Chapter
XI.—S. Cyril’s Writings.
§ 1.
List of Works
.
Besides the Catechetical and Mystagogic Lectures translated in this
volume, the extant works of S. Cyril include (1) the “Letter to
the Emperor Constantius concerning the appearance at Jerusalem of a
luminous Cross in the sky:” (2) “The Homily on the
Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda:” and (3) Fragments of
Sermons on the Miracle of the water changed into wine, and on
John xvi. 28
, “I go to My Father.”
Another work attributed by some authorities to
Cyril of Jerusalem and by others to Cyril of Alexandria is a Homily
De Occursu Domini
, that is, On the Presentation of Christ in the
Temple, and the meeting with Symeon, called in the Greek Church
ἡ ῾Υπαπαντή
.
The other Fragments and Letters mentioned in the
Benedictine Edition have no claim to be considered genuine.
§ 2.
Authenticity of the
Lectures
. The internal evidence of the time and place at
which the Lectures were delivered has been already discussed in
chapters viii. and ix., and proves beyond doubt that they must have
been composed at Jerusalem in the middle of the fourth century.
At that date Cyril was the only person living in Jerusalem who is
mentioned by the Ecclesiastical Historians as an author of Catechetical
Lectures: and S. Jerome, a younger contemporary of Cyril,
expressly mentions the Lectures which Cyril had written in his
youth. In fact their authenticity seems never to have been
doubted before the seventeenth century, when it was attacked with more
zeal than success by two French Protestant Theologians of strongly
Calvinistic opinions, Andrew Rivet (
Critic. Sacr
. Lib. iii. cap.
8, Genev. 1640), and Edmund Aubertin (
De Sacramento
Eucharistiæ
, Lib. ii. p. 422, Ed. Davent., 1654). Their
objections, which were reprinted at full length by Milles at the end of
his Edition, were directed chiefly against the Mystagogic Lectures, and
rested on dogmatic rather than on critical grounds. The argument
most worthy of notice was that in a MS. of the Library of Augsburg the
Mystagogic Lectures were attributed to John, Bishop of Jerusalem.
This is admitted by Milles, who gives the title thus:
Μυσταγωγικαὶ
κατηχήσεις
πέντε
᾽Ιωάννου
᾽Επισκόπου
῾Ιεροσολύμων,
περὶ
βαπτίσματος,
χρίσματος,
σώματος, καὶ
αἵματος
Χριστοῦ
.
I do not find this Codex Augustinus mentioned elsewhere
by any of the Editors under that name: but the Augsburg MSS. were
removed to Munich in 1806, and in the older Munich MS. (Cod. Monac. i),
the title of the first Mystagogic Lecture is
Μυσταγωγία
πρώτη
᾽Ιωάννου
ἐπισκόπου
῾Ιεροσολύμων
.
Also in Codd. Monac. 2, Ottobon. there is added at the end of the
Title,
τοῦ
αὐτοῦ
Κυρίλλου καὶ
᾽Ιωάννου
ἐπισκόπου
.
That John, Cyril’s successor, did deliver Catechetical Lectures,
we know from his own correspondence with Jerome: and this very
circumstance may account for his name having been associated with, or
substituted for that of Cyril.
To Rivet’s objection Milles makes answer
that if the mistakes of a transcriber or the stumbling of an ignorant
Librarian (
imperiti Librarii cæspitationes
) have in one or
two MSS. ascribed the Lectures to John or any one else, this cannot be
set against the testimony of those who lived nearest to the time when
the Lectures were composed, as Jerome and Theodoret. Also the
internal evidence proves that the Lectures could not have been
delivered later than the middle of the fourth century, whereas John
succeeded Cyril about 386.
Moreover it is quite impossible to assign the two sets
of Lectures to different authors.
In Cat. xviii. § 33 the author
promises, as we have seen, that he will fully explain the Sacramental
Mysteries in other Lectures to be given in Easter week, in the Holy
Sepulchre itself, and describes the subject of each Lecture; to which
description the Mystagogic Lectures correspond in all
particulars. Other promises of future explanations are given in
Cat. xiii. § 19, and xvi. § 26, and fulfilled in
Myst
.
iv. § 3, and ii. § 6, and iii. § i. On the other
hand the author of
Myst
. i. § 9, after quoting the words,
“I believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost,
and in one Baptism of repentance,” adds, “Of which things I
spoke to thee at length in the former Lectures.”
By these and many other arguments drawn from internal
evidence Touttée has shewn convincingly that all the Lectures must
have had the same author, and that he could be no other than Cyril.
§ 3.
Early Testimony
.
Under the title “Veterum Testimonia de S. Cyrillo Hierosolymitano
ejusque Scriptis,” Milles collected a large number of passages
bearing on the life and writings of S. Cyril, of which it will be
sufficient to quote a few which refer expressly to his
Lectures.
S. Jerome, in his
Book of Illustrious Men
,
or
Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers
, composed at Bethlehem
about six years after Cyril’s death, writes in Chapter 112:
“Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, having been often driven out from
the Church, afterwards in the reign of Theodosius held his Bishopric
undisturbed for eight years: by whom there are Catechetical
Lectures, which he composed in his youth.”
Theodoret, born six or seven years after the death
of Cyril, in his
Dialogues
(p. 211 in this Series) gives the
“Testimony of Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, from his fourth
Catechetical Oration concerning the ten dogmas. Of the birth from
a virgin, “Believe thou this, &c.”
Theophanes (575
circ
.)
Chronographia
, p. 34, Ed. Paris, 1655, defends the orthodoxy of
Cyril, as follows: “It was right to avoid the word
ὁμοούσιος
,
which at that time offended most persons, and through the objections of
the adversaries deterred those who were to be baptized, and to explain
clearly the co-essential doctrine by words of equivalent meaning:
which also the blessed Cyril has done, by expounding the Creed of
Nicæa word for word, and proclaiming Him
Very
God of Very God
.”
Gelasius, Pope 492,
De duabus in Christo
naturis
, quotes as from Gregory Nazianzen the words of Cyril, Cat.
iv. § 9:
Διπλοῦς ἦν ὁ
Χριστός,
κ.τ.λ
.
Leontius Byzantinus (610
circ
.)
Contra
Nestor. et Eutychem
, Lib. 1. quotes the same passage expressly as
taken “From the 4th Catechetical Oration of Cyril, Bishop of
Jerusalem.”
Many other references to the Catecheses as the work of
Cyril are given by Touttée, pp. 306–315.
§ 4.
Editions
. 1.
Our earliest information concerning the Greek text and translations of
S. Cyril’s Lectures is derived from John Grodecq, Dean of Glogau
in Bohemia.
From his statement it appears that Jacob Uchanski,
Archbishop of Gnessen and Primate of Poland, had obtained from
Macedonia a version of the Catecheses in the Slavonic dialect, and had
translated it into the Polish language some years before 1560.
2. In that year Grodecq himself published at
Vienna an edition of the Mystagogic Lectures, thus described in the
catalogue of the Imperial Library:—
“S. Cyril’s Mystagogic Lectures to the newly
baptized, which now for the first time are edited in Greek and Latin
together, that he who doubts the Latin may have recourse to the Greek,
and he who does not understand Greek well may read the Latin,
translated by John Grodecq.”
Nothing more is known of this edition: Fabricius,
Milles, Touttée, and Reischl, all say that they have been unable
to find any trace of it. Uchanski about this time sent to Grodecq
his Slavonic and Polish versions, in order that they might be compared
with the
Greek original. The
result according to Grodecq was that the fidelity of both versions was
clearly shewn, and “there could not possibly remain any doubt
that these Lectures of Cyril are perfectly genuine.”
Whether Uchanski’s book was written or printed is
unknown, as no trace of it has hitherto been found.
3. S. Cyrilli Hier. Catecheses ad Illuminandos et
Mystagogicæ. Interpretatus est Joannes Grodecius.
Romæ 1564. 8°.
Grodecq had come to Rome in the suite of Stanislaus
Hosius, Cardinal Legate at the Council of Trent, who in the year 1562
had published in the Confession of Petricow the 4th and part of the 3rd
Mystagogic Lectures from a Greek MS. belonging to Cardinal
Sirlet. From this MS. Grodecq made his Latin translation, using
also the work of Uchanski before mentioned. The preface is dated
from Trent, on the 9th of July, 1563. The translation was
published in the following year at Rome, Cologne, Antwerp, and Paris,
and often elsewhere until superseded by the new Latin Version of
Touttée in the Benedictine Edition.
4. In the same year, 1564, the Mystagogic Lectures
and Catecheses iv., vi., viii.–x., xv., xviii. were published at
Paris by William Morel, the King’s Printer, under the following
title:—
“S. Cyrilli Hier. Catecheses, id est institutiones
ad res sacras, Græce editæ, ex bibliotheca Henrici Memmii,
cum versione Latina. Cura Guil. Morellii. Paris. G.
Morel., 1564. 4° min.”
The Greek text depending on de Mesme’s one MS.,
and that mutilated and faulty, is said by Touttée to have many
faults and omissions, but to have been nevertheless very useful to him
in correcting the text. The MS. itself had entirely
disappeared. The Latin version, appended to the copy in the Royal
(National) Library at Paris, but not always attached to the Greek, is
said by Touttée to be a careful and elegant version, independent
of Grodecq’s.
A copy of Morel’s Edition which formerly belonged
to Du Fresne, containing various readings in the margin from two other
MSS., was lent to Touttée from the Library of S. Geneviève
(Genovef.).
Reischl describes the MS. as “Cod. Mesmianus
(Montf. I. 185). Sec. xi.”
5. “S. Cyrilli H. Catecheses Græce et
Latine ex interpretatione Joan. Grodecii nunc primum editæ, ex
variis bibliothecis, præcipue Vaticana, studio et opera Joan.
Prevotii. Paris. (Claude Morellus), 1608.” This was the
first complete edition of the Greek text. Prevot, a native of
Bordeaux, states in the Dedication to Pope Paul V., that by the help of
MSS. “melioris notæ” found in the Vatican, he had both
corrected the text of the Lectures previously published by Morel, and
carefully transcribed the rest. He made, according to
Touttée, many useful emendations, but did not mention the number,
age, nor various readings of the MSS. employed.
6. “S. Cyrilli Hier. Arch. opera
quæ supersunt omnia; quorum quædam nunc primum ex Codd. MSS.
edidit, reliqua cum Codd. MSS. contulit, plurimis in locis emendavit,
Notisque illustravit Tho. Milles S.T.B. ex Æde Christi
Oxoniæ, e Theatro Sheldoniano, Impensis Richardi Sare Bibliopol.
Lond
. MDCCIII.”
The author of this fine Edition gives us in his Preface
the following description of his work:—
“In the first place I wished to amend more
thoroughly the text of J. Prevot, which, as I said, he himself largely
corrected and supplied from MSS. in the Vatican, and which I have
printed in this Edition: I have therefore compared it with all
the other Editions that I could collect, and in this manner have easily
removed many errors both of the printers and of Prevot himself.
Afterwards I carefully compared all the Catecheses and the Epistle to
Constantinus with two MSS. and some with three, namely iv., vi.,
viii.–x., xv., xvi., xviii. The first Codex, written on
parchment apparently six hundred years ago, I found among those MSS.
which Sir Tho. Roe, our first Ambassador from King James I. to the
Great Mogul, brought from the East, and presented to the Bodleian
Library. The second we owe to the
diligence of Isaac Casaubon, who collated the
Catecheses and Epistle to Constantius with a MS. which he chanced
to find, I think, in some Library in France, and carefully noted all
the various readings in the margin. This copy of Casaubon’s
the Right Reverend Father in Christ, John Bishop of Norwich, very
kindly lent to me out of his well-furnished Library, and of his great
love for learning did not disdain to shew the highest favour to my
slight endeavours.”
Touttée thinks that the MS. from which Casaubon
drew his various readings was C. Roe itself, or that one of the two
MSS. had been copied from the other, or both from the same.
7. “S. Cyrilli Arch. Hier, opera quæ
exstant omnia et ejus nomine circumferuntur, ad MSS. codices necnon ad
superiores Editiones castigata, Dissertationibus et Notis illustrata,
cum nova interpretatione et copiosis indicibus. Cura et studio
Domni Antonii-Augustini Touttéi, Presbyteri et Monachi Benedictini
e Congregatione S. Mauri. Paris. Typis Jac. Vincent. 1720, fol. (Recusa
Venet. 1763).”
Of the Greek text the Editor says, “I have
collated it as carefully as I could with Grodecq’s translation,
Morel’s and Prevot’s Editions, and with MSS. to be found in
this City. The various readings of the Roman MSS. I have obtained
by the help of friends: those which Milles had collected from the
English Codices I have adopted for my own use.”
8. “S. Cyrilli Hier. Arch. opp. quæ
supersunt omnia ad libros MSS. et impressos recensuit Notis criticis
commentariis indicibusque locupletissimis illustravit Gulielm. Car.
Reischl S. Th. D. et Reg. Lycei Ambergensis Professor. Vol. I Monac. M
DCCC XLVIII.”
The Editor says in his Preface that he has altered the
Benedictine text only when the evidence was very weighty, and has then
given all the various readings in the critical notes. The
exegetical commentary was to be reserved for the 2nd Volume, but this
Dr. Reischl did not live to complete.
The Prolegomena contain (1) Touttée’s
inordinately long “Life of Cyril,” (2) a Dissertation on
the general character and authenticity of the Catecheses, and (3) an
“Apparatus Litterarius,” to which I have been indebted.
Vol. ii., containing Catecheses xii.–xviii.,
Myst
. i.–v., and the other works, genuine and spurious,
attributed to Cyril, was published by J. Rupp at Munich,
1860.
The MSS. used in revising the text of this, the best
critical edition, will be noticed below.
9. An Edition of the Catecheses only was published
at Jerusalem in 1867, having been commenced in 1849 at the request of
the Archbishop, Cyril II., by Dionysius Kleopas, Principal of the
Theological School of Jerusalem, and, after his death in 1861,
continued by his successor Photius Alexandrides, “Archdeacon of
the Apostolic and Patriarchal See of Jerusalem, and Principal of the
Theological School.”
The Editor gives in the Preface an interesting account
of the life of Kleopas, and of the work which he left unfinished.
§ 5.
Manuscripts
. From the preceding account of the
various Editions of S. Cyril we may obtain the following list of
authorities which have been hitherto used in revising the
Text.
1. Codex Sirletianus, known only by
Grodecq’s Latin version, Rome, 1564. Cf. § 1. 3.
2. C. Mesmianus, known only in Morel’s
edition, Paris, 1564. Cf. § i. 4.
3. Vatican MSS. used by Prevot. 1608, but not
identified. Cf. § i. 5.
4. C. Roe, Bibl. Bodleian. Oxon.
“Codex membranaceus in folio, ff. 223, sec. xi„ binis
columnis bene exaratus;” [ol. 271].
5. C. Casaubon. On this and the preceding
MS. see Milles as quoted above, § i. 6.
6. C. Ottobonianus (1) ol.
Rom. iv.
membran. sec.
xi. “Continet Catecheses omnes et Epist. ad Constantium.
Multas habet insignes ab editis varietates.”
C. Ottob. (2), “Chartaceus et recens est, nihil
fere ab editis discrepans.”
These are the Roman MSS. mentioned by
Touttée: see above, § i. 7.
7. C.
Coislin. 227 (ol. 101). Membran. Sæc. xi.
circ
.
“From this came many important emendations” (Touttée,
Notitia Codicum MSS
.).
In the descriptions of the following MSS. of the
National Library at Paris there is so much discrepancy between
Touttée and Reischl, that it is better to quote both.
8. “Catecheses xii., xiii., xiv., xv.,
comparavi cum Codice Reg. bibliothecæ num. 2503. Scriptus
est in bombycina charta an. 1231, quam anni notam apposuit
calligraphus” (Touttée,
Not. Codd. MSS
.).
Reischl has no notice of a MS. at all answering to this
description.
9. Cod. Reg. alter, “ol. 1260, nunc
1824, qui S. Basilii opera complectitur, sub ejus nomine Procatechesin
continet “ (Touttée,
Not. Codd. MSS
.):
aliter
, “Cod. Reg. ol. 260, nunc 1284, pag. 254, qui
duodecimi circiter est sæculi, in quo habetur Procatechesis
hæc sub nomine S. Basilii” (Id.
Monit. in
Procatechesin
).
“Cod. Reg. 467 (apud Touttéum, 1824)
Fonteblandensis, chartac. fol. sec. x. Continet sub S. Basilii
nomine
Orationem de Baptismo
, quæ est S. Cyrilli Hier.
Procatechesis. C. Reg. Touttéi” (Reischl).
10. “Cod. Reg. 969 (ol. Mazarin.)
Epistolarum S. Basilii. 4°. Sec. xiv. Exhibet sub n. 7
Basilii homiliam
quo
(sic)
ostenditur Deum esse
incomprehensibilem
, quæ non S. Basilii, sed Cyrilli est
Procatechesis” (Reischl).
This description agrees in substance with
Touttée’s.
11. C. Colbert. “Catecheses iv.,
vi., viii., ix., x., xv., xviii., contuli cum cod. Colbert. Biblioth.
chartaceo et recenti 4863 notato…In omnibus pene cum Morelliana
editione consentit” (Touttée,
Notitia Codd.
MSS
.).
Reischl makes no mention of this MS.
12. C. Colbert. alter. “membran. sign.
1717, Sec. xiii. diversas Patrum homilias continet, et Cat. xiii.
exhibet sub nomine Cyrillianæ in Crucem et Porasceven
homiliæ” (Touttée,
Notitia
).
This is described by Reischl as “Cod. Reg. 771
(ol. 1717) Colbertinus. Membran. fol. seculi
xiii.–xiv.”
The following MSS. have been used in Editions later than
the Benedictine.
13. “C. Monacensis I. 394 membran. fol.,
titulis et initialibus miniatis, f. 261 nitidissime uncialibus minutis
circiter seculo decimo in Oriente scriptus.”
This was regarded both by Reischl and by Rupp as the
most important authority for the text: it is much older than
Codd. Roe, Casaub., and seems to be related to Codd. Ottobon.
Coislin.
C. Mon. 2 of the 16th Century is of little value.
14. “C. Vindobonensis, 55, membran. fol
antiquissimus, sed incerto sæculo.”
A full account is given by Rupp in the Preface to Vol.
ii. It was collated by Joseph Müller, 1848, and contains all
Cyril’s Lectures, except the Procatechesis.
15. Codex A, found by Kleopas in the Library of
the Archbishop of Cyprus, and used as the basis of his text, sometimes
stands alone in preserving the true reading.
§ 6.
Versions
. Besides the
Latin Translations published with the Greek text, as mentioned above,
Reischl mentions the first three of the following:—
(a) Les catéchèses de Sainct
Cyrille. Traduit par Louis Ganey. Paris, 1564.
(b) Cyrill’s Schriften übersetzt und
mit Anmerkungen versehen von J. Mich. Feder.
Bamberg, 1786.
(c) Cyrilli Hier. Catecheses in Armen. Linguam
versæ. Viennæ 1832.
(d) The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril,
Archbishop of Jerusalem, Translated, with Notes and Indices (Library of
Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church.) Parker, Oxford, 1838. See
Preface.
(e) S. Cyril
on the Mysteries. (The five Mystagogic Lectures.) H. de
Romestin. Parker, Oxford, 1887.
(f) On Faith and the Creed. C. A. Heurtley,
D.D., Margaret Professor of Divinity, and Canon of Christ Church,
Oxford. Parker, 3rd Ed., 1889. Contains, with other
Treatises, the Fourth Catechetical Lecture of S. Cyril.
In the present volume the translation given in the
Oxford “Library of Fathers” has been carefully revised
throughout. Where it has been found necessary to depart from the
Benedictine text, the Editor has consulted the readings and critical
notes of Milles, Reischl, and Rupp, and the Jerusalem edition of
Kleopas and Anaxandrides.
A few additions have been made to the index of
Subjects: the Indices of Greek Words and of Scripture Texts have
been much enlarged, and carefully revised. For any errors which
may have escaped observation the indulgence of the critical reader will
not, it is hoped, be asked in vain.
E. H. G