
When it was proper to prevent the acclaim of the achievement, He withdraws; only when the crowds had gone did He re60 For these charismata characteristic of the early Church, cf. Cat. 1.5;
5.9,11; 17.37.
61 Cf. John 5.13.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
appear to add spiritual to physical healing,62 saying: "Behold, you are well: sin no more."63
(17)' He is a versatile doctor, sometimes healing the soul first, and then the body, sometimes following the reverse order. "Leave your sinful ways, lest something worse befall you," He says, through one teaching many. For the warning is addressed not alone to the man in the Gospel, but to all of us. For if ever we find ourselves afflicted by sickness, grief or trouble, let no one lay it to God's charge: "for God cannot be tempted by evil, and himself tempts no man."64 Each of us is scourged, "fast bound with the ropes of his own sins."65
"Sin no more, lest something worse befall you." Listen to the saying, Everyman. Let him who before was a fornicator slough off his lust; let him who before was avaricious become generous in almsgiving; let the thief pay heed: "Sin no more." Great is God's forbearance, lavish His grace. But let not His exceeding patience breed contempt. Do not make
God's long-suffering a pretext for continuing in sin. Take the cure for your carnal passions, so that you too can say, in the words of the lesson so appropriately read: "For what time we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in our members."66 If the Apostle says, "What time we were in the flesh," he was not speaking of our mortal envelope of flesh but of the deeds of the flesh.
He was himself, indeed, still clad in the flesh when he said, 62 Cf. epagagei in Cat. 10.13. In 10.13 the paralytic's soul is cured first.
As evidence against identity of authorship this is counterbalanced by the common interest in the question of the order of healing in Cat. 10.13 and chs. 16-17 of the present sermon. In Cat. 10.13 Cyril, perhaps using a classified collection of miracle stories, may have been misled by the order of events in the cure of the different paralytic in Mark 2.2-12, where the soul is cured first. Moreover there is quite a strong case, from text and context, for translating here: "to let the man know that his soul had been cured along with his body"; the cripple's soul has already been cured in ch. 15 (init.).
63 John 5.14.
64 James 1.13.
65 Cf. Provo 5.22.
66 Rom. 7.5.
SERMON ON THE PARALYTIC
"What time we were in the flesh." It is in the sense in which, when the deluge was preparing, God said: "My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh"67 (the spirit being perverted to fleshly appetite), that the Apostle says:
"When we were in the flesh."
(18) Let no one, then, be "in the flesh"; but, being in the flesh, let him not walk according to the flesh. The Apostle does not mean that, to avoid sin, we should withdraw altogether from the world, but that, being in the flesh, we should make the flesh our servant and not be ruled by it. Let us not be slaves, but masters, in our own house. Let us be moderate in our eating, not allowing ourselves to be carried away by gluttony. So, bridling our appetite, we shall govern also its henchman, lust. Let the soul rule the body and not be at the beck and call of animal instinct.
"Sin no more, lest something worse befall you." It is a warning to all; God grant that all ears may hear it. For it is not always that the fleshly ear, when it receives a message, transmits it to the mind. That is why the Savior, when addressing those who had "ears of flesh," said, "If you have ears that can hear, then hear."68
(19) Let everyone, then, give ear to Jesus and "sin no more."
Let us, rather, hasten to the great Pardoner. Are we ill?
Let us have recourse to Him. Is it a sickness of the soul that ails us? Let us become disciples of the physician of knowledge.
Are we hungry? Let Him give us bread. Are we dead? Let Him raise us to life. Have we grown old in ignorance? Let us beg wisdom of Wisdom.
Version (a)69 Version (b)69 (20) But our argument has led us to protract our dis- (20) But my sermon has betrayed me into wordiness, 67 Gen. 6.3.
68 Matt. 11.15.
69 After the first sentence the two MSS differ markedly. Version (a) following the textus receptus, that of Touttee and Reischl.Rupp, which follows B with Touttee's emendation of lalei to kalei ("summons').
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
course, and maybe we are standing in the way of our Father's teaching. The hour summons us to attend to mightier words than mine that, aided by mightier works, we may by those works send up our praise to God, to whom be the glory now and forever, through all eternity.
Amen. and I am, maybe, standing in the way of its practical lesson.
God grant that all of us may heed the Savior's words, that, aided by mightier works, we may send up, etc.
The "father" is then presumed to be the bishop, due to preach last.
But "mightier words" then seems fulsome and after the mounting emphasis, since ch. 14, on the contrast between words and deeds the announcement that the sequel is to be yet another sermon seems an anticlimax, all the more odd when the words/deeds contrast is continued in ch. 20 itself. One would expect the "mightier words" to be some quoted words of the Savior, as in fact R represents them: presumably the words "Sin no more," i.e., the practical lesson of the Sermon. So version (b) follows R but emends patrikes didaskalias
("Father's teaching") to praktikes didaskalias, "practical lesson, "moraL"
In the Origenist tradition the comparative importance of theoria and praxis, contemplation or study and action or conduct, was a regular question. The (b) version is compatible with a number of possibilities, smgle or combined: some form of confession of sins, the Eucharist,
Christian living in the world.
If patrikes is wrong, the Sermon could have been preached by Cyril any time up to 386.
LETTER TO
CONSTANTIUS
(Epistole pros Konstantion) Translated by
ANTHONY A. STEPHENSON
University of Exeter England
INTRODUCTION
li N THIS LEITER to the Emperor Constantius II,1 written shortly after his accession to the see of J erusalem,2
St. Cyril announces the appearance of a luminous cross (perhaps actually a parhelion) in the sky over Jerusalem. The genuineness of the letter, although not entirely unchallenged, is incontestable, apart from the concluding sentences, which, with their homoousion ("consubstantial") and repetitiousness, are obviously spurious.s
Cyril is known as the author of such a letter by Sozomen, Theophanes and the Armenian tradition. Moreover, the event which occasioned the letter unquestionably occurred, being attested by Sozomen4 and Philostorgius.5 The rococo style is certainly rather different from Cyril's ordinary manner, but Cyril could be ornate, and it is easy to imagine him producing this effusion after an evening browsing over the imperial correspondence in the Jerusalem chancery, to which he had just gained access. In those archives he would no doubt have found the original of Constantine's elaborate letter to Macarius.6 If Cyril took that letter as supplying the model for his own stylus curiae, it would explain why, amid the high-flown phraseology and elusive, breathless syntax of his
1 See Telfer's valuable notes.
2 "Epistolary firstfruits," chs. 1 and 7.
3 As J. Quasten, Patrology III (Utrecht etc. 1960) 368, and others have pointed out, the Nicene doxology was presumably added by a scribe bent on edification: an unnecessary attempt to vindicate Cyril's orthodoxy.
4 H.E.4.5.
5 Philostol'gius (H.E. 3.26), while aware that the apparition occurred at Jerusalem, unaccountably speaks of it as being seen in the field of battle at Mursa.
6 Reproduced by Eusebius, Vita Constantini 2.29-31.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
own epistle, it is sometimes so difficult to discover what is actually being said. If the letter were not genuine, it must be either a forgery or a medieval rhetorical exercise, but it would defy the highest skill of forger or student to catch so well the distinctive Cyrilline theological interests, the historical moment and the exalte style so natural to the occasion. In spite of one or two puzzles, therefore, the authenticity of the letter must be accepted. It is at first sight surprising that the apparition of the Cross at Jerusalem does not lead
Cyril to mention the comparable vision of the Cross by Constantine in 312. But to have done so would have been tactless, as Constantius had not himself been privileged to see the Jerusalem apparition; nor do the Lenten Lectures mention
Constantine's vision; a forger would probably have mentioned it. Cyril shows himself the more accomplished courtier by comparing (ch. 3) the discovery of the Jerusalem holy places on earth during Constantine's reign with the recent apparition of the holy Cross in the heavens.
Cyril's letter, written in 350 or 351, perhaps on May 7, is closely related to the political situation and the greatest military crisis of Constantius' life. From 18 January 350, when the usurper Magnentius was proclaimed emperor at Autun, until his decisive defeat at Mursa (Essek) 28 September 351, Constantius was faced with a very dangerous situation. The revolt was swiftly followed by the murder of the Western Emperor, Constantius' brother Cons tans, and the West immediately aligned itself solidly behind Magnentius.
Italy and Africa soon rallied to the usurper, and Vetranio, proclaimed Illyrian Emperor I March 350, though at first pledging loyalty to Constantius, was by May feigning (probably) alliance with Magnentius. About June an embassy from Magnentius and Vetranio proposed to Constantius, now freed from the war on the Persian frontier, that he recognize
Magnentius as co-Augustus in the West, at the same time giving his sister Constantia in marriage to Magnentius and
LEITER TO CONSTANTIUS
himself wedding Magnentius's daughter. Though anxious to avoid the fearful bloodshed of a civil war, Constantius did not feel free to raise his brother's murderer to his throne.
He rejected the proposals. In December 350 Constantius and Vetranio met in the presence of their armies. When the latter's troops declared for Constantius, Vetranio surrendered his diadem to him. It is perhaps to this that Cyril alludes in chapter 2, though various cities also seem to have offered
Constantius crowns, as a pledge of their loyalty, in the course of his progress westward to confront Magnentius.
After the murder of Constans, Constantius proclaimed himself sole Emperor; and, concerned for the dynastic succession, in March 351 he elevated his nephew Gallus to the rank of Caesar, changed his name to Flavius Claudius Constantius, and married him to his sister Constantia, thus making him frater Augusti.7
Magnentius was a barbarian and a pagan but, as soon as he appreciated the numerical strength and commitment of pro-Nicene Christianity in the West, he proclaimed himself a champion of Nicene Christianity. Hoping to win Egypt, he made overtures to St. Athanasius, who received his ambassadors and was almost certainly in sympathy, and perhaps in secret correspondence, with him. It is all the more interesting, therefore, to see St. Cyril addressing Constantius in terms of cordial, even flattering, respect and hinting (chs. 2 and 3) that he surpasses the great Constantine in eusebeia (piety, orthodoxy). For Constantius has been commonly described by ancient and modern Church historians as "arianizing," though Sozomen was probably right in classing him as a homoeousian.8 If so, his views on the Trinity were much the same as Cyril's own-and equally far from Arianism. Cyril may even have been right (he was well placed to know) in implying (ch. 2) that the Emperor was something of a 7 N. H. Baynes, in Cambridge Medieval History 1 (New York 1911) 60.
8 Sozomen, 3.18.103. See Vol. I, p. 52.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
theologian; briefed by his theological periti (it was only from late 351 to 360 that Valens and Ursacius monopolized this role), he may have understood the Problematik of the Trinitarian question better than some later theologians.
Socrates is probably antedating events by a year or two when he says (d. H.E. 2.26, 27)' that it was at this time that Constantius "in an ungovernable fury commanded [Athanasius] to be put to death wherever he might be found" and that the war between Constantius and Magnentius was paralleled by the ferocity of the war between the pro-Nicene and antiNicene Christians. But it is certain that from about the summer of 350 Constantius suspected Athanasius of conspiring with Magnentius against him, and the Eastern bishops were meditating the overthrow of Athanasius, who had only owed his restoration to the influence of Cons tans. The letter is, therefore, an important source for the biography of Cyril.
It must, however, be remembered that by 355 Cyril was at loggerheads (but over what-theology or cathedral rivalries?) with Acacius, who had Constantius confirm his deposition in January 360.
Why did Cyril assume that the apparition of the shining Cross was an omen of victory for Constantius? Because it appeared during Constantius' reign? Because it appeared in the East? Because Magnentius was a pagan? Even this last consideration, however, is too general to be altogether satisfactory. It would make much better sense-it would be more specific and pointed in view of the heavily underlined and repeated insistence (ch. 4) that the brilliance of the Cross outshone and "conquered" the sun-if, while the troops of Constantius marched under Constantine's Christian standard, the Chi-rho or labarum, Magnentius had at some period adopted some emblem of paganism, now synthetically represented by the Sun-God, Sol Invictus. But the epigraphic and numismatic evidence so far available is against this. While some of the titles of Magnentius found in inscriptions might
LETTER TO CONSTANTIUS
be construed as an appeal to antique, pre-Christian RomanitaJ it is certain that he issued some coins with a Christian, antiArian symbol. By no means all, however, of the relevant numismatic evidence has as yet been published; when the long-awaited eighth volume of Roman Imperial Coinage appears, it may throw some further light on this question and at the same time establish the date of Cyril's letter. The present state of the evidence points, on the whole, to 351, although Cyril's description of his letter as his "epistolary firstfruits" favours 350.
Probably the letter also contains an urgent, though diplomatically veiled, invitation to Constantius to receive Baptism, preferably (ch. 7) at Jerusalem, to avoid the risk of dying unbaptized either in battle or on the Last Day. For Cyril relates the heavenly apparition to the sign of the Son of Man in the eschatological discourse in Matt. 24, where it presages the coming of Antichrist and the End (Matt. 24.30). How else explain the passage9 where Cyril implores the Emperor to read and re-read, for his soul's good, the whole context, and especially the sequel, of Matt. 24.30? Almost half of the letter is meaningful only within Cyril's view of baptismal illumination as converting pistis (faith) into gnosis through the demonstration of the Christian verities by miracle and, especially, the fulfillment of prophecy. Cyril tells the Emperor, already quite an adept owing to his private studies (ch. 2), that for him the shining Cross, both as miracle and fulfillment of prophecy, supplies the demonstration which ordinary catechumens received in the Lenten Lectures. lO The Emperor is qualified to receive baptism. Within this pattern the exhortation (ch. 5) to "build knowledge upon faith" hints that the sacramental counterpart of the "gnosis" supplied by the demonstration is baptism, while the "salvation wrought in Jerusalem" (ch. 7) was, in Cyril's view, mediated by baptism,
9 Ch.6.
10 Letter, chs. 1,2,4 (end), 6. See Vol. 1, Introd., pp. 6-9.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
which he heldll to be an indispensable means of salvation.
Nor does this theme in the letter contradict Cyril's statement that in the portent in the skies Heaven had manifested its favour towards Constantius. For there was no law about the time. for baptism; only the danger of death in which Cons tantius now stood and the imminence of the End introduced a new element into the situation. In the event Constantius did not take Cyril's advice; he was, like his father, baptized on his deathbed by an Arian. But he took no risks either. At Mursa, instead of plunging at the head of his knights into the thickest of the fray he stayed in the town, awaiting news of the outcome, attended by Valens, the local ordinary, no doubt with a pitcher of water handy.12
11 Cat. 3.4, 10.
12 Theodoret (H. E. 3.1) relates that on the eve of one of the battles in the war against Magnentius, Constantius mustered his troops and urged them to be baptized before the battle.
THE LETTER TO CaNST ANTIUS
Letter of the Blessed Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, to the most godly Emperor Constantius, the seventh of May, concerning the sign of the luminous Cross which appeared in the heavens and was seen at J erusalem,1
(1) From Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, to the most Sacred and Godly Emperor Constantius Augustus-Greetings in the Lord.
This, my first letter from Jerusalem, I send as firstfruits to your Sacred Majesty, a tribute which it befits you to receive and me to offer. Herein your Majesty will find no effusive compliments, no appeals to credulity tricked out in rhetoric's finery, but the straightforward report of a supernatural, heavenly vision, a vision which guarantees to your Majesty the truth of the predictions contained in the Holy Gospels2 and now fulfilled by the event.
(2) Let those who have the means crown your Majesty's precious head, bringing many a golden diadem studded with gleaming jewels; we offer you no earthly crown (nay, to the earth earth's gifts return), but hasten to bring your Reverence knowledge of the marvels which, in your sacred reign, God has wrought in the heavens. If I speak of "knowledge," it is no first introduction to divinity I mean (rather is your piety3 a lesson to others) but only the certification of what you have this long time known. So may you, who already
1 The title is from the manuscripts, but is not part of Cyril's text.
2 Matt. 24.30; cf. ch. 6 below.
3 Or "orthodoxy" (eusebeia).
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
sit upon the throne of your great father, both face the foe with livelier confidence when apprised of the more dazzling diadems with which Heaven has adorned you and, as befits the hour, now more than ever give thanks and praise to the King of Kings, who, by showing forth these marvels in your reign, has given concrete proof of his benevolence towards your Majesty.
(3) For if in the days of your Imperial Father, Constantine of blessed memory, the saving wood of the Cross was found in Jerusalem (divine grace granting the finding of the long hidden holy places to one who nobly aspired to sanctity), now, Sire, in the reign of your most godly Majesty, as if to mark how far your zeal excels your forebear's piety, not from the earth but from the skies marvels appear: the trophy of the victory over death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Onlybegotten Son of God, even the holy Cross, flashing and sparkling with brilliant light, has been seen at Jerusalem.
(4) During these holy days of the holy Paschal season, [on the Nones of May]4 at about nine in the morning, a gigantic luminous cross was seen in the sky above holy Golgotha, extending as far as the holy Mount of Olives; not seen by one or two only, but clearly visible to the whole population of the city; nor, as might be expected, quickly vanishing like an optical illusion, but suspended for several hours above the earth before the general gaze and by its dazzling splendor conquering5 the sun's rays; for clearly, conquered5 by them, it would have been obscured-had not its own more powerful blaze eclipsed the sun. Immediately the whole population, overcome with joy mingled with fear of the heavenly vision, hastened to the Holy Church: young and old, people of both sexes and every age, even to the maidens closeted in their
4 Missing fTom about half the manuscripts.
5 Nikesas, nikomenos: the cross seen by Constantine in the skies carried the inscription "By this, conquer." Did Magnentius at some period adopt the symbol of the Sun God on arms, standards, or coins? See
Introduction.
LEITER TO CONSTANTIUS
homes, local and foreign Christians, as well as visiting pagans -all with one accord, and as with a single voice, extolling
Christ Jesus our Lord, the Only-begotten Son of God, the worker of wonders. For were they not the sensible recipients of an object lesson that the holy doctrine of the Christians
"is not in the persuasive words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power,"6 a doctrine not announced only by men, but now attested by God from Heaven?
(5) We citizens of Jerusalem, therefore, eyewitnesses of this astonishing miracle, have paid, and shall further pay to God, the Universal King, and to the Only-begotten Son of God, fitting adoration joined to thanksgiving. We have offered, and will continue to offer, fervent prayers in the holy places on behalf of your Sacred Majesty. Since, rather than bury in silence this heavenly vision, it is our duty to announce the good news to your godly Majesty, we have immediately made haste to do so in this letter, to the end that, rearing upon the sound foundation of your previous faith the knowledge afforded by this fresh demonstration7 from on high, with unshakable confidence in our Lord Jesus Christ and filled with all your customary courage as one who has God himself for an ally, you may boldly advance the standard of the Cross, riding with the very banner that streamed in the skies, glory's own device, the badge which redoubled Heaven's exultation upon the manifestation of even its semblance to mankind.
(6) In this miracle, your most Sacred Majesty, testimonies of the Prophets and the holy words of Christ contained in the Gospels find their fulfillment-though they will be more amply fulfilled hereafter.s For in the Gospel according to 6 I Cor. 2.4.
7 Pistis, gnosis, epideichthentonJ.; cf. apodeixis ("demonstration") above, ch.4.
8 Does this mean that the present vision is only a preliminary rehearsal of what will in the future be enacted on a grander scale
(the eschatological sign itself) or that the appearance of the Cross is
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
Matthew, the Savior, imparting the knowledge of future events to his blessed Apostles, and through them to later generations of Christians, declared plainly beforehand: "And then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven."9
When you take in your hands, according to your wont, the sacred book of the Gospels, you will find written there the predictions of this prodigy. I urge you above all men, Sire, to peruse this prophecy with the more anxious attention on account of the whole context of the passage; for the predictions of our Savior demand the most reverent study if we are to escape injury at the hands of the opposing Power.
(7) These epistolary firstfruits I offer to your most Sacred Majesty. This, my first utterance from Jerusalem, I address to you, my true and devout fellow worshipper of Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, our Savior-of Him who, in accordance with the divine Scriptures, wrought the salvation of the world in Jerusalem, here trampling upon death, by His own precious blood blotting out the sins of men and making available life, immortality and the spiritual, heavenly grace to all who believe.Hl May His power and His grace gladden and preserve you, distinguished by ever greater and more brilliant advances in holiness and proudly rejoicing in noble scionsll of your royal line. May God Himself, the King of the first scene in the eschatological drama, the remainder of which is now due to unfold? See Matt. 24.15-51.
9 Matt. 24.30.
10 Note the baptismal phraseology.
11 In the summer of 350 the usurper Magnentius offered peace to Constantius on condition that the Emperor recognize him as co-Augustus in the West, at the same time giving his sister Constantia in marriage to Magnentius and himself wedding Magnentius' daughter. Constantius rejected these terms. Telfer (p. 198) has pointed out that Magnentius' proposals imply that Constantius' first wife was dead by summer 350, when Constantius would consequently have been a childless widower. Some years later Constantius married Aurelia Eusebia, and Telfer suggests that at the time of Cyril's letter the Emperor had already announced his intention to marry again, and that this explains Cyril's reference to "royal scions." This ingenious suggestion is the likeliest explanation. Yet if (as Telfer seems to allow) the Emperor was probably not yet betrothed to Eusebia, Cyril would hardly have wished children upon him. Two alternative possibilities
LETTER TO CONSTANTIUS
Kings, the bestower of all goodness, guard and keep you, with all your House, for many a long peaceful year to be the glory of Christians and the world.
(8) May the God of all vouchsafe to us your most Sacred and August Majesty in good health, together with all your
House, for many a long and peaceful year, adorned with every virtue, displaying your customary solicitude for the holy churches and for the Roman Empire, illustrious for ever more brilliant feats of godliness, ever glorifying the Holy [and Consubstantial] Trinity,12 our true God, to whom is due all glory forever and ever. Amen. suggest themselves. Perhaps-an hypothesis concerning which there is no evidence either way-Constantius's first wife in May 350 was expecting a child but died soon afterwards in childbirth. Alternatively, when (March 351», marrying his nephew Gallus to his sister and bestowing upon him the imperial rank and name, Constantius may have announced that he would regard any children of the union as his own. Enabrynomenon ('proudly delighting'), however, and the fact that in 351 the Emperor was only thirty-nine tell against this hypothesis.
12 'Consubstantial' is certainly an interpolation. Probably most or all of this last chapter is spurious. Several of its phrases are repeated from ch. 7, the doxology seems inappropriate in a letter of this sort, and ch. 7 would provide a good conclusion. The repetitions are odd; conceivably ch. 8 is, apart from the "consubstantial," an alternative draft of his conclusion by Cyril himself.
THE FRAGMENTS
Translated by
ANTHONY A. STEPHENSON
University of Exeter England
THE FRAGMENTS
Four fragments that have been attributed to Cyril come purportedly from his sermons or homilies, of which the only complete and genuine example is the Sermon on the Paralytic_ (The sermon on the feast of the Purification [Hypapante] is complete but spurious.)! Even the three sermon-fragments printed below appear to be spurious;2 and a fourth fragment, which is generally rejected, has been omitted.3
Fragment I [St. Cyril of Jerusalem: from a sermon on that passage in the Gospel where the Lord changed the water into wine.]
He was desirous neither wholly to manifest His divinity nor altogether to conceal it (not to manifest it, on account of His contemporaries, not to conceal it, on account of those who would come after), but to underline the operations of both His divinity and His humanity, lest either the divine power be obscured or the human nature be disbelieved. For since that heresy would emerge which says that the body was a phantom come down from heaven (since the incorruptible nature would not have taken the mortal body's flesh or have admitted uncleanness, stain or spot), God, in order to convince the human race that He had truly become what
1 On this and other spuria, see the bibliography in Quasten, Patrology III 369, and PG 33.1183-1210.
2 Everything in these fragments points to a later time, that of St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Two Natures controversy: the subject matter, the dense, schematic, paragraphed argument, and the technical terminology. But d. Quasten, lac. cit.
3 Published by F. Diekamp, Analecta patristica (Orientalia christiana analecta 117; Rome 1938) 10-12; d. Quasten, lac. cit.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
we are while remaining what He was, allowed His flesh to suffer what belongs to the flesh.
Fragment 2 [The Same: from the same discourse.] He worked miracles, He displayed His double operation, the same Christ suffering as man and acting as God-not different subjects, though diverse modes of operation.
Fragment 3 [Cyril of Jerusalem: on the text: "I go to My Father."l] That the distinction of natures appears from the difference of the things said of Him.
I Cf. John 14.13, 28.