PROLEGOMENA TO THE PASCHAL HOMILIES OF SAINT CYRIL ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA
Præfixed to the Greek-Latin edition which appeared at Antwerp in the year 1618, folio, from a Vatican codex, edited by Antonio Salmatia, Doctor of Theology in the Ambrosian College at Milan.
It has seemed good to premise three things in advance, as being most necessary to the matter in hand. Favor me with your tongues and your minds. Firstly, I shall briefly discourse upon this genus of writing, then upon the legitimate author, and concerning the *heortastikai*—whether one prefers to call them Epistles or Paschal Homilies—of the bishops of Alexandria, Dionysius and Theophilus, and afterwards those of our own Cyril, and finally upon the number and order of these homilies. In the beginning, receive briefly thus the origin of this genus of writing in the Catholic Church, and the cause of it.
I. Because there were always many varied opinions in the Church regarding the time for celebrating the feast of Easter, the chief of all feasts, lest they should coincide with the Jews on the fourteenth day of the moon (from whom the Christians wondrously differed in this matter, and they avoided their rites and ceremonies). In the first and most ancient Nicene Synod, there is an epistle on this matter from the A three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers, as many as were present, in the year of Christ 325, to the Alexandrians: and likewise from the truly Great Emperor Constantine to all the Churches: and from Athanasius to the African bishops: and this secret was given to the bishops and metropolitans, and especially among these to the prelate of Alexandria (because in Egypt, due to the risings of the Nile, mathematical sciences were particularly flourishing), that at the festival of the Nativity of Christ the Lord, they might announce the day of the next Easter to their Churches. But since few could be present to hear the prelate preaching the Paschal Sermons, those orations which were delivered were sent everywhere to the Churches as sort of circular or encyclical letters; from which these came to be called *heortastikai* or Paschal Epistles, as we learn from Eusebius, *Ecclesiastical History*, Book VII, chapter 15. The one who carried these epistles was, in Synesius the bishop of Cyrene, epistle 8 and 13, called *diakomistes ton panegyrikon grammaton*, as if to say, the bearer of the solemn letters. This task was therefore delegated especially to the Alexandrian bishop, but one who, according to custom, referred it to the supreme pontiff, as Leo the Great in epistle 72 to Marcian Augustus, and the Venerable Bede in chapter 42, *De ratione temporum*, clearly expound. Likewise, there is an Epistle of Blessed Ambrose on Easter that was published. There exist also three Paschal Epistles of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, the uncle of our Cyril, rendered into Latin from the Greek by Blessed Jerome, which should be arranged in approximately this order of time: so that the first is the one with this beginning: *Christum Jesum*, referring to the year of Christ 401; the second indeed begins: *Primam solemnitatis*, looking to the following year, published for the public while Pope Anastasius was still alive, as you may gather from the same Jerome’s epistles to Pammachius and Marcella, and his *Apology against Rufinus*. Hence, the third Paschal [epistle] of Theophilus, with this beginning: *Nunc quoque Dei*, which is to be referred to the year of Christ 404, when Pope Anastasius was already dead and Theophilus was still surviving. Sticking to the footsteps of his uncle in these matters, our Cyril of Alexandria, B immediately after Theophilus, the twenty-eighth bishop (as Nicephorus of Constantinople counts in his *Chronology* of bishops)
A gathered these Paschal Homilies in the same manner, as Sigebert of Gembloux asserts in his *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*; and he affirms that Cyril published Paschal Cycles. Gennadius of Marseille, a presbyter, adds in chapter 67 of his *Catalogue* (behold a singular eulogy of a most holy man) that Cyril composed many Homilies which were committed to memory by all the bishops of Greece for the purpose of preaching. And Nicephorus Callistus, at the end of book XII of his *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 35, reports that in various rites of the Church it was the custom that only the bishop of Alexandria should preach and speak words to the people among his own. As for the *Heortastikas* of Dionysius, who was older than both, I shall see to them presently. The bishop of Carthage, moreover, would indicate the solemn day of Easter to the other bishops of Africa, which day, however, the Supreme Pontiff had prescribed, as is plainly proved from letter 10 of Innocent I to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage. Furthermore, the fourth Council of Toledo, canon 5, and the Council of Braga in Lusitania, act II, chapter 9, decree that the time of Easter must be announced annually by the metropolitan to the other bishops and deacons, and they in turn to the peoples, each in their own churches, on the day of the Nativity of the Lord after the reading of the Gospel. From these it is concluded that these Sermons, which we are now presenting for the first time, also belong to Cyril, as befits the Alexandrian prelate. This example other churches, in Asia and Africa as well as Europe, followed by decree of the Nicene synod. B Hence, I see it is doubted why they are termed by various writers either Homilies or Epistles. Certainly the Greek books written by hand, which we used in translating, term them *logous* (discourses); and Jerome, in *De viris illustribus*, confesses that such sermons of Dionysius were composed in a declamatory style of speech, and the matter itself cries out to anyone inspecting it. Once only—which I did not think should be hidden—our Cyril in his 22nd *theoria* of a sermon calls it an epistle, although he pronounces it more of an oration, just as Eusebius in book VII, chapter 15, pronounces those of Dionysius as *heortastikas*. But what forbids these same things from being called Homilies first, and afterwards Epistles sent in various ways? I observe, however, that heresies arose in Asia on account of the feast of Easter, such as that of the Quartodecimans and the Novatians, from the question that arose concerning the time of celebrating Easter, as well as the Sabbatians, as the same Nicephorus reports in his *Ecclesiastical History*, book XI, chapter 14, and book XII, chapters 22 and 23. St. Augustine, in his book *On Heresies*, says they were called Tessarescaedecatites, and Tertullian makes a certain Blastus the author of his. Philastrius, bishop of Brescia, also mentions the Paschatites. See Epiphanius, heresy 20 and 50, and Eusebius and Socrates in book V of their *Ecclesiastical History*, and the former in book III of his *Life of Constantine the Great*.
II. But having observed that this useful work of the blessed Cyril had lain in darkness for so long, after the other monuments of that most holy man had been published in Latin, I began at times to doubt whether these Homilies should be attributed to another parent. C There was added the authority of blessed Jerome, a supreme and holy man, who in his *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers* affirms that Dionysius—and also the Alexandrian before Theophilus and Cyril—had written many *heortastikas* concerning Easter in a declamatory style, but does not mention Cyril, whom he did not touch upon; and indeed, like many other things, he did this by letter. What Jerome wrote in Latin from Eusebius, as is his custom, Sophonius in turn translated from this into Greek. But Eusebius, in book VII of his *Ecclesiastical History*, chapter 15—and from the same, Nicephorus in book VI, chapter 20—says that a *heortastike* was given to Flavius by Dionysius: at which time, under Emperor Decius, he suffered adversities from Valerian. He also gave another to Domitius and Didymus, in which he handed down the eight-year cycle and taught that Easter must not be celebrated except after the vernal equinox. The third Paschal epistle of Dionysius was sent to the Alexandrian presbyters, as was the fourth, written from the city after his return from exile, when a sedition had arisen at Alexandria. The fifth was to Hierax, an Egyptian bishop—whom Jerome perhaps calls Heraclas, bishop in Egypt—in which epistle he again mentions the Alexandrian sedition. The sixth is to the Alexandrians, again while a pestilential plague was raging after the sedition. Finally, the seventh was sent again to the Egyptians when peace had now been restored to the city: and Eusebius is the authority in book VII, chapters 16, 17, and 18, that other letters were sent to others. The name of the episcopate, therefore, and the arguments of the *heortastikon* have, with these of Cyril—whether one chooses to call them Epistles or Homilies—a great deal in common, since they treat both of the Alexandrian disturbances and of the Egyptian agitators. D Nevertheless, while I inspect again the ancient parchment codices in the Vatican library of the Supreme Pontiff, whence our copy was transcribed, it is read in complete letters: *Tou en hagiois Patros hemon KYRILLOU archiepiskopou Alexandreias heortastikoi logoi* (The festival discourses of our father among the saints, Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria). Therefore, whether called Heortastic or Homilies or Epistles, they are customary besides those of the Alexandrians Cyril and Dionysius, of whom we have treated thus far.
Athanasius, and from Theophilus’s Greek, St. Jerome [hath also treated]. There exist also the Heortastic discourses of Leo the Emperor, gifted by Father Gretser with Latin citizenship; and perhaps the Fathers have left behind more [of this kind], but they have perished due to the injury of time and the negligence of ancestors. The name is derived from the Pasch, the chief of festive days, by antonomasia. A
III. I come to the final chapter, concerning the number of Cyril’s Homilies. Since there are only twenty-nine, and Blessed Cyril presided over Alexandria for thirty-two years, [it might be thought] that he had delivered individual sermons to the people concerning the Pasch for each individual year, or sent them to those abroad in the form of an epistle, from the year of Christ 414 up to 444. While I was revolving these things in my mind, it came to me that I should apply logic, that is, to call the account to calculation; when, look, there came into my hands [the work of] Paulus Guldinus, a priest of the Society of Jesus, who defends the Gregorian Calendar and also refutes Seth Calvisius. He saw acutely that the third letter or homily in Cyril is not missing from the calculation of the times, which the copyist had nevertheless noted. The table below, by the same P. Guldinus, will show this clearly, how the Egyptian month Phamenoth corresponds roughly to March, and Pharmuthi to April: of which months there is mention in all these Homilies of Cyril, as also in those of Theophilus. B
[index: table entries preserved]
* Read March. EDIT.
ARGUMENTS OF THE PASCHAL HOMILIES OF ST. CYRIL
A HOMILY I. He treats of three points. 1. That the feast of Passover, the prince of all feasts, must be celebrated worthily. 2-5. Who ought to proclaim it, and hence concerning the office of a bishop. He transfers to evangelical truth the figure of the two silver trumpets from Num. x. Presently he speaks most particularly of the fast, both spiritual and bodily. 6. He inveighs against the perfidious and stubborn Jews.
HOMILY II. 1-7. That we must labor for piety. Some, fearing that they are unequal to sustaining the burden, are to be feared lest they commit a graver sin by burying their talent in the earth, like that wicked servant. 8. Hence he transfers six figures of the Old Testament to evangelical truth. 9. Finally, he exhorts to the annual celebration of the feast day of Easter.
HOMILY IV. 1-3. That everyone should prepare himself seriously for the celebration of the feast by enduring labors and by fasting: the likeness is drawn from athletes, who run in the stadium especially for the prize of glory. 4-6. He inveighs against the Jewish nation.
HOMILY V. 1-2. That the feast of Easter is not to be celebrated in the manner of the pagans, but piously and as Christians. What the difference is here between the pious and the profane. 3-8. Concerning two Old Testament types of the incarnation of Christ, of which one is more illustrious.
HOMILY VI. 1-3. That God must be propitiated by taming the flesh, so that the spirit may rule. Fasting is most apt for procuring this peace. 4-5. That the Gentiles and pagans were to appease God, having abandoned idolatry: he therefore inveighs against that, as also against fate and the astrologers, who fraudulently predict the births of individuals from the stars. And this he does to deter those recently gathered to Christ from the worship of idols. 6-12. He further exhorts the Jews to strive to appease God, by a twofold figure: namely, circumcision and the Sabbath; he tries to invite them to the true acknowledgment of the Messiah, those types having been led to the truth.
HOMILY VII. He praises fasting as the parent of all virtues, as does Basil the Great, because it makes [men] pure. That there is need for strength of soul for the work of fasting: wherefore he discourses on fortitude and on charity, which makes men strong. That the Egyptians sinned gravely in this, ravaging fields as marauders at that time. Moreover, that the sterility of the earth is to be referred to the divine wrath received on account of the wickedness of those men.
HOMILY VIII. [1.] To dispel [sloth]. 2-3. Concerning the duties of charity, and against marauders, assassins, and pirates. Concerning the vengeance of God and the plague of hail, that calamities are invited by sins. 4. He inveighs against the perfidious Jewish nation. 5. Against Nestorius, who constituted two Christs, sons of God. B [6. Against Eutyches] the archimandrite, who denied two natures in Christ after the incarnation. How the Only-begotten and the First-born differ.
HOMILY IX. 1. That it is the pastor's duty to announce the feast of Easter, even if he lacks eloquence. 2. Why this feast for the most part falls in the spring time, as in Hom. xvi. In what the natural man and the spiritual differ. 3. That Ecclesiastes is to be heard patiently, who accommodates himself to the grasp of the simple. 4. He runs again into the subject of idol worship. 5. Concerning double-mindedness (περὶ διψυχίας), concerning the double-dealing and two-faced, against whom also are Hom. xii and xiv. He derives toward evangelical truth the figure of those limping on both feet. 6. Who the aliens are, strangers, hypocritical mercenaries, and servants.
HOMILY X. 1. On that [verse of] Psalm ix, v. 9, “Christ comes to judge the world in equity.” Concerning Satan, who has subjected the world almost entirely to his empire. 2-4. More copiously concerning fortitude of soul than in Hom. vii and xix. For he adorns it with various figures of the Old Testament. 5. He disputes against the stubborn Jews.
HOMILY XI. 1. To fight strenuously, especially with abstinence and temperance, against the enemies, the flesh and the devil. 2. Concerning fortitude and constancy of soul. 3. That anger and avarice must be overcome. 4. That the seven works of mercy must be exercised. That faith without works does not suffice for salvation. 5. He teaches this more fully by the examples of Lazarus and the rich glutton. 6. Concerning the duty of both the poor and the rich. That equality of goods is to be desired from the shadow of the Old Testament. 7-8. That multiple religions in the republic are pernicious, that they breed strife and hatred at home, and publicly [cause] factions, seditions, and defections.
HOMILY XII. 1. To serve [God] instead of demons. 3-5. Concerning the true faith of the Trinity. That the Father truly begat the Son from his own substance. He disputes more extensively that Christ is not a son by adoption. 6. He objects to and refutes the argument concerning the unbegotten.
HOMILY XIII. 1. That the human race was perishing under the tyranny of the devil, so that it might serve the creature rather than the Creator. 2-3. Concerning the divinity of Christ, who liberated us from that servitude of the demon. 4. That external fasting does not suffice unless the spiritual also be added, by which we abstain from vices; as in Hom. i.
HOMILY XIV. 1. The necessity and fruits of fasting. 2. On the threefold concupiscence in John, 1 Epist. c. ii, v. 16, “All that is in the world,” etc., more fully explained. Again concerning the double-minded, as in Hom. ix and xii. 3. Against those who consult soothsayers, more extensively. Concerning the cause of the advent of Christ the Savior as being long necessary, as in Hom. xvi, xvii, and xviii.