3: WORKS
3: WORKS
Apart from some fragments and some evidently spurious writings, there are only four works which are widely agreed to be authentic works of Cyril:
(a) The Sermon on the Paralytic, a meditative homily which Cyril preached during the liturgy, apparently while still a presbyter; for the words to ‘our father's teaching’, if the reading is genuine, seem to refer to Cyril's bishop. The sermon contains allegorical exegesis of a type which Cyril generally avoids in his later works. We shall return to Cyril's treatment of Scripture in section 5.
(b) The Letter to Constantius, which Cyril wrote to the Emperor in 351 (or possibly 350) shortly after his accession to the see of Jerusalem (his ‘firstfruits’, nn. 1, 7), on the occasion of the miraculous appearance of a luminous cross in the sky over Jerusalem during the Easter season on 7 May (n. 4). Cyril, surely remembering (though without mentioning) the vision of the Cross which heralded the victory of the Emperor's father Constantine over Maxentius in 312, represented the apparition as an assurance of divine support in Constantius’ war against the usurper Magnentius. The apparition is attested by the historians Philostorgius and Sozomen, as well as an anonymous Arian mid-fourth-century source.
The Letter is written in the most contrived court rhetoric, in marked contrast to the plainer style of Cyril's other writings.
(c) The baptismal instructions, namely the Procatechesis delivered to the candidates who at the beginning of Lent had just given in their names for baptism, and eighteen Catecheses providing these same candidates with the doctrinal instruction they needed before baptism. They can be dated to about 350, either just before or just after Cyril became bishop.
There is some evidence that the text of the Catecheses which has come down to us does not contain the original version of the work, but has incorporated later liturgical changes, which in at least one instance have been set inconsistently alongside the original version. At the end of the last Catechesis the reader is first given the impression that a final explanation of the rites will be offered shortly before they are celebrated:
But when the holy day of Easter comes, the day when your charity will be enlightened in Christ through the ‘washing of rebirth’, you will receive, God willing, the further teaching you will need: concerning the devotion and order with which the called should enter; the purpose of each of the holy mysteries of baptism; the devotion and order with which you should proceed from baptism to God's holy altar, where you will enjoy the spiritual, heavenly mysteries. In this way your soul will be enlightened in advance through instruction on every point, and you will learn how sublime the graces are which you will receive from God. (Cat. 18.32)
Yet in the next section we are told that these instructions will be given in the week after the sacraments are received:
After the holy and saving day of Easter, starting on Monday every day of the following week, after the assembly you will enter the holy place of the resurrection, where, God willing, you will hear further catechetical instructions. (Cat. 18.33)
There follows a list of subjects, much of which parallels the list in the preceding section.
(d) The five post-baptismal Mystagogic Catecheses, containing Cyril's main explanation of the rites of initiation, of which baptism, anointing with chrism and first communion form the chief parts. These are not part of the same collection as the Lenten baptismal instructions; some MSS, including Syriac and Armenian translations, contain the Catecheses without the Mystagogics; others contain both but show by the titles that they are regarded as separate works. (Some MSS also omit the Procatechesis.) The tenth-century Monacensis 394 regarded the Catecheses as a complete text, as the following note between the Catecheses and the Mystagogics shows (though the later Marcianus gr. II.35 and Ottobonianus 220, which reproduce part of the note, transfer it to the end of the second work):
Many other catecheses were delivered each year, both before baptism and after the neophytes had been baptized. But these were the only ones which certain devout people took down in writing while they were being delivered in the year 352 of the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You will find explained in them point by point (ek merous) according to the Scriptures all the essential dogmas of the faith which people need to know, arguments against the Greeks and the circumcised and the heresies, and every kind of Christian moral teaching, by the grace of God.
Moreover, since in most of the MSS the title introducing each of the Catecheses states that the instruction was ‘improvised’ (schediastheisa), but the same is not said of the Procatechesis or the Mystagogics, this change of style in the titles suggests that we are dealing with what were considered two or even three distinct works, since it does not seem likely that it was only the Catecheses which were improvised.
By contrast with the Procatechesis and the Catecheses, the authenticity of which has never been disputed, the attribution of the Mystagogics to Cyril has from time to time been called in question, first during the post-Reformation controversies by Protestant writers who were embarrassed by their strong sacramental teaching. Doubts were revived by T.Schermann in 1911, and more recently by W.J.Swaans, who gives a history of the debate, W.Telfer, E.Bihain, G.Kretschmar, A.Renoux, A.A.Stephenson and J. Wilkinson. Several of these authors attribute the Mystagogic Catecheses to John of Jerusalem, who occupied the see from Cyril's death until 417, though it is sometimes conceded that John may have done little more than to adapt the mystagogic instructions to which Cyril refers in Cat. 18.33. Stephenson however not only hints that the author may have been neither Cyril nor John, but even suggests that the place may not have been Jerusalem; but in this regard his is a lone voice. The main arguments which have been raised against Cyril as the author of the Mystagogic Catecheses are these:
(1) While the ancient MSS attribute the Catecheses to Cyril, none attributes the Mystagogics to him alone (though, of course, when they are attached to the Catecheses, as they sometimes are, no such separate attribution would be necessary). Some give no author's name at all; of the Greek MSS, the earliest (Monacensis 394) attributes the Mystagogics to John; another of almost equal antiquity (Ottobiensis 86) originally bore only John's name, with Cyril's added by another hand. Several later MSS attribute the Mystagogics to both bishops, but are probably copying Ottobiensis 86. An early Arabic translation in the tenth-century Sinaiticus 22 also carries the name of John alone. Whereas several fifth-century writers, such as Rufinus and Theodoret, quote the Catecheses, one has to wait until the second half of the sixth century before finding in Eustratius a quotation from the Mystagogics ascribing them to Cyril. By contrast, no ancient MS ascribes the Mystagogics to Cyril alone.
(2) Certain liturgical features of the Mystagogics seem out of place as early as about 350, when the pre-baptismal instructions were written; these include:
(3) There seem to be various discrepancies between the pre- and post-baptismal instructions. Most notable are the differences in the ways the two sets of addresses explain the gift of the Holy Spirit: in the Catecheses it seems to be conferred by a laying-on of hands imparting a ‘seal’ at the moment of baptism, and is linked with Pentecost; in the Mystagogics the Spirit is imparted by a post-baptismal chrismation with little reference to a seal, and reflecting not Pentecost but Jesus’ baptism. There are differences in style between the pre- and post-baptismal works: Stephenson finds the style of the Mystagogics ‘jejune’ and ‘poverty-stricken’, in contrast with the ‘notable mastery of language, a quite rich vocabulary and some imagination’ shown by the author of the Catecheses. While the Catecheses contain many verbal echoes of the Procatechesis, such echoes are much harder to find in the Mystagogics.
(4) The programme set out in Cat. 18.33 for the forthcoming post-baptismal instructions does not exactly correspond to the contents of the Mystagogics.
However, many of these objections brought against Cyril as the author of the Mystagogics disappear if they were not delivered in the same year as the pre-baptismal instructions, but some thirty years later towards the end of Cyril's episcopate. The liturgical features which seem out of place in the middle of the fourth century are much easier to accept in the 380s, while the dramatic events of those decades may account for a development in Cyril's theology. The most thorough case for the attribution to Cyril has been made by Alexis Doval.
The MS attributions are not decisive against Cyril. More than three centuries before any extant MS of the Catecheses, we have seen Eustratius quoting a passage from the Mystagogics and attributing it to Cyril; seven MSS of an Armenian florilegium quote the same passage together with the Cyrilline attribution. Moreover the fact that the Catecheses seem to have been better known in antiquity than the Mystagogics may be due to the different circumstances in which the two sets of sermons were written down. The note at the end of the last Catechesis in the Monacensis 394 codex, quoted above, indicates that the Catecheses were taken down by a shorthand-writer as they were delivered; if the Mystagogics on the other hand were notes made by the preacher himself, they would probably not bear his name, which would have to be supplied by the copyist perhaps centuries later.
The differences in the style of the two sets of addresses can be explained by similar factors. The title of each of the Catecheses shows that they were ‘improvised’, which means that the preacher spoke without a prepared text, and that his words were taken down in delivery by the shorthand-writer. The Mystagogics, on the other hand, are not described in their titles as improvised, and indeed their evident ‘jejune’ character suggests that what we have is a summary of the preacher's words. Often points are touched upon, but not developed. A clear example of this is the telegraphic summary of trinitarian doctrine in connection with the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus in the Jordan, ‘like resting upon like’. It is consequently a surprise when we read the pilgrim Egeria's description of the rapturous reception which the Mystagogics inspired in their hearers. Nevertheless there are points in the text of the Mystagogics where a point is elaborated on paper with emotive rhetoric, as in the preacher's exclamation of wonder at the grace of baptism:
What a strange and wonderful thing!…What unmeasured love this showed for mankind! Christ received the nails in his pure hands and experienced pain, and grants me salvation through sharing his experience without the pain and the toil.
The attribution to John now appears implausible. He was celebrated as a follower of Origen, who was attacked by St Jerome precisely for his acceptance of Origen's teachings. However, the attempt to prove any but the most tenuous Origenistic features in the Mystagogics has proved unsuccessful. Even A.A.Stephenson, who is convinced that Cyril was not the author of the Mystagogics, admits that:
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.
There is extant an Armenian version of a sermon attributed to John which shows little affinity in style or thought to the Mystagogics; moreover, the statement in MC 3.1 that the Son and the Spirit were ‘like’ seems to contradict one of Origen's tenets.
There are in fact notable correspondences between the prebaptismal addresses and the Mystagogics.
(a) There are common features of style. Favourite words and metaphors (e.g. those drawn from perfume) occur in both sets of writings. In both Catecheses and Mystagogics the vivid metaphor of falling over a precipice is used to express danger. Both sets of sermons exhibit a delight in poetic justice, as can be seen by comparing what the Catecheses have to say about the fate of Nebuchadnezzar:
He had nails like a lion, for he had stolen the holy things; he had a lion's mane, for he had been a rapacious, roaring lion; he ate grass like an ox, for he was like cattle, not knowing who had given him his kingdom; his body was bathed in dew, because he had seen dew extinguish fire but had not believed (Cat. 2.18)
with the Mystagogics’ account of the plight of Lot's wife, who ‘was turned into a pillar of salt, pilloried for all eternity’ (MC 1.8), and of hunters,
who expose themselves to wild beasts in order to indulge their wretched stomachs; to pamper their bellies with food they become themselves food for the stomachs of wild beasts…Avoid the races, a mad spectacle which unseats the soul. (MC 1.6)
Both sets of writings display a taste for word-play. This taste is evident in the last two quotations from the Mystagogics: being made a pillar of salt (stele…halos), Lot's wife was ‘pilloried’ (esteliteumene) as a reminder of the bitter (literally ‘salty’, halmuran) concerns of life. The spectacle at the races is ‘unseating’ (ektrachelizon) for the soul as well as the body. The same addiction to word-play can be observed in the pre-baptismal addresses. The Procatechesis contains this pun on the word ‘catechumen’ (katechoumenos), which is derived from the Greek eche (sound or echo):
Even now let your ears seem to ring (katecheisthai) with that glorious sound (echen) which the angels will raise when you gain salvation. (Procat. 15)
Similarly in the Catecheses Cyril finds an apt explanation for Manes’ name in the Persian word for ‘dispute’ and the Greek word for ‘madness’ (mania) (Cat. 6.24).
(b) There are also significant common theological features.
(i) Both sets of sermons speak of Old Testament figures as types of Christ. In the Catecheses Joshua is said to have ‘prefigured’ Jesus (tupon epheren) (Cat. 10.11); in the Mystagogics Moses, in leading the Israelites to freedom through the water of the Red Sea, is the type (tupos) of Christ who saves his people through the water of baptism, while the blood of the paschal lamb which wards off the destroying angel is the type of Christ's blood which drives away demons (MC 1.3). The same terms occur in both groups to express the contrast between the type and the reality: both speak of the reality as noetos, pneumatikos, mustikos, as opposed to what is soma/somatikos or phainomenos.
(ii) Both sets of sermons express a theory of the double effect which sacraments produce, namely on the body and the soul. In the Catecheses Cyril applies this analysis to the waters of baptism:
For since a human being is twofold, being a composite of soul and body, the purification also is twofold: incorporeal for the incorporeal, and bodily for the body. And the water purifies the body, and the Spirit seals the soul. (Cat. 3.4)
In the Mystagogics Cyril applies the same analysis to the Eucharist:
In the New Testament there is the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, which sanctify both body and soul. Just as the bread is suitable for the body, so the Word is adapted to the soul. (MC 4.5)
(iii) The very epiclesis theology which has been used as an argument against Cyril as the author of the Mystagogics is in fact already to be found in a less developed form in the Catecheses. The most developed trinitarian form of epiclesis is to be found in MC 5.7, in which God (the Father) is asked to send down the Holy Spirit upon the eucharistic bread and wine, so as to bring about Christ's presence:
when we have sanctified ourselves through these holy hymns, we call upon the God who loves mankind to send down the Holy Spirit on the offerings so as to make the bread Christ's body and the wine Christ's blood, for whatever the Holy Spirit touches is made holy and transformed.
Similar less developed epicleses are to be found in other passages in the Mystagogics: in MC 1.7, where as a result of the invocation of the Trinity the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood; in MC 2.3, where the ‘invocation of God’ gives exorcised olive-oil power to purify and drive out the powers of the Evil One; and in MC 3.3, where the invocation of the Holy Spirit changes ordinary bread into Christ's body and the muron into Christ's grace:
Beware of imagining that this is ordinary ointment. For just as after the invocation of the Holy Spirit the bread of the Eucharist is no longer ordinary bread but the body of Christ, so too this holy muron is no longer ordinary or, so to say, common ointment, but Christ's grace which imparts to us his own divinity through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Already in Cat. 3.3 the names of the three Persons are similarly connected with an epiclesis, in this case over the baptismal water, though as in MC 1.7 and 2.3 the roles of the Persons are not clearly distinguished.
Do not regard the font as ordinary water (me hos hudati litoi proseche toi loutroi), but regard the spiritual grace which is given with the water. For just as the offerings on [pagan] altars are ordinary (lita) by nature, but become contaminated by the invocation of idols, so by contrast after the ordinary (liton) water has received the invocation of the Holy Spirit and Christ and the Father, it acquires the power of holiness.
Some of these epicletic passages from both groups of addresses contrast the ‘ordinary’ material of everyday life with the material transformed for sacramental use. In the Catecheses the water of the font is not to be conceived as ‘ordinary’ (litoi) water; one should fix one's mind on ‘the grace given with the water’ (Cat. 3.3). In the Mystagogics the eucharistic bread and wine after the epiclesis are no longer ‘ordinary’ (litos) or ‘mere’ (psilois) bread and wine, and the muron is no longer psilon and koinon but Christ's grace. An elliptical construction occuring in Cat. 3.3 quoted above, namely the use of the verb prosechein (‘direct’), with the noun noun (‘mind’) omitted, is to be found also in the Mystagogics:
So do not regard them as ordinary bread and wine (me proseche oun hos psilois toi artoi kai toi oinoi). (MC 4.6)
(iv) Both the Procatechesis and the Mystagogics compare the rite of insufflation in exorcism with the kindling of a flame:
As goldsmiths achieve their effect by directing their breath into the fire through narrow pipes and blowing on the gold hidden in the retort and stimulating the flame underneath, so too the exorcists inspire fear through the Holy Spirit and, so to speak, enkindle the soul inside the retort of the body. Our enemy the devil departs. (Procat. 9)
For just as the breathing of the saints and the invocation of God burns like the fiercest flame and chases away the demons, so too the invocation of God together with prayer gives this exorcised oil such power that it can burn away the traces of sin and even chase away the hidden powers of the evil one. (MC 2.3)
Both groups explain the efficacy of baptism by Christ's contact with the water of the Jordan. In the Procatechesis the water is ‘Christ-bearing’; in the Catecheses ‘Jesus sanctified baptism by being baptized himself’, and crushed the serpent's head in the Jordan; in the Mystagogics he ‘imparted contact with his divinity to the waters’ of the Jordan.
(c) There are notable points of resemblance in spirituality expressed by the pre- and post-baptismal works.
(i) A tender sympathy with the suffering Christ is evident in both sets.
All the same, people can never weary of hearing about the Master's crown, especially at this holy place of Golgotha. For while others can only hear, we see and touch. So let no one grow weary; take up your arms against your enemies for the sake of the cross. Set up your faith in the cross as a standard against its opponents. When you are about to discuss Christ's cross with unbelievers, first let them see you make the sign of Christ's cross with your hand, and their objections will be silenced. Do not be ashamed to acknowledge the cross, for angels glory in it, saying: ‘We know whom you are seeking, Jesus the Crucified’ (Mt 28.5). Can't you say, angel: ‘I know whom you are seeking: my Master.’ ‘But’, he replies confidently, ‘it is the Crucified whom I know.’ For the cross is a crown, not a disgrace… You can see the place of Golgotha? You express your assent with shouts of praise; see that you never deny it in a time of persecution. Do not rejoice in the cross only in times of peace; preserve the same faith even in times of persecution. Don't be Jesus’ friend in times of peace, and his enemy in times of war. (Cat. 13.22–3)
What a strange and wonderful thing! We did not literally die, we were not literally buried, we did not literally rise again after being crucified. We experienced these things only in symbols and representations; but salvation we experienced literally. Christ was really crucified and really buried and literally rose again, and all of this he did for our sake so that we might gain salvation literally. What unmeasured love this showed for mankind! Christ received the nails in his pure hands and experienced pain, and grants me salvation through sharing his experience without the pain and the toil. (MC 2.5)
(ii) Both sets of sermons encourage a reaction of awe. The Procatechesis explains how the exorcists ‘inspire fear’ (phobon: Procat. 9); the Catecheses speak of the ‘truly great fear’ (phobos…alethos megas: Cat. 16.1) which is spoken of in the gospels. This emphasis on awe is more developed in the Mystagogics. Both the renunciation of the devil and the Eucharist are described as a ‘most awesome moment’ (ten phrikodestaten horan: MC 1.5; 5.4); the Eucharist itself is ‘the holy and most awesome sacrifice’ (tes hagias kai phrikodestates …thusias: MC 5.9). We shall return to the subject of awe in the section on Cyril's liturgy.
Other arguments have been put forward in favour of dating the Mystagogics to the last few years of Cyril's life.
(i) C.Beukers has argued that the prayer ‘for kings, for our armies and allies’ (MC 5.8) suggests a time when Cyril was in Jerusalem during a reign of two emperors, which would suggest either 364–367 or after 378; in addition the reference to ‘allies’ points to a period after 382, when the Visigoths became allies of the Roman Empire. (However it is possible that the mention of prayers for kings is derived from 1 Tim 2.2, and so has no reference to any contemporary political situation.)
(ii) It has been argued that, since St Ambrose's de Sacramentis, which was composed about four years after Cyril's death, seems to have been influenced by the Mystagogic Catecheses, there would be insufficient time to account for this influence if the Mystagogics were the work of Cyril's successor.
In view of the consistencies of style, theology and spirituality which we have indicated, the most plausible hypothesis seems to be that the Mystagogics are indeed the notes of instructions Cyril gave towards the end of his episcopate. Differences would then be due to the evolution of a mind over some forty years, and to the different circumstances in which the sermons were produced. The MS attributions are not decisive; however, if the Mystagogics were found in Jerusalem only after Cyril's death, the attribution to his successor John is not surprising.