Introduction to the Mystagogical Lectures
INTRODUCTION
Authorship and Text D
HE FIVE MYSTAGOGICAL (OR EASTER) LECTURES were
delivered in Jerusalem, in the Church of the Resur- . rection (Myst. 2.4,7), during Easter Week (Cat. 18.33;
Peregrinatio 47).1
Authorship2 Before W. J. Swaans's article in Le Museon in 1942 the Cyrilline authorship of the Easter Lectures was in this century rarely challenged. It had not, however, always been so, and the case for Cyril's authorship has always rested on thin ice.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Cyrilline authorship was strongly contested by E. Aubertin and others.
What later encouraged the belief in Cyril's authorship was the (unforeseen) result of Touttee's new departure (1720) in numbering the two series of Catecheses consecutively 1-23. This
1 However, for the fragility of the arguments that connect these lectures with Jerusalem, see Supplementary Note below, p. 150.-Peregrinatio sive Itinerarium Egeriae, ed. E. Franceschini and R. Weber, Corpus christianorum: Series latina 175 (Turnhout 1965) 88f.
2 F. L. Cross, pp. xxxvi-xxxix; W. Telfer, pp. 39-40; T. Schermann, reviewing J. P.' Bock, Die Brotbitte, in Theologische Revue 10 (1911)
575-579; reply by S. Sa laville, "Une question de critique litteraire: Les Catecheses Mystagogiques de S. Cyrille," Echos d'Orient 17 (1915)
531-537; W. J. Swaans, "A propos des 'Catecheses Mystagogiques' attribuees a S. Cyrille de Jerusalem," Le Museon 55 (1942) 1-43; E.
Bihain, "Une vie armenienne de S. Cyrille de Jerusalem," Le Museon 76 (1963) 319-348, esp. 340 n. 73; A. Piedagnel, pp. 18-40; A. A.
Touttee, PC 33.136-142 (Diss. 2, ch. 3). C. Caritte, I believe, pioneered the research in the Armenian field. A. Renoux, "Les Catecheses
Mystagogiques dans l'organization liturgique Hierosolymitaine du IV· et V· siecle," Le Museon 78 (1964) 355-359.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
gave the impression that the two series were a single work, and since the first series of eighteen was dearly Cyril's, it seemed that the second series must be his too. Actually, however, in all the manuscripts the numbering begins anew with the Mystagogical Lectures. This changes the picture; the independent evidence, manuscript and other, for the Cyrilline authorship of the Mystagogiae is weak. Again, the significance of the alleged cross-references between the two series and of the promise in Cat. 18.33 of six (sic) Easter Lectures is altered when it is appreciated that the general pattern of catechizing at Jerusalem was to some extent constant and survived Cyril, so that both series of lectures continued to be given by someone every year.
Several liturgical elements in the Fifth Lecture probably suggest a date in the period 380-410. Here, however, the separation of the Mystagogiae from the Lenten Lectures favours
Cyril, who could then have delivered these Easter Lectures any year in the period 350-386. A more important objection to the CyriIIine authorship is the marked differences between the two series' expositions of Baptism and Chrismation (Confirmation), discussed below, though the last sentence of Cat.
16.26 provides a bridge between them in one important point.
Again (d. the advertisement "To the Reader," with note 47, vol. I, pp. 84-85), the Mystagogiae would not have been available to ph6tizomenoi.
But the nearly decisive evidence is that of the manuscripts.
In his recent valuable discussion of the question, Auguste PiedagneI, who cannot decide between Cyril and John (see below), puts the case sympathetically towards Cyril when he observes3 that only one Greek manuscript, Monae. gr. 394, ascribes the Mystagogiae to John alone, and of the four manuscripts (Vatic. Ottob. 86 and 446, Monae. gr. 278 and Vaticanus gr. 602) which ascribe them to "Cyril and John," the last three depend upon Ottob. 86. The decisive facts, however, are the 3 P.37.
INTRODUCTION
following. 4 In by no means all of the manuscripts are the Lenten Lectures followed by the Mystagogiae, and often, where they are so followed, the latter have no author assigned; identity of authorship has simply been assumed by modern scholars. Of the seven Greek manuscripts earlier than 1200 in which the Mystagogiae are included, the tenth-century
Monac. gr. 394 twice attributes them to John (i.e., Pr("SlIffiably Cyril's successor, John II, bishop of Jerusalem 387-417), in aUob. 86 Cyril's name has been inserted before that of John, and the other five do not name the author of the Mystagogiae. Since the names of famous ancient theologians act like a magnet upon works of unknown authorship
(catechetical lectures and works of a Jerusalem provenance naturally gravitating towards Cyril), it seems pretty clear what has happened: Cyril's name was first joined to John's and then supplanted it. Again, the Arabic codex Sinait. 309, which Bihain has dated to 909 (Piedagnel, however, thinks it is related to Monac. 394), attributes the Mystagogiae to John alone. The Syro-Palestinian version of the Lenten Lectures apparently knows nothing of Cyrilline Mystagogiae. The only works of Cyril known to the intelligent monk Alexander, who wrote of Cyril's life before 614,5 were the Lenten Lectures and the Letter to Constantius. Neither the Armenian version of the Lenten Lectures nor the tradition of the Armenian
Church shows any knowledge of Cyrilline Mystagogiae, even though, as we know from the Old Armenian Lectionary, the Armenian Church had a program of Easter mystagogical lecturing. Also significant is the comparatively late external attribution of the Mystagogiae to Cyril, the earliest witness being Eustratius ca. 600.
The internal evidence is, taken as a whole, hardly less decisive against identity of authorship. All scholars have recognized a difference in style between the two series. The 4 Bihain (lac. cit. supra, n. 2).
5 Alexander's notice of Cyril may be read in PG 87.3 (Paris 1860) 4069; on this valuable text see Bihain 321 and n. 6.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
jejune style of the Easter Lectures might be due to their subject matter and to a tradition of brevity in the Easter teaching after the rigours of Lent. But it is hard to believe that the theological expositions, always pedestrian and often threadbare, of the Mystagogiae are the product of the same mind as the Lenten Lectures, whose theological texture is commonly quite rich and whose often moving piety intermittently blazes into something like poetry.
While in sacramental theology the two series have much in common, notably the dualism of thing and sign, and while the conclusions about the relative importance of Baptism and Chrism probably do not greatly differ, yet the typology here is markedly different. In Cat. 3.14 and 17.9 (where the Greek is unambiguous) the dualism of Our Lord's baptism is that of simultaneous sign (water) and reality (descent of the Spirit), whereas in the Mystagogiae the descent of the Spirit is a subsequent event, to which Chrism answers. (See notes and appended notes below.) Again, in Cat. 17.13-15 Pentecost is the Apostles' Baptism and the Pentecostal fire is "the intelligible (noetou) water" (but contrast 16.26), whereas in the Mystagogiae there is not a word about Pentecost. Similarly
St. John the Baptist, so prominent in the third Lenten Lecture (see also 4.11; 10.19; 14.19), appears only briefly in the Mystagogiae (2.6).
It is, indeed, logically possible that between the Lenten Lectures and the Mystagogiae Cyril met an Ur-Dix and his theology of Baptism vis-a-vis Confirmation underwent an agonizing reappraisal-there are perhaps signs of this in (later strata of?)' the Lenten Lectures-but in that case he would probably have constructed a new synthesis.
Again, the Mystagogiae, both as a theological and a literary work, seem unworthy of Cyril. Compared with the praises of Baptism in the Lenten Lectures, set in a rich context of biblical theology, the Mystagogiae seem somewhat jejune and lame, as well as obscure. Awe and exclamations of pious
INTRODUCTION
wonder have taken the place of understanding. Cyril, on the other hand, commanded considerable biblical and theological resources, to which corresponded a notable mastery of language, a quite rich vocabulary and some imagination. The diction of the Mystagogiae is, by comparison, poverty-stricken;
I have deliberately, in my translation, left some of its infelicities unimproved.
Such judgments, however, are liable to subjectivity. The circumstances, subjects, and perhaps also the method of reporting differed in the two series.6 These differences would have led to some difference in style. If the difference between the Lenten Lectures and the Mystagogiae is as great as that between patristic and post-patristic literature, this is partly because the Mystagogiae, like the comparable works of Chrysostom and Ambrose, are a new literary genre. It does not in itself exclude Cyrilline authorship of the Mystagogiae, since their piecemeal, analytic, fragmented method was imposed by the artificial necessity of explaining the symbolism of the successive parts of the rite seriatim. For the main scope of the Mystagogiae was limited to the explanation of the symbolism.
The case for John's authorship is less strong than the case against Cyril's. For John seems to have been a cultured
Origenist of some renown, and the Mystagogiae do not seem to be very markedly Origenist.
Only this paucity of Origenisms in the Mystagogiae prompts reservations in ascribing them to John. In any case the double ascription may contain an element of truth. John is likely to have used the work of his predecessor. Catechizing is the responsibility of the bishop, so that there may well have been something like a diocesan script, subject to continuing revision.
6 There is even perhaps an outside chance that the text of the Myst· agogiae derives from a Syriac original; we know from Aetheria (lac. cit. supra, n. I) that there was a simultaneous translation of the Easter
Lectures into Palestinian Syriac. This might explain the plethora of genitives in 3.3; since in Semitic thought "the Spirit" and the "divine
Presence" were synonymous, two or three of the Greek genitives might be alternative renderings of a single Syriac word.
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Liturgical documents are often traditional and conservative; they are an especially notable group in stratified "evolved" or "snowball" literature; they may be the work of several hands; several "new and revised" editions may appear; they are almost certain to be highly stratified, many-layered. On the other hand, when it is appreciated that John's (?) Mystagogiae date from towards the end of the fourth century (they may be later than St. Ambrose's De mysteriis and De sacramentis), one sees that they belong to a period of liturgical experiment and innovation. For all its alleged conservatism, liturgy appears in history as developing considerably; e pur si muove.
The Blessed John, as he is styled in the Jerusalem calendar reproduced ca. 440 in the Old Armenian Lectionary, was
Bishop of Jerusalem 387-417 and is a personage fairly well known, principally from the correspondence of St. Jerome.
Here it is relevant to mention only two episodes. In the famous Origenist controversy of 393-398 Jerome (who stigmatized St. Cyril as an Arian) bitterly disapproved of the shelter and friendship extended by John to such champions of Origen as Rufinus and savagely attacked him as an "Origenist" in his open letter to Pammachius.7 Later the famous
English heresiarch, the lay monk Pelagius,8 came to Palestine and resided for some time in Jerusalem, where his voluntarist and anti-predestinarian teaching quickly became a live and divisive issue. Opposition to him was organized by Jerome and Augustine, who had recently condemned Pelagian teaching.; and in 415 Pelagius was twice personally examined in Palestine about his views, first at a diocesan council at Jerusalem presided over by John, July 28. When Pelagius's opponents appealed to the authority of Augustine of Hippo as 7 A long letter (an apologia) of John is extensively reproduced by St.
Jerome in his reply to it addressed "To Pammachius, Against John of Jerusalem" (the Contra Ioannem Hier.): PL 23.371-412 (al. 355-396).
8 Cf. J. Ferguson, Pelagius (Cambridge 1956), ch. 6; J. Brochet, S.
Jerome et ses ennemis (Paris 1905).
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decisive, John said: "I am Augustine here." Pelagius was again examined at a provincial council held at Diospolis
(Lydda) towards the end of December. John was present, but the president was Eulogius, bishop of Caesarea, the metropolitan see. At both synods Pelagius was acquitted after a rather superficial theological debate. For Pelagian tendencies in the Cyrilline corpus see the notes to the Sermon on the Paralytic.
Text Auguste Piedagnel has done a notable service to scholarship by providing a considerably improved text and a vastly improved apparatus. Only thrice, I think, have I departed from this text; twice (1.1, end, and 3.3) Piedagnel himself in his translation (a revision of that of P. Paris) follows the old text. Although the first draft of my translation dated from the pre-Piedagnel era, I hope I have, in revising it, caught all the textual changes. The text looks irrecoverably corrupt at some points; even the new text presents some difficulties to the translator. For greater precision in text citations, I will sometimes speak of the chapters of both series of the Catecheses, together with the Procatechesis, as if divided into five approximately equal parts, A-E, although these subdivisions are not indicated in either the Piedagnel text or this translation.
Fr. Piedagnel has (pp. 51, 58, 80) classified the important manuscripts into three families a, (3, y. But this nomenclature
(adopted in my notes) does not imply a grading of the manuscripts into a first, second, and third class. For, while Piedagnel judges a the best family, both (3 and yare of ancient lineage,
(3's Bodl. Roe 25 being probably and y'S Ottob. 86 certainly pre-Conquest.
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE
(See above, p. 143, opening sentence.) The general view, at least, is that the Mystagogiae were delivered in Jerusalem, in the Church of the Resurrection. The link with Jerusalem, however, provided by the internal evidence is a slender thread. In 2.7 the Mystagogue is developing St. Paul's argument
(Rom. 6.1·6) that Christians are baptized into Christ's death and so become "fellows" (partakers) of His passion. The Mystagogue proceeds, first quoting Rom. 6.5 and taking "planted" as a metaphor for burial (symbolized by the immersion in the baptismal pool):
" 'For if we were planted along with him by this symbolic enactment of his death, we shall also share his resurrection.' 'Planted along with' is apt. For since it was here (entautha) that the true
Vine was planted, we, by partaking, through baptism, in His death, have been 'planted along with' Him." So the manuscripts and the received text; the candidates were planted or buried "along with"
Christ because the Jerusalem baptistery adjoined the Holy Sepulchre.
A nice pastoral thought. Yet what a trivialization of the great theme in sacramental theology, elsewhere (in 2.6-7) expounded at so high a level of serious exegesis: that baptism is a mystical enactment of the heart and climax of the Christ event. Instead of reaching a climax, the development of this theme is here sacrificed to an essentially silly conceit. Moreover the conceit is left uncompleted in the apodosis, and, by contrast with the Lenten Lectures in such passages as 16.4, nowhere in the Myst. do we meet the note of pride in the singular glories of the church of Jerusalem. In our sentence in 2.7 what theology and context alike require is not "Since it was here ... ," but "Since it was in death (or by dying) that the true
Vine was planted .. ."-d. John 12.24; then the sentence continues naturally, "We by partaking of this death/baptism have become
'one planting' with Him." Since for the Vine death was only a planting, when it buds again, it includes all the baptized. The original Greek, therefore, was not entautha, but en tai tha, tha being an abbreviation for thanatai; for a comparable abbreviation, anon for (anarthrous) anthrapon, in an Athanasian manuscript, d. F. L.
Cross, in Journ. Theol. Stud. 49 (1948) 94. Abbreviations, however, seem to be normally marked by a line above them.
This emendation is confirmed by 2.4, where entautha seems again to be a mistake for en tOi thanatai, "in dying." Here, in a passage of central theological importance-for the Mystagogue is explaining the symbolism of the actual baptismal immersion-the received text gives: "You made the saving confession and immersed yourselves three times in the water and rose up again, also herein (kai
INTRODUCTION
entautha) hinting by a symbol at Christ's three days in the grave."
But the "herein" is redundant, and the "also" has no possible reference. Moreover baptism then symbolizes, not death and burial, but only burial; the candidates are apparently buried alive. If, however, we substitute en toi tha(natoi) for entautha, we get: "in your symbolic dying, hinting also at Christ's three days' burial"-i.e., by the tripleness of the immersion, to which the burial symbolism is confined. For the candidates, the water is a grave only in the sense that they die in it. Yet, while the rest of 2.4 as well as 2.5-7 favours our emendation here, the first sentence of 2.4 tells against it and suggests that the candidates perhaps "died" when they
"stripped off the old man" in 2.2.
The other link with Jerusalem (Myst. 2.4) is also tenuous: "as Christ was carried from the Cross to the tomb which lies in your view (prokeimenon)." This link would be severed if prokeimenon meant "which lay in view of the Cross," or "prescribed" ("predicted"?), or "above-mentioned"; or if the true reading were prokeimenon, meaning simply "tomb," or (since prokeimenon would be a familiar word to copyists of liturgical texts, both in reference to the eucharistic oblata and to the "proper" antiphon) proskeimenon, "the adjacent, or nearby, tomb."
