let your heart be strengthened, and sustain the Lord.” And the disciple of the Savior: “You have need of endurance, so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” For we must begin by participating in good things, and seek out the end, that we may also inherit the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power unto the ages. Amen.
II. By the same. On the seventh of Epiphi, that is, the day before the Kalends of August: Two accounts concerning the holy martyrs Cyrus and John, who rest here; through which this Father sets forth the honorable passion of them, and the deposition of their holy relics. This present first account was delivered in the Metanoea, which is interpreted as Penitence, in the church of the Holy Apostles.
We have not been slothful concerning the customary discourse, but as the Savior has said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We believe, indeed, that through your prayers, by the mercy of God, this affliction will be lessened. That which we both planned and accomplished for your benefit, we consider it necessary to tell you again. For these regions had need of healers who heal through God. In order, therefore, that we might benefit all places, and especially those adjacent to the church of the holy Evangelists—for, having no martyr-shrine, they were going away to other places, and while they were Christians, they were wandering—for this reason, we necessarily sought out the relics of holy martyrs. We found, then, and learned accurately, that at the time when the holy virgins suffered martyrdom (1), whose divine spring (2) we have at the place of the holy evangelist Mark, two individuals, of whom one was a monkish ascetic, and the other a soldier, were present encouraging them, and training them for the struggle of their contest; so that with noble purpose they might endure danger for the sake of our Savior. They themselves were also called with them to martyrdom; and they entered bravely, and bore witness for Christ, and laid down their own souls for him. B The bodies of the holy martyrs were therefore lying together in one place; and because their relics were undistinguished, for it was not clearly recognized who was this one, and who that one, we necessarily took them both up, and transported them, and placed them in the church of the Evangelists, observing the custom, as is the manner for martyrs, to make a memorial. Let us assemble, therefore, God willing, the following day, such that by honoring the holy evangelists...
and the blessed martyrs—they are called Cyrus and John—B we may perform our duty.
III. By the same. Epiphi 8, that is, the Kalends of August, at the church of the Evangelists, where he deposited in a monument the relics of the holy martyrs Cyrus and John, two miles to the east of Canopus, near Menuthis.
And there went with him great multitudes; and he turned and said to them: "If any man comes to me, and does not hate his own father, and mother, and children, and wife, and brothers, and sisters, and furthermore his own soul, he cannot be my disciple; whoever does not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." The words of the Savior require us to be fervent in reverence; and they persuade those who wish to love him to deem nothing more precious than him—not the affection of the body, not the love of fathers, not the reverence of mothers and sisters; for he knows that those who have despised these things find a great and brilliant reward. And to say something else in addition to these, while recognizing how much love he had for us, he himself did not make his own affairs better than our own; he did not prefer his own concerns to the salvation and life of all. Being God, he became man for our sake, and endured the cross, despising the shame. But those who suffer with him will also reign with him; those who are dishonored together with him will, in every way, also be glorified together with him.
Thus we believe that the holy martyrs Cyrus and John also became approved; for they entered with a ready heart into the contests on behalf of piety toward Christ. And that most terrible beast of all sprang upon them—I mean death; but they were mindful of their own Lord saying: "Whoever does not take his cross and follow after me, cannot be my disciple." They fulfilled the commandment; they too took up the cross and followed their own Lord. And at that time, they were not led to the contests alone, but there was also a choir of holy virgins; and though they were women, they were unbroken in their resolve. Thus, together with them, this excellent pair of athletes was perfected, and they have received the reward...
as the charity which is in Christ obtain, the treading down of A Satan, and the driving away of malignant demons. Let them therefore be present who formerly wandered; let them come to the true and un-bought medicine. For no one among us concocts dreams, nor does anyone say to those who come: "The Lady has said: Do this or that." Is it possible for a Lady and a God to exist at all, and also to wish to be worshipped? Among demons there is neither male nor female. And see what kind of purpose they have: they wish to be called by the names of women. Trampling down, therefore, these grandmotherly fables and the worn-out collusions of diviners, let them come to the true physicians from above, to whom the all-powerful God has granted the authority to heal, saying: "Heal the sick; freely you have received, freely give." Having therefore enjoyed every healing from the Saviour, let them hymn their own Master, that they may also be deemed worthy of the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom to God and the Father together with the all-holy Spirit be glory, honor, and power, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen. B
NOTICE REGARDING THE SUBSEQUENT FRAGMENT
Two unpublished chronicles, namely those of George the Monk, commonly known as Hamartolus, and of John the Sicilian, while I was reading them in the Vatican codices, in the second year of the emperor Justinian, during which public punishments were inflicted for a nefarious passion against nature (a matter which Theophanes and Cedrenus relate briefly, but our aforementioned authors recount at greater length), among other detestations of this crime written in those chronicles, I discovered a broad and most eloquent fragment of Saint Cyril, described in the same words both by Hamartolus, p. 160, and also by the Sicilian, p. 315; which, although it appears to have been taken from some sermon or book of Cyril, yet I have not found it in his published writings (unless perhaps haste, or some wandering of the mind in unrolling the tomes of Cyril, has caused me to miss the thread of the reading), I judged it should be placed here with the other new writings of Cyril: for if it should happen to appear previously published in public books, there will be no harm, nor will the public interest suffer any detriment; rather, some variety of perhaps better fruit will exist through us at least. (Chrysostom also, in his Comment. on Epistle to the Galatians ed. Maur., t. X, p. 717, inveighs against those who make themselves eunuchs; but that passage is different from ours.) I hesitated a little as to whether I should become an interpreter of a matter not very modest in itself or not. But first I thought, even if I were to edit in Greek only, there would not be lacking later someone who would translate it into other languages. Then I judged that the sermon of the most holy Cyril, which crushes the nefarious matter with the highest hatred, could be read by any honest man, at least in a language not vulgar. Finally, considering that praise accrues from this to the Christian religion, which among so many monsters of paganism, gradually antiquized and abolished even the most shameful eunuchism; and wishing to teach by a new example how much the holy Fathers always detested and attacked this wretched crime and its attendant vices, I decided to communicate it also in Latin for those not skilled in Greek. Furthermore, before this tract of Cyril, it pleases me to recite a renowned testimony of Tertullian concerning modesty: "Modesty is the flower of morals, the honor of bodies, the grace of the sexes, the integrity of the blood, the faith of the race, the foundation of holiness, the prejudice of every good mind; although rare, and not easily perfect, and scarcely perpetual; yet it will dwell in the age to some extent, if nature has prepared, if discipline has persuaded, if censure has compressed."
XIX. Steliteutic Sermon against Eunuchs
This intemperate and impure disposition and practice of those who suffer it voluntarily, the great Cyril, triumphing over it quite soundly and branding it with a stigma C, speaks thus:
"For the sake of intemperance, these wretches do this, desiring to be men, while suffering the things of women."