Introduction
Introduction
I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE
MYSTAGOGICAL CATECHESES
The Procatechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem (c. aD 350-387) and the Mystagogical Catecheses, ascribed in the various manuscripts either to Cyril, to his successor John II (Ap 387-417), to them both, or to no one,' together with other Hagiopolite sources—Cyril's Baptismal
Catecheses (c. 351), delivered before baptism during the catechumenate,' the Armenian* and Georgian Lectionaries,* the travel diary of the Galician pilgrim Egeria, the Peregrinatio Egeriae,' and, possibly,
Macarius of Jerusalem, Letter to the Armenians (ΑΡ 335)°—belong "The critical edition of the Mystagogical Catecheses with French translation is
Cyrille de Jérusalem: Catéchéses Mystagogiques, ed. A. Piédagnel, trans. Pierre Paris,
SC 126 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1966).
Greek text is in PG 33, 331-1180. For an English translation, see ΝΡΝΕ, vol. 7, second series, ed. Phillip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971). A more recent translation of some of these lectures, including the Mystagogical Catecheses, is Edward
Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem (London/New York: Routledge, 2000).
*Athanase Renoux, Le Codex arménien Jérusalem 121 Vol. 2, Patrologia Orientalis 168 (36.2) (Turnhout: Brepols, 1971).
'Michel Tarschnischvili, Le grand lectionnaire de I'Eglise de Jérusalem (Louvain:
Secrétariat du Corpus CSO, 1959).
°The critical edition in Latin with French translation is Egérie: Journal de voyage, ed. Pierre Maraval, trans. Manuel C. Diaz y Diaz, SC 296 (Paris: Editions du Cerf,
1982). For an English translation see John Wilkinson, Egerias Travels, 3rd ed. (Oxford:
Oxbow Books, 1999). A new edition of Egeria in English is currently being prepared:
Anne McGowan and Paul Bradshaw, The Pilgrimage of Egeria: A new translation with introduction and commentary, Alcuin Club Collections (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, forthcoming).
°Abraham Terian, Macarius of Jerusalem, Letter to the Armenians, A.D. 335:
Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary, AVANT: Treasures of the Armenian
Christian Tradition 4 (Crestwood: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press and St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, 2008).
ST GYRIE OF JERUSALEM
to the immediate post-Constantinian social, cultural, religious, and economic transformation of the mid-to-late fourth century. In his classic study on the development of the adult catechumenate in early
Christianity, Michel Dujarier writes:
The peace of Constantine, inaugurated in 313, marks an important turning point in the history of the Church. From an illegal religion, Christianity became legally tolerated, and this position was soon transformed into one of privileged liberty. The Christians rejoiced, and rightly so, in being able to profess their faith without being harassed. But this change brought with it grave new pastoral problems, especially when it became the official religion instead of being only a permitted religion.'
Similarly, Alan Kreider has stated more recently:
... it is clear that by the second half of the fourth century we have entered a new era in church history. Christianity has come to be the religion of royal appointment, and its numbers—and its place in society—were changing rapidly. Membership in the Christian Church was now attractive in new ways, and it held out new opportunities for Christian influence. A few Christians publicly expressed hesitations with the newly developing order, but very few. Christendom—a Christian civilization with common understandings of belief, belonging, and behavior, and with widely shared forms of religious experience—was dawning.®
Scholars have often claimed that one of the results of this change was the decline ofan authentic catechumenate, presumably involving years of general preparation geared toward expressing and fostering
"Michel Dujarier, A History of the Catechumenate: The First Six Centuries (New York: Sadlier, 1959), 78.
"Alan Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom, Christian Mission and Modern Culture (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999),
42.
Introduction
a real conversion, in favor of what had previously been the period of final preparation, a limited period now consisting of six to eight weeks' duration as the season of Lent developed.? Thus, so it has been thought, the Church now had to accomplish ina short period of time what previous centuries had taken several years to do.
It is certainly true that after the conversion of Constantine, large numbers of people wanted to "join" the Church, but one must be very cautious in accepting some kind of "mass conversion" theory as the explanation for the form of the catechumenate in this time period.
Rodney Stark, for example, has questioned this approach, suggesting that a major part of the increase in numbers within Christianity had to do, among other things, with the larger number of women, fertility, and substantially higher birth rates among Christians in distinction to their pagan neighbors. Similarly, according to Stark,
Christianity's appeal to women, its high view of marriage for both partners, its prohibition of abortion and infanticide, especially of female babies, its offer of status and protection to women, and the fact that women were highly influential in the Church in leadership positions, were also strong contributing factors to its success in the Greco-Roman world.'? Juliette Day has also urged caution in attributing too much to the "mass conversion" theory in the immediate aftermath of Constantine, at least for Palestine, suggesting instead that the conversion and subsequent initiation of many was through chance encounters with monastics and not through participation in the elaborate catechumenal process we have tended to take for granted.'' Indeed, in spite of the apparent success of the baptismal
°On the development of Lent and its relationship to the catechumenate see Maxwell E. Johnson, "Preparation for Pascha? Lent in Christian Antiquity,' in Paul F.
Bradshaw and Lawrence D. Hoffman, eds., Passover and Easter: The Symbolic Structuring of Sacred Seasons, Two Liturgical Traditions 6 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 36-54; idem, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville: Pueblo, 2007), 201-18; and idem, "From Three
Weeks to Forty Days: Baptismal Preparation and the Origins of Lent,' Studia Liturgica
20.2 (1990): 185-200.
Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
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process in early Christianity, we should be careful not to romanticize it today.
Nevertheless, in the changed political and social environment after Constantine and particularly after Theodosius, the real development of the catechumenate itself within the so-called "Golden
Age" of the fourth century should be viewed as the result of the Church's seeking to ensure that its sacramental/baptismal life would have some kind of integrity when authentic conversion and properly motivated desire to enter the Christian community could no longer be assumed on the part of the candidates. In his short book on monasticism, British historian David Knowles describes this period saying:
... the conversion of Constantine [brought about] the swift transformation of the Church from a persecuted and fervent sect into a ruling and rapidly increasing body, favoured and directed by the emperor, membership of which was a material advantage. In the sequel, the standards of life and the level of austerity were lowered and the Christian Church became what it has in large measure remained ever since, a large body in which a few are exceptionally devout, while many are sincere believers without any pretension to fervour, and a sizeable number, perhaps even a majority, are either on their way to losing the faith, or retain it in spite of a life which neither obeys in all respects the commands of Christ nor shares in the devotional and sacramental life of the Church with regularity.'
In such a context, an organized pre-baptismal catechumenate, as we see developing throughout this period, becomes an absolute necessity. Nevertheless, it must be noted as well that this organized catechumenate represents both the rise and fall of the catechumenal
"Juliette Day, Baptism in Early Byzantine Palestine 325-451, Joint Liturgical Studies 43 (Cambridge: Grove Books, Ltd., 1999).
"David Knowles, Christian Monasticism (New York: McGraw Hill, 1969), 12.
Introduction
process itself, a process which will eventually disappear with the great increase in infant baptisms and especially with the theological justification for infant baptism later.
It is not only the catechumenate, however, that receives its most definitive form in these centuries. The pre-baptismal, baptismal, and post-baptismal rites themselves also begin to take on numerous elements surely designed to heighten dramatically the experience and emotions of those being initiated, elements of the rites as well as the Creed and Our Father often kept secret from the baptismal candidates until after they had experienced or received them solemnly.
If in an earlier time this disciplina arcani ("discipline of the secret") would probably have been a practical necessity in a world largely hostile to Christianity, such an emphasis now, according to Georg
Kretschmar, was due more to dramatic effect and tension, to impress upon the candidates the seriousness of the step they were taking.'*
The question is often raised here as to whether or not the Church of this time period was consciously borrowing from the numerous contemporary Greco-Roman mystery religions available to it from the wider culture. Edward Yarnold answers this question in the following manner:
The answer perhaps is that the rites themselves were hardly influenced but the explanation given of them began to emphasize the element of mystery and fear. ... One wonders whether
Constantine was responsible for this development. In his gradual conversion from Sun-worship (presumably tinged with Mithraism) to Christianity, he seems to have wanted his temple at Jerusalem [i.e., the Holy Sepulchre which he built] to be the Christian equivalent of a mystery shrine. Eusebius' account of Constantine' baptism in 337, written shortly after the event, contains several terms borrowed from the vocabulary of the '3Georg Kretschmar, "Die Geschichte des Taufgottesdienstes in der alten Kirche," in Karl Ferdinand Miiller and Walter Blankenburg, eds,. Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes, vol. 5 (Kassel: J. Stauda-Verlag 1970), 1-348.
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mysteries. It was at Jerusalem that the veneration of the Christian sacred objects (the cross, Calvary, the tomb) began and apparently the practice of mystagogic catechesis began here too.
Cyril [of Jerusalem] applied to his sermons the name mystagogia, with all its pagan associations. "*
II. JERUSALEM AND ITs IMPORTANCE'"
Within the context summarized above, it would be impossible to overestimate the importance of Jerusalem in the development of Christianity in general and Christian liturgy specifically in the fourth and fifth centuries. During these years the importance of Jerusalem as a Christian metropolis rapidly increased. Initially, in the decades immediately following Jesus' death and resurrection and the scattering of his disciples, the small Christian community there was poverty-stricken and stood somewhat apart from the mainstream of Church life. A generation had barely passed before the city ceased also to be the center of Judaism. The city, including especially the Temple, was destroyed in ΑΡ 7ο, and after the Bar
Kochba revolt of 132 was finally razed to the ground. On its ruins the Emperor Hadrian founded a Roman city, "Aelia Capitolina," in honor of the emperor's second name (Aelius) and the three "Capitoline" gods, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. In the newly founded city, the ancient location of the Temple was now covered by a forum and a capitol. Only very gradually did Jerusalem assume an important
"AIRI, 66. See also Anscar Chupungco, "Baptism in the Early Church and its Cultural Settings,' in Worship and Culture in Dialogue, ed. S. A. Sauffer (Geneva:
Department for Theology and Studies, Lutheran World Federation, 1994), 39-56. For theological and ritual parallels between mystery religion initiation rites, see Apuleius,
The Transformations of Lucius, Otherwise Known as The Golden Ass, trans. Robert Graves (1951; repr., New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 277-86.
''This section on Jerusalem and its importance is a partial revision of Cross's edition, xiii-xix, updated in light of more recent scholarship, namely, John Baldovin,
The Urban Character of Christian Worship, idem, Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem, and Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, 8-21.
Introduction
place in Christian history, and from then on it was the home of a purely Gentile Christian community. In the third century we hear of Christian bishops. But far from having any position of special privilege as occupants of the throne of the mother church of Christianity, they were subject to the authority of the neighboring see of Caesarea.
It was not until the fourth century that Jerusalem rose to a position of prominence. In 325 Canon 7 of the Council of Nicea stated that on the ground of "custom and ancient tradition" its bishop should have the place of special honor, but without prejudice to the proper dignity of the metropolitan see of Caesarea.'® Later in the century a struggle began in which Jerusalem strove to gain her ecclesiastical independence. Victory was achieved through the ruthless methods of Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem from 420 to 458. At the Council of Ephesus (431) he maintained that even Antioch ought to be subject to the "Apostolic see of Jerusalem," while at Chalcedon in 451 he at last secured for Jerusalem the coveted patriarchal rank, even though the term "patriarch" was not immediately used for the bishop of Jerusalem.*"
The unique position which Jerusalem came to fill in the Christian consciousness arose from its association with the various events in the life of Christ. The holy places won the interest of Constantine and his mother, Helena, who visited the city in 326. Important sites were crowned with new churches, built under imperial supervision and at public expense: in Jerusalem itself, on the Mount of Olives, and at Bethlehem. At Jerusalem the more important was a complex of buildings erected over the scene of the Lord's passion. From the full
'«Ἐπειδὴ συνήθεια κεκράτηκε καὶ παράδοσις ἀρχαία, ὥστε τὸν ἐν Αἰλίᾳ ἔπισκοπον τινᾶσθι, ἐχέτω τὴν ἀκολουθίαν τῆς τιμῆς, τῇ µητροπόλει σωζοµένου τοῦ οἰκεῖου, ἀξιώματος. Can. 7. ["Since custom and ancient tradition have prevailed that the Bishop of Zilia [i.e., Jerusalem] should be honoured, let him, saving its due dignity to the Metropolis, have the next place of honour" (NPNF? 14:17)—Ed.]
"See Ernest Honigman, "Juvenal of Jerusalem,' Dumbarton Oaks Papers 5 (1950): 209-79, here at 274-75; and The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, trans. with introduction and notes by Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, Translated Texts for Historians 45 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 10-12, and 24411.
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account in Eusebius'* we deduce that it consisted of three structures: the Anastasis, a round building, erected over the site of the Holy
Sepulchre; the Martyrium, a much larger oblong basilica on the spot where the cross was allegedly found; and the Calvary, or Golgotha, a small open air structure or chapel on the supposed site of the crucifixion. These buildings were begun shortly after the emperor's visit.
In 335, to mark Constantine's Tricennalia, a large council was summoned to Jerusalem and the church was solemnly dedicated."
This new interest in the holy places, fostered by imperial patronage, soon attracted innumerable pilgrims. Christians from far and wide were filled with a desire to worship at the very sites where Jesus had lived. Nowhere else in the Christian world were there such associations; and a visit there alone could bring the believer into historic contact with the events of the gospel. Moreover, Palestine possessed two further attractions. It contained the chief sites associated with the patriarchs and prophets and kings of the Old Testament, sites in which Constantine had also shown interest. And it was quite near to Egypt, which, with its rapidly developing monastic communities, was soon to become an object of hardly less interest to pious travelers than Palestine itself as "the second holy land" (L. Duchesne). A stream of Roman women of noble family was drawn to a life of devotion in Palestine, largely under the influence of Jerome. Melania the Elder, a young Roman widow of Spanish descent, reached Palestine in 371 and, with the material help of one of her sons, founded a large convent for nuns where she was to foster the religious life for over twenty-five years. In August 385 Jerome and his younger brother,
Paulinian, set out from Rome for their long stay in the East, arriving in Palestine in 386. Here they were joined by Paula and her daughter,
Eustochium, Paula being specially commended by Jerome for her refusal to be received by the proconsul before she had visited the holy places.*® Their enthusiasm is reflected in the glowing account that Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3.23-30.
Tbid., 4.43.
"Jerome, Ep. 108.9. The whole letter is a long encomium of Paula.
Introduction
they sent from their newly found paradise to their friend Marcella, urging her to leave Rome and join them.'
The whole pilgrimage movement was given new and material encouragement by Emperor Theodosius the Great, even if the account of his own pilgrimage to Jerusalem given by Cedrenus" is without historical basis. Although the earliest extant account ofa pilgrim to Jerusalem is that of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, ap 333, the last decade of the fourth century witnessed what has now become the best known of all the pilgrimages. In the years between 381 and 284"
Egeria (formerly "Etheria" or "Silvia'), possibly a nun from Galicia, reached Palestine after a long voyage presumably from Spain. Her detailed record, with its account of daily prayer and of the ceremonies of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, together with other feasts and seasons, makes the Peregrinatio Egeriae one of the most important liturgical documents of the fourth century."
III. THE RITES OF CHRISTIAN INITIATION AT JERUSALEM:
BAPTISM, CHRISMATION, AND THE EUCHARIST
One notable consequence of these pilgrimages was that Jerusalem became a center of liturgical influence second to none throughout the Christian world, both as an exporter of liturgical practices elsewhere, and as an importer of practices as well.*° Thanks to the multiple Jerusalem liturgical sources we possess, we have been able to reconstruct the various liturgies in Jerusalem quite easily. Common and widespread practices such as, for example, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, the procession with palms on Palm Sunday,
*"erome, Ep. 46.
22DG 121:617A.
For an English translation see Wilkinson, Egerias Travels, 22-33.
?4For discussion of the date of Εσετίας pilgrimage see P. Devos, "La date du voyage d'Egérie; Analecta Bollandiana 85 (1967): 165-94.
5On Egeria and her importance see above, note 6.
See Thomas Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN:
Pueblo, 1986), 44-45.
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and the veneration of the cross on Good Friday, are all attested for the first time at Jerusalem by Egeria, and her witness to what has been termed both the "cathedral" and "monastic" liturgy of the hours in the late fourth century is also invaluable.
With regard to baptism, chrismation, and the Eucharist specifically, the Jerusalem sources allow us to construct the following picture. At the beginning of Lent, the bishop or a presbyter presented an introductory lecture (the procatechesis) to those called photizomenoi
("those to be enlightened"), and during Lent he delivered a series of eighteen pre-baptismal catecheses, focusing primarily (numbers
4-18) on the contents and meaning of the Creed, which the photizomenoi received after five weeks of teaching and were then to recite back to the bishop on the morning of Palm Sunday at the start of Great Week."' The Peregrinatio Egeriae is especially helpful here in providing the overall context of how this process took place each day, including daily exorcisms, during the eight weeks of Lent in late fourth-century Jerusalem:
(Chapter 45): I feel I should add something about the way they instruct those who are to be baptized at Easter. Names must be given in before the first day of Lent, which means that a presbyter takes down all the names before the start of the eight weeks for which Lent lasts here. ... Once the priest has all the names, on the second day of Lent at the start of the eight weeks, the bishops chair is placed in the middle of the Great Church, the Martyrium [i.e., the Holy Sepulchre], the presbyters sit in chairs on either side of him, and all the clergy stand. Then one by one those seeking baptism are brought up, men coming with *'Greek text is in PG 33:331-1180. For an English translation see NPNF" 7. A more recent translation of some of these lectures, including the Mystagogical Catecheses, is
Edward Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem (London/New York: Routledge, 2000). See also Maxwell E. Johnson, "On Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem,' in Essays in Early Eastern Initiation, ed. Paul Bradshaw,
Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study 8 (Bramcote: Grove Books Ltd., 1988), 18-30.
Introduction
their [god]fathers and women with their [god]mothers. As they come in one by one, the bishop asks their neighbours questions about them: "Is this person leading a good life? Does he respect his parents? Is he a drunkard or a boaster?" He asks about all the serious human vices. And if his inquiries show that anyone has not committed any of these misdeeds, he himself puts down his name; but if someone is guilty he is told to go away, and the bishop tells him that he is to amend his ways before he may come to the font.
(Chapter 46): They have here the custom that those who are preparing for baptism during the season of the Lenten fast go to be exorcized by the clergy first thing in the morning, directly after the morning dismissal in the Anastasis. As soon as that has taken place, the bishop's chair is placed in the Great Church, the Martyrium, and all those to be baptized, the men and the women, sit round him in a circle.... His [i.e., the bishop's] subject is God's Law; during the forty days he goes through the whole Bible, beginning with Genesis, and first relating the literal meaning of each passage, then interpreting its spiritual meaning. He also teaches them at this time all about the resurrection and the faith. And this is called catechesis. After five weeks' teaching they receive the Creed, whose content he explains in the same way as he explained the Scriptures, first literally and then spiritually.... At nine o'clock they are dismissed from Catechesis, and the bishop is taken with singing straight to the Anastasis. So the dismissal is at nine, which makes three hours' teaching a day for seven weeks. But in the eighth, known as the Great Week, there is no time for them to have their teaching if they are to carry out all the services. ... So when seven weeks have gone by . .. the bishop comes early into the Great
Church, the Martyrium. His chair is placed at the back of the apse, behind the altar, and one by one the candidates go up to the bishop, men with their [god]fathers and women with their
ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
[god]mothers, and repeat the Creed to him. When they have done so, the bishop speaks to them all as follows: "During these seven weeks you have received instruction in the whole biblical
Law. You have heard about the faith, and the resurrection of the body. You have also learned all you can as catechumens of the content of the Creed. But the teaching about baptism itself is a deeper mystery, and you have not the right to hear it while you remain catechumens. Do not think it will never be explained; you will hear it all during the eight days of Easter after you have been baptized. But so long as you are catechumens you cannot be told God's deep mysteries Although no text of the Creed used at Jerusalem exists as a separate text anywhere in our documents, the text has been reconstructed from the various titles of Baptismal Catecheses 6-18 as follows:"?
We believe in One God, Πιστεύοµεν εἰς Eva Θεόν Πατέρα παντοκράτορα, ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς, ὁρατῶν τε πάντων καὶ ἀοράτων: the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible:
Καὶ εἰς Eva κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς γεννηθέντα, πρὸ πάντων αἰώνιων, θεὸν ἀληθινὸν, du' οὗ τὰ πάντα of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, true God, through whom all things were made; who appeared in the flesh ἐγένετο" ἐν σαρκὶ παραγενόµενον **Translation from Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels, 161-3.
The Greek text is from PG 33:331-1180. See also the classic Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2: The Greek and Latin Creeds with Translation, ed. Philip Schaff (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1877), 31-32, and Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, 87-88.
Introduction
[σαρκωθέντα] [ἐκ παρθένου [or, was made flesh] [of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit]; was crucified and buried; καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου]σταυρωθέντα καὶ ταφέντα, ἀναστάντα τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, καὶ rose on the third day; and ascended into the heavens; and was seated at the right hand of the Father; and is coming again in glory, ἀνελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ καθίσαντα ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ πατρὸς, καὶ ἐρχόμενον ἐν δόξᾳ κρῖναι ζώντας καὶ νεκρούς: to judge the living and the dead.
And in one Holy Spirit, Καὶ εἰς ἓν ἅγιον πνεῦμα τὸν παράκλητον, the Paraclete, who spoke in the prophets.
Καὶ εἰς ἓν βάπτισμα µετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, for the forgiveness of sins; and in one holy catholic Church; and in καὶ εἰς µίαν ἁγίαν καθολικἠν ἐκκλησίαν, the resurrection of the flesh, and in life everlasting. καὶ εἰς σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, καὶ εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον.
Various scholars have commented that, while this Jerusalem Creed in the middle of the fourth century does not reflect the anti-Arian language of the Creed of Nicea from 325, much of the language about the Holy Spirit appearing in the later Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 is already present. And, of course, it should be noted that Cyril of Jerusalem emerged as one of the leaders of the Orthodox (Homoousian) party at the Council of Constantinople itself.*° This is not the only "creedal" formulation that appears in the Jerusalem catechetical documents, however. In Mystagogical Catecheses 1.9, immediately following the apotaxis, or renunciation of Satan, made by the candidates facing West, the baptismal candidates
*°Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, 7.
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were instructed to turn to the East in order to make the following profession: πιστεύω εἰς τὸν πατέρα I believe in the Father καὶ εἰς TO υἱὸν and in the Son καὶ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα and in the Holy Spirit καὶ εἰς ἓν βάπτισμα µετανοίας. and in one baptism of repentance.
Although this reads like a shorthand version of the Creed itself, its location and function in the rite suggests that it should be viewed not so much as a creedal "profession of faith," but more as an example of a syntaxis, an act of adherence, or rite expressing a change of ownership from Satan to Christ, which is a common characteristic of the pre-baptismal rites in Apostolic Constitutions 7.41, the catecheses of John Chrysostom in Antioch, and those of Theodore of Mopsuestia.*' Further evidence in support of reading the text this way is provided clearly in Mystagogical Catecheses 1.8, where the words apotaxis and syntaxis appear in close relationship to each other in precisely this way (μετὰ τὴν ἀπόταξιν τοῦ Latava καὶ τὴν πρὸς TOV
Together with this probable syntaxis it must also be noted that within the context of baptism proper, Mystagogical Catecheses 2.4 indicates there was also a trinitarian interrogation related to the baptismal immersion or submersion: "each of you was asked whether you believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and you made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again" Such an interrogatory form of baptism, while common in the North African and Roman West, is unique in relationship to the witness of Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia, where an indicative or passive trinitarian formula is employed (1.6., "N. is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit").*"
*1Ror texts, see DBL, 35-50.
See ibid.
Introduction
During Easter Week the mystagogue presented a series of five Mystagogical Catecheses** (catechetical lectures on the "mysteries") to the newly baptized (the neophytes) on the meaning of the rites of Christian initiation they had received and experienced at the Easter vigil only a few days before. A rationale is provided for this pedagogical approach in Mystagogical Catecheses 1.1:
I have desired for a long time, O truly-begotten and muchbeloved children of the Church, to speak to you concerning these spiritual and heavenly mysteries. But since I knew clearly that seeing is more trustworthy than hearing, I waited for this present time, in order that, you being more readily attracted to receiving these words about that night, I may lead you to the bright light and fragrant meadow of this present paradise.
Such a process is confirmed by the witness of Egeria.
(Chapter 47): Then Easter comes, and during the eight days from Easter Day to the eighth day . .
. the newly baptized come into the Anastasis, and any of the faithful who wish to hear the Mysteries; but, while the bishop is teaching, no catechumen comes in, and the doors are kept shut in case any try to enter.
The bishop relates what has been done, and interprets it, and, as he does so, the applause is so loud that it can be heard outside the church. Indeed the way he expounds the mysteries and interprets them cannot fail to move his hearers.**
As the following excerpts from the Mystagogical Catecheses demonstrate, the process of Christian initiation itself is presented by our author as a close imitation (µίµησις), an image or icon (εἰκών),
3Critical edition in Greek with French translation: Cyrille de Jérusalem:
Catéchéses Mystagogiques, SC 126, ed. A. Piédagnel, trans. Pierre Paris (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1966).
"The English translation is adapted from Wilkinson, Egerias Travels, 163.
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of the saving events in the life of Christ.** That is, the stripping of the candidate signified the nakedness of Christ on Calvary, the pre-baptismal full-body anointing, albeit also exorcistic in focus, joined the candidate to the good olive tree of the cross and to the "richness of Christ; and the three immersions or submersions in the font imitated his three days in the tomb and subsequent resurrection, an interpretation based solidly on Romans 6 and becoming a widespread fourth-century theological interpretation of baptism throughout the Christian East.*° Even here, however, the author is able to hold this interpretation in tandem with baptism as new birth (see Jn 3.5 and Tit 3.5) since the font is viewed by him as both
"grave and mother,' both tomb and womb (2.4). After baptism, the author's paradigm changes from Christ's passion, burial, and resurrection to that of his baptism in the Jordan, undoubtedly to continue the Christic mimesis-icon pattern of sacramental assimilation to Christ, as the neophyte is anointed with chrism and the Holy Spirit on the forehead, ears, nostrils, and chest. In other words, for Cyril, the rite of initiation itself has become for the candidate a dramatic ritual re-enactment of the salvific events themselves, with baptism as participation in Christ's death and resurrection, and chrismation as participation in Christ's baptism in the Jordan, especially related to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him:
*°On this see Emmanuel J. Cutrone, "Cyril's Mystagogical Catecheses and the Evolution of the Jerusalem Απαρῄοτα, OCP 44 (1978): 52-64; John Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy, OCA 228 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987),
45-104; and John Baldovin, Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem, Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study 57 (Bramcote/Nottingham: Grove Books, Ltd., 1989). For an understanding of mystagogical catechesis in Jerusalem see Enrico Mazza, Mystagogy: A Theology of Liturgy in the Patristic Age (New York, NY: Pueblo, 1989), 150-64.
*°Cf. Gabriele Winkler, "The Original Meaning of the Pre-Baptismal Anointing and its Implications,' in Living Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation, ed. Maxwell Johnson (Collegeville, MN: Pueblo, 1995), 58-81; idem, Das armenische
Initiationsrituale, OCA 217 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1982); and Maxwell E.
Johnson, The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation, revised and expanded edition (Collegeville, MN: Pueblo, 2007), 115-57.
Introduction
First, you entered into the outer room of the baptistry, and, standing, facing West, you heard (a command) and stretched out your hand, and, as though he were present, you renounced
Satan. (Mystagogical Catecheses 1.2) But, as you heard (the command), "Stretch out your hand toward him as though present,' you said, "I renounce you,
Satan." I also want to say something about why you stand facing West, for it is necessary. For the West is the place where darkness appears and that one (Satan) is darkness and possesses his power in darkness. (1.4) Next, you are told to say in a second sentence, "And all your works." And the works of Satan are all sin, which is also necessary to renounce, just as someone who has escaped from a tyrant has also escaped from his weapons. Then every sin, according to its kind, is included among the works of the devil. (1.5)
Next, you say, "And all your pomp." And the pomp of the devil is the mania for the theater and horse races, for hunting and every vain thing, from which the holy one, praying to be free, said to God, "Turn my eyes that I might stop looking at vain things"
(Ps 118.37). (1.6) So also the things hung up at the festivals of the idols, whether meats or breads or other such things, which are defiled by the invocations of all the abominable demons, are to be counted among the pomp of the devil. (1.7) After these things you say, "And all your worship." And the worship of the devil is prayer in the temples of idols, including those things being done for the honor of those lifeless idols, namely, the lighting of lamps, or the offering of incense by fountains or rivers. ... Do not, therefore, go after these things: watching the
ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
flight of birds for augury; fortune-telling; omens; amulets; writing on leaves; or other evil practices, which are the worship of the devil. Flee these, therefore. (1.8) When, then, you renounce Satan, trampling down every covenant with him, you destroy the ancient covenant with Hades.
And there is opened for you the paradise of God, which he planted toward the East and from which, on account of his disobedience, our first father was banished. And the symbol of this was your turning yourself from the West to the East, the place of light. Then you were told to say, 1 believe in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit and in one baptism of repentance." (1.9) Immediately, then, having entered, you stripped off your clothing. And this was an image of "putting off the old man with his deeds" (Col 3.9). Having stripped, you were naked, imitating also by this the nakedness of Christ on the cross, who in his nakedness "disarmed the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree" (Col 2.15). (2.2)
Next, being stripped, you were anointed with exorcized oil from the top of the hairs of your head to the lower parts of your body and you became partakers of the good olive tree, Jesus Christ.
For, being cut from the wild olive tree, you were grafted into the good olive tree (cf. Rom 11.24) and became sharers of the richness of the true olive tree. The exorcized oil, therefore, was the symbol of the richness of Christ, that which has received the power to repel all traces of the opposing powers. (2.3)
After these things you were led to the holy and divine pool of baptism, just as Christ was taken from the cross to the tomb standing before you. And each one was asked if he believed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Introduction aul You professed this saving confession and you descended three times into the water and ascended again, thereby also re-enacting through symbol the three-day burial of Christ.... And in this same time you died and were reborn, and that saving water became both grave and mother for you. For just as Solomon said of others, this same may be adapted to you. For he said there,
"There is a time to give birth and a time to die" (Eccl 3.2), but for you it is the reverse: there is a time to die and a time to be born.
And one time brought about both of these, and your birth was brought together with your death. (2.4) O strange and incredible thing! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really crucified and raised; our imitation was in an image but our salvation was real. Christ was truly crucified, and buried and raised up, and all these things he graciously gave to us, so that by the imitation of his Passion we might gain participation in salvation in reality. (2.5)
For truly death came upon Christ; truly his soul was separated from his body. And his burial was real, for his holy body was wrapped ina pure linen shroud, and everything really happened to him. But upon you, only the likeness of his death and sufferings, yet of salvation, not the likeness but the reality. (2.7)
When that one (Christ) had washed in the Jordan River, and after he gave to the waters the color of his divinity, he ascended from the waters and the Holy Spirit came upon him in substantial form, like resting upon like. In the same way to you also, when you ascended from the pool of the sacred waters, you received the anointing, the sacramental representation of Christ's anointing. (3.1) Stop supposing that this visible myron is ordinary oil. For just as the bread of the Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy
32.
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Spirit is no longer bread, but the body of Christ, so also this holy myron is no longer ordinary, which is to say, common, after the invocation, but it is the gift of Christ and the Holy
Spirit being accomplished by the coming of his divinity. For symbolizing this you were anointed on your forehead and your other senses. And your body was anointed with visible myron but your soul was sanctified by the Holy and invisible [life-giving] Spirit. (3.3)
And while Juliette Day is correct to point out that nowhere in Mystagogical Catecheses 1-3 does any reference to this chrismation as sphragis or "sealing" occur,*' in Mystagogical Catecheses 4.7 this anointing as the sphragis or seal, in fact, is asserted: "With oil he anointed your head upon the forehead by the seal, which you have from God, that he might make you by the impression of a seal holy to God"
In the next two catecheses the author draws the neophytes' attention to the meaning of the Eucharist (Mystagogical Catecheses 4) and to the structure and contents of the eucharistic liturgy (Mystagogical
Catecheses 5) as it was celebrated in the Jerusalem church of his day, including the lavabo (hand washing)** by the bishop and presbyters, the kiss of peace exchanged prior to the liturgy of the Eucharist proper, and an outline of the anaphora or eucharistic prayer consisting of dialogue (the sursum corda), Preface, Sanctus, Epiclesis of the *'Juliette Day, "The Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem: A Source for the Baptismal Liturgy of Mid-Fourth Century Jerusalem,' in Further Essays in Early
Eastern Initiation: Early Syrian Baptismal Liturgy, by Paul F. Bradshaw and Juliette
Day, Joint Liturgical Studies 78 (London: Alcuin Club and the Group for the Renewal of Worship, 2014), 42-46.
**It is quite likely that the /avabo in the eucharistic liturgy is of Jerusalem origin.
In any event, its meaning in the Mystagogical Catecheses is completely symbolic with no practical purpose whatsoever behind it (i.e., hand-washing as a presumed practical need on the part of the presiding minister due to the selection and handling of the eucharistic gifts when it was the deacons, not the presider, who handled the gifts). On this see Robert Taft, The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and Other
Pre-anaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of John Chrysostom, 2nd ed., OCA 200 (Rome: Pont.
Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1978), 163-64.
Introduction
Holy Spirit, and Intercessions. While scholars debate the presence or absence of the narrative of institution in the Jerusalem anaphora reflected in this document," there is no question that explicit sacrificial terminology, including the use of the word ἱλασμός ("propitiation"), has come to characterize the theology of the Eucharist as offered for the living and the dead (Mystagogical Catecheses 5.8), as well as an explicit consecratory epiclesis of the Holy Spirit invoking the Spirit to "make" (ποιήσῃ) the bread and wine the Body and Blood of Christ by sanctifying (ἡγίασται) and changing (μεταβέβληται) them (Mystagogical Catecheses 5.7).*° Mystagogical Catecheses 5 is also believed by many scholars to present our first witness to the use of the Lord's Prayer, the "Our
Father,' in the eucharistic liturgy,** as well as one of the first attestations to what will become the classic Eastern Christian invitation to communion ("the holy things for the holy [people]") and its response ("One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ").** Further, the *'Kent Burreson, "The Anaphora of the Mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem,' in Essays on Early Eastern Eucharistic Prayers, ed. Paul Bradshaw (Collegeville,
MN: Pueblo, 1997): 131-152; Baldovin, Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem, 25-8; Emmanuel
Cutrone, "Cyril's Mystagogical Catecheses and the Evolution of the Jerusalem Anaphora,' 52-64; idem, "The Liturgical Setting of the Institution Narrative in the Early Syrian Tradition, in Time and Community: In Honor of Thomas Julian Talley, ed. J. N. Alexander (Washington, DC: The Pastoral Press, 1990), 105-114; A. Doval,
Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogue: The Authorship of the Mystagogic Catecheses, Patristic
Monograph Series 17 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001),
150-62; Alistair Stewart-Sykes, "The Anaphora of Catecheses Mystagogicae 5 and the Birkath Ha-Mazon: A Study in Development,' Augustinianum 45 (2005): 309-47; and Edward Yarnold, "Anaphoras Without Institution Narratives?," Studia Patristica 30
(1997): 395-410. See also below, 53-55.
*°On the development of the epiclesis in eucharistic prayer see the recent study by Anne McGowan, Eucharistic Epicleses, Ancient and Modern: Speaking of the Spirit in Eucharistic Prayer (Gollegeville, MN: Pueblo, 2014).
"Emmanuel Cutrone, "The Lord's Prayer and the Eucharist: The Syrian Tradition, in Εὐλόγημα: Studies in Honor of Robert Taft, S.J., ed. E. Carr, S. Parenti, A.-A.
Thiermeyer, and E. Velkovska, Studia Anselmiana 110, Analecta Liturgica 17 (Rome:
Centro Studi 5. Anselmo, 1993), 93-106.
"See Robert Taft, A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 5, The Precommunion Rites, OCA 261 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2000), 231ff. See also, idem, "'"Holy Things for the Saints': The Ancient Call to Communion and Its
SE CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
author provides the neophytes with explicit instructions on how to receive holy communion:
Approaching, then, do not come with your hands extended or with your fingers open. But make a throne with your left hand for the right, as intending to receive the King, and having made a hollow in your hand, receive the body of Christ, after which you say "Amen." (Mystagogical Catecheses 5.21)
Next, after you have communed of the body of Christ, come also to the cup of the blood, not stretching out your hands, but bowing and saying "Amen" in a manner of profound worship and reverence, and be sanctified, receiving of the blood of Christ.
And while the moisture remains on your lips, touching it with your hands, sanctify your eyes, forehead, and your other senses.
Next, wait for the prayer and give thanks to God who has made you worthy of these great mysteries. (5.22)
Together with Apostolic Constitutions 8.13.16-17 and the witness of John Chrysostom, Mystagogical Catecheses 5.20 also offers our earliest evidence for the use of responsorial psalmody at the distribution of communion (Psalm 33 [34] at Jerusalem), from which would develop the communion antiphon or koindénikon, the chant during communion reception in both East and West.** And the last piece of liturgical evidence in Mystagogical Catecheses 5 is a reference to a post-communion or final prayer of thanksgiving (5.22).*4
Response,' in Fountain of Life, ed. G. Austin (Washington, DC: The Pastoral Press,
1991), 87-102.
*°See Thomas Schattauer, "The Koinonikon of the Byzantine Liturgy: An Historical Study,' OCP 49 (1983): 91-129, here at 116-17; Franz van de Paverd, Zur Geschichte der Messliturgie in Antiocheia und Konstantinopel gegen Ende des vierten Jahrhunderts, OCA 187 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1970), 395; and Robert Taft, A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 6, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites, OCA 281 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2008), 281-315.
"See Taft, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites, 565-644.
Introduction
IV. CyRIL AND JOHN II OF JERUSALEM, AUTHORSHIP,
DATE, AND THE LETTER OF MACARIUS
A. Cyril and John II of Jerusalem The Mystagogical Catecheses, as noted above, are ascribed in the various manuscripts either to Cyril, to his successor John II (Ap 387-417), to them both, or to no one at all.*" In his 2000 study, Cyril of Jerusalem, Edward Yarnold writes: "We know virtually nothing about Cyril's early life"*° From his long connection with Jerusalem it has generally been supposed that he was born there. He was ordained a deacon by Macarius I, bishop of Jerusalem, c. 335, and a presbyter by Maximus,
Macarius' successor, c. 345. On Maximus death he succeeded to the episcopate (c. 350). With Jerusalem still subject to Caesarea Cyril must have owed his appointment to the Arianizing Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, but this is no sufficient reason for accepting the statement in Jerome's Chronicon that Cyril obtained it by concessions to Arianism. In the following years tensions increased, partly, it may be, from dogmatic differences, but probably more from jealousy over the constantly growing importance of Cyril's see, and in 357 Cyril was deposed at a council in Jerusalem. He took refuge in Tarsus, but he was restored by the Council at Seleucia in the next year, only to be banished again by Acacius in 360. With the other exiled bishops he regained his see in 362 on Julian the Apostate's accession and must have witnessed the emperor's bizarre attempt to restore the Temple.
The death of Acacius in 366 did not prevent yet another banishment under the Emperor Valens in 367. Not until Valens' death eleven years later (378) could he return. Of this long exile nothing is known. After his restoration he took an active part in reorganizing his Church. As noted above, he was one of the 150 orthodox fathers at the Second
Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381, and in the synodal "See above, note 1.
""Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, 3. The remainder of this short section on Cyril is a slight revision of the version of Cyril's life supplied by F. L. Cross in his earlier edition, pp. XxX—Xxxi.
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letter of the complementary council of the following year he was referred to in terms of veneration. He died on March 18, 386, the day on which his feast is kept on both eastern and western calendars.
Apart from the Procatechesis, Baptismal Catecheses, and possibly the Mystagogical Catecheses, his only surviving writings are some brief pieces of uncertain authenticity—a sermon on the Pool of Bethesda, an epistle to Constantine, and three short fragments.*"
John II succeeded Cyril as bishop of Jerusalem from 387 to 417.35
He was attacked by both Jerome and Epiphanius in the late fourth century (394) as being an "Origenist,' and again by Jerome in 414 as being "Pelagian," or, at least sympathetic to Pelagius himself, who was living in Jerusalem after the sack of Rome (410). He is known in part for the consecration of the Church of Holy Zion in 394, his homily for which has been preserved only in Armenian," and his role in the discovery of the relics of St. Stephen the protomartyr."°
It is unfortunate that our knowledge of his writings is so limited.
According to Alexis Doval:
There are only two extant works, a sermon on the topic of the Church, which has survived in Armenian, and a short profession of faith in Syriac, but there are also quotations from and references to a work referred to as his Apology that can be culled from Jerome's pamphlet Against John and his Letter 82. John's
Apology is his defense against a challenge to his orthodoxy by Epiphanius of Salamis who, with the support of Jerome, targeted
John in his campaign to eradicate all influence of the thirdcentury theologian Origen, whom Epiphanius regarded as the "spiritual father of Arius."*?
"For an English translation of these works, see Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, 67-78.
""For a short discussion of John's life see Piédagnel, Cyrille de Jerusalem, 75-78.
*°See Michel van Esbroeck, "Une homélie sur léglise attribuée a Jean de Jérusalem," Le Muséon 86 (1973): 283-404.
°°See Michel van Esbroeck, "Jean II de Jérusalem et les cultes de S. Etienne, de la
Sainte-Sion, et de la Croix," Analecta Bollandiana 102 (1984): 115-25.
*'Doval, 206-207.
Introduction
While the designation "Origenist" is generally accepted by scholars today as an accurate assessment of John's theology, the fact remains that one looks in vain for such a theological approach in the Mystagogical Catecheses themselves. That is, any claim of Johannine authorship of the Mystagogical Catecheses, based on the theology or other contents of John's minimal extant writings, is next to impossible to assert with any degree of certainty. Piédagnel, who accepts
John as, at least, the final redactor of these Catecheses, notes this difficulty and explains it, saying: "their tone . . . is perfectly serene.
This is the simple tone of the bishop who teaches the faithful, of the pastor who exhorts his flock on the day after their baptism.'*? And, it should be noted, whether John II of Jerusalem was Origenist or not, whether Pelagian or not, both East and West, as with Cyril, venerate him as a saint, with his feast occurring on March 30 in the Byzantine Rite and, at least, listed in the current Roman Martyrology on January 10 ("Saint John, Bishop of Jerusalem, who in a time of controversy over orthodox doctrine, worked exceedingly for the catholic faith and peace of the Church')."°
B. Authorship and Date of the Mystagogical Catecheses The authorship and date of the Mystagogical Catecheses have been the source of long-standing scholarly debates ever since the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers' challenge, based on their high sacramental theology and strong defense of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist,'* with an important essay by W. J. Swaans in 1942 questioning Cyrilline authorship and defending authorship by John II.°° Recently, both Alexis Doval and Juliette Day have entered
"Σριόάασπε], Cyrille de Jerusalem, 78.
°3"Hierosdlymaie, sancti Ioannis, episcopi, qui, tempore controveérsiae de οτίποάόχα doctrina, magnopere pro cathdlica fide et pace Ecclésiae 6peram dedit.'
Martyrologium Romanum (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001), 87.
**Piédagnel, Cyrille de Jerusalem, 18-40, provides an excellent summary of the traditional debates.
°5Ww, J. Swaans, "A propos des 'catéchéses mystagogiques' attribuées a S. Cyrille de Jérusalem,' Le Muséon 55 (1942): 1-42.
ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
this debate and have come to opposite conclusions, based on somewhat differing methodologies.
1. Alexis Doval Alexis Doval applies a threefold methodological approach toward the resolution of the authorship question: (1) a study of authorship attributions in the manuscripts of the Mystagogical Catecheses; (2) a study of the external evidence, namely, the date of the Peregrinatio
Egeriae as well as the contents of the Armenian Lectionary in relationship to Cyril's episcopate and the liturgical content of both the Baptismal and Mystagogical Catecheses; and (3) a detailed literary and theological study of the Mystagogical Catecheses in relationship to other extant texts by both Cyril and John. Like his dissertation director, Edward Yarnold,"° Doval concludes that, similar to Cyril's own pre-baptismal catechetical lectures dated to the mid-fourth century, both the Procatechesis and the Mystagogical Catecheses "ought rightfully to be included among the works of Cyril of Jerusalem."°"
In arriving at this conclusion, Doval assumes that the oft-noted differences in liturgical practice between the Baptismal Catecheses and those of the Mystagogical Catecheses are to be explained simply in terms of liturgical developments or changes in the rites themselves during the years between them and, hence, that there is no reason to assume that the Mystagogical Catecheses cannot belong to the later years of Cyril's own episcopate (ο. 387).°* That is, certain differences need not be explained by pointing to different authors when another explanation is possible.
In particular, Doval directs our attention to what appears to be a difference in the anointings between the Baptismal and Mystagogical
Catecheses. According to him, while there was certainly a pre-baptismal anointing, and there may have already been a post-baptismal
*°See Edward Yarnold, "The Authorship of the Mystagogic Catecheses Attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem,' The Heythrop Journal 19 (1978): 143-61.
°*7Doval, 2.43.
**This was also the conclusion of Edward Yarnold. See above, note 14.
Introduction
("messianic" or "Christic") anointing in the Jerusalem initiation liturgy of the 350s, the Baptismal Catecheses indicate theologically that the gift and seal (sphragis) of the Holy Spirit was at that time associated with the immersion rite itself and not with the anointing(s).°"
And, together with various references to the laying on of hands associated with the Holy Spirit (Baptismal Catecheses 14.25, 17.25, and 16.26), only one of which (16.26) is related directly to baptism, Doval claims that the rite Cyril knew in the 350s was closer, at least theologically, to that of John Chrysostom in Antioch. By implication, this would also relate the rite of Jerusalem in the 350s to that which is assumed to be in use also in Cappadocia." That is, while referring both to Moses' laying on of hands and Peter's conferring of the Holy
Spirit by hand-laying, Cyril explicitly states that the "manner" by which the Holy Spirit is given to the baptized cannot be discussed at this time but would have to wait until the proper season. Far from seeing this statement as a reference to a post-baptismal hand-laying for the gift of the Holy Spirit, Doval argues:
When Cyril says "but in what manner,' this could be taken as indicating that the conferring of the Spirit will be done in a manner different from what has been the traditional way, that is, by some other way than a distinct laying on of hands. If... all the events of the Jordan model are symbolized in the rite of immersion, then any laying on of hands for the giving of the Spirit would have happened there. Cyril speaks of an "invocation of grace" over the candidates once they have gone down into the water... . [T]his could easily have involved a laying on of hands. Such a scene is exactly what is found in Chrysostom.
"Tides 185-243, °°See Bryan Spinks, Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.,
2006), 47-51, and Nancy Johnson, "Living Death: Baptism and the Christian Life in the Writings of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa"
(Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 2008), 345-350.
ST CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
... But by the time of M [the Mystagogical Catecheses] ..
. the descent of the Spirit is ritualized in its own postimmersion rite. Now there would be no significance attached to the imposition of hands in the font... . A vestige of the laying on of hands still exists in the chrismation, but the Myron alone suffices to convey the idea of being anointed by the Spirit.°"
Another important aspect of Doval's work is the attention he pays to the eucharistic liturgy and especially to its anaphora.°*
Although, again like Yarnold,°* Doval's primary concern here appears to be with establishing that the institution narrative was already part, or becoming part, of the Jerusalem anaphora in the Mystagogical Catecheses, he does note that the overall "simplicity of the anaphora" would tend to place it earlier rather than later. A later date, such as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century
(during the episcopate of John II), would have necessitated a more developed anaphoral structure, more akin to the Anaphora of Saint
James" than to the simpler form presumably in the Mystagogical Catecheses.
While Doval's approach and conclusions on Cyrilline authorship are rather compelling, he is a careful enough scholar to indicate potential problems with his conclusions. One in particular concerns his comparative (stylometric) analysis of the literary styles of both
*'Doval, 144-45.
®See ibid., 150-61.
*See Edward Yarnold, "Anaphoras Without Institution Narratives?" Studia Patristica 30 (1997): 395-410.
**On the Liturgy and Anaphora of Saint James see Gabriele Winkler, Die Jakobus-Liturgie in ihren Uberlieferungsstriingen: Edition des Cod. arm. 17 von Lyon,
Ubersetzung und Liturgievergleich, Anaphorae Orientales 4, Anaphorae armeniacae 4 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2013); idem, "Preliminary Observations about the Relationship between the Liturgies of St. Basil and St. James," OCP 76 (2010): 5-55;
J. R. K. Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St Basil and St James: An Investigation into Their
Common Origin, OCA 240 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1992); Philip Tovey,
The Liturgy of St James as Presently Used, Joint Liturgical Studies 40 (Cambridge:
Grove Books, Ltd., 1998); and Baby Varghese, The Syriac Version of the Liturgy of St James, Joint Liturgical Studies 49 (Cambridge: Grove Books, Ltd., 2001).
Introduction
Cyril and John, a most difficult thing to do considering that there is no extant catechetical work (like those of Cyril's pre-baptismal lectures) of John in Greek (or any other language)! Hence, if Doval has indeed made a strong case for Cyrilline authorship of the Mystagogical Catecheses, his conclusions can only be accepted as plausible.
Indeed, Cyril himself in the later years of his episcopacy may well have known the rites described in the Mystagogical Catecheses without being the "author" of the document itself.
2. Juliette Day Unlike Doval, whose method was primarily literary without ignoring the liturgical context, Juliette Day's approach to the authorship of the Mystagogical Catecheses is classic Liturgiewissenschaft. Her methodological question is not about authorship per se but about whether the baptismal liturgy in the Jerusalem Mystagogical Catecheses accurately reflects the time of Cyril, and if not, whether it belongs to a period after that, namely, that of John, or possibly even later. The importance of an answer to this, of course, lies in the implication that if the baptismal liturgy reflects a time later than that of Cyril, then the Jerusalem liturgy, including a strongly pronounced
Romans 6 baptismal theology and a post-baptismal anointing, has itself been influenced from elsewhere and, as a consequence, the Mystagogical Catecheses themselves can not be the source for similar liturgical development elsewhere.
According to Day, the baptismal liturgy of the Mystagogical Catecheses can be dated to no earlier than well after 397 (perhaps not yet even in Jerusalem until the end of the fifth century!), the year when
Porphyrius, former senior presbyter at the Holy Sepulchre who, according to Day, did not know the baptismal rite of the Mystagogical Catecheses, left to become bishop of Gaza.°° And, after a close comparative analysis of the sources for Christian initiation in the Juliette Day, The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem: Fourthand Fifth-Century
Evidence from Palestine, Syria and Egypt, Liturgy, Worship and Society (Burlington,
VT: Ashgate, 2007), 134.
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Syrian and Egyptian liturgical traditions, including the different rites apparently reflected in Cyril of Jerusalem's Baptismal Catecheses and that of the Mystagogical Catecheses, she concludes:
In sequence, MC [Mystagogical Catecheses] resembles the Egyptian sources CH [Canons of Hippolytus] and Ser. [Sarapion of Thmuis], although there are some important distinctions between them, which indicate that MC was not directly influenced by these. It has become apparent that the two sources which lie closest to MC, both theologically and structurally, would appear to be those "derived" from AT [Apostolic Tradition]. If AT, as reconstructed, lies behind CH and AC [Apostolic
Constitutions], then the manner in which these two texts have interpreted their source is quite distinctive. It is possible, we suggest, that MC might be a hagiopolite interpretation of whatever source(s)—possibly even a version of AT—which lies behind the common sequence in CH and AC... . [W]e suggest that the next stage of research into the liturgy of MC and Jerusalem needs to concern itself with what might have been the common source behind CH, AC and MC.°° Day's study offers intriguing arguments both for new interpretations of the Mystagogical Catecheses and for new critical studies in the sources of Hagiopolite liturgy. If she is correct, her work would underscore one of the contemporary approaches in the study of early liturgy, namely, that Jerusalem, as a pilgrimage center, is just as much the recipient of new and innovative liturgical practices as it is the creator and exporter of new liturgical practices.°'
At the same time, her conclusions about authorship and date with regard to the baptismal liturgy would be either strengthened or weakened by a similar analysis of the eucharistic liturgy and °*Tbid., 138.
*'On this, see Talley, 44-45, and Paul Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship, revised and enlarged edition (London: SPCK, 2002), 113-117.
Introduction
anaphora in the Mystagogical Catecheses, such as attempted by Doval. Unless we are to assume that Mystagogical Catecheses 4 and 5 belong to a different stratum of the document than 1-3, then it would seem that the dating of the eucharistic liturgy would be of great importance in resolving the question. Does the eucharistic liturgy reflect a midto late fourth-century or a later fourthand early fifthcentury liturgical context? Iflater, then why do the Mystagogical Catecheses not refer to an anaphoral text closer to that of Saint James? If the Eucharist reflects the earlier context, which most scholars would assert, then why does the baptismal liturgy not reflect a similar overall context, with the distinctions from the Baptismal Catecheses explained as a result of developments in the Jerusalem rite in the time of Cyril, as Doval concludes?
Similarly, Day's appeal to The Life of Porphyrius by Mark the Deacon, while logical in that Porphyrius was Cross Warden at the Holy Sepulchre in the 390s before his becoming bishop of Gaza in 397, is, by her own admission, not without its problems.** Not only are there serious literary problems with the text, including reworkings and historical inaccuracies, but the paucity of explicit baptismal references often reduces the authority of the document to an argumentum ex silentio. Further, in the context of the reception of heretics in the document, Day does note that there are references to the "sealing" of those received, which might have some parallel to the post-baptismal chrismation in Jerusalem. She writes:
Porphyrius and the bishop of Caesarea receive an Arian boat captain by sealing him, praying over him and giving him the "divine mysteries" (Eucharist) (V. Porph. 57). The spurious seventh canon of the Council of Constantinople (381) states that Arians were to be received by anathematising their heresy and then, "they are sealed or anointed with holy Chrism on the forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears. As we seal them we say, 'The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit." If this canon is
"Day, The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem, 28-29.
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from within our time period, and we are mindful of Varghese's conclusion that it dates from the second half of the fifth century, then it may point to a ritual to complete baptism, which is not too dissimilar to that in MC 3.4. However, if this ritual is only for the reception of heretics and schismatics, then we cannot expect this episode to provide us with evidence of the normal post-immersion sequence in Gaza."
While Day is right to be cautious about this canon of Constantinople and the use of this rite for the reception of heretics, the parallels with the post-baptismal rites in Jerusalem are too strong not to be taken into consideration. Here, at least with regard to Constantinople, is a parallel ritual reference not based on silence.
C. The Letter of Macarius I or II It is not very often in the field of early Christian liturgy that new documents are discovered, which necessarily compel us to re-examine various scholarly presuppositions and conclusions. If Abraham Terian is correct in his analysis, however, this is precisely what has now happened with the document entitled, Of the Blessed
Macarius, Patriarch of the Holy City Jerusalem: Canonical Letter to the Armenians Concerning the Regulation of the Ordinances of the Catholic Church Which It Is Not Right to Transgress by Definition or Command, and now published by him, as noted above, under the title of Macarius of Jerusalem: Letter to the Armenians, AD 335.'°
That is, though it was long thought to be a sixth-century document, thanks to the work of N. Akinian in the early twentieth century, who claimed that it was from Macarius Π of Jerusalem (patriarch from 563-575), Terian argues that it should be dated to ap 335. As such, the letter would come from Macarius I, who was patriarch from Day, The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem, 124-25.
7°See above, note 6.
Introduction
AD 314 to 335/6, during the time of the vast Constantinian building programs in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
With regard to the Jerusalem liturgy, especially with Christian initiation, this letter is a potential goldmine. If Terian's dating is correct, then it is highly significant that already in 335, several years before even the Baptismal Catecheses of Cyril, the baptismal rite of Jerusalem already included a period of catechesis, both preand post-baptismal anointings, and a Romans 6 paschal theological interpretation, along with an Epiphany Jordan-based, new birth interpretation and a Pentecost one, since all three of these feasts are described herein as regular baptismal occasions.'* In other words, the baptismal rite reflected in this Letter of Macarius has several parallels to the rite, if not yet to the more sophisticated mystagogical interpretation, known to the author of the Mystagogical Catecheses.
As Terian notes with regard to the use of Romans 6:
The notion of baptism as participation in Christ's death .
. goes back to Paul (Rom 6.4-5). While this notion was commonplace in the early churches in the West, it was not as common in the churches of the East, where the font and the water were perceived more as a womb or an embryonic sack. ... The Letter of Macarius shows that the two notions were part of the baptismal theology of the Jerusalem Church before Cyril, but that it remained for the latter to articulate them in his exceptional way.'"
Further, even the way of administering the post-baptismal chrismation described in Mystagogical Catecheses 3.4 on the forehead, ears, nostrils, and breast, seems to be paralleled by the statement in See Terian, 121ff. It would be hard to reconcile the contents of the Jerusalem liturgy reflected in this Letter with what is known of the shape and contents of the Jerusalem liturgy in the sixth century or later. That is, a later date would undoubtedly reflect the more sophisticated theological interpretation we encounter in the Mystagogical Catecheses.
"Tbid., 123 [emphasis added].
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the Letter of Macarius that "since they [the Armenians] do not have sufficient oil of sealing, which is from the Apostles and is kept here, they do not anoint the infant's entire organs of sense."'* Together with the Canons of Hippolytus in Egypt, the Greek original of which may well be from the 2305, the Letter of Macarius would be then one of our first Orthodox witnesses to the post-baptismal anointing of the senses.
But is this post-baptismal "oil of sealing,' which Terian interprets as the equivalent of myron, the means by which the Holy Spirit is bestowed on the baptized? There is some ambiguity here. For, on the one hand, Macarius can appear to associate the gift of the Holy Spirit with the baptismal immersion itself, writing:
[Forgiveness of sins and salvation of souls are granted out of the grace of the Spirit to those who are baptized in the holy font.
And the Holy Spirit does not despise those who yearn for piety, but, bending low, descends and sanctifies through right confession of faith (and) by means of the water of the holy font.'°
But, on the other hand, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on the baptized is elsewhere connected to a post-baptismal context. In reference to baptism on Pentecost, Macarius writes:
But on the grace-bestowing and sanctifying day of Pentecost was the luminous manifestation of the quickening Spirit, which, in the form of fiery tongues, descended on the Apostles, granting them that by laying hands on those who are being baptized
Ybid., 105. On the post-baptismal sealing of the senses see the intriguing hypothesis of Alistair Logan, "The Mystery of the Five Seals: Gnostic Initiation
Reconsidered," Vigiliae Christianae 51 (1997): 188-206.
On the dating of the Canons of Hippolytus, see C. Markschies, "Wer schrieb die sogennante Traditio Apostolica? Neue Beobachtungen und Hypothesen zu einer kaum ldsbaren Frage aus der altkirchen Literaturgeschichte? in Tauffragen und Bekenntnis, by W. Kinzig, C. Markschies, and M. Vinzent (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 1-74.
For relevant texts of the Canons of Hippolytus see DBL, 129-32.
™Terian, 109 [emphasis added].
Introduction
(these shall) receive gifts from the grace of the Spirit. After the same pattern we also on the same day, bestow the same Spirit by laying hands on those who are baptized. We fulfill the pattern of this with unfailing care, that we may become perfect. And thus when we lay hands with right confession of faith the Holy Spirit is bestowed for our salvation, illuminating those who are called to adoption; and in faith we are anointed with the oil of holiness.'
While Terian interprets the laying on of hands as related to the post-baptismal anointing itself and, hence, already associated with the "seal" of the Holy Spirit in the Jerusalem liturgy, it is also possible that in these two references above we are dealing with a situation similar to that described by Doval for the rite known in Cyril's
Baptismal Catecheses 16.26. That is, Macarius' references to the Holy Spirit descending and sanctifying "by means of the holy font,' and to the Pentecostal apostolic laying on of hands could both be interpreted as referring to the baptismal immersion at the time of the "right confession of faith,' as it appears in the Antiochene baptismal rite described by John Chrysostom. At the same time, however, the fact that in this same context Macarius speaks of being "anointed with the oil of holiness" may suggest that more is going on here than that. Might it be that this text actually helps us interpret Cyril's reference in Baptismal Catecheses 16.26 to the fact that, in spite of biblical references to hand-laying, he could not yet tell the catechumens
"what manner" in which the Holy Spirit would be given to them?
And the manner he could not yet tell them was not the immersion, which may well have included a hand-laying as part of the immersion, as witnessed in the rite known by Chrysostom, and, according to Alistair Stewart; in those of the Didascalia Apostolorum,"' but a 7*Tbid., 125-6.
77 Alistair C. Stewart, The Didascalia Apostolorum: An English Version (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009), 71-76. But hand-laying in the Didascalia may also be interpreted as anointing, as it appears to be in Apostolic Constitutions 7.44. See
Winkler, "The Original Meaning of the Pre-Baptismal Anointing and its Implications,' 70-73.
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post-baptismal chrismation with the "oil of holiness," myron. And, if so, just as it would have been up to the author of the Mystagogical
Catecheses to articulate more strongly the womb and tomb theology of baptism, flowing now more decidedly from a Romans 6 approach, so too it would have been up to him to articulate a more developed theology of the post-baptismal chrismation, related specifically to the conferral of the Holy Spirit.
In this context, it is also important to note that the documents to which Juliette Day refers as somewhat parallel to the Mystagogical Catecheses would also, it now appears, be somewhat parallel in baptismal structure to this Letter of Macarius. While the structure of the baptismal rite in Canons of Hippolytus, like its source, the so-called Apostolic Tradition, follows the post-baptismal chrismation with an episcopal hand-laying prayer and a possible second anointing, with ambiguous pneumatic references,'* only Prayer 16 in Sarapion's prayers, the prayer for what is clearly the consecration of the post-baptismal chrism, unambiguously refers to the baptized being "sealed" by this chrism as they become "sharers in the gift of the Holy Spirit""'? And this is already the case in c. AD 350, at least in Egypt! A similar parallel both to the Letter of Macarius and to, at least, the liturgical structure reflected in the Mystagogical Catecheses, appears, of course, in Apostolic Constitutions 7.22, where the following is stated:
"®See DBL, 131. Like the Latin version of the Apostolic Tradition, the hand-laying prayer in the Canons seems to imply that the Holy Spirit has already been "poured" out on the baptized: "We bless you, Lord God almighty, for that you have made these worthy to be born again, that you pour your Holy Spirit on them, and to be one in the body of the Church not being excluded by alien works; but, just as you have granted them forgiveness for their sins, grant them also the pledge of your kingdom, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom be glory to you, with him and the Holy Spirit, to ages of ages. Amen."
Maxwell E. Johnson, The Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis: A Literary, Liturgical, and Theological Analysis, OCA 249 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium,
1995), 64-65.
Introduction
Beforehand you shall anoint with holy oil, then you shall baptize with water, and finally you shall seal with chrism, so that the anointing may be the partaking of the Holy Spirit, the water the symbol of the death [of Christ], and the chrism the seal of the covenants.*° Hence, in the 330s (the Canons), the 350s (Sarapion), and the 380s
(Apostolic Constitutions), we see structural liturgical parallels and some theological parallels with what is reflected in the Baptismal
Catecheses and the Mystagogical Catecheses, as well as now in the Letter of Macarius. If the theology of the post-baptismal anointing is more developed in Mystagogical Catecheses 3.1, 4, and 5 than it is in these other documents, with the notable exception of Sarapion of Thmuis, that is no reason whatsoever to assume a date any later than the final years of Cyril's episcopate for this interpretation. This, it would seem, is an interpretation of a rite, perhaps dating at least to the 330s in Jerusalem, not the development of a new post-baptismal ritual after the time of Cyril of Jerusalem himself!
Abraham Terian's approach to the Letter of Macarius, however, has not been without its critics.* Because his assessment of the baptismal materials in this letter constitutes a direct challenge to the conclusions of Juliette Day on the dating and authorship of the Mystagogical Catecheses, her evaluation of Terian's arguments about the Jerusalem baptismal rite in the 330s are important to take into account. According to Day, the issue is not whether the Letter of Macarius is from the early fourth century (from Macarius I) or from later in the sixth century (Macarius I), but that the baptismal materials belong to a section of the document that has been highly redacted at some point in its transmission. Day argues:
80 DBL, 37.
51See especially Gabriele Winkler, "Review of Abraham Terian, Macarius of Jerusalem. Letter to the Armenians, A.D. 335, Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary, in Zeitschrift fiir Antikes Christentum 16/3 (2012): 602-606.
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Terian acknowledges that the liturgical information has been subject to later redaction, but he does not take that into account when asserting the value of this text as evidence of the liturgical practice of Jerusalem in the mid-fourth century, and especially when conflating the evidence of Ep.Mac. (The Letter of Macarius), Cats (the Baptismal Catecheses), and MC (the Mystagogical Catecheses) to produce a composite rite. . .
. Thus, he says, "some deletions resulting from changes in later practice, as also from theologically motivated tampering, are detectable εως (p. 23); "there is a substantive tampering in the baptismal part of the text.... Moreover there is glaring evidence for repeated post-Chalcedonian tampering in the Eucharistic part ορ 4ϱ)- ... Terian's own words alert us most clearly to the need for extreme caution when using the liturgical evidence of the Letter; this is not to deny that Macarius did indeed write a letter to the Armenian Church in 335, but simply to warn that our version does not seem to be the original.... What use can we make then of the letter? ..
. The liturgical sections of Ep.Mac. should be considered the fruit of several layers of redaction, such that assigning them to a particular date or even to Jerusalem itself with any degree of accuracy is impossible.**
Day's primary concern here is that the rite deduced from the Letter of Macarius parallels the rite of the Mystagogical Catecheses, but not, according to her, the rite that was known by Cyril of Jerusalem in his Baptismal Catecheses some fifteen years later if Terian's dating of the Letter is correct. Such a rite, she believes, can be reconstructed from the Baptismal Catecheses as follows:
**Juliette Day, "The Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem: A Source for the Baptismal Liturgy of Mid-Fourth Century,' in Paul FE Bradshaw and Juliette
Day, Further Essays in Early Eastern Initiation: Early Syrian Baptismal Liturgy, Joint
Liturgical Studies 78 (London: Alcuin Club and the Group for the Renewal of Worship, 2014), 28-29.
Introduction
Summons to baptistery The Pre-Immersion Rituals A confession of sin concluded by some sort of exorcistic ritual
A profession of faith, of unknown content but not the Creed A pre-immersion anointing with no liturgical or sacramental function The Immersion A consecration of the font with a Trinitarian formula
A complete immersion of the candidate with the recitation of a Trinitarian formula of uncertain format
This effects the sealing of the candidate and the "sharing in the name Post-Immersion Rituals No anointing or imposition of hands Transitional Rituals Weak evidence for the white robe A procession into church Eucharist®?
Aswe have seen, Dayis not the first to point to differences between the initiation rites in the Baptismal Catecheses and the Mystagogical
Catecheses. Other scholars, such as Doval, have attributed presumed differences in these rites to liturgical and theological developments between the 350s and the 380s (Cyril) or a bit later (John II). But, in spite of the fact that, unlike the Mystagogical Catecheses, Cyril is not giving a step by step commentary on the baptismal rites in his
Baptismal Catecheses, Day is adamant that the rites described in the ®3Tbid., 53.
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Mystagogical Catecheses cannot be late fourth century, although the supporting documents she cites—the Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis, the Canons of Hippolytus, and the Apostolic Constitutions—are themselves also midto late fourth-century documents. Furthermore, Day suggests that behind the Mystagogical Catecheses, the Canons of Hippolytus, and the Apostolic Constitutions, there may be a version of the so-called Apostolic Tradition, once attributed widely to Hippolytus of Rome in the early third century, a conclusion no longer accepted uncritically today.** According to Day:
It has become apparent that the two sources which lie closest to MC (the Mystagogical Catecheses), both theologically and structurally, would appear to be those "derived" from AT (Apostolic Tradition): CH (Canons of Hippolytus) and AC (Apostolic
Constitutions). If AT, as reconstructed, lies behind CH and AC, then the manner in which these two texts have interpreted their source is quite distinctive. It is possible, we suggest, that MC might be a hagiopolite interpretation of whatever source(s)— possibly even a version of AT—which lies behind the common sequence in CH and ΑΟ Whatever the date and provenance of this Apostolic Tradition, however, it is widely accepted that the Egyptian Canons of Hippolytus is the earliest derivative document from it. The original Greek version of the Canons, though not extant, is dated to between 336 and 240.35
If Terian is correct in his 335 dating of the Letter of Macarius, then the rite known to the author of the Mystagogical Catecheses, as we have seen, would have already been known earlier in Jerusalem, at least,
®4See the edition of Paul Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, 'The Apostolic Tradition:
A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002). For a different view see Alistair Stewart, Hippolytus: On the Apostolic
Tradition, 2nd ed., Popular Patristics Series 54 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2015).
**Day, "Catechetical Lectures," 54.
*°See The Canons of Hippolytus, Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study 2, ed. Paul Bradshaw (Bramcote/Nottingham: Grove Books, Ltd., 1987).
Introduction
in embryonic form, at the time of Cyril's Baptismal Catecheses, a time directly parallel to the dating of the Greek version of the Canons of Hippolytus. If so, then, Day's thesis that the rites of the Mystagogical
Catecheses could not have been in Jerusalem until after 397 falls to the wayside.
Even if Terian is incorrect, however, and the shape and contents of the baptismal liturgy he deduces from the document are not yet part of the Jerusalem liturgy of the early to mid-fourth century, it does not necessarily follow that Day's fifth-century dating of the rite in Mystagogical Catecheses 1, 2, and 3, is correct either. That is, whatever liturgical developments may have taken place between Cyril's Baptismal Catecheses in the middle of the fourth century and the date of the composition of the Mystagogical Catecheses, why should the Mystagogical Catecheses be viewed as stemming from a period so much later than the parallel documents she cites? Indeed, what this comparative approach would seem to demonstrate is that the Mystagogical Catecheses themselves belong to this same general overall context of midto late fourth-century liturgical development. One is thus led back to the plausibility of the theory of Cyrilline authorship held by Doval, and recently defended by D.
Hawk-Reinhard in her 2012 doctoral dissertation, "From Χριστιανοί to Χριστοφόροι: The Role of the Eucharist in Christian Identity Formation according to Cyril of Jerusalem."*' The most logical explanation for the differences between the Baptismal and Mystagogical
Catecheses stems from further evolution not only in the rites over thirty years, but also in their theological interpretations, as well as from the fact that they are addressed to people at different stages within the initiation process.
5, Hawk-Reinhard, "From Xptotiavoi to Χριστοφόροι: The Role of the Eucharist in Christian Identity Formation according to Cyril of Jerusalem" (PhD Dissertation, Saint Louis University, 2012). For a different but cautious view, see Juliette Day,
"The Eucharist in Jerusalem: A Brief Survey of Some Problems and Content of the Eucharistic Prayers of the Mystagogical Catecheses,' in The Eucharist: Its Origins and Contexts, ed. David Hellholm and Dieter Sanger, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 1 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 1143-64.
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It is precisely here where the shape of the anaphora in Mystagogical Catecheses 5 becomes of paramount significance. Unless we are to assume that Mystagogical Catecheses 4 and 5 belong to a different stratum of the document than 1-3, then it would seem that the dating of the eucharistic liturgy would be of great importance in resolving the question of authorship and/or date. Does the eucharistic liturgy reflect a midto late fourth-century or a later fourthand early fifthcentury liturgical context? If later, then why do the Mystagogical Catecheses not contain an anaphoral text closer to that of Saint James? If the Eucharist reflects the earlier context, which most scholars would assert, then why does the baptismal liturgy not reflect a similar overall context with the distinctions from the Baptismal Catecheses explained as a result of developments in the Jerusalem rite in the time of Cyril, as Doval concludes?
At issue with regard to dating the anaphora in Mystagogical Catecheses 5, and, hence, the Mystagogical Catecheses as a whole, is the presence or absence of an institution narrative within it. And, here, with the exception of Yarnold and Doval, both of whom assert Cyrilline authorship and the presence of the narrative, most contemporary scholars would argue that there was no narrative in the anaphora described in this text. Together with the recent conclusions of Gabriele Winkler on the "missing" or interpolated institution narrative in Ethiopic anaphoras,** most scholars today would tend to put Didache 9 and 10, the Strasbourg Papyrus, and the anaphora of Addai and Mari together with the anaphora in Mystagogical Catecheses 5 as witnesses to an anaphoral pattern that did not yet contain this narrative.*' Indeed, in our commentary on the Apostolic Tradition, we suggested that the institution narrative
**See Gabriele Winkler, "A New Witness to the Missing Institution Narrative,' in Studia Liturgica Diversa: Essays in Honor of Paul F. Bradshaw, ed. Maxwell E. Johnson and L. Edward Phillips (Portland, OR: The Pastoral Press, 2004), 117-128.
*°Cf. Emmanuel J. Cutrone, "Cyril's Mystagogical Catecheses and the Evolution of the Jerusalem Anaphora,' OCP 44 (1978): 52-64; Fenwick, The Anaphoras of St.
Basil and James: An Investigation into Their Common Origins, 36-45; and Burreson,
"The Anaphora of the Mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem,' 131-151.
Introduction
in the Latin and Ethiopic versions was quite likely a fourth-century innovation made at the time when the institution narrative was beginning to be added to anaphoral texts."° Neither the presence nor the absence of the narrative of institution may be taken as absolute proof of the dating of the Mystagogical Catecheses in general.
But it would seem that holding to a date after 397 would make the absence of such a narrative downright unthinkable, especially when the relatively complete anaphora of Saint James is itself dated to the end of the fourth century.'* Sources and possible influences on the Jerusalem anaphora, yes; a later dating, presumably at the time when Saint James would have already been in use, no. Even if Cyril himself is not the "author" of the Mystagogical Catecheses, it would seem that either with or without an institution narrative in the text,
Mystagogical Catecheses 5 would be inadequate as an exposition of a Jerusalem anaphoral shape Jater than the late fourth century, that is, quite possibly the later years of Cyril's episcopate.
V. MANUSCRIPTS
The major manuscripts for the Mystagogical Catecheses"* are the following:
*°Bradshaw, Johnson, and Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition:
A Commentary, 45-46.
See Burreson, "The Anaphora of the Mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem," 166-67.
**While only seven manuscripts were listed by F. L. Cross in the earlier edition of this work, xxxiv-xxxy, Piédagnel, Cyrille de Jerusalem, 50-59, gives ten. See also
A. Piédagnel, "Les Catéchéses Mystagogiques de Saint Cyrille de Jérusalem: Inventaire de la tradition manuscrite grecque,' Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 107 (1970): 141-45. While Piédagnel has claimed that John of Jerusalem may well have been the final redactor of the Mystagogical Catecheses, D.
Hawk-Reinhard has argued in her dissertation, "From Xptotiavot to Χριστοφόροι:
The Role of the Eucharist in Christian Identity Formation according to Cyril of Jerusalem," against Piédagnel for Cyrilline authorship based on the manuscripts attributing authorship to Cyril.
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1. Cod. Monacensis gr. 394 (saec. x). Formerly at Augsburg, from there it passed to Munich in 1806, with the rest of the Augsburg collection.
2. Cod. Ottobonianus 86 (saec. x or xi). Vat. gr. 602 (saec. xvi) is a copy of this MS.
3. Cod. Neapolitanus-Vindobonensis 8 (saec. xi).
Cod. Bodleianus Thos. Roe 25 (ol. 271) (saec. xi).
Cod. Coislinianus 227 (ol. 101) in the Bibliotheque ws Nationale (saec. xi).
Cod. Vindobonensis 55 (saec. xi?).
Cod. Marcianus gr. II. 35 (saec. xii).
Cod. Ottobonianus 446 (saec. xv).
Cod. Monacensis gr. 278 (saec. xvi).
Sey ο SS ον 10. Cod. Ottobonianus 220 (saec. xvi-xvii).
While no systematic study of the manuscripts had been made at the time of Cross's translation in 1951, A. Piédagnel undertook such a study in his critical edition some sixteen years later. He divided up the manuscripts into three families: (1) family a, composed of Monacensis gr. 394 and NeapolitanusVindobonensis 8; (2) family β, composed of Bodleianus Thos. Roe 25, Coislinianus 227, Vindobonensis 55, Marcianus gr. II. 35, and Ottobonianus 220; and (3) family y, consisting of by the three remaining manuscripts, Ottobonianus 86,
Ottobonianus 446, and Monacensis gr. 278. According to Piédagnel, whose conclusions have been accepted by scholars, the superior textual tradition is represented by family a, especially by Monacensis gr. 394, which became the primary text for his edition.??
The Greek text appearing in this volume is "semi-critical": the base text is F. L. Cross's edition, but often better readings are adopted from Piédagnel's critical edition. These instances are noted in the apparatus, as are variant readings from Piédagnel that have not been adopted in the main Greek text. What is to be noted is how closely
Cross' text parallels that of Piédagnel with only minimal variations.
*»*Piédagnel, Cyrille de Jerusalem, 60-65.
Introduction Sy Most often these minimal variations are merely different tenses of the same verb or a somewhat different word order. In almost every case, however, these variations have only minor implications for the translation. Because no recent critical edition exists for the Procatechesis, the Greek text that appeared in the previous version is reprinted here, with a few minor changes.
VI. EDITIONS
The Mystagogical Catecheses were apparently edited for the first time, with a Latin translation, by J. Grodecius (Vienna) in 1560. A second edition by G. Morel (Paris), with a selection of other Catecheses, followed in 1564. The first complete edition of the whole work was compiled by J. Prévot (Paris, 1608). Far superior was that of Thomas
Milles, Vice-Principal of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, and later Bishop of Waterford (Oxford, 1703), and this in turn was further improved by the Benedictine, Dom A. A. Touttée (completed after his death in 1718 by P. Marran; Paris, 1720). This last text is reprinted in J. P.
Migne, PG 33, cols. 331-1180. Later editions were completed by the German scholars W. C. Reischl and J. Rupp (Munich, 1848-60) and (for the Mystagogical Catecheses) by H. Lietzmann (portions only;
Kleine Texte, No. 5, 1903), G. Rauschen (1907), and J. Quasten (1936), the two latter in the Florilegium Patristicum. A rare edition of some interest (Procatechesis and 1-18 only) is that of Denys Cleophas and Photius Alexandrides (2 vols., Jerusalem, 1867-68). The current critical and authoritative edition, as we have seen repeatedly, is that of A. Piédagnel, Cyrille de Jerusalem: Catéchéses mystagogiques,
Sources Chrétiennes 126, (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1966).
The earliest printed English version of the Catecheses appears to be that in the Library of the Fathers (1838). The translation was the work of R. W. Church (appearing in Cross's edition), the preface
(interesting and important as a statement of the Tractarian view of the Fathers) by John Henry Newman. A revision of this translation was
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published by E. H. Gifford in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Christian Fathers (1893) with a useful introduction and Greek index. Another
English version appears in H. de Romestin's edition (1887).
More recent English translations include those of A. A. Stephenson, Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, vol. 2, Fathers of the Church 64 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press,
1970); William Telfer, Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa, Library of Christian Classics 4 (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster
Press, 1955); and Edward Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem (London/New York: Routledge, 2000), in addition to his earlier translation of the Mystagogical Catecheses in his The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation,
2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1994), 67-97. The English translation in this volume is original and, unlike that in the previous edition, is based on the Greek version presented here, and appears on facing pages, rather than in a separate section of the book as in the previous edition.
VII. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Editions a) Pre-Baptismal Catecheses:
Minge, J.-P. Patrologia Graeca 33, 331-1180. b) Mystagogical Catecheses:
Cross, F. L. St. Cyril of Jerusalem' Lectures on the Christian Sacraments: The Procatechesis and the Five Mystagogical Catecheses.
London: SPCK, 1951.
Piédagnel, A. Cyrille de Jerusalem: Catéchéses mystagogiques. Sources Chrétienne 126. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1966.
Introduction
Translations Gifford, E. H., trans. and ed. S. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem: Catechetical Lectures. In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaf and Henry Wace, 2nd series, vol. 7, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, 1-183. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1996. First published 1893 by T&T Clark.
Stephenson, A. A., Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem vol. 2. Fathers of the Church 64. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1970.
Telfer, W. Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa. Library of Christian Classics 4. 1955. Reprint, Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2006.
Yarnold, E. The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.LA. 2nd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1994
[Mystagogical Catecheses only, see pp. 67-97].
. Cyril of Jerusalem. London: Routledge, 2000.
Studies Abdelsayed, J. P. "Liturgical Exodus in Reverse: A Reevaluation of the Egyptian Elements in the Jerusalem Liturgy." In Issues in Eucharistic Praying in East and West: Essays in Liturgical and Theological Analysis, edited by Maxwell E. Johnson, 99-128. Collegeville, MN: Pueblo, 2010.
Baldovin, J. Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem. Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study 9, Grove Liturgical Study 57. Bramcote/Nottingham,
1989.
. The Urban Character of Christian Worship. OCA 228. Rome:
Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1987.
Beukers, C. "'For our Emperors, Soldiers, and Allies': An Attempt at Dating the Twenty-Third Catechesis of Cyrillus of Jerusalem."
Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961): 177-184.
Burreson, K. "The Anaphora of the Mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem." In Essays on Early Eastern Eucharistic Prayers,
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edited by Paul Bradshaw, 131-152. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997.
Camelot, P.-Th. "Note sur la théologie baptismale des catéchéses attribuées a Saint Cyrille de Jérusalem." In Kyriakon: Festschrift
Johannes Quasten, edited by P. Granfield and J. Jungmann, 2:725-729. Minster: Aschendorff, 1970; 2nd ed. 1974.
Cuming, G. J. "Egyptian Elements in the Jerusalem Liturgy.' Journal of Theological Studies 25 (1974): 117-124.
Cutrone, E. J. "Cyril's Mystagogical Catecheses and the Evolution of the Jerusalem Anaphora." OCP 44 (1978): 52-64.
. "Saving Presence in the Mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem." PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 1975.
. "The Liturgical Setting of the Institution Narrative in the Early Syrian Tradition" In Time and Community: In Honor of Thomas Julian Talley, edited by J. N. Alexander, 105-114. Washington, DC: The Pastoral Press, 1990.
Day, J. Baptism in Early Byzantine Palestine 325-451. Joint Liturgical Studies 43. Cambridge: Grove Books, 1999.
. The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem: Fourthand Fifth-Century Evidence from Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Liturgy, Worship and Society. Aldershot and Birmingham: Ashgate, 2007.
. "The Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem: A Source for the Baptismal Liturgy of Mid-Fourth Century Jerusalem." In Further Essays in Early Eastern Initiation: Early Syrian Baptismal Liturgy, by Paul F. Bradshaw and Juliette Day, 24-56. Joint
Liturgical Studies 78. London: Alcuin Club and the Group for the Renewal of Worship, 2014.
. The Eucharist in Jerusalem: A Brief Survey of Some Problems and Content of the Eucharistic Prayers of the Mystagogical Catecheses." In The Eucharist: Its Origins and Contexts. ed.
David Hellholm and Dieter Sanger, 1143-64. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 1. Tubingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2017.
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Doval, A. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogue: The Authorship of the Mystagogic Catecheses. Patristic Monograph Series 17. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001.
. "The Location and Structure of the Baptistery in the Mystagogic Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem." Studia Patristica
26 (1993): 1-13.
Hawk-Reinhard, D. "From Χριστιανοί to ΧἈριστοφόροι: The Role of the Eucharist in Christian Identity Formation according to Cyril of Jerusalem." PhD diss., Saint Louis University, 2012.
Janeras, S. "A propos de la catéchése XIVe de Cyrille de Jérusalem""
Ecclesia Orans 3 (1986): 307-18.
Johnson, M. "Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem." In Essays in Early Eastern Initiation, edited by Paul Bradshaw, 18-30. Alcuin/GROW
Liturgical Study 8. Nottingham: Grove Books, 1988.
. "Baptismal Liturgy in Fourth-Century Jerusalem in Light of Recent Scholarship." In Inquiries into Eastern Christian Worship: Selected Papers of the Second International Congress of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, Rome, 17 -- 21 September 2008, edited by Basilius J. Groen, Steven Hawkes-Teeples, and Stefanos Alexopoulos, 81-98. Eastern Christian Studies 12. Leuven:
Peeters, 2012.
Mazza, E. Mystagogy: A Theology of Liturgy in the Patristic Age.
Translated by Matthew J. O'Connell. New York, NY: Pueblo Books, 1989.
McGowan, Anne, and Paul Bradshaw. The Pilgrimage of Egeria: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Alcuin
Club Collections. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, forthcoming.
Ratcliff, E. C. "The Old Syrian Baptismal Tradition and its Resettlement under the Influence of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century.'
Studies in Church History 2 (1965): 19-37. Reprinted in Liturgical Studies, edited by A.H. Couratin and D. Tripp, 135-154. London:
SPCK, 1976.
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Renoux, A. "Les catéchéses mystagogiques dans lorganisation liturgique hiérosolymitaine du IVe et du Ve siécle." Muséon 78 (1965):
355-359.
Riley, H. M. Christian Initiation:
A Comparative Study of the Interpretation of the Baptismal Liturgy in the Mystagogical Writings of Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Ambrose of Milan. Studies in Christian Antiquity 17. Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1974.
Spinks, B. "The Jerusalem Liturgy of the Catecheses Mystagogicae:
Syrian or Egyptian?" Studia Patristica 18.2 (1989): 391-396.
Swaans, W. J. "A propos des 'catéchéses mystagogiques' attribuées a S. Cyrille de Jerusalem." Muséon 55 (1942): 1-43.
Terian, A. Macarius of Jerusalem, Letter to the Armenians, AD 335:
Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary, AVANT: Treasures of the Armenian Christian Tradition 4. Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir's Seminary Press and St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, 2008.
Winkler, G. Das armenische Initiationsrituale. OCA 217. Rome: Pont.
Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1982.
. The Original Meaning of the Prebaptismal Anointing and Its Implications." Worship 52 (1978): 24-45. Reprinted in Living
Water, Sealing Spirit: Readings on Christian Initiation, edited by Maxwell E. Johnson, 58-81. Collegeville, MN: Pueblo, 1995.
Yarnold, E. "The Authorship of the Mystagogic Catecheses Attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem." Heythrop Journal 19 (1978): 143-161.
LECTURESCON®THE
CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS
The Procatechesis and the Five Mystagogical Catecheses Ascribed to St Cyril of Jerusalem
