its variations were collected by him when the other was lacking. From a third codex, in which the aforementioned Father found a fragment of the second catechesis, he sent me certain readings.
From the library of the most excellent Prince of the Church, the Lord Duke of Coislin, Bishop of Metz, which he possesses by inheritance transmitted to him from his grandfather, the Chancellor Seguier, I had a parchment codex marked No. 227, formerly 101, of about the eleventh century, which was at Enclistra in Cyprus: it is mutilated at the beginning by several leaves; wherefore the Procatechesis is missing, and the middle part of the first catechesis: certain leaves are also missing which contained the ends of the 17th catechesis and the beginnings of the 18th. The last catechesis represents only the title of the mystagogical [catecheses], and ends there. It abounds with many errors of writing; it frequently confuses and mixes the vowels and diphthongs of the same sound among the more recent Greeks; it errs much in the position of accents, breathings, and punctuation; in the writing of the second catechesis, it differs significantly from the published versions; at the beginning of the sixteenth catechesis, a large interpolation is inserted, which contains an excellent testimony about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, cited in Latin by St. Thomas. I confess that I was greatly aided by that codex: from it came many emendations of great importance.
The Mesmian codex, published by Guill. Morel in 1564, contains the fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, fifteenth, eighteenth, and five mystagogical catecheses, concerning which edition we have spoken sufficiently in the Preface, no. 7. The prefects of the library, who are learned men and connected to me by singular friendship, shared with me an exemplar of this edition preserved in the library of Saint-Geneviève; in which variants from some old codex are noted in the margin, along with some emendations. At the end, the lacuna of the tenth catechesis is supplied, and Cyril's letter to Constantius is added, from sources other than the published books; and in both, furthermore, variants from an old codex are noted with this mark [π]. That book belonged to D. du Fresne, who attests that those notes were added by some learned man. That learned man used two manuscripts, one of which he indicates with this note *ms.*, the other with this *[π]*. There exist certain variants of readings designated by no note, which I suspect are either his emendations and conjectures, or rather that they originated from the codex which the note *ms.* signifies. I simply call the codex that does not have the mark [π] the Saint-Geneviève [manuscript]; the one that has it, the old Saint-Geneviève.
Millesius collated the fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, tenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth catecheses with a paper codex of the Bodleian library which he judges to have been written by the hand of some Greek, but not more than three hundred years ago. I also collated the same catecheses, except for the sixteenth, with a codex of the Colbertine library of the Lord Count of Seignelay, a paper and recent one, marked no. 4863. Both of those codices agree in almost all points with the Morel edition. The same lacuna of the tenth catechesis that is in the Mesmian exists in the Colbertine and Bodleian. We used another Colbertine codex, a parchment one, signed 1717, of the thirteenth century, containing different homilies of the Fathers, and exhibiting the thirteenth catechesis under the name of the homily of Cyril on the Cross and Preparation.
I compared the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth catecheses with a codex of the Royal library, no. 2503; it was written on bomber paper in the year 1231, which year the scribe noted. I also collated the Procatechesis with another Royal codex, formerly 1260, now 1824, which, embracing the works of St. Basil, contains the Procatechesis under his name. I collated the ninth catechesis further with two codices of the Reverend Basilian Fathers, in which it is contained under the name of a homily of St. Basil, "That God is Incomprehensible." The Reverend Father Bernard de Montfaucon transcribed one of these when he was in Rome, adding variants of another book. We examined the homily on the paralytic against the exemplar of the Bodleian codex provided by Millesius, and against the Royal codex noted 2030. Regarding the letter to Constantius, beyond the aforementioned codices, I collated it with the edition of Gretser. Concerning the rest of the short works and fragments and codices, from which they were recovered or with which they were collated, we speak in the Admonition prefixed to each.
CYRILLIAN DISSERTATIONS. DISSERTATION I. Concerning the life and deeds of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.
[1] CHAPTER ONE. Cyril the same age, several. From which monuments the life of our [Cyril] is gathered.
1. About to speak of the life and deeds of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, I embark upon an undertaking of difficult work and not inconsiderable labor: namely, to pursue the hidden tracks of an obscure history, to reconcile the different narratives of authors, to weigh contraries, to refute the false, to assert the strength of the true, to separate uncertain rumors from certain reports, and the calumnies of enemies from actions truly performed; in these things the present dissertation will entirely be engaged. Wherefore let not the reader expect that the discourse will flow directly and continuously after the manner of history; but that, as if making its way with difficulty among wild and rugged places, it will be tossed until the end.
2. And first indeed, the task is that the deeds of men of different names should not be brought together into one. Since there have been many Cyrils celebrated in the Church in different ages—of Gortyna, of Alexandria, of Scythopolis, etc.—whom no one is in danger of confusing with the one of Jerusalem; yet it is certain that during the same age in which he lived, there existed many of the same name, who must be most diligently separated by the author of the Catecheses. In the first place, one must distinguish, if
Epiphanius, an author of the same province, is to be believed, A from another Cyril, his competitor and the invader of the same see after the deposition of our Cyril; although there are not wanting those who think that Epiphanius wrongly divided the same Cyril into two, which matter will be investigated by us more diligently in its proper place (cap. 8, n. 48). The same Epiphanius mentions another in Heresies LXXIII, n. 37, Cyril the elder, Κυρίλλου τοῦ γέροντος, whom he reports was placed in the see of the Church of Caesarea by Eutychius the Eleutheropolitan, a perpetual enemy of our Cyril, after the expulsion of Philumenus, whom our Cyril had appointed to that see; which Cyril the elder was indeed not long after removed from that place, and Cyril appointed Gelasium, the son of his sister, in his stead. Why that Cyril is called the elder, whether because of another younger Cyril, I confess I do not know. And I would strongly suspect him to be the same as the invader of the Jerusalem see, who was imposed by Eutychius upon both the Churches, of Caesarea and Jerusalem, when he had been excluded from the other. St. Basil epist. 187, pag. 202, B makes mention of a certain Cyril, bishop of either Satala or near Satala in Armenia, who, when he had suffered calumny from enemies, saw with grief the Satalian people fleeing from his communion, the calumny being detected by Basil, concerning which the authors themselves confessed. The same Cyril seems to be the one of whom Basil speaks in another letter, epist. 58, pag. 86, in whose place, when Anthimus had ordained another bishop, namely Faustus, all Armenia was filled with seditions.
In the epistle of Pope Liberius to several bishops of Asia who had sent delegates to him, in Socrates lib. IV Hist. cap. 12, the name of Cyril is found written in the second place. Whether he might be one of the aforementioned Cyrils of Armenia and Syria is uncertain; whether he is the same as the Jerusalemite, we shall investigate in this dissertation, cap. 12 and n. 70. Jerome, in the year 379 or even 380, vexed in the desert of Syria by various factions of Meletius and Paulinus and Vitalis, testifies that he had given the faith written to a certain bishop Cyril. Ours at that time was dwelling in Jerusalem, far C from the desert of Chalcis in which Jerome was staying. Another, therefore, is that Hieronymian Cyril, a bishop of uncertain see in Syria, as it seems.
3. No contemporary author wrote the Life of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, nor, as far as I know, did any Greek of later times. When it was said that a Life of Cyril of Jerusalem written by Metaphrastes was preserved in the library of the Basilian monks at Messina, I asked the keeper of the library by letter to have a copy transcribed for me and sent to be edited by me; who, when he had most diligently searched the shelves of the library and found absolutely nothing, very kindly signaled to me that I had used a false report. From those things which Metaphrastes reports about Cyril in the Life of St. Athanasius, we gather that the tale of his Life, if indeed it was written by him, is of little worth. When the Bollandists had read in a certain public instrument, sent to them from Interamna in Italy, that Peter Anthony Nardus, a citizen of Interamna and prior of the cathedral church, in the year 1474 D had seen to it that commentaries on the deeds of others, as well as of the B. Cyril, citizen of Interamna and bishop of Jerusalem, forgotten through the injury of the times and mostly lost in every part, searched for by his own diligence and expense through almost the whole world, should be handed down to the memory of posterity; who, having been taken away by premature death, Peter Francis his nephew had published them; they immediately asked for the codex to be sent to them from Interamna. But since those in whose power the said codex was at that time were dead, the answer was given that, with the use of every study, nothing could be found. These things the Bollandists on the day of March 18, n. 40. It is indeed strange and unheard of until that day that Cyril of Jerusalem should be said to have been a citizen of Interamna: and even from that single fact, how little the loss of those commentaries is to be lamented by us, is sufficiently declared.
4. Therefore, the deeds of St. Cyril must be gathered from his own writings and from the authors of general history. But Cyril wrote few things about himself; and all the writings of his that we have are bounded by the beginning of that episcopate. Among the writers contemporary with Cyril, there is not sufficient agreement; some narrate things that are utterly monstrous and incredible. There is not enough authority among more recent Greeks, who relate more about him in Menaea and Synaxaria and other monuments, so that it may be allowed to affirm anything from their testimony alone. Therefore, individual things are to be diligently examined, in which matter there is more often room for conjecture and opinion than for certain asseveration.
CHAPTER II. On the birth, homeland, lineage, monastic institution, and early studies of St. Cyril.
5. In what year St. Cyril came into the light, no authors declare; yet from various conjectures it can be estimated that he was born around the year 315. For in the first year 347 or 348, in which he was delivering the catecheses, he was a presbyter, and not a new presbyter, as we prove below cap. 3, n. 12. If we suppose Cyril was created a presbyter in the year 345 at the age of thirty, which was the legitimate and common age for receiving the presbyterate, we shall have the year of his birth as that same year 345. But what we say, that Cyril had the catecheses in the XXXII or XXXIII year of his age, this first of all agrees perfectly with St. Jerome, writing in his *Catalog. script. eccles.* that he composed the catecheses in his youth. For an adolescent to the holy doctor was a man of XXXIII years and older. He himself in the preface to Obadiah narrates that in his youth he had allegorically interpreted Obadiah, and that he had toyed with it as a boy, but at that time he was about thirty-two years of age. In the Prologue to Daniel he says that he had learned the Hebrew language as a youth, when he was nevertheless XXXIII or XXXIV years of age. Secondly, Cyril was ordina-
- ted deacon by Macarius, as we shall see below (cap. 3, n. 40), and this could not have happened later than the year 334, which was the final year of Macarius’s life. We do not judge him to have been made deacon at less than nineteen or twenty years of age. Thirdly, regarding the former state of the holy places, before they were purified and adorned by the piety of Constantine and Helena, Cyril speaks as if he had seen them before the present repairs. Catechism 12, n. 20, he observes that the site of Bethlehem was forested a few years earlier. Catechism 14, n. 5, he says that the place where Christ was crucified was previously a garden, remnants and traces of which still remained; n. 9, he notes that before the decoration of the sepulcher performed by Constantine, the cave was a vestibule for the holy sepulcher, which was erased by Constantine's order. Furthermore, the holy places began to be purified and adorned after the year 326. Whoever, therefore, had seen them and surveyed them with his own eyes, so as to be able to paint their former state after many years, must be said to have seen them not in infancy, but already as an adult, at least twelve years old. We therefore do not believe Cyril to have been born later than the year 315. C 6. [IV] Where his homeland was is not clearly stated by anyone. From what we have just said, it is evident that he was nurtured and educated in Jerusalem from infancy. He has much in his Catecheses in which he praises his own fortune and that of others of Jerusalem, because all the mysteries were performed in his presence; because they themselves see and handle what others merely hear and believe. But I do not rely heavily on these, for they could have been said just as well by him even if born elsewhere, provided he dwelt in Jerusalem. As regards his parents, it is said in the Menaea that Cyril was born to pious parents who professed the orthodox faith: this is most probable, since he nowhere implies that he ever worshipped false deities, or lived in a sect separated from the Church, and recognized the truth and transferred to the better side; indeed, he speaks as if he were always nourished in piety. Catechism 7, n. 16, while he speaks of showing honor to parents, he seems to join himself to those who have parents still living and observing Christian piety. He had a sister, the mother of Gelasius, whom, after Acacius died, Cyril made bishop of Caesarea in Palestine; this man the ecclesiastical writers celebrate everywhere with great praise for his learning and piety; which praise redounds upon Cyril, his uncle, as the man’s patron, counselor, and perhaps his educator. 7. At what age Cyril was baptized, we do not know. The Greeks, in the Claramontanus Synaxarion which we transcribed above, record Cyril as having been a monk and an ascetic first. There was certainly at his time great praise and commendation of the monastic life: he frequently celebrates the sublimity of this institute and its excellence, competing with the angels, especially in Catechism 4, n. 24, and Catechism 12, n. 33 and 34. In these, however, in the twelfth Catechesis, he seems to join himself to the order of monks; D after he had admonished the virgins of his institute about the excellence of their own, he commands them to observe the same order of monks, and subjoins in n. 33: "For we are not deprived of the dignity of a man of integrity." But he clearly declares himself to be committed to perpetual chastity by purpose, with these words in Cat. 12, n. 1: "Disciples of purity and students of chastity, let us celebrate with lips full of chastity Him who was born of a virgin"; then with these in n. 34: "But let us all (which is manifestly said of monks and virgins) run the course of chastity by the grace of God... that the Lord may say concerning us, both to the men preserving integrity and to the crowned women: 'I will dwell in them.'" But if he was a monk, since he was promoted to holy orders while young, he seems to have endured the labors of the ascetic life, which he describes in more than one place, not in desert places, nor perhaps in cenobitic communities, but at home; and he existed as one who lived as a monk (μονάζων) rather than a monk in the formal sense. For he never commemorates "monks," but he often commemorates those living the solitary life (monazontas); who, while residing in the city, gathered to the church together with others, residing in a separate place. To this state of life, addicted to perpetual continence and laborious works of penance and seclusion, he not obscurely attaches himself in the cited place of Cat. 12. 8. We can gather how diligently he learned ecclesiastical doctrine from the works of his first age, in which [V] it is most robustly asserted and most plainly explained. That he turned the Holy Scriptures with his hands by day and by night and drank them into his soul, his easy and prompt use of them proves. For speaking extemporaneously, he not only accumulates many testimonies of the Scriptures for the proof of his argument, but his entire discourse is interwoven with sacred texts, whether transcribed or indicated by allusions and as if touched upon in passing. He had either no knowledge of the Hebrew language or only a very slight one; as evidence for this, among many others, can be those two interpretations of Hebrew names entirely alien to the truth, which Cyril perhaps had received from others. In Pro-cat. n. 14, he says that Samuel signifies "God’s salvation of one who hears it"; in cat. 13, n. 27, he says that Bosor among the Hebrews sounds as "ignominy." But he had diligently read the ecclesiastical commentators, so that he often cites various interpretations in one place. Nor is he accustomed to attribute a proper sense to Scripture, but one which the interpreters commonly ascribed to it. He studied the ecclesiastical disputants, and often praises them, such as Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, etc. He was not unskilled in ecclesiastical history, and he mentions many things concerning the heretics taken from the best sources. He says he diligently sought out and read the books of the heretics themselves, and especially of the Manichaeans, in cat. 6, n. 34, while he refuses to give credence to the horrible and monstrous things they narrate. He adds that he interested himself in that study for the benefit of his hearers, so that he might more safely indicate to the faithful what vices were to be shunned: which can be a proof that he was later driven by the necessity of his office to such study ...
A exerted himself, however, so that the course of humanistic letters might not seem to have been entirely omitted by him. Although he was not perfectly skilled in the arts of grammar and rhetoric, one cannot call him entirely ignorant or inexperienced. Although he was little artful in the choice and construction of words, he nonetheless knew how to express his thoughts clearly and lucidly, to divide his discourse appropriately, and, what is the greatest trait of an orator, to persuade by the force of his arguments. He draws no, or very few, ornaments from the maxims of orators and poets; yet he shows himself not ignorant of pagan mythology, while he refutes the pagans out of their own fables (Cat. 4, n. 6; Cat. 6, n. 10 and 11; Cat. 12, n. 27, and elsewhere). Nor did he use the precepts of properly instituted dialectic any less, for he often learnedly refutes the gentiles and heretics with accurate reasoning that strikes on both sides, and which was sometimes derived from profound metaphysics. See Cat. 6, n. 12, 13; Cat. 18, n. 1, 2, 3, 4; Cat. 14, n. 15, 16, etc. He had also touched upon physics: for, neglecting the manner of ordering the heavens and the earth of the Hebrews and many ecclesiastical authors of his own age, he describes the structure of the world according to the principles of the philosophers (Cat. 6, n. 3; Cat. 16, n. 22). He inserted a part of natural history—not to be despised—into the ninth catechesis, nor had he neglected the art of medicine, for he speaks not once, but aptly, about the structure of the human body (Cat. 4, n. 22; Cat. 9, n. 15, etc.).
CHAPTER III.
Cyril is ordained deacon, as it seems, by Macarius; but presbyter by Maximus, and is placed in charge of giving catecheses and educating the people. With what faith and diligence he fulfilled the office of catechist.
10. What grades of orders Cyril passed through before he arrived at the diaconate, no records have handed down. There is no sure reason, but a probable conjecture persuades us, that he was ordained deacon by St. Macarius. Jerome relates in his Chronicle for the year 349 that, on the death of Maximus, the bishop of Jerusalem, Acacius and the other Arian bishops offered the bishopric of that city to Cyril (who had been ordained presbyter by Maximus) on the condition that he reject the ordination of Maximus; that Cyril accepted the condition, had served as a deacon in the Church, and had been paid for that impiety with the reward of the priesthood. We shall demonstrate the falsity of this fable, devised by the enemies of Cyril and refuted by suitable testimonies, in the fifth chapter; nothing, however, prevents there being something true in it that does not pertain to the calumny of Cyril: namely, that Cyril was made only a presbyter by Maximus, but a deacon by another, namely by Macarius. For if he had received the diaconate from Maximus, those who abhorred the priestly ordination proceeding from Maximus should have deemed it necessary to turn away from the diaconate conferred by him, if they were to remain consistent with themselves. But if Cyril received the order of the diaconate from Macarius, it could not have happened later than the year 334 or the beginning of 335: since we see that Maximus, B the successor of Macarius, was sitting in the Council of Tyre assembled against Athanasius in the year 335, according to Rufinus (Hist. eccl. lib. 1, cap. 17) and Sozomen (lib. 2, cap. 25). At that time, Cyril was twenty years of age or thereabouts. Why a most weighty office in the Church was committed to such a youth by the most holy prelate, no other cause can be imagined than the exceptional virtue of a most honest and chaste adolescent.
[Regarding the place which, in the times of Macarius, was cleansed and adorned by the piety of Helena, mother, and Constantine, son, Maximus succeeded.] Under whose leadership, in the year 335, the church of the Holy Resurrection having already been completed, it was dedicated with a numerous council of bishops gathered at Jerusalem. We have commemorated in the preceding number, on the testimony of Jerome, that Cyril was made a presbyter by that prelate. But in what precise year that ordination took place, we cannot divine. However, it is permissible for us to affirm two things: 1° That Cyril was already a presbyter in the year 347 or 348, when he delivered the catecheses that we have; 2° That he was not a new presbyter at that time, but had been honored with that dignity at least some years before. And the first point is not difficult to prove. There are those who, to prove this, draw upon what he says in Cat. 23, n. 2, speaking of the beginning of the sacred action: "You have seen the deacon offering water for washing hands to the priest and the presbyters surrounding the altar of God"; C in whose number he seems to include himself in the following words: "For it was by no means for wiping off bodily filth; certainly not. For we had not entered the church at the start with a dirty body." This, however, could be said not only of the presbyters, but of all the auditors. But he seems to signify himself by the name of presbyter in the Procat. n. 13, when he admonishes the candidates for illumination, so that in the time of their preparation for baptism they might omit vain solicitudes that did not pertain to them; he forbids them to inquire what the emperor has done, what the bishop, what the presbyter. For whom among that crowd of presbyters whom we just saw does he count as that single presbyter, if not the one who was placed in charge of the instruction of the candidates for illumination and of investigating their progress, and who looked after them specifically? But the names of bishop and presbyter, placed here without the article, can easily be understood through an enallage of number of any bishop and presbyter indefinitely. Therefore, a more effective argument for the presbyterate of Cyril when he was delivering the catecheses is derived from this very function: which, as it was proper to the bishop in almost the entire Church, and was exercised at Jerusalem by the very successor of Cyril, as he himself testifies in Jerome (Epist. 61, now 58), could not have been committed to anyone but a presbyter by St. Maximus. Add that Cyril, besides the care of the catecheses, also had the obligation of pronouncing homilies at the synaxis at the same time: as there remains even now D
A his homily on the paralytic, spoken while the bishop was living and present, who later was to give a sermon. But the ordinary duty of preaching in the church was at that time attributed only to presbyters. And let no one say that the catecheses were pronounced by Cyril after he had become bishop; most grave reasons stand against this, by which, in the following dissertation, cap. 2, num. 10 and 11, and cap. 5, n. 31, we prove they were delivered in the year 348, as being pronounced later, while the two emperors Constantius and Constans were living. But Cyril was not bishop until after the death of Constans. B
12. Further, that we might prove that Cyril was already a presbyter some years before he gave our catecheses. For first, who would believe that to a young presbyter, such as Jerome depicts Cyril, Maximus the most grave confessor would have immediately upon his ordination entrusted the primary duty of his office, before he had given some proof of himself in the ordinary homilies? I therefore believe that Cyril fulfilled the simple duty of preaching for some years before, in addition, the care of the catecheses was imposed upon him. Second, nor do I think these primary ones which we have are the ones spoken by Cyril. For to omit that which he says in cat. 6, n. 21, that he would speak concerning the history of Manes; that he seems to signify that it had already been spoken by him in previous years to those he was instructing for baptism, the note prefixed to the catecheses in the manuscripts after their table of contents and republished by us before the procatechesis declares that Cyril did not speak only these catecheses, but similar ones every year: but that these were taken down in writing by studious men from the mouth of the speaker. It is probable that those studious men did not write down immediately what Cyril first said, but, admonished by the admiration and fruit of those that preceded, they wished in some subsequent year to preserve these in writing for the memory of posterity. Third, in the whole body of the catecheses [VIII] he speaks as if from supreme authority, as if he alone were sustaining the care of the instruction and progress of the hearers, as if he were practiced and exercised in this kind of speaking. Nowhere does he mention his recent ordination, or ask pardon for his youth; which a most modest man would not seem to have let pass. He mentions teachers better than himself, who thought more sublimely and perfectly of the things he had said, cat. 18, n. 32, but he does not call them elders or seniors. Fourth, finally, between the Cyril homily regarding the paralytic and his catecheses, such a discrepancy of style is detected, which indicates that the homily proceeded from a young and immature man not sufficiently exercised in the art of speaking; whereas the catecheses proceeded from a more robust and mature genius. Since these things are so, although we cannot define the year of the Cyrillian ordination pressingly and circumspectly, we conjecture, however, that he was made a presbyter in the year 344 or 345, not later; three or four years before he pronounced his catecheses: and that he was then thirty years old or thereabouts; which was the common and legitimate age for presbyteral ordination, as is evident from the Council of Neocaesarea celebrated in these times A in canon 11. Nor was he made a presbyter much before the year we have assigned, who in the year 347 or 348 was still in his youth, if we believe Jerome.
13. Not simply and vulgarly did his bishop make Cyril a presbyter. Him, at least later, he placed above other colleagues, so that either alone, or last of all, which was a matter of dignity, he might speak before the bishop. This is evident from the homily on the paralytic at the end, num. 20. For he hastens to break off his discourse, lest its length might offer any impediment to the subsequent sermon of the Father. That he held a discourse at every synaxis on the Lord’s Day is sufficiently declared, when he remembers in one Lent two sermons held on the Lord’s Day; of one in cat. 10, n. 14, of the other in cat. 14, n. 24. He also commemorates more things treated and explained by him not so long ago from the pulpit, of which the hearers could easily be reminded. See cat. 12, n. 28; cat. 13, n. 9. He does not mention sermons held by others; nor for that reason, however, should I think the other presbyters remained mute. For that custom, which was observed at least in most of the Churches of the East, that presbyters would preach one after another and the bishop last of all, even at Jerusalem, seems to be signified as retained by these words in Procat. num. 4, by which, ordering them to admire the order and composition of the present ecclesiastical assembly, he at the same time recounts the διδασκαλίας ἀκολουθίαν, the order and series of teaching; which can scarcely designate anything other than sermons following in order. From the combined care of the catecheses and of those to be baptized, however, which pertained properly to the bishop and was not easily entrusted to others, together with the frequent and assiduous duty of preaching at the synaxes, it is best concluded that Cyril was constituted by the holy prelate as the chief of the presbyters, and as we say, a major or general vicar: such as later was John Chrysostom at Antioch under Meletius, and Augustine at Hippo under Valerius. That intimate [IX] trust of Maximus in Cyril, it is not permitted to doubt, stemmed from the reciprocal affection, obedience, observance, fidelity, unanimity of sentiments, and concordant will of Cyril towards Maximus, nourished and strengthened.
14. The hope which St. Maximus had conceived for Cyril did not fail the most worthy presbyter. The function of catechist was not light, especially among other duties of the presbyterate, in a very busy city. The bishop seems to have resigned the whole labor of this matter to Cyril, since Cyril speaks nowhere of him regarding it. He signifies that he alone had the care of those offering themselves to be admitted and of inscribing their names, Procat. num. 4, when he says that he performed the duty of a doorkeeper in permitting entrance to each one. There were, however, many who approached to be instructed; for he seems to have had hearers not only from the city of Jerusalem, but also from the villages and even episcopal cities; who then were to be baptized either by the bishops or by the presbyters or by the deacons; whom for that reason he warns in cat. 17,
A num. 35, that the force and the grace of baptism is always the same, whoever among those aforementioned ministers the sacred rite. The intentions of individual persons had to be explored, lest any should approach with a deceitful mind or some other perverse inclination of the soul: then the progress had to be investigated, which he says he would examine solicitously in these words, *Procat.* n. 15: "I will see the zeal of each man, I will see the piety of each woman." To these must be added the confessions of those approaching, which had to express with the utmost faith every sin whatsoever of their past life, *cat.* 1, num. 5; but the primary labor was in the speaking. Besides the regular homilies at the liturgical assemblies, he gave three or four catecheses each week; many of which were long, and seem to have dragged the sermon into the night.
15. Cyril performed all these things with admirable diligence and alacrity. He placed his chief confidence in the help of God, whose aid he often asks to be summoned through the prayers of the listeners. See *cat.* 12, n. 4; *cat.* 13, n. 8. Then, having embraced the whole of church doctrine in his mind, he instilled it into the minds of his listeners, divided into as many catecheses as was required, indefatigably throughout the whole of Lent, *cat.* 18, n. 32, proven by every kind of argument; and strengthened against all enemies of the Church—Gentiles, Samaritans, Jews, heretics—with particular arguments against each one; which he both promised to do in *Procat.* num. 10, and most diligently executed. As he reflected on how the dogmas of our religion might be imprinted more securely and deeply in the minds of the listeners, it occurred to him to put forth first a general and brief exposition of all the articles of the faith in *cat.* 4, by which notion the minds of the listeners, being prepared, would more easily understand the individual things to be explained afterward in their own order. And this one catechesis, said by Cyril almost perfunctorily and solely for the sake of preparation, contains more than almost all the discourses of the Fathers by which they complete the delivery and exposition of the creed. Cyril appears to be the author of this institution, which his successor followed, *cat.* 4, n. 3. His greatest zeal was to arm his listeners against the heretics, especially those who were rampant in those places and times [X], against their deceits and frauds. Therefore, he diligently describes their history and perverse dogmas; nor did he fear to stain his mouth and tongue by recounting their blasphemous and impure dogmas or deeds; only that the listeners, ignorant of these matters, might not be captured by their lies and blandishments. See *cat.* 16, n. 5; *cat.* 6, num. 13 and 34. And since the Manichaeans created the greatest peril of all, he attacks them with greater effort and in all places. He did not consider his duty finished by merely educating and instructing the listeners; but he thought it a part of his mission to prepare them to fight and to challenge the enemies of the Church of their own accord, and to preach to others what they had learned. See *cat.* 3, n. 13; *cat.* 12, n. 27 and 38; *cat.* 13, num. 22 and 57; *cat.* 14, num. 15; *cat.* 15, num. 26; *cat.* 18, num. 10 and 11. But while he consulted their interest regarding the weariness and fastidiousness B of the listeners, and excused the length of the catecheses, which he often did, he did not spare his own labor; rather, he vehemently exhorted them to listen patiently and perseveringly to what pertained to their own benefit. See *Procat.* num. 10, *cat.* 17, num. 20. He proposed his own example to them in this matter, *cat.* 4, n. 20; for if, he says, teachers do not consider it the least of profits to accrue to themselves that you learn these things, ought you who are learning not willingly to take in the multitude of things that are said? Elsewhere, certainly *cat.* 13, n. 22, from the very dwelling in holy places, and from the sight of them, he excites and strengthens their minds to sustain the length of prayer concerning the trophies of the Lord. So great was his regard and care for those being baptized, that even in the homilies held on the Lord's Day for the whole congregation, he regarded them specifically, and accommodated his speech to their instruction, as *cat.* 14, n. 24 testifies. Would that our catechists followed that method of Cyril's, full of strength and substance for instructing the unlearned, so that such slothful ignorance of our religion would not reign!
CHAPTER IV
What the sentiment of Cyril and St. Maximus, and the Church of Jerusalem, was concerning the dissensions disturbing the Church at that time.16. At the time when Cyril was serving in the Church in the rank of deacon and presbyter, it was tossed by grave storms; which he himself deplores, and views as portents of the coming of the near Antichrist, *cat.* 15, n. 7, 9 and 18. Bishops against bishops, clerics against clerics, peoples against peoples, raged with such fervor of spirit that those dissensions leapt forward even to bloodshed; *ibid.* n. 7. Truly, as Arius and his followers were condemned in the Nicene synod and ejected from the Church, both Eusebius of Caesarea and especially [Eusebius] of Nicomedia, together with others of the same faction, coveredly—nay, even quite openly—favored the person and dogmas of Arius; they attempted by all arts to oppose Athanasius, Eustathius, and the other fervent defenders of consubstantiality, and to cast them from their sees. Hence the atrocious calumnies cast against them, to which, while ears were lent more than was right by emperors who were otherwise pious, the bishops were vexed by deposition, exile, and various D punishments, with the assent and order of those same [emperors] [XI]. Thence, in cities, seditions, while new bishops are intruded by armed force into the sees of loved ones; or the old ones, by the favor of princes or the authority of councils, reclaim their pristine sees with the intruded ones expelled. But nowhere did that episcopal dissension manifest itself with greater offense to the pious than when, by the consent of both emperors of the West and East, the Sardican council was convened, and the divorce of the bishops occurred; and the greater part, namely the Catholics, remained at Sardica; the Eusebians in a tumultuous flight betook themselves to Philippopolis, intending to celebrate a private assembly. Both councils strike each other with mutual anathemas, and having given synodical letters to all the bishops of the world, they load each other with the gravest accusations.
The Sardicans burden the Philippopolitans with Arian doctrine, and the Philippopolitans the Sardicans with Sabellianism: each accuses the other of the slaughter that has occurred. Furthermore, this twofold schism of the Church in that era—which was for the most part only a matter of words, but yet agitated minds with a diverse controversy—fostered and increased the discord; namely, regarding the consubstantial and the three hypostases. A
17. What Cyril’s state of mind was in these controversies, and what side he followed, it is worth the effort to inquire more diligently. For from this, no little light will shine upon his writings, and probable conjectures will be drawn regarding his subsequent sentiments and deeds. Not sufficiently instructed either in the deceits of the Eusebian party or in the justice of the Athanasian cause, and addicted no more to one side than to the other—imagining that the suspicion of fraternal hatred and nurtured heresy clung to both—he commanded his auditors not to be disturbed by such scandal, warning them that these things had been foretold in advance by Christ as signs of the nearby coming of the Antichrist. For thus he speaks in Catechesis 15, no. 7: "If you hear that bishops are raging against bishops, and clerics against clerics, and peoples against peoples to the point of bloodshed, do not be disturbed; for it was predicted beforehand." Lower down: "If treachery was discovered among the apostles, B do you wonder if fraternal hatred is found among bishops, too?" He admonishes them not to follow the example and authority of the masters in this matter; which he even extends to himself, should he do similar things. "Nor even if I, who teach you, should perish, should you perish together with me; for it is right for the auditor to become better than the master." He believed these schisms of the peoples and Churches were born from the various and contrary heresies which both sides nurtured. In Cat. 17, no. 33, commemorating that prophecy of the Holy Spirit, that "in the last times some shall depart from the faith" [*1 Tim. IV, 1], he observes that this was not only to be seen in pre-existing times, but also in the present schisms, since the error of the heretics was diverse and varied in many ways. But in Cat. 15, no. 9, he warns that the general defection from the faith, or apostasy, which Paul said would one day precede the coming of the Antichrist, is already present. "Now, indeed," he says, "there is a defection: for men have fallen away from the true faith. And some, indeed, preach paternity to the Son, while others dare to say that Christ was brought to existence from things that were not. And formerly, the heretics were conspicuous, but now the Church is full of hidden heretics." The fact that he says "hidden" and "lurking in the Church"—referring to the heretics he mentioned above—is proof that he is not speaking of professed and public Sabellians or Arians, C but of the contrary factions of the Eusebians and the bishops of the diverse party. For the Arians, who openly and clearly professed their heresy and held meetings separated from the Church, were few at that time, and although ejected from the Church by the anathema of the Council of Nicaea, they were seen to be abandoned and loathed by all, even if they found secret patronage among the Eusebians. Therefore, he notes here only the Eusebians, who still enjoyed Church communion. Of Sabellians, at that age, we know of either none at all or very few who constituted a private sect separated from the Church and gloried in the name of Sabellius. He does not, therefore, say that others preach paternity to the Son in the Church, other than those who were heretics certain by Cyril’s judgment—either those supported by Catholics or, like Marcellus and Photinus, the latter of whom remained bishop of Sirmium until the year 351—or, finally, the whole mass of those who opposed the Eusebian bishops and fought for the consubstantial against them. This last point can be suggested by the place in Catechesis 11, no. 17, where, rejecting the two opposite heresies of the Sabellians and the Arians, he says concerning the first: "The true Son is God, having in Himself the Father, not changed into the Father, nor D acting as if the Father put on humanity, but as the Son; for let this be spoken freely." Whom does he deny fearing here—the Sabellians? Was there any reason to fear them under Constantius? Or does he mean only Marcellus of Ancyra and his followers? They were no more formidable. Furthermore, he says the Church is full of hidden heretics, either teaching that the Son is a creature, or preaching paternity to the Son. But the Marcellians did not fill the Church, unless you join to them those by whom Marcellus was aided and sustained. It is therefore evident that he is looking at the defenders of the consubstantial, whose number and authority were great.
18. Regarding the suspicion of the Sabellian heresy, which some suspected in any part of them, I revoke the fear, because the word "consubstantial" is not used in the catecheses, although he nowhere reprehends it. Likewise, he makes mention of neither one nor three hypostases in explaining the Trinity; as if both were suspect due to the perverse interpretation of those using them. For I do not think it probable that the dissensions which were disturbing the Church regarding the consubstantial and three hypostases were unknown to Cyril. However, that he thought both fraternal hatred and the suspicion of heresy clung to those two factions—that of the Eusebians and that of the bishops of the diverse party, as he himself judged—I should not believe that he felt this way about one and all of the bishops who followed those sides, but only about the leaders and princes. For although he says the Church is filled with hidden heretics in Cat. 15, no. 9, he nevertheless bids us observe in Cat. 16, no. 22, that not only among foreign nations, but also in the Roman empire, as far and wide as it stretches, there were bishops, presbyters, deacons, etc., endowed by the Holy Spirit with various gifts of virtues and graces; and in Cat. 18, no. 27, he paints a picture of the flourishing state of the Church after the persecutions. Therefore, he either believed that many had no part in the schism and heresy [XIII] and had kept a middle ground in those contentions; or he judged many even in the diverse parties to be truly Catholic and pious. Indeed, when [original-script column: see facsimile note 1] these were only hidden heretics, he maintained the exterior fellowship of the Church with both.
19. Let us indeed defer as Athanasius and con-
-A conc. Philipp. apud Hil. fragm. 3, n. 25, apud eumdem Hilar. lib. x De Trin., n. 5, et Socratem lib. 1, Hist. eccles., cap. 23. Nor were color and place wanting to the accusation. They saw, first, Marcellus of Ancyra joined to the same cause with Athanasius, sustained by the favor and grace of the Catholics, and absolved by their councils again and again, though he had been condemned by the councils of the Eusebians. But the Orientals did not doubt that they had detected Marcellus in the most grievous errors: and Cyril held him for a certain and indubitable heretic, guilty of Sabellianism and an even worse error (cat. 15, n. 27). Furthermore, this defense of Marcellus had long since harmed the reputation of the Catholics among the Orientals, as we understand from the epistle of Basil, 10, by which he calls that protection of the Marcellian heresy a confirmation; and ep. 52, and this was the primary reason for the Philippopolitans why the Sardicans accused the foundation, apud Hil. frag. 3, n. 23. Furthermore, although the defenders of the consubstantial maintained nothing to the common people but the Catholic doctrine, the term was nonetheless suspicious to the Orientals, either because of the perverse use of it formerly in the discourse of Paul of Samosata, for which reason it was reported to have been condemned at the Council of Antioch; or because of some whom Hilary, De synodis num. 67, confessed to use that word in such a way that they seemed to preach the *homoousion* more impiously than piously. Finally, there was the disagreement regarding the three hypostases. The bishops who were joined with Athanasius commonly admitted one hypostasis and three persons; which indeed the Orientals everywhere accused of differing in no way from the Sabellian confusion. C Although Athanasius, long after these times, in the Council of Alexandria in the year 362, having heard the accounts and the exposition of faith of both sides, had detected and noted that this controversy was of terms; nevertheless, the altercation remained for a long time, joined with a fervor of spirit: and Basil, such a great man, considered this dispute—not of the name and the word, but one by no means to be despised, and pertaining to the goal of piety—to have provided the occasion for the schism at Antioch (epist. 349, p. 345). He judged that Sabellianism was being restored by the assertion of one hypostasis (epist. 64, pag. 100), he said that one hypostasis was spoken of by Sabellius (epist. 349, p. 345), and by Marcellus of Ancyra (epist. 74, p. 126). Wherefore in ep. 525, page 320, he praises Epiphanius because he wrote that it is necessary to confess three hypostases. But if that indulgence is granted to Basil, how much more justly is it owed to Cyril, who wrote long before? Although he himself abstained from the pronunciation of three hypostases, perhaps suspecting Arianism in this profession. If he delivered his catecheses after the Sardican council, he could have seen the exposition of faith which is contained continuously with it at the end of the synodal epistle of this council in Theodoret, lib. II, Hist., cap. 8, and is thought by some of the Fathers of the council, with others protesting, to have proceeded. In it, after a vehement [XV] refutation of three separate hypostases, they say that they accepted this as the Catholic faith and tradition, to be one
A hypostasis, which heretics call *ousia*, that is, essence or substance. Perhaps it was due to the inopportune boldness of this assertion and the accusations of the opposing party that this exposition, which Athanasius, Eusebius of Vercelli, and other Fathers of the Council of Alexandria in the year 362 decreed should not be read or brought forward, lacked authority (Athan., *Tomus ad Antiochenos*, n. 5). To this matter, as well as to the other decrees of that council, Paulinus of Antioch assented and subscribed (ibid., n. 11). If Cyril was offended by this exposition, which offended the very assertors of a single hypostasis, we ought not to be surprised.
20. It also serves not a little to excuse Cyril that he did not express sentiments of his own concerning ecclesiastical dissensions, but rather those which he had received from his prelate Maximus, and which were common in the Church of Jerusalem and perhaps in all of Palestine; and he would seem in the end to have chosen better ones than they had. For who would believe that a young presbyter, to whose faith his own prelate had entrusted the entire burden of the episcopate, had thoughts of his own on such momentous matters, other than those of his bishop? But, for this to be more fully approved, it is helpful to inquire a little more deeply into the judgment of Saint Maximus and the prelates of Palestine at this time. Maximus the Confessor, along with other Palestinian bishops, attended the Council of Tyre against Athanasius, having been deluded by the wiles of the Arians. Rufinus narrates (Hist., lib. 1, c. 17) that when Paphnutius saw Maximus sitting in the council alongside the enemies of Athanasius, suspecting nothing of their wickedness because of his own excessive simplicity, he took him by the hand, led him away from the assembly, and, once instructed on each point, henceforth united him in perpetual communion with Athanasius. Sozomen reports the same event (lib. 11, cap. 25), after the condemnation of Athanasius had been decreed and pronounced in the council, B implying that Maximus had disapproved of it by this action; yet he is silent about Maximus having retained communion with Athanasius. However that may be regarding the narrative of Rufinus and Sozomen, it seems certain that Maximus and the Palestinian bishops—whether at the Council of Tyre or after—committed something by force in subscribing to the condemnation of Athanasius. For Athanasius relates in his *History of the Arians to the Monks* (n. 25, p. 358) that when he himself was passing through Palestine in the year 349, all the bishops of Palestine, with the exception of two or three, and those men of suspected character, had so received Athanasius and embraced his communion, καὶ τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν ἠσπάσαντο κοινωνίαν, that they even excused themselves in letters for having done what they had previously written, not from conviction but under compulsion: ὡς καὶ γράψαι καὶ ἀπολογήσασθαι, ὅτι ἃ πρότερον ἔγραψαν, οὐ κατὰ προαίρεσιν ἀλλὰ βιαζόμενοι πεποιήκασι. The chief of these bishops was Maximus, whose name is at the head of the others in the letters written on behalf of Athanasius to the bishops of Egypt and the Church of Alexandria (as recorded in the same Athanasius, *Apologia contra Arianos*, n. 57, p. 175). If anyone wishes to absolve Maximus from the common fault of the others, I have no objection. Yet, in the same year, he attended the council convened in Jerusalem for the dedication of the Basilica of the Resurrection, C along with the same bishops who had previously been gathered at Tyre; and among the bishops who were there, Arius and his followers were received into communion without penance. Whether Saint Maximus opposed this rash reception, which was contrary to ecclesiastical laws, is uncertain. One man is praised in Sozomen (lib. 11, cap. 33), Marcellus of Ancyra, who refused to consent to the admission of the Arians, and did not attend the consecration of the basilica, while he shunned the communion of these bishops. Because Arius was restored to communion in the Church of Jerusalem, I believe it came about that, although Cyril vigorously attacks his heresy in various places and pursues all its offshoots, he never calls Arius by name, nor does he label the followers of his heresy as Arians. The same Maximus undoubtedly assented to those things which were decreed by the Eusebians against Marcellus of Ancyra, either at Jerusalem in the year 335, where his case first began to be examined, or in the following year at Constantinople, when, having been clearly convicted, he was deposed from his episcopate: for Cyril, expounding the sentiment of his own Church (as it seems), in *Catechesis* 15, n. 27, when speaking of his heresy, calls it "the latest head of the dragon," which had recently sprung up in Galatia. They say that when the council was convened in the year 341 for the dedication of the Church of Antioch, Maximus was intentionally absent; Sozomen says (lib. 111, cap. 6) that he was led by penance, because, having been deceived by fraud, he had cast his vote for the judgment of those who had deposed Athanasius. Socrates (lib. 11, c. 8) confirms the same. Nor does he seem to have attended other councils afterwards, whether of the Eusebians or the Catholics. Yet, before the year 349, he retracted nothing of what had been done against Athanasius by any public testimony.
21. When Athanasius himself passed through there in the year 349, all the bishops of that province, as I have already said, with the exception of two or three—namely, Acacius of Caesarea and Patrophilus of Scythopolis—celebrating a council at Jerusalem with Maximus, embraced the communion of Athanasius and testified by letter that they had been forced by violence to write what they had written against him. Moreover, they delivered letters of congratulation to the bishops of Egypt and the people of Alexandria regarding the return of Athanasius; and they told them that, out of love for ecclesiastical peace, they had conspired with them to embrace Athanasius first, and through him to be in communion with them (Athan., *Apol. contra Arianos*, n. 57, p. 175). Maximus subscribes along with fifteen other bishops. At the same time, it seems that these same bishops subscribed to the synodical letter to all the bishops of the entire Catholic Church and the fellow ministers of the Council of Sardica (Athan., *Apol. contra Arianos*, n. 50, p. 169). The names of the bishops are the same and in almost the same order, except that in n. 50 the name of Macrinus is missing, and he who is called Theodorus in n. 57 is here called Theodosius. And Socrates (lib. 11, cap. 24) records the decrees of the Sardican synod as having been given by Maximus.
A And he says that he made manifest the things which had been declared by the synod at Sardica; and asserts that he was the author of the holding of the council at Jerusalem. From all these things we gather: 1° That Maximus, or at least the Palestinian bishops, did subscribe against Athanasius, but were forced to do so by violence; 2° That they were not ignorant of the fraud and deceits of the Eusebians, nor the force which had to be applied so that they would consent to their iniquitous deeds; 3° That they themselves conceded some things to the Eusebians, such as the restoration of Arius and the condemnation of Marcellus of Ancyra; 4° That Maximus afterwards avoided all conventions of the bishops, and did not again attend the Council of Sardica, as if avoiding disturbances and suspecting the bishops of both parties; 5° That he did not, at least openly, maintain the communion of Athanasius in the meantime; for from Athanasius’ *Hist. Arian.*, n. 25, and the words of the synodal letters of the Jerusalem synod to the Egyptians, it is not obscurely stated that the Palestinians, at the first in the year 349, were embracing the communion of Athanasius which had long been interrupted. Whence Socrates (lib. 11, cap. 24) says that Maximus then restored communion and dignity to Athanasius: *And he himself restored communion and dignity to Athanasius*. Philostorgius also (lib. III, n. 12) seems to place Maximus in the number of those who, having previously been alien from the consubstantial, afterwards inclined to the view of Athanasius. Therefore, before these times, Maximus held himself in the middle of these disturbances; joined to Athanasius by no external sign of communion, abhorring the deceits and conventions of the Eusebians, regarding the prelates of neither party as those alien to the Church, he detested the opposite heresies, the patronage of which each side accused the other of supporting; B perhaps suspecting something of vice in both. The same was the mind and opinion of Cyril, as we showed in n. 18. But it cannot be doubted that when Maximus joined himself to Athanasius, Cyril followed the same course, and perhaps confirmed with his own assent and presence the decrees of the Jerusalem synod in favor of Athanasius. Do you ask whence I confirm this? First, the ancient discipline of the Church held, at Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, that in provincial councils there should participate, along with the bishop of the city in which the council was celebrated, the presbyters and deacons of the same Church, how much more likely is this regarding the chief and first presbyter, such as Cyril was at that time, to whom both episcopal duties and the administration of almost the whole Church were entrusted? Second, the subsequent acts of Cyril persuade us of this; for he was canonically placed in the see of Jerusalem by the bishops of the province almost exactly one year later. They were the same bishops who had attended the council in the year 349, and they would not have conspired in the election of him whom they did not know to be joined to them in opinion. He himself, writing to Constantius at the beginning of his episcopate, at the end of the epistle fearlessly professed the consubstantial Trinity. Finally, a few years later he had disputes with Acacius, joined with mutual accusations of violated faith. Furthermore, we shall show that Cyril had nothing with Acacius except the denied consubstantiality, and that nothing beyond the same assertion could be objected against Cyril by Acacius.
CAPUT V
After the death or deposition of Maximus, Cyril became bishop of Jerusalem after some time. His canonical ordination is defended against the calumniated charges. A shining cross is seen in Jerusalem, and Cyril reports this to Constantius. A22. I enter upon the most difficult and vexed time of Cyril’s life, namely, that of his episcopal ordination; which is reported by authors, even contemporaries, with great variety, and by some indeed with the gravest and really incredible accusation against Cyril. So that we may proceed with some order, we have many things to treat here: 1° Whether Maximus ended his episcopate by death or deposition; 2° In what year Maximus closed his episcopate and Cyril began his; 3° The various accusations against Cyril’s ordination are to be weighed, and he is to be freed from them. We shall perform this, moreover, with a naked love of truth, occupied with no study of preposterously purging Cyril; but following such authority and reason as shall seem best, we shall permit the reader a free judgment of all things.
23. Jerome in his *Chronicle* at the year 349, p. 183 (which is indeed to be numbered 350; for in that *Chronicle* he anticipates our era by one year), assigns the death of Maximus. The fortieth, he says, Maximus dies, bishop of Jerusalem after Macarius. C Then after some time, during which he says the see had been vacant, he places the ordination of Cyril by Acacius of Caesarea and the other Arian bishops. Theodoret also (lib. II *Hist. Eccles.*, cap. 26) writes that Cyril was a most ardent defender of apostolic doctrine, and deserved the episcopal grace when S. Maximus was translated to a life free from old age: *And this man having been translated to a life free from old age, Cyril was deemed worthy of the episcopal grace*. But Socrates (lib. II *Hist.*, cap. 38) writes: *Acacius and Patrophilus, having expelled Maximus of Jerusalem, had appointed Cyril against him*. Sozomen in almost the same words (lib. IV, cap. 20): *Acacius and Patrophilus, removing Maximus, had permitted the Jerusalem Church to be ruled by Cyril*. Relying, I believe, on the authority of both, Theophanes repeats the same in his *Chronographia*, p. 34; Metaphrastes in the *Life of S. Athanasius*, who transcribes the very words of Socrates (n. 11, p. 149); the uncertain author of the other *Life of S. Athanasius* (ibid. n. 19, p. 120), who says that Cyril was as much inflamed with a zeal for impiety as Maximus, or rather as Athanasius was borne toward piety; the author of the synodical tract, who says that in a synod convened at Jerusalem by heretics, Maximus was expelled and Cyril substituted. Their words have been added by us in their own order in the *Testimonies concerning S. Cyril and his writings*. Which account is the better must be inquired. If we follow authority, Socrates and Sozomen (from whom...
A or rather from whom those who wrote similar things after them, have taken their opinion) are preceded by a long time by Jerome, but by Theodoret in weight and in knowledge of the ecclesiastical affairs of Syria. Furthermore, Jerome, in the same place, is not very favorable to Cyril and transcribes the insults of his enemies, who would not have omitted this circumstance of the deposition of Maximus. Those who narrate the illegitimate displacement of Maximus, and make Acacius and Patrophilus the arbiters and masters of Cyril’s ordination, are refuted by the far superior and greater authority of the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople, who testify that Cyril was canonically ordained long ago by the bishops of the province. Nor was there such a time as that in which Acacius and Patrophilus could, whether by preserving the form of established law in a council, or by open force and the favor of the emperor, succeed in overthrowing Maximus. All, B as we have seen from Athanasius, supra, nos. 20 and 21, the bishops of Palestine—except for two or three, that is, Acacius and Patrophilus—having joined themselves to Maximus in a council, neglecting their metropolitan Acacius, had subscribed to the synodical letters of the Council of Sardica; by which Acacius himself was adjudged to be deprived not only of his bishopric but even of the communion of the faithful, in Athanasius, *Apol. cont. Arian.*, no. 49, p. 167. Did they themselves, having soon made a transition to Acacius, conspire with him in the deposition of Maximus? And for what reason? Surely for that which was common to them with him, in which they satisfied the goads of their own consciences, while they retracted the condemnation of Athanasius, to which they had consented by force and fear. Had Acacius summoned other bishops from Syria to his own opinion? But by what right could he do it? Moreover, what was the opinion and what the state of affairs of those who were hostile to Athanasius in the year 349 and up to the death of Constans, Athanasius reveals in these words, *Hist. Arian.*, no. 25: “Of the others, some are affected by shame at the sight of Athanasius; some, not daring to present themselves, were hiding; others, led by repentance, were retracting what they had subscribed against [him], the bishop.” But Acacius pressed on with open force. The times had turned out to be less C favorable; he himself, having had the sentence of deposition and excommunication of the Council of Sardica pronounced against him, was infamous or at least a suspect. With the mind of Constantius reconciled toward Athanasius and the Catholics, and the legation of the Council of Sardica appeased, the exiled bishops were being recalled everywhere. The Arians themselves had been forced by the emperor a little before to depose Stephen of Antioch, on account of the snares laid for Catholic prelates with his knowledge. This was the state of affairs in the year 349. Indeed, Constans having been removed from the living at the beginning of the following year, not long afterward the persecution broke out again, at the instigation of Socrates, book II, chap. 26; Marcellus of Ancyra and Paul of Constantinople were driven out in the same year by the authority of Constantius. But the case with the Arians for Marcellus and Paul was one thing, and the case D of the others, who were frequently cast out by their own churches and accused of the slaughters which the Arians themselves had perpetrated, was another. Several older accounts remained concerning the judgment of the Eusebians themselves, which only needed to be carried out. Nothing similar existed regarding Maximus, who was not so hated by the Arians, and whose judgment at least would have needed to be drawn up. Nor is it evident from any sufficiently certain documents that the Arians exercised cruelty against the bishops other than those mentioned above before the year 351 and the victory won over Magnentius, after which Constantius became more addicted to the Arians. For since Socrates, in the passage cited, and Sozomen, book IV, chap. 2, assign several other depositions of Catholic bishops immediately after the death of Constans, they err so much in the correct arrangement of times that nothing certain can be established from their authority alone. To me, however, it is certain that Maximus could neither have been deposed by Acacius in the year 349 nor in the year 350.
24. In what year Maximus finished his life or his episcopate, we cannot affirm with sufficient definition, unless we have first assigned the beginnings of the Cyrillian episcopate. [XX] Cyril was bishop of Jerusalem no later than the beginning of 351. For in the same year, on the seventh day of the month of May, he gave a letter to Constantius, as we proved by suitable arguments in the *Admonitio* prior to this letter, no. 10. Nor had he been ordained much earlier, for this seems to be declared by these words, that these are the first fruits of his letters and sermons, no 1: "I send these first letters of first fruits from Jerusalem to you, God-beloved Emperor"; and no 7: "These first fruits of our sermons I offer to you, most God-loving Emperor; these first words I express to you from Jerusalem." Which, however, is not to be urged too much, as if he had issued these letters or pronounced these words entirely for the first time from his consecration; nor do they perhaps signify anything other than that these are the first letters written by him to the emperor. He does not there make a note of his ordination to the Augustus, nor does he even mention the recently received consecration by a word. Nevertheless, I easily acquiesce in the judgment of almost everyone who declares that this letter was given at the beginning of the Cyrillian episcopate. But I do not see that I am prohibited by any reason from anticipating it by some months or even by a whole year. Wherefore I would believe him to have been consecrated in the year 350, when the peace of the Church remained. Now we must deal with the final year of Maximus. If we listen to Socrates, Sozomen, and others, who join the deposition of Maximus with the ordination of Cyril, it will be consequent that Maximus gave way in life or episcopate only in the year 351 or 352. But the opinion of these has already been exploded by us in the preceding number. Jerome, in the *Chronicle* where he arranges the times, makes Maximus dead in the year 349. Against which nothing more certain and well-founded can be opposed; he must have died at the end of the year 349, or rather at the beginning of the following year, who had celebrated a council in the year 349 while Athanasius was passing through.
25. The same witness is Jerome that the see remained vacant for some time, when he says that after Maximus had died, Acacius and the other Arian bishops [gave] the episcopate to Cyril...
upon the condition that he had accepted to serve as deacon, and that for this impiety he was rewarded with the priesthood. We shall refute the falsity of this fable shortly with arguments, as it seems, that are suitable. Yet there is nothing to prevent us from admitting some vacancy of the see, if it provided some basis and occasion for slander; but no one other than Jerome mentions this vacancy: which indeed is reconciled very well with the times of Maximus’s death and Cyril’s ordination. What the cause of this long vacancy was, is unknown. We can acquiesce in that which Jerome hints at. Namely, that Acacius the metropolitan, together with Patrophilus and perhaps others, had caused delays while they looked for a bishop suitable for their designs and pliable to their will, and were laboring to see how they might impose him upon the Jerusalem see. B Furthermore, all the provincial bishops, not long before, by subscribing to the decrees of the Council of Sardica, had torn themselves away from the communion of Acacius. He, on the contrary, was lifting his head in pride, and would not suffer his rights to be violated. While that dissension was being settled, time flowed by. This is a conjecture.
[XXI] 26. Here we must also discuss what Jerome narrates in the already frequently cited *Chronicle* regarding Maximus: namely, that when he was dying, he substituted Heraclius in his place; whom Cyril, once he became bishop, after soliciting him with various fraud, degraded from bishop to presbyter. These words of St. Jerome do not signify a person simply designated and pointed out—which was not unusual in those first times of the Church—but one consecrated and ordained by Maximus as his successor: which was hostile to the rights of the free election of the people and clergy, and to the rights of the provincial bishops and especially the metropolitan to confirm the election and consecrate the elect, and was always foreign to the custom of the Church and condemned seven years earlier by canon 23 of the Council of Antioch. Therefore, I believe that this affair was concocted by the enemies of Cyril to his hatred. For first, one ought not rashly believe that St. Maximus committed an act contrary to ecclesiastical law. For what danger to his Church did he foresee impending from the Arians? He was dying when the Church’s affairs were tranquil, the Arians suppressed, the Catholics recalled to their sees with great rejoicing, and all, if you except one or two, of the provincial bishops who had been separated from the Arian faction had recently bound themselves to him and to the Catholic party. D Secondly, if he believed it to be in the interest of the Church that his own successor should suffice, whom else could he prefer over Cyril, to whom for many years now he had entrusted the entire burden of his episcopate? The one whom he is said to have preferred, Heraclius, is without doubt the same whom we read in Socrates, Sozomen, and Nicephorus was later set up by the Arians against Cyril and substituted in his place. Would Maximus, caring for his own Church, have set as its guardian the very man whom the Arians found to be a worthy instrument of their impiety; or would the Arians themselves have employed a man whom they knew to have been promoted by their capital enemy and preferred before others? Thirdly, if we concede that Heraclius was substituted for himself by Maximus, it must be admitted that this ordination appeared illegitimate to the provincial bishops; since having neglected it canonically, as we shall see shortly, they ordained Cyril. And since Cyril had committed nothing against the statutes of the Church, if, when there was one legitimate bishop, he caused Heraclius, who called himself bishop, to be content with the rank of presbyter—not by force, as Jerome admits, but by persuasion and pious arts. The Nicene council, canon 8, had ordered that Novatian bishops returning to the Church should have only the honor of presbyters, unless it pleased the bishop, which places it entirely in his own judgment and power, to permit them even the name of the episcopate.
27. Finally, we reach the ordination of Cyril itself, which the contemporary author and reader of every reverence, Jerome, reports as follows, though we judge that he rather carelessly transcribed the curses of Cyril’s enemies. *After whom, the Arians invade the Church, that is, Cyril, Eutychius; again Cyril, Irenaeus; thirdly Cyril, Hilary; fourthly Cyril.* Of whom Cyril, since he had been ordained presbyter by Maximus, and after his death the episcopate was thus permitted to him by Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, and the other Arian bishops, if he would repudiate the ordination of Maximus; he served as deacon in the Church: for which impiety he was rewarded with the priesthood, Heraclius, etc. Rufinus mentions lighter matters, but by insinuating something similar, and seemingly fearing to write the same things as Jerome, in lib. 1 *Hist. eccl.*, c. 22, he says: *At Jerusalem, Cyril, after Maximus, having received the priesthood through a confused ordination, wavered at times in the faith, and more often in communion.* But as to what confusion of ordination he narrates, I understand it thus: that Cyril was ordained bishop at a time when, by the faction of the Arians, the order and tranquility of episcopal ordinations were being disturbed everywhere; and that some part of this confusion reached the ordination of Cyril. But concerning that variation of Cyril in faith and communion, [we shall speak] elsewhere. I omit those who write that Maximus was driven out by the faction of Acacius and Patrophilus, and that Cyril was installed, whose opinion I have shown—as far as the expulsion of Maximus is concerned—to be false (no. 23). Here, furthermore, we take it upon ourselves to show that neither Acacius nor Patrophilus were the arbiters of Cyril’s ordination, nor did Cyril demote himself from the rank of presbyter so that he might receive the episcopate from them; but that he was ordained canonically and according to custom by the bishops of the province.
28. For first, we oppose to all those writers the far superior authority of the Fathers of the ecumenical Council of Constantinople, who, in the letter to Damasus and the Westerners, setting forth the state of ecclesiastical affairs in the East, speak thus of Cyril in Theodoret, *Hist.* lib. v, cap. 9: *But the Church of Jerusalem, which is the mother of all the Churches, we indicate that the most reverend and God-beloved Cyril is bishop: who also...*
A was canonically ordained by the bishops of the province long ago, and endured many conflicts in various places. By the testimony of this most ample and illustrious council, which is numbered among the ecumenical ones, all the reproaches that are heaped upon Cyril's ordination fall away. Cyril himself had been present the year before at the Council of Constantinople, gathered from the same bishops to whom he had, without doubt, explained the reason for his ordination because of the slanders of his enemies. There were present many bishops distinguished for sanctity and inscribed in the ecclesiastical lists; most of them from Syria, some perhaps from Palestine, all of them Orientals who were certainly better informed about the ecclesiastical affairs of Syria than Jerome, who was a Latin man. They were writing these things in an authentic monument, in which it mattered most that nothing but what was certain and explored be proposed; lest, if they were convicted of falsehood in any matter, they might increase the complaints of the Westerners, who were not already very favorable to them. Who would not prefer this authority to the authority of Jerome alone, which is otherwise to be highly respected? He was writing his chronicle the year before at Constantinople when he was younger, from the reports of various people or from common talk; since he had not yet been sufficiently versed in Syria to know thoroughly the state of the Churches in those regions, he had committed himself so much to the Paulinian parties that he accepted everything for the worse concerning men of the opposite party; if he had written after that council, and had read that testimony of his concerning Cyril [XXIII], I do not doubt that he would have been more fair to him. And in truth, in the *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers* written long afterward, it contributes nothing of importance to his praise, nor does it refer to anything for his defamation.
Second, that he expressly, without pretense or ambiguity, counts Cyril among the Arians, and confuses him with the other Arian invaders of the Church of Jerusalem; he errs first in this, that he makes a man of the Arian sect, who in his *Catecheses* intentionally and repeatedly and most seriously refutes it, and who afterward experienced many hardships from the Arians; secondly, he should have been separated from those who, having been driven out by the Arians himself for the sake of the Catholic faith, had been intruded into the see by them. But Jerome is accustomed to call "Arians" as many as were addicted to the Meletian parties.
Third, that he supposes Acacius and the Arian bishops were the arbiters of the Church of Jerusalem after the death of Maximus, and the lords who allowed the bishopric to whomever they wished, is completely inconsistent with the present condition and state of the Palestinian Church. There were only two or three Arian bishops, among whom was Acacius; all the rest, fourteen in number, had detached themselves from Acacius in the very year that Maximus died, and had subscribed both to his deposition and excommunication; how could he have swayed those who were so quickly turned away at his own will, that they would vote for his wicked machinations?
29. Fourth, concerning the condition proposed by Acacius to Cyril, that repudiating the ordination of Maximus he should demote himself to the rank of deacon, he supposes that the Arians rejected the ordinations of the Catholics as if they were invalid B or repeated them: and yet no monument of that event is found in those times: they only reached that madness much later. This was first attempted by George of Alexandria around the year 356, in Athanasius, *Apologia ad Constantium*, n. 31, and from the suppliant libels of Marcellus and Faustinus, p. 77, but the evil was not then propagated far. For when Basil had heard that Eustathius of Sebaste had dared to re-ordain some—*that he even dared to re-ordain some*—he doubted whether it was a true rumor, which would expose the man to the horror and detestation of all, or a fabrication composed for slander; because up to his own time no one of the heretics had done this—*and up to today no one of the heretics appears to have done so*—Basil, *Epist.* 196, p. 213.
But why did Acacius particularly hate Maximus, so that he would repudiate the presbyteral ordination performed by him, yet approve his diaconal ordination by Macarius? Was Maximus more hostile to the Arians than Macarius, to whom they had almost no fiercer enemy? One whom Arius notes as his chief adversary, who had promulgated the decrees of the Council of Nicaea in Palestine; whom Sozomen, *book II, chapter 20*, reports to have separated himself from the communion of Eusebius and Patrophilus before his death. Maximus, on the contrary, had been gratified by the Arians, either deceived by fraud, or compelled by force, or through a defect of spirit. If, after he had attached himself to Athanasius, he had made Cyril a presbyter, there would have been some pretext for Acacius to repudiate this ordination. But he had ordained Cyril at a time when even the Eusebians could count him among their own.
Fifth, if religion and the reverence for Christ’s sacraments did not hold Cyril back from accepting such an infamous [XXIV] condition, would he not have been touched by shame, or the care of his own reputation? He who for many years, as first of the presbyters, had governed almost the whole Church, would he sluggishly cast himself down into the rank and office of a deacon? What clamor would there have been in the people, what infamy among the provincial bishops, what indignation of all?
Sixth, finally, it should not seem incredible that this calumny, attempted against him by his enemies, was because he favored the Meletian parties; he was also joined to Meletius by an intimate friendship. This was enough to incite the operations of the Paulinian parties against him; and he had to endure many things from them, as we shall say in its place. Note, moreover, the license of slandering one's adversaries that reigned in the Paulinian parties. One example suffices regarding Meletius and Eusebius of Samosata; who, when in the Council of Antioch in the year 365, they had embraced consubstantiality by a solemn decree, someone was found who, in a petulant writing under the name of a *refutation of the hypocrisy of Eusebius and Meletius*, denied that they had dedicated themselves from their soul and conviction to the Nicene faith; and although both were in exile by the faction of the Arians, the enemies still managed that at Rome, Damasus would in the same period count them among the Arians, from Basil, *epist.* 321. We believe Cyril experienced similar slanders, which Jerome, recently ordained by Paulinus, transcribed with more credulity than was right to the men of the same party; and Rufi-
Rufinus, a zealot for those same parties, did not reject it. A It is refuted B by not a few testimonies of mutual communion, that he permitted hands to be laid upon him by Acacius, a man of base or rather fickle character and of no faith, who had recently been struck by the anathema of the Council of Sardica. First, that he was ordained by Acacius is not a matter so certain that it cannot be called into doubt, and that more solid foundations for this assertion are not to be demanded. For it rests only upon the authority of Jerome, Socrates, and Sozomen, Theophanes, and like authors, whose credibility in recounting Cyril's ordination we have proven to be altogether suspect. This much is certain: Cyril was canonically ordained by the bishops of the province. We can, however, agree with these authors that Acacius was the administrator of the ordination by metropolitan right; and that this was the foundation of the slanders heaped upon Cyril: but why this should be to Cyril’s discredit, I do not see. Acacius had not yet displayed those things which brought eternal infamy to his name. Having become the leader of the Arians at the Council of Seleucia in the year 359 and at the Council of Constantinople the following year, he raged in a wondrous fashion against the Catholics and semi-Arians, and infected the whole world with the contagion of the subscription to the formula of Ariminum. Yet after these crimes, he ordained the holy Meletius of Antioch and Pelagius of Laodicea, and Athanasius of Ancyra—whom S. Basil celebrates with encomiums in epistles 53 and 66—and others, by expelling good bishops and acting outside his own province. How much more favorable is the case of Cyril, who was required by the canons to be ordained by the metropolitan of the province? The fact that Acacius had been deposed by the Council of Sardica had no effect. He himself firmly held his episcopate and ecclesiastical communion, with no one being substituted in his place. C Indeed, when the Fathers of the Councils of Sardica and Philippopolis had struck the leaders of the opposite party with mutual anathemas, they did not seem very concerned about the execution of the matter. The Sardicans, having sent Euphratas of Cologne and Vincent of Capua as legates to Constantius, asked only that the emperor permit the bishops whom the synod had judged to be free from guilt to return to their Churches, since he himself had expelled them (Athan. Hist. Arian., no. 20). But concerning the substitution of others in the places of Theodore, Acacius, Ursacius, and Valens, who had been deposed and excommunicated, there was not even a word. Athanasius always regarded Acacius as a bishop tolerated by the Church (De syn. no. 13), and he holds Basil of Ancyra, who had been excommunicated along with others at the Council of Sardica, as a brother, even though Marcellus was still alive (ibid. no. 41). Nor did the Eusebians cease to regard Julius of Rome, Protogenes of Sardica, Hosius, Gaudentius of Ariminum, and Maximinus of Trier—whom they had in turn condemned with the same penalty—as true bishops. For what Socrates says, lib. II, cap. 42—that communion between the East and the West was broken after the Council of Sardica—is refuted by history, as he himself confesses in the same place D that there were bishops within the East who, although they might be of a different faith, nevertheless maintained indifferent communion. For when the Catholics were unable to convict and expel by legitimate judgment the bishops laboring under the suspicion of Arianism who were hiding under the guise of Catholic professions, they retained necessary communion with them: a fact which suffices to show that Cyril could legitimately have received ordination from Acacius.
On the episcopate of Cyril
The initiations of Cyril's episcopate were signed by a prodigy at Jerusalem (2). Indeed, on the seventh day of May in the year 351, about the third hour of the day, that is, our ninth hour in the morning, a great cross appeared, shining with a brightness exceeding the solar rays, for many hours over Mount Golgotha, extending as far as the Mount of Olives. Straightway the whole population of the city, of every age, sex, and condition—not only the residents, but also foreigners, Christians and Gentiles—ran to the church, praising Christ with one mind and as if with one mouth, and not doubting that the truth of his religion had been confirmed by a heavenly vision. Cyril himself, an eyewitness of the sign, having first rendered thanks to God, thought it right to signify this sign immediately by letter to Constantius, thinking that the emperor would be more and more confirmed in his love for the Christian religion thereby; and that he would conceive new confidence and alacrity for defeating his enemies from this sign of divine love and care for him. He concludes the epistle with a favorable prayer, which, formed in the manner of praise, silently admonishes Constantius regarding both duty and the true faith. Much is usually disputed concerning the truth of this prodigy and Cyril's epistle, concerning the year and day when the cross was seen, and the various circumstances related by other authors: concerning which, since we deem that we have said enough in our preceding admonition to the epistle to Constantius, we deem that the reader curious about such things should be referred there.[XXVI] CHAPTER VI
What sort of person Cyril was in his episcopate: his strife with Acacius of Caesarea; and their mutual accusations.32 Very little of Cyril’s episcopate has been preserved by history. We can certainly estimate that he strenuously fulfilled all the duties of his sublime office, both from the labors which he performed while still a presbyter—which are to be judged to have increased rather than decreased in his episcopate—and from the flourishing state of the Jerusalem Church in his time. For how many saints were there, and in what honor was piety held? One may infer this from what Basil says in epistle 4 to a fallen monk, page 12; namely, that he had gone to Jerusalem with Basil himself around the year 357; that he had kissed many saints there; and that he had many times touched and warmed his hands, prostrating himself at his knees.
A That Cyril had fulfilled the office of preaching by himself is proved by the fact that even when in exile at Tarsus, with the permission of Bishop Silvanus, he was willing to perform the office of preaching (Theodoret, *Hist.* bk. II, chap. 26). How generous and extravagant he was toward the needy is amply demonstrated by that celebrated act for which Acacius accused him. For when famine had gripped the region of Jerusalem, a multitude of the needy, deprived of necessary food, cast their eyes upon Cyril as their bishop. But when there was a lack of money with which he might aid the needy, Cyril sold the treasures of the Church and the sacred veils. (Sozomen, *Hist.* bk. IV, chap. 25: what followed from this we shall narrate later).
33. Cyril did not remain quiet in his see for long. A contention having arisen between him and Acacius regarding primacy and metropolitan right gave birth to mutual accusations. B Having seized upon a cause for accusation, Acacius deposed Cyril in a council of bishops united with him in his faction around the end of the year 357 or the beginning of 358—all of which must be investigated by us more accurately. And, in the first place, Sozomen seems to signify that the contention of Cyril regarding primacy began almost with Cyril’s episcopacy itself, in these words (bk. IV, *Hist.*, chap. 25): "After having undertaken the episcopate of Jerusalem, ἐπειδὴ ἐπετράπη τὴν Ἱεροσολύμων ἐπισκοπήν, he had entered into a controversy against Acacius of Caesarea regarding metropolitan right, as one holding an apostolic see." Theodoret explains the matter more briefly (bk. II, *Hist.*, chap. 26): "When these men contended between themselves concerning the primacy, they provided a cause for the gravest evils to the Christian commonwealth." It must be inquired what it was that Cyril was arrogating to himself against Acacius under the pretext of an apostolic throne, or what Acacius was contending for by right of a metropolitan. Cyril could only have arrogated to himself three things: metropolitan rights over the churches of Palestine, or a rank of seating higher than Acacius, or the immunity of his own church from the jurisdiction of Acacius. No witness records that Cyril wished to be called metropolitan of the churches of Palestine; nor indeed is it likely that he contended for this. For there is no doubt that the prelates of Jerusalem accepted the honorary decree of the Council of Nicaea (canon 7) and were [XXVII] contented with it. Macarius, one of the chief Fathers of the council, without doubt signified and promulgated this to the Palestinian churches; and it mattered greatly to him and his successors that it be kept whole and intact. Yet the Nicene Council, in canon 7, while it maintains the rank of honor for the Jerusalemite after the bishops of the three major sees (the Roman, Alexandrian, and Antiochene, concerning which canon 6 treats) based on custom and ancient tradition, decrees that the rights remain safe and intact for the metropolitan city: *Let it have the sequence of honor, while the proper dignity of the metropolis is preserved*. We therefore do not think that Cyril had arrogated to himself metropolitan jurisdiction over Palestine. But he maintained his superiority based on custom and right C over Acacius as to precedence and rank, which Acacius—who was bound by no reverence for the Nicene synod—denied to Cyril, and was able to defend himself with the examples of some of his predecessors, for whom certain monuments provide proof that they presided in Caesarean or other councils of their province above the Jerusalemite (see Eusebius, *Hist.* bk. V, chap. 23, and bk. VII, chap. 5). Furthermore, Cyril seemed to assert that he was immune and released from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Caesarea. For, while he held the apostolic throne, what else did he establish but that his church was superior and immune from an inferior see? Called to judgment by Acacius for two continuous years, he refused to present himself to Acacius the judge—not fearing the accusations, as was supposed by Socrates (bk. II, chap. 40; for those were most trivial, as testified by Theodoret, bk. II, chap. 26, and to Cyril rather honorable than fearful, Sozomen, bk. IV, chap. 25), but wishing to admit no jurisdiction of Acacius over himself. That John, Cyril’s successor, likewise defended himself as immune from the jurisdiction of both the Caesarean metropolitan and the Antiochene patriarch is evident from Jerome, who argues strongly with him about that matter, and alleges the authority of the Nicene Council (*Epist.* 61, new ed. 58). Acacius, without doubt, was protecting the metropolitan rights of his church over the Jerusalemite church, and could protect himself—if he dared—using the Nicene synod. Hence he played the part of Cyril's proper judge, summoning him to court and finally judging him.
34. The reader may perhaps inquire whose cause was stronger, Acacius' or Cyril's; and whether the bishop of Jerusalem was truly immune from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Caesarea either by custom or by right, even though he himself exercised none over others who might be subject to him; or whether, like other provincials, he was subject to the Caesarean metropolis, content with the prior place and rank among them after the metropolitan? This is a question strongly agitated and discussed in the contentions of scholars, and which is not easy to define. To settle that dispute is not our intention nor within our powers. Yet this place does not allow it to be left entirely untouched. It seems to us that Cyril sustained the legitimate rights of his church to be free from all jurisdiction of the bishop of Caesarea. D This is suggested by the fact that it had St. James the brother of the Lord, who himself in the opinion of many was one of the apostles; at the very least, because of the man’s [XXVIII] exceptional virtue and blood kinship with the Lord, he was considered equal to the apostles themselves. Paul, naming him even before Peter and John, calls them those three pillars of the Church. The Church collected his epistle with the other writings of the apostles into the canon of divine books. Some thought that he had received the governance of the Jerusalemite Church, the mother of all, from the Lord himself. But in the Roman Empire, and furthermore in other provinces of the world, there was no apostolic...
no seat—we know this—that was subject and obedient to another bishop. Second, although civil disposition governed ecclesiastical metropolises, that city was commonly considered a metropolis from which preaching had spread to other cities; from it, the others took their law of believing and living. Since the order of the empire did not allow Jerusalem to be the metropolis of Palestine, at least that Church, which had provided the beginning to all, and had transmitted the apostles and the faith to the world, ought not to have been subject to others which, to it, were in the place of daughters. Third, the peculiar status of its Church has no small weight in this matter. It was separated from the other Churches of Palestine in diet and custom; for a hundred years consisting almost exclusively of Hebrews, having bishops from that nation, and retaining circumcision and the greater part of legal rites. When the Jews were driven from Jerusalem, the Church received a new form, composed solely of Gentiles. Yet it also retained many rites peculiar to itself regarding the observation of Easter, as Firmilianus attests in his letter to Cyprian; and even under Cyril, it still kept distinct customs separate from the manner of other Churches, most of which we have observed in their proper place. A Moreover, it was the custom that Churches subject to others generally followed their rites. Whatever discipline flourished at Alexandria was to be judged that of all Egypt; that of Antioch, of all the East; that of Rome, of almost the entire West. Therefore, whatever Church acted with separate customs was to be judged as being under its own law and released from the dominion of others. Fourth, while St. James was alive, who would believe that the Bishop of Caesarea strove to exercise metropolitan rights over him? After his death, the Church, fleeing the ruin of Jerusalem according to the prophecy, removed itself to Pella in Arabia: at that time, the Caesarean could do nothing against it. After its return to its original seats, did it then first begin to obey a metropolitan, when it had St. Simeon as its bishop, no less notable than James himself? Finally, when it was changed into a new form, after a hundred years in which it had been free, do we think the Bishop of Caesarea presumed to assert a new right, unknown to his predecessors, over a Church held in all devotion by Christians? Fifth, B finally, it was unheard of in the Church that a superior should obey an inferior. The bishop of Jerusalem held a rank of honor and seating superior to the Caesarean bishop, which the Council of Nicaea itself preserved for him by ancient custom: he was, therefore, free from the Caesarean. When the Council of Constantinople attributed to the bishop of that city the second rank of honor in the Church, it simultaneously absolved him from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Heraclea, his former metropolitan. It is fitting to believe this was done after the example of the Jerusalemite Church. [XXIX] 35. To this opinion, which asserts that the Jerusalemite Church was free, almost nothing can be opposed except the authority of St. Jerome. In his letter now 38, formerly 61, complaining about John, our successor, he says that when a controversy had arisen between him and Jerome and Epiphanius regarding the Pauliniani, ordained without John's consent in a certain monastery that he asserted was of the Jerusalemite diocese but they denied; John, buffeted by the accusations of both regarding the faith C and having bypassed the bishops of Caesarea and Antioch, had fled to the Alexandrian seeking aid. Thus he says at number 63: "You who seek ecclesiastical rules, and use the canons of the Nicene Council... answer me, what does Palestine pertain to the Alexandrian bishop? If I am not mistaken, it is decreed there that Caesarea is the metropolis of Palestine, and Antioch that of the whole East. Either, therefore, you should have referred the matter to the Caesarean bishop, whose communion you knew we had been keeping, having spurned yours; or, if judgment had to be sought from afar, the letters should have rather been directed to Antioch." But in this entire letter, Jerome attacks John with such fervor of spirit and such impetuosity, inflamed by personal injuries, that he appears more as a party to the controversy than as an impartial arbiter and judge to settle it. The controversy had arisen elsewhere regarding the borders of the Jerusalemite parish, whether the monastery of Jerome and the Pauliniani pertained to it. The judge of that matter should have been assumed to be not the Alexandrian prelate, but rather the metropolitan of the province. It is also objected that in the provincial synods of Palestine, the Caesarean metropolitan presided. This is clear from the council on the controversy of Easter, whose presidents, according to Eusebius (book v, chapter 23), were Theophilus of Caesarea and Narcissus of Jerusalem. But that same chapter 27, recounting the same, places Narcissus before Theophilus. Long after the times of Cyril, when John of Jerusalem had attended the Council of Diospolis against Pelagius in the year 415, St. Augustine, having followed the acts of the council as it seems (Book 1 Against Julian, twice, namely in chapter 5, no. 19, and chapter 7, no. 32), names John after Eulogius of Caesarea. But that presidency of the Caesarean in the councils of his own province concludes nothing against the Jerusalemite, since it is evident from what was said before that John, who was content here with the second place, had defended his immunity from the Caesarean, and indeed even from the Antiochene. Otherwise, nothing at all can be concluded from this presidency itself. In the Nicene Council, before Alexander and Eustathius—the former the prelate of Antioch, the latter of Alexandria—did D Osius not sit, though he was raised to this rank with no dignity of his own see? If he is denied to have been the president of the council, this honor seems to have been attained by Eustathius, who was certainly inferior to the Alexandrian. The same Osius also presided over the Council of Sardica, although Athanasius, who was the party, was absent, and many metropolitans were present to whom he himself seemed bound to concede as inferior. But, to return to Palestine, when the Caesarean alone possessed jurisdiction in the province, in councils convened and celebrated by his own authority, it was fitting that no one else should preside. But in general councils or outside [XXX] the province, he sat after the Jerusalemite without any altercation. Thus, in the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata, after Helenus of Tarsus, as is apparent, he presided over the council.
Hymenaeus of Jerusalem is called next after Theotecnus of Caesarea in the synodal letters, according to Eusebius, *Hist.*, bk. VII, ch. 30. And Eusebius himself, in ch. 28, A when listing the names of the Fathers who gathered at the council, puts the name of Hymenaeus before that of Theotecnus. Sozomen, bk. I, ch. 17, while mentioning the prelates of the apostolic sees who were present as leaders at the Nicene Council, names Macarius first of all, even before Eustathius of Antioch and Alexander of Alexandria. In matters pertaining to the province of Palestine, the Bishop of Jerusalem also at times held the prior position. Eusebius, *Hist.*, bk. VI, ch. 19, speaking of the common letters which Alexander of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea sent to Demetrius of Antioch in favor of Origen, places Alexander before Theoctistus. B When Constantine wrote a letter to all the bishops of Palestine regarding the building of a church at the Oak of Mamre—a matter which concerned the diocese of Jerusalem no more than the others—he addressed it to Macarius and the other bishops of Palestine, according to Eusebius, *Vita Const.*, bk. III, ch. 52. And he had the copy transmitted to the metropolitan, since he testifies that he transcribed the letter from it, ch. 51. From this we conclude that if at any time the Bishop of Caesarea is named or recorded as having sat before the Bishop of Jerusalem, it does not militate against the latter's superior precedence or immunity.
36. After this, disputes arose regarding mutual accusations of faith, concerning which these things are recorded in Sozomen, not without judgment. Thus he writes in bk. IV, ch. 25: "From this it came about that they incurred enmity among themselves and accused one another of not thinking correctly about God. For even before this, both of them had fallen under suspicion; Acacius, indeed, because he held the same views as Arius, but Cyril because he followed those who asserted that the Son was *like* the Father according to substance." From these words it would follow that Acacius, although he himself was a pure Arian and publicly professed it, brought a criminal charge against Cyril for asserting that the Son was like the Father according to substance. We shall prove shortly that the matter was far otherwise. Nicephorus Callistus, transcribing this passage of Sozomen into his *History*, bk. IV, ch. 46, deliberately alters it with these words: "For this reason, being led into mutual hatred, one accused the other of not thinking rightly of God. For Acacius previously preached Arian dogmas, but Cyril followed from the beginning those who adhered to the consubstantial." Although Nicephorus is far inferior in history to Sozomen in both time and authority, he seems to have arrived at the more certain state of the controversy between the two prelates: 1° for, to omit that divorce between the Arians and semi-Arians on account of the "likeness of substance," the mutual accusations of the two prelates seem older—born from the contention over the primacy while Cyril’s episcopate itself was almost suspected; such was at this time [XXXI] Cyril’s and C Acacius's condition, such that Acacius could object to Cyril regarding the consubstantial, but could not do so regarding the likeness of substance. Cyril, together with Maximus at the Council of Jerusalem in the year 349, had likely accepted the decrees of the Council of Sardica, and consequently the Nicene faith, by his assent; the same man, writing to Constantius at the beginning of his episcopate, had confessed that the Trinity was consubstantial. These were more than sufficient crimes for Acacius to use for an accusation. But in what way, finally, could Acacius himself bring a criminal charge against Cyril for the "likeness of substance," which he himself had already defended many times, and in books published at that time? In the profession of the Council of Antioch in the year 341, he had asserted, following Athanasius (*De synod*, n. 36), that the Son was in no respect unlike to the paternal divinity, substance, will, and power. Which formula of the Antiochene council was indeed used by the semi-Arians themselves in the Council of Seleucia, when they were carried with great fervor against the Arians, who were divided from them, as a common token of faith. Before the Council of Seleucia, he had written a letter to Macedonius and had published a book in which he defended the likeness of substance. For Sozomen relates, *Hist.*, bk. IV, ch. 22, that when a contention arose in the Council of Seleucia between Acacius and the semi-Arians concerning the likeness of the Son, Acacius, who professed him "like according to will" only, was convicted by the semi-Arians, who were strongly defending "like according to substance," from the book which he had written and published, because he had previously thought "like" things with them: "And they insisted he was like according to substance, and reproached Acacius because of the treatise which he had written and published, as he had previously thought like them." Similar things are related by Socrates, bk. II, ch. 40; 2°, although the division of the semi-Arians and Arians is supposed to have occurred before the year 357 or 358, Acacius does not seem to have crossed over to the Arians, leaving the semi-Arians behind, before the deposition of Cyril. Epiphanius, *Heresy* 73, n. 23, says that Acacius, in the Council of Seleucia, out of the hatred he harbored against Cyril, opposed himself to Basil of Ancyra, Silvanus of Tarsus, and others whom we call semi-Arians, along with others he had bound to himself, as if he had only then armed himself against them, offended by Silvanus’s hospitality toward Cyril. Yet it is certain that at the beginning of 358, Acacius had already joined Eudoxius of Antioch, D who, together with him in the Council of Antioch, abrogated both the consubstantial and the likeness of substance. Sozom., *Hist.*, bk. IV, ch. 12. But this is read as the first attempt of Acacius against the likeness of substance; 3°, even if we grant that Acacius, at the time he was accusing Cyril, had already crossed over to the Arian camp, I do not believe that at that time he had progressed so far as to impute the likeness of substance to others as a crime. For even afterwards at the Council of Constantinople in the year 360, when Acacius, the leader of the faction, and the associated bishops deposed almost all the semi-Arians from their episcopacies for diverse reasons, they did not allege the cause of faith, according to Socrates, *Hist.*, bk. II, ch. 42. Returning from the council, he replaced many into the place of the deposed, who [held the] likeness of substance...
to the sense of the consubstantial, as A Meletius, Pelagius of Laodicea, and others who are accounted among the number of Catholics and even saints. The following year at the Council of Antioch, when he was preaching in the presence of Constantius after George of Laodicea, he set forth a doctrine which did not in truth maintain the sincere and pure character of the apostolic faith, yet was separated by a very long interval from the blasphemy of the latter. See Theodoret, *Hist.*, bk. II, ch. 31. And yet George was previously held as one of the principals of the semi-Arian party, from Epiphanius, *Haer.* 73, n. 1. It is therefore not credible that Acacius leveled the likeness of substance against Cyril as a crime, unless you say that he held the likeness of substance to be the same thing as consubstantial. This reasoning, indeed, the authors of the Sirmium formula in the year 357 were accustomed to bring forward, as witnessed by Hilary, *De synod.*, n. 79: They apologize that B they (Ursacius and Valens) wished *homousion* and *homoeousion* to be passed over in silence, because they thought one and the same thing was signified by both words. Acacius could be led by the same reasoning when he praised and followed the Sirmium formula at the Council of Antioch and decreed that thanks be given to its authors, according to Sozomen, bk. IV, ch. 12. There can be no doubt that this was the opinion of the Arians, from Philostorgius, who held *homoousion* and *homoiousion* to be the same; and he brought forward Basil of Ancyra, Eustathius of Sebaste, and other defenders of *homoiousion* who were everywhere contending for *homoousion*. See bk. II, n. 16; bk. IV, n. 9, 10, 12. Nor moreover were they entirely mistaken: for in the judgment of Athanasius, Hilary, and Basil, the likeness of substance, correctly understood—such as Cyril was without doubt defending—is entirely the same as the consubstantial.
37. From this it is gathered in abundance that Acacius leveled nothing against Cyril except the Nicene faith. But if Acacius, at the time of those accusations at least, was following a likeness in all things and in substance, what else was Cyril accusing in Acacius C except one of these two things? Either he was claiming that a likeness of substance was insufficient for a full and complete profession of Catholic doctrine; or, because he was joined by both friendship and communion with the defenders of this view, he was accusing Acacius because he was corrupting that confession with deceit and fraud and, by perverse interpretations, was deflecting it from its legitimate sense. Whichever you follow, the argument for the Catholic doctrine of Cyril is clear. But if, as Sozomen wishes—which we have proven is with difficulty reconciled with the history of those times—Cyril, while following the likeness of substance, was rebuking pure Arianism in Acacius; first [this is] the chief glory of Cyril, that he was the first to draw the sword against the Anomoeans; next, since it is certain from his writings that he thought in a completely Catholic and orthodox manner, both concerning the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; we shall say that the Anomoeans were attacked by him, not with a half-measure, as some perhaps semi-Arians and Macedonians might have done, but with a full and entire defense of the Catholic faith. D
38. Whether on account of this Cyrillian faith intended by that accusation of Acacius, or for other reasons which history has not sufficiently expressed, and which Socrates confesses he does not know, Acacius summoned Cyril to justice for two years continuously. But it was in vain; Cyril never appeared. Socrates, from whom we learned these things, bk. II, ch. 40, brings forward this cause, that Cyril feared the accusations: which, with Socrates’ good leave, is not even likely. For in the first place those accusations were entirely trivial, according to Theodoret, bk. II, ch. 26, who says that these very slight causes for deposing Cyril were seized upon by Acacius: "For Acacius, having found certain small pretexts, deposed Cyril and cast him out of Jerusalem," truths unknown to Socrates on account of their levity and futility. Cyril was so confident in his own cause that, having been deposed by Acacius, he appealed to a greater council; at the Council of Seleucia, secure and confident, he challenged Acacius, who did not want his judgment to be revoked for the censure of the council; Cyril’s cause appeared just to the council, and was honorably adjudicated for him. Finally, Sozomen, bk. IV, ch. 25, brings forward a cause for the Cyrillian deposition, more honorable to Cyril than to be feared—namely the pallium of the Church, sold by Cyril in a time of public poverty to a merchant, and by the merchant to a stage-woman; of which we shall speak in the following chapter. Therefore, Cyril was not fleeing trial through fear of the accusation, but was either fearing the violence and frauds of a most wicked and crafty man, or, what I believe is more likely, asserting himself to be absolute and free from the jurisdiction of Acacius, as he was the prelate of an apostolic throne, he refused to present himself to the judgment of an inferior, or finally, he refused to undergo the law according to the judgment of an enemy and a man he himself had accused.
39. It is narrated that [Cyril] was present at a certain council at Melitene in Armenia, according to Sozomen, bk. IV, ch. 25. The memory of this council is entirely obscure; that it was celebrated before the deposition of Cyril in the year 357 is signified by the complaints of the Anomoeans at the Council of Constantinople in the year 360; in which they make mention of this council before the abdication itself. Since hostilities seem already to have existed between the Arians and semi-Arians, or at least the seeds of a schism, at the time of this council, we do not believe it should be placed before the year 357. It is established that the Arians dominated there, and that its decrees were spurned and neglected by the semi-Arians, from the expostulations made to the semi-Arians by the Anomoeans at the Council of Constantinople, who proclaimed themselves the vindicators and avengers of that council, according to Sozomen, bk. IV, ch. 24 and 25. Eustathius of Sebaste was deposed there, according to Basil’s letter 74, who nevertheless held himself to be a bishop and afterwards was present at the councils of the semi-Arians, honored by their legations to the emperor; and he strove to abrogate and overturn the decrees of the Council of Melitene, according to Sozomen, bk. IV, ch. 24. Elpidius, bishop of the Satalites, who appears to have been present at the council, regarding a certain Eusebius cast down from the rank of the presbyterate,
A he restored against the statutes of that council. It is probable that Cyril intervened regarding the decrees of this council and opposed them; at any rate, they were alleged by the Anomoeans at the Council of Constantinople as a cause for his deposition, because he had been in communion with Eustathius and Elpidius, who had striven to abrogate the decrees of the Melitene synod, at which he himself had been present. This communion with Eustathius and Elpidius was not an affair peculiar to him, but shared with many others. It follows, therefore, that he had joined his own grievances to those of Eustathius and Elpidius and had favored their machinations against that council. And this redounds to the praise of Cyril [XXXIV-XXXIX], in that the council, infamous for the praises and patronage of the Anomoeans, was displeasing to him. Furthermore, Eustathius and Elpidius, being at that time addicted to the "likeness of substance," were fervently fighting against the Anomoeans; and both of them later embraced the Nicene faith. Elpidius is celebrated in the encomiums of Basil, Ep. 72, page 118. See Ep. 215 and 322.
CHAPTER VII
C Cyril is deposed by Acacius, appeals to a greater council, and betakes himself to Silvanus of Tarsus.40. Acacius, having summoned Cyril to judgment in vain for two continuous years, and thinking he ought to be preempted, deposed him together with those bishops of the province who held the same view as himself. Thus Sozomen, book IV, chapter 25. Add to this from Theodoret, book II, chapter 26; and he expelled him from Jerusalem. Those words of Sozomen, *preempting, he deposed* (φθάσας καθελών), seem to signify that Acacius, since he feared that Cyril might appeal to a judgment and thereby procure the condemnation of Acacius in the council regarding the things of which he was accusing him, had judged that Cyril himself should be cast out of the episcopate without delay, and that he himself should be placed in safety. Therefore, he gathered a council from bishops of his own opinion and addicted to him. That this was not a numerous one is gathered from the fact that Cyril, being deposed in it, appealed more numerously; otherwise, since fifteen years before there were eight bishops in Palestine addicted to the Athanasian cause, even though some are supposed to have been taken by fate and others enticed to his own side by Acacius, it is nevertheless credible that a few remained who were favorable to Cyril and the faith. Wherefore the rest remain contracted into a narrow number. Among these we can count Patrophilus of Scythopolis, one of the worst of the Arians; Eutychius of Eleutheropolis, if he had already by then entered into hostilities with Cyril; Peter, bishop of Hippos; Eusebius of Sebaste; and Charisius of Azotus, who are found joined to Acacius at the Council of Seleucia, according to Epiphanius, Heresy 73, n. 26. The words of Sozomen cited at the beginning of the chapter can signify that they alone were present at the council. It is probable that Cyril did not wish to present himself for judgment, since he refused to come into court for two continuous years. Therefore, he was condemned absent and unheard. Where this council was celebrated, the historians are silent. The custom of the Church demanded that it be celebrated at Jerusalem, so that the judgment might be instituted in those places where the crime is said to have been committed and where witnesses can be heard. There too D it appears to have been proven, as Theodoret says (book II, ch. 26), that Cyril was not only deposed by Acacius but also expelled from Jerusalem. For that expulsion does not seem to have been able to be carried out without a certain force and the impetus of Acacius being present. We think the council was convened towards the end of the year 357 or the beginning of 358, around the same time that Leontius of Antioch died. For Theodoret narrates (book II, ch. 26) that Cyril betook himself to Antioch immediately after his abdication and found it deprived of a shepherd (ποιμένος αὐτὴν ἐστερημένην εὑρών). Yet Leontius did not die until towards the end of the year 357, or even the beginnings of the year 358; he is recounted by Athanasius as if still alive in *Historia Arianorum [XL] ad monachos*, n. 4; in which work he mentions the fall of Liberius and Hosius, and the death of the latter, and his retraction at death, in numbers 41 and 45, which deeds indeed occurred at the latest towards the end of the year 357.
41. The causes of the deposition of Cyril by Acacius, Theodoret (book II, ch. 26) calls most trivial. Socrates (book II, ch. 40) says he was deposed for the reason that he had often been summoned to judgment and had refused to appear for two continuous years, fearing the accusations. By which words he seems to signify that Acacius had brought this charge against Cyril—that he did not recognize his tribunal; or rather, that he had taken Cyril's absence and flight from judgment as a kind of silent confession and acknowledgment of the crimes imputed to him, and had seen to it that it was approved by his council, and besides having sought out no arguments, had condemned the enemy unheard. Indeed, it was an unjust sentence of Acacius if, while a dispute was pending between Cyril and himself regarding metropolitan rights and regarding faith-related accusations, the former fulfilled the roles of judge in his own cause, when he was actor and accuser. But if he was condemning Cyril, who for legitimate reasons refused to present himself for judgment, as if by his flight from judgment he were confessing his crimes, it was more unjust to suppress the causes of the refused judgment by dissimulating the opponent's innocence. Sozomen (book IV, ch. 25) brings forward a cause for the abdication of Cyril entirely different from that seized upon by Acacius. When Cyril, in public indigence, had sold the treasures of the Church and holy veils, they say that someone recognized one of his donations on a stage-actress who was wrapped in it, and inquiring more curiously as to whence she had it, discovered that a merchant had sold it to the woman, and the bishop to the merchant. Pretending this cause, therefore, Acacius deposed Cyril. The same truly is the story which Acacius, after the Council of Seleucia, brought forward again, ornamented with circumstances entirely different to inflame the mind of the emperor against Cyril. Theodoret narrates the matter thus (book II, ch. 27): "But the things which Acacius had concocted against Cyril moved the emperor's mind in particular: for the sacred vestment which Constantine, worthy of all praise, had donated to Macarius, the bishop of that place, to adorn the church of Jerusalem, so that he might perform the ministry of divine baptism when clothed in it (this vestment was woven with golden threads), Cyril had sold..."
it, and a certain merchant from among those who are accustomed to dance in the theater had bought it, but, having fallen while dancing, he died. This is different from the first narrative: 1. the matter is distracted into theatrical farce, the sacred vestment is said to have been given by Constantine for the use of baptism, whereas Socrates seems to signify one of the sacred veils or curtains; 2. that vestment is said to have been sold by Cyril to the actor himself, which Socrates reports was sold by the bishop to a merchant, and by the merchant to the mime; 3. the actor is said to have danced while wearing it, whereas Socrates narrates that a woman in the theater was wearing it; 4. it is added that the actor fell while dancing and died; Socrates says nothing of this. This diversity of narrative, which betrays the malice of Acacius, can cast a suspicion of fiction over the whole affair. But if there is any truth in it, one must rest with the first and simpler account of Socrates [XLI] rather than the other, corrupted by the guile of Acacius. Indeed, Acacius deposed Cyril either because of the distribution of sacred objects during public poverty, or because of their profanation and contamination in the theater. But the crime of another—either the actor profaning the sacred vestment or the merchant selling an object bought from a bishop to a mime—ought not to be imputed to Cyril. At most it would be the imprudence of Cyril, not taking sufficient care of a sacred object: but who would believe that he neglected the necessary precautions? Yet if Acacius leveled this charge against Cyril—that he distributed the treasures of the Church to relieve the poverty of the poor—truly, what they deemed a crime, we consider to be the greatest praise of Cyril. For what Cyril did, the same was done afterward by St. Ambrose of Milan for the redemption of captives, who, when the Arians, similar to Acacius, accused him, undertook the defense of his act in *Lib. II, Offic., cap. 28, n. 136 et seqq.* and protected himself by the example of St. Lawrence. St. Exuperius of Toulouse did the same, praised for this by St. Jerome, who urged Rusticus to follow the footsteps of this saint (*Epist. 95, alias 4*); St. Caesarius of Arles did it, as testified by Cyprian, the writer of his life, *num. 17*; Meroveus, Bishop of Poitiers, did it, commemorated by Gregory of Tours in *Lib. VII Histor. Franc., c. 24*.
42. Although Cyril had been deposed, Socrates says (*Lib. II, cap. 40*), he nevertheless sent a written appeal to those who had deposed him and provoked a higher judgment, μεῖζον ἐπεκαλέσατο δικαστήριον. To this appeal, indeed, the Emperor Constantius assented. Alone, therefore, and first of all, against the usage of ecclesiastical canon, Cyril interposed an appeal, as is accustomed to be done in public trials. That this was the first of the ecclesiastical appeals interposed by Cyril, not all agree with Socrates; for many contend that many [appeals] both to the Supreme Pontiff, or to a greater council, or to the emperor himself, had preceded this in this and in previous centuries. Others contend that these ought not to be called appeals properly so called, but rather refuges or requests for the revision of a judgment. To settle that dispute pertains nothing to our cause; for if it were permitted to Cyril by natural law or by the approbation of the Church, it matters little whether he followed the examples of others or if he were the first to do so; since no one before him had wished or had been forced by the necessity of his own affairs to use that same right; and the same complaint would be directed against him who had appealed first before Cyril. But the point is this: 1. whether it was permitted to Cyril not to stand by a judgment pronounced against him, [and] 2. given that Cyril's appeal was the first of all, whether it was a crime for him to introduce the legal custom of appealing into the Church, when before this it had been done not by appeals properly so called, but only by revisions of episcopal judgments. And the first question is not difficult to define: it is certainly desirable that ecclesiastical judgments should always be such that innocence is never oppressed in them. However, since Divine Providence did not judge that this was to be warded off from the Church, it has not only always been permitted, but it has been to the benefit and utility of the Church [XLII] that a bishop deposed by injustice should seek a safeguard for his innocence; lest the violence of unjust men, unpunished, might prevail over truth and equity to the disgrace and ruin of the Church. For this reason, the appeals of Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza were approved, or rather, [the appeals were] refuges to the Roman Pontiff and requests for new councils; so that those things which had been decreed against them in previous councils—whether by force or by ignorance—might be amended. By their prayers, the Roman and Sardican councils were granted. The same has been given to the importunity of the Donatists once and again, and a few years before to the heresiarch Photinus. Councils had even established laws on this matter, as the Sardican in canons 3, 4, and 7, and the Antiochene six years before in canons 12, 14, and 15. Yet there were many and most grave causes for Cyril not to stand by the sentences brought against him by Acacius and the Acacian factions. 1. He perhaps did not recognize Acacius as a judge, as he was released and free from his jurisdiction, indeed, even superior to him. Although a superior bishop and metropolitan can be judged by the bishops subject to him by Church law, just as Stephen of Antioch had been condemned ten years before by the Eastern bishops; and Theophilus, in the controversy against John Chrysostom, confessed that he, if he were to be judged, ought to be judged by the Egyptian bishops (*Pallad.*). 2. Thus, Cyril could, by the law itself, repudiate the judgment of Acacius as that of a professed enemy, as null and void. Thus Caecilian of Carthage, cited by a council of enemies, refused to appear, and, condemned by them, did not yield his see but steadfastly retained his church (*Aug. epist. 43, n. 7*). Thus the Egyptian prelates demanded in the Council of Tyre that the enemies of Athanasius be removed from the assembly; *apud Athan. Apolog. cont. Arian., n. 77*. Acacius, moreover, had engaged in public hostility with Cyril almost from the very beginning of the Cyrillian episcopate, on account of the metropoli-
metropolitan rights. Nor did the Acacian judgment receive greater strength from the presence of other bishops whom Acacius A himself, having joined them to his views and also to the same right as Cyril, had gathered with haste and speed, as Sozomen testifies (book IV, ch. 25: *Σὺν τοῖς τὰ αὐτοῦ φρονοῦσιν ἐπισκόποις φθάνει καθ–*), with the friends and supporters of Cyril undoubtedly excluded.
3° Acacius and Cyril had assailed one another with mutual accusations concerning the faith: whence it happened that Acacius, as an accused man, was considered an enemy of his accuser and could not be his judge; and as an accuser, even less so. For, as Optatus rightly says (book VII, in the appendix, p. 370): "No one can sustain two roles at the same time in one case, such that he can be both accuser and judge in the same trial." Acacius did not in truth judge Cyril on accusations concerning the faith previously brought forward by himself; but he condemned him as a recalcitrant who refused to obey his summons for two years; which was to judge his own case.
4° The flimsiness of the accusations by which Cyril was condemned, when for that very reason he should rather have been praised, publicly exposed the iniquity of Acacius and gave Cyril a legitimate right not to acquiesce in this sentence; indeed, it even gave him the right to call Acacius to judgment for abusing his power. Because of the same flimsiness of accusations, and even putting aside their falsehood, Caecilian [XLIII] had once refused to obey the sentence passed against him by seventy bishops (see Optatus, book I, n. 19).
5° Cyril could have accused the violence committed in the judgment, since Acacius not only had deposed him—which was the only thing granted B to ecclesiastical power—but had even expelled him from Jerusalem, not without violence and force.
6° As a prelate of the Apostolic See, and one of the major leaders of the Church, he could have argued that it was fitting for him to be judged not in some small council of a few bishops, such as that of Acacius had been, but in one much more numerous and gathered from many provinces. For Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, had been judged in the previous century in a larger council of many provinces, to which even Dionysius of Alexandria had been appealed. St. Eustathius of Antioch had been deposed twenty-seven years earlier in a council which Philostorgius (book II, n. 7) records to have consisted of 250 bishops. Athanasius of Alexandria was judged in the most numerous Council of Tyre, gathered from almost the entire East.
7° Finally, the Council of Antioch, in canon 45, had declared the judgment of a provincial synod to be valid and irrevocable against a bishop accused of certain crimes only in the case that the accused is condemned by all the bishops of the same province, and all have unanimously brought forward the same form of decree against him. But Cyril was not condemned by all the bishops of the province, but only by a few, whom Acacius had previously drawn into his faction and view and had gathered with haste and speed.
43 Since so many reasons justified Cyril in refusing to acquiesce in the informal judgment passed against him, the question arises whether he ought C to have requested a revision of the judgment from the Emperor, according to established practice, rather than being the first to appeal to a larger council, contrary to legal custom. I speak according to the opinion of those who contend that no appeals were heard in the Church before the Cyrillian one. But the difference between these two things is so tenuous that, since they admit one was granted to Cyril, to treat his preference for the other as a criminal act seems ridiculous. The difference between a revision of a judgment and an appeal properly so called is this, according to D. Pierre de Marca: in a revision of a judgment, the same (judges) are not prohibited from being judges again, whereas in an appeal, the judgment is taken away from those from whom the appeal is made. Furthermore, from the same author, book VII of *Concordia*, ch. 2, n. 6, this was established and in force in the Church from the time of the Council of Antioch: that those who appealed from judgments should, above all else, obtain a rescript for the revision of their judgment; and he says (n. 10) that the innovation introduced by Cyril consisted in this, that he signified his appeal to his own judges according to legal custom, and did not request and obtain an Imperial rescript until after he had signified the appeal. Whether by this action the dignity of the Church was violated by Cyril, I do not know. Indeed, it is not seemly for bishops D that their judgments are not upheld, and that new ones are requested as being more equitable than the preceding ones. But whether an appeal is lodged or a revision of judgment is requested, and whether this is done before or after the Prince's rescript, it is all the same for the dishonor of ecclesiastical judgments. But Cyril had legitimate reasons to request not only a revision of his judgment, but even a new one, from which Acacius and his judges were excluded. For, first, he could legally require that Acacius—as an enemy, as an accuser, and as a man accused by him—should not judge him again, after he had given such public and clear evidence of his enmity against him in the prior judgment, which had been set up against all the laws of the Church. Second, Cyril did not merely demand an amendment of the judgment; but, having professed himself a complainant and accuser against Acacius, he demanded judgment against him for many crimes, for violence, for contempt of ecclesiastical laws, for the grave penalty of deposition and exile inflicted for the most trifling of causes, and perhaps for the authority usurped against him. This is apparent from the events concerning Cyril at the Council of Seleucia. For Athanasius, in *De Synodis*, number 12, clearly reports that Acacius was accused along with others, and that they, the leaders of those who were clamoring against their accusers, fearing their accusations, withdrew after joining the Arians to themselves; and Socrates says (book II, ch. 40) that Acacius was called to justice by the Fathers of the council (with Cyril pressing and pursuing the matter), so that his case might be adjudged. And almost the same things are found in Sozomen, book IV, ch. 22.
44 Cyril, whether by the benefit of appeal or by the manifest iniquity of the judgment by which he had been cast down—which appeared legitimate to many holy bishops in that and succeeding ages as a reason for retaining his rank—
he always behaved himself as a bishop, whether as a guest with Silvanus, or in the Council of Seleucia, in which he sat with the remaining bishops, nor could he be induced by any reason to depart from the assembly: and in the same place he was treated as such, while Acacius A fretted and fumed in vain, whether by Silvanus and the bishops joined to him, or by the Fathers of the Council of Seleucia. Cyril, compelled by force at Jerusalem by the Acacians, went to Antioch, which, seeing it deprived of its pastor (Leontius being dead, and Eudoxius not yet having been substituted in his place), are the words of Theodoret, *Hist.*, bk. II, c. 26; he passed over it and set out for Tarsus, and lived with the admirable Silvanus. When Acacius learned of this, he wrote letters to Silvanus and announced to him the deposition of Cyril. But he, B having respect for Cyril and fearing the people (since they were greatly delighted by Cyril's sermons), did not at all prohibit him from ecclesiastical ministry. He also fostered communion and perhaps intimacy at that time with Basil of Ancyra and George of Laodicea, which was later imputed to him as a crime by the Arians, and was alleged by them in the Council of Constantinople of the year 360 in the causes of his deposition; see Sozomen, bk. IV, c. 25. Perhaps Cyril had assisted George and Basil with counsel and effort in those things which both of them plotted against Eudoxius at that time, when the Council of Ancyra, compelled by the urging of George, condemned the Sirmian formula of the year 357 (which had been approved by Eudoxius in the Council of Antioch) and procured its retraction by its authors; see Sozomen, bk. IV, c. 12 and 13. There will be those, on the other hand, who accuse Cyril because he fled to the semi-Arians and used their society and communion. For the three bishops just mentioned—Silvanus, Basil, George—were the leaders of this faction, which was hostile to the word "consubstantial." To these, one must respond briefly.
45. [XLV] First, what was he to do, to whom was Cyril to appeal? Liberius was still living in exile, unable to help himself; and at this very time, out of love for the city, he was deserting Athanasius and the Nicene Council in a shameful lapse. A wolf was prowling in Alexandria, George, the wicked invader of his see, having forcibly expelled Athanasius. Antioch was deprived of its bishop. True and sincere defenders of the faith were either living in exile as proscribed men, or were hiding in retreats. The semi-Arians, as they are called, were at that time demonstrating burning zeal against the Arians. 2° The semi-Arians were not outside the communion of the Church. By no public judgment of the Church, which had actually been carried into execution, had they been condemned or proscribed. In the East, as we have seen, communion was indiscriminate. Almost all belonged to this party, with the exception of a few Arians, D as it appears from the Council of Seleucia, the number of which was 105, according to Hilary, *lib. II cont. Constant.*, num. 12. They themselves did not refuse communion with the Occidentals. For, to omit other arguments of this communion which preceded the division of the semi-Arians from the Arians, those taken from the Councils of Philippopolis, Milan in the year 349, Sirmium in the year 351, Milan in the year 355, and those which are proper to the semi-Arians, I shall only recount: at the Council of Ancyra in the year 358, around Easter, they were moved by the reputation of the untroubled and unshaken faith of the Gallic bishops who had condemned the impiety of Sirmium in the year 357, so that they proscribed the same under anathema, and were eager to have it abjured by its very authors in the Council of Sirmium in the year 358 (Hilar., *De synod.*, n. 3). In the immediately cited Council of Sirmium, they joined four African bishops to themselves, according to Sozomen, bk. IV, c. 15, and perhaps they then wrote to the Africans and all the Orientals to cast out the ὅμοιον from the holy Church, saying that both the Africans and all the Orientals thought as they did: which Marius Victorinus attests in bk. I, p. 262, and to this can be referred what the Acacians complained of regarding Basil of Ancyra in the Council of Constantinople, in the year 360, namely, that he had slandered Valens and Ursacius among the bishops of Africa in letters sent to them (*Sozom.*, bk. IV, c. 24). In the Council of Seleucia, when Saint Hilary had come there with the others, it was asked of him, says Sulpicius in *Hist. sacr.*, bk. II, p. 255, what was the faith of the Gauls: because at that time the Arians were spreading wicked things about them, they were suspected by the Orientals of having believed in a trionymous union of the solitary God according to Sabellius. But, having set forth his faith according to those things which had been written by the Fathers at Nicaea, he gave testimony to the Orientals. Thus, the spirits of all being relieved, he was received within the consciousness of communion, and even admitted into association and the council. After the Council of Seleucia, the legates of this council operating at Constantinople denounced the impious heresy of Aetius and the secret machinations of the Arians to the legates of the Council of Ariminum, who did not know that they held wicked views, and suggested that all these things should be announced to the Western Churches, per Hilary, *Fragm.* 10, n. 1. After the Council of Constantinople, in the year 360, letters having been given by Hilary to the Gauls, they signified the triumph of the Arians and the plans undertaken against the faith, to which the [XLVI] bishops of the Council of Paris responded with fraternal and most honorable letters. Hilar., *fragm.* 11, n. 1 and 4. Nor were the Westerners completely abstaining from their communion: this is clear not only from the examples of Hilary in the Council of Seleucia, and of the Council of Paris just mentioned, but also earlier, Hilary, *lib. De synodis*, n. 77, calls those whom we call semi-Arians "holy men," "Oriental bishops"; n. 78, "men studious of apostolic and evangelical doctrine"; n. 79, "most dear brothers"; n. 80, 88, etc., "most holy men," etc. Athanasius also, *De synod.*, n. 41, having refuted the Acacians, turns thus to the semi-Arians: "Men who indeed receive all other things written at Nicaea, but hesitate only on the word 'consubstantial,' are not to be looked upon as enemies; nor do we attack these men as if they were Ariomanites or adversaries of the Fathers; but we dispute as brothers with brothers, who are of the same mind as we are, with the controversy brought down to a word alone." He adds below that Basil of Ancyra is such in his writings on the faith; to which, as far as the external at least and the speech
A of men is concerned, nothing differed from the Nicene except in terminology, and which, being rightly understood, returned to the same thing, by the judgment of Athanasius cited in the place mentioned, and by Hilary, *De synodis*, n. 72, 74, 77, 89, and from their zeal against the Arian impiety, Cyril could view them as brethren and as thinking the same things as himself, embrace their communion, and seek their patronage in afflicted circumstances. Nor did he vary for this reason either in faith or in communion, which is what is objected to him by Rufinus: for whom Athanasius and Hilary held as brethren, should he himself have held them as enemies? Nor did he for that reason reject the *consubstantial* either as faith or as a term, just as Hilary did not, by residing with them in the Council of Seleucia, nor Dianius of Caesarea in Cappadocia, nor Gregory Nazianzen by remaining in the general communion of the East with the holy fathers, although both later subscribed to the Riminian formula; nor did the many others in the East, where it is absolutely incredible that no one at those times should have existed as a champion of the consubstantial.
46. Finally, those with whom Cyril maintained companionship or society at this time demonstrated a greater ardor for the faith than the rest. Five are mentioned especially by the historians: Basil of Ancyra, Sylvanus of Tarsus, Elpidius of Satala, George of Laodicea, Eustathius of Sebaste. Concerning Basil, we have seen above the eulogy of Athanasius. He was the actor, instigator, and writer of all that was done at Ancyra and Sirmium against the Anomoeans; B that he extended the faith of the likeness of the Son to the Father to all things whatsoever is proven by his subscription to the Sirmium formula of the year 359, in Epiphanius, *Haer.* LXXIII, n. 22. Sylvanus, the host of Cyril at the Council of Seleucia, was the author of the Antiochene formula to be confirmed. Then, having been delegated to the Emperor with Basil, [XLVII] Eleusius, and Eustathius, he was the leader of the dispute in the conference held with Eudoxius and Acacius before the Emperor; in which he compelled the Anomoeans to strike many Arian blasphemies with anathema, and proved that the Son is to be believed consubstantial with the Father, if faith is to be placed in Theodoret, *Hist.* lib. II, cap. 27. Nor did the constancy of Eleusius and Eustathius shine less in that conflict. The same Sylvanus, with Eustathius and Theophilus of Castabala, in the name of many others, among whom is Elpidius, were delegated in the year 366 to Pope Liberius, and gave a declaration of their faith, in which they embrace the Nicene symbol and profess that they have previously held it, *κεκρατηκέναι καὶ κρατεῖν*, as in Socrates, lib. IV, c. 12. Eustathius later lapsed into heresy: but this has nothing to do with C the present time. Sylvanus, finally, whom Theodoret does not hesitate to call an admirable man, is also honored by the eulogies of the holy Basil, ep. 82, p. 151; ep. 79, p. 141; ep. 50, p. 78. Elpidius was one of the legates of the Council of Seleucia who implored the faith of the Westerners against the Anomoeans; and he was in the number of those who were delegated to Liberius in the year 366, and is praised by Basil, ep. 72, p. 118. See ep. 215 and 322. George of Laodicea remains, whose beginnings and end we cannot fail to condemn. But in the year 358 he demonstrated a fervent zeal against the Anomoeans. For Eudoxius, who had occupied the Antiochene Church without the consent of him and others to whom the election pertained, when he preached the Arian heresy openly and with unveiled brow (3), cast out from the Church many clerics who were opposed to him: and when they had betaken themselves to George of Laodicea, he gave them letters to Macedonius, Basil, and Cecropius of Nicomedia; by which he signifies that Eudoxius had promoted the disciples of Aetius, who had been marked with infamy by them, into the clergy, and held Aetius above the rest in his affections; he exhorts them to convene in as great a number as they can, and to demand the signatures of other bishops, so that Eudoxius might expel Aetius from the Church, cast out his disciples who had been promoted to the clergy, and cease to place the Anomoean dissimilarity before those who teach the contrary. Through these letters of George it happened that Basil and others in the Synod of Ancyra and later of Sirmium not only confirmed the similarity of substance but also managed to have the impious Sirmium formula of the year 359 condemned by Ursacius and Valens as well. In these times, which certainly shone with the best of a life otherwise ill-regarded, Cyril had established a custom with him, which he certainly broke off after he surrendered himself to the parties of Acacius, before or shortly after the Council of Constantinople in the year 360, from Epiph. *haer.* LXXIII, n. 28.
CHAPTER VIII.
*Concerning the successors given to Cyril at various times by the Arian faction, and especially concerning Eutychius.*47. Cyril having been left behind for a time by the host of Tarsus, let us return to Jerusalem and inquire into the successors who were substituted for him. Since Cyril was often D deposed and thrust from the Church [XLVIII] in the years 358, 360, 367, which was the last exile of twelve years; different successors were also opposed to him at different times. In enumerating these, the opinion of the authors is not sufficiently consistent. Here it is helpful to represent them all in one view, so that the narrative may thereafter run more freely. You have their names and order according to different authors as follows:
*From Jerome in the Chronicle, to the year 349.* After Maximus, Cyril. Eutychius. Cyril again. Irenaeus.
Tertius, Cyril. Hilary. Quartus, Cyril. *From Epiphanius, Her. LXVI, no. 20.* Cyril. Herennius. A second Cyril. Hilarion.
Dissertation I
*From Socrates, Bk. II Hist., cap. 45, and Sozom. Bk. IV, cap. 30.* Cyril. Herennius (Sozom., Socr. Arrhenius). Heraclius. Hilary. Cyril returned to Jerusalem. *From an ancient author of a list of patriarchs in the Coislin codex 120, p. 124.* Cyril, 15 years. Heraclius, 6 years. Helladius, 12 years. Cyril, 35 years. *Nicephorus in Chronographia, p. 410.* Cyril. Arsenius. Heraclius. Hilary. Cyril, returned from exile. *From Eutychius of Alexandria, Annals, Vol. I, p. 483 and 488.* Cyril. Eraclius the Arian, 3 years. Arvis the Manichaean, 5 years. Harius the Arian, 4 years. Cyril, returned, 16 years. In all 32. Theodoret, Bk. V Hist., cap. 40, names no one as having been substituted for Cyril in the list of the bishops of Jerusalem. Theophanes mentions only Hilarion from among them. 48. By comparing these, you will find: 1° That Eutychius is listed by Jerome alone among the invaders of the Jerusalem see; 2° That Helladius is mentioned only by the author of the Coislinian catalogue, who lived in the mid-seventh century; for he lists Modestus as the last of the pontiffs of Jerusalem and Honorius as the last of the Romans; 3° That Heraclius is omitted by Jerome and Epiphanius, who are equal in authority; 4° That Epiphanius alone counts a second Cyril as distinct from ours; 5° That it is the same person who is called Irenaeus by Jerome, Herennius by Epiphanius and Sozomen, Arrhenius by Socrates, and Arsenius by Nicephorus [XLIX]; his proper Latin name seems to have been Herennius, from which the Greeks derived various names; 6° That the one whom Jerome, Socrates, Sozomen, and Nicephorus call Hilary is the same one who is called Hilarion by Epiphanius, though perhaps he is also the one whom the Coislinian author calls Helladius. Let us now say a little about each. Irenaeus or Herennius seems to have been installed in his see after the Council of Constantinople in the year 360, in which Cyril was deposed and driven from Jerusalem; for Socrates B records that Herennius was substituted for Cyril in Book II, cap. 45, after he had reported the events not only of the year 360 but also of the year 361. But since Jerome says that Irenaeus succeeded Cyril after he had reascended the see, and since Cyril was undoubtedly restored at the Council of Seleucia, and [considering] the Council of Constantinople which followed shortly after in the year 360, in which he was deposed for the second time and went into exile, Herennius could not have invaded the vacant see before this. Under Julian, Cyril returned to Jerusalem and administered the Church after Herennius had died or had been driven out, until the year 367, when he was driven from the Church and the city. And then several are named by the aforementioned authors as invaders of the Church: Heraclius, Helladius, Arvis, a second Cyril, Hilarion; of whom Hilarion, according to Epiphanius (Her. LXVI, no. 20), was in charge of the Church and was infamous for his communion with the Arians in the year 376, when Epiphanius was writing against the Manichaeans. Eutychius also says that this person was an Arian, instituted in the seventh year of Valens, and that he died after four years as bishop. Neither Jerome nor Epiphanius mention Heraclius, because he perhaps sat for only a few years or months. From the order which the authors assign to him, we conclude that he sat in the year 367, after Cyril's exile under Valens. He is, without a doubt, the one whom Jerome testifies was substituted by Maximus as his successor before his death, and was demoted by Cyril to the order of presbyters. Eutychius says he was an Arian, installed by the Arians in the first year of Julian's reign, and that he died three years later. We judge the Helladius of the Coislinian catalogue, written in the mid-seventh century, to be the same as Hilary, for he is placed in the same order and location; nor do the names differ so much that they could not easily have been changed. The one called Arvis by Eutychius of Alexandria can easily be dismissed by us entirely, on account of the slight authority of a not-sufficiently-ancient writer. Eutychius relates that he was appointed in the first year of Valens, was a Manichaean, and died after five years as bishop. Tillemont thinks he is the same as Herennius, who is omitted by Eutychius. But the position assigned to him after Heraclius contradicts this; although we do not require an accurate order in such things from Eutychius; there remains a second Cyril, distinct from ours, whom Epiphanius places after Herennius and before Hilarion, omitting Heraclius. There are some who think that the Cyril mentioned by Epiphanius is wrongly posited as distinct from ours; they argue that when he recovered the see after Herennius under Julian, as Jerome confirms, a different Cyril was invented by Epiphanius in his place, whom he supposed to be an exile. But it is difficult for me to be convinced that Epiphanius, who lived in that vicinity, could have been deceived in a matter so open and easy to investigate [L]. For Cyril occupied the Church not for a small space of time after Herennius, but for five full years. Nor was that second administration of Cyril's episcopate unknown to Epiphanius, for he reported some of the deeds of that time in Her. LXXIII, no. 37. John of Nicaea also mentions a Cyril distinct from ours who succeeded him in the see.In the epistle to Zacharias, etc., the fragment of which exists, edited by us on p. 370. Either that Cyril A must be called the same as Heraclius, who had two names, or we must recognize an error in the text of Epiphanius, who wrote "again" (πάλιν) in place of "another" (ἄλλος); or, finally, it must be confessed that there was another Cyril, distinct from ours, and an intruder into his see. This Cyril is perhaps the older one whom Epiphanius, Heresy LXXIII, n. 37, says was made bishop of the Caesarean Church by Eutychius or his friends, after Philumenus, who had been placed in that see by our Cyril, was driven out. Since he had been driven from Caesarea by Gelasius, Cyril's brother-in-law, and Euzoius, it must be said that he occupied Jerusalem while it was void of Cyril as an exile. A conjecture on this matter was proposed to me by our very learned D. Bernard de Montfaucon: that the word *Hilarionis* in the text of Epiphanius was not placed in the nominative case, as if to constitute a bishop of Jerusalem distinct from the others, but in the genitive case, to be joined with the words "Cyril," so that the sense might be "another Cyril, a friend or certainly a son of Hilarion." For Hilarion, genitive *Hilarionis*, would seem a difficult Greek termination, since among the Greeks this name is usually rendered as *Hilarios* or *Hilarion*. This is not an improbable suspicion; if we follow it, we shall call that other Cyril the same as Hilarion, called Hilarion or Hilarius after his father or friend, and by that name more known among authors; of whom, besides Epiphanius, no one distinguishes another Cyril and Hilarius as two invaders of the Church of Jerusalem. It is helpful to have said these things in advance, so that the speech may flow more smoothly thereafter. Now let us return to Eutychius.
49. That Eutychius, whom Jerome counts among the successors of Cyril, seems to Valesius, Tillemont, and others to be the same as the bishop of that name of Eleutheropolis. His long-lasting enmities with Cyril—to which Epiphanius, otherwise dear to Eutychius himself, bears witness—persuade us of this. Nor does he seem to have been transferred from Eleutheropolis to Jerusalem and properly established as bishop of this Church; for he always B retained the Eleutheropolitan bishopric, and in this very year, 358, he was active at Eleutheropolis, when he fiercely oppressed Lucifer of Cagliari, an exile in that city, with many atrocities, as testified by Faustus and Marcellinus in their petition to Theodosius, p. 89, such that when Lucifer was celebrating the mysteries with doors closed, men rushed in upon him, overturned the divine sacraments, killed the brothers who had gathered there, and forcibly snatched away the sacred vessels together with the sacred books from Lucifer. Perhaps, however, it happened at that time, as is narrated by the Council of Constantinople of the year 360, that Theophilus, who had been ordained bishop of Eleutheropolis by the bishops of Palestine and bound by oath not to seek any other bishopric without their opinion, was ordained bishop of the Castabali by Sylvanus of Tarsus. For it could be that, upon Eutychius being transferred to Jerusalem, Theophilus was imposed upon the see of Eleutheropolis by Acacius; and that he, having observed Cyril's unjust return, abandoned this [see] for that of Castabala. If the matter is not so, Eutychius seems to have held only the administration of the Church of Jerusalem as a neighboring bishop; whether Acacius was meanwhile seeking another whom he might make bishop of Jerusalem, or whether by the appeal of Cyril he was prohibited from substituting another in his place until the case was ended in a major council, which he had invoked. For by Roman law, an appeal suspended the judgment (Cod. Theod. lib. 11, tit. 30, laws 41, 61, 66). Eutychius, as Epiphanius witnesses, Heresy LXXIII, num. 25, having been instructed in a clear profession of right doctrine by St. Maximus, bishop of Jerusalem, joined the party of Acacius at the Council of Seleucia because of his enmities against Cyril; C retaining the Catholic faith for some time, but dissimulating it for the sake of retaining his own dignity. Jerome, in epistle al. 61 (now 38), testifies that he, touched by the reverence of St. Epiphanius, willingly gave ear to that holy man, who was only a presbyter of a monastery. But once having undertaken enmities with Cyril, he treated Lucifer atrociously, joined himself with the Anomoeans, and, being accused at the Council of Seleucia, was ordered to be content with the communion of his own Church for so long as he did not purge himself of the imposed charges by legitimate satisfaction; and, pursuing Cyril to the extremes, he drove out Philumenus, who had been placed in the Caesarean see by Cyril, and in his place set over that Church a certain older Cyril, he himself or members of the same faction, "those around Eutychius" (οἱ περὶ τὸν Εὐτύχιον), Epiph. Heresy LXXIII, num. 37. But let us return to Cyril.
CAPUT IX.
Cyril takes his seat at the Council of Seleucia; he calls Acacius to justice, who, refusing to appear, is deposed, and Cyril is restored to the Church of Jerusalem.50. Cyril awaited the council which he had invoked D; for whether on the occasion of the impiety of Aetius or for other causes (though no necessary ones existed, as Athanasius argues, *De synod.*, num. 5 and 6), the emperor had first wished to convene a general council from the whole Roman Empire at Nicaea, which he later announced at Nicomedia. When this city had suddenly collapsed in an earthquake, Nicaea was again proposed; but by the deceits and art of the Anomoeans it was brought about that in place of one council, two were appointed; one at Rimini, in which the Westerners were to assemble, and another at Seleucia in Isauria, in which the Easterners were to be gathered. More than 160 bishops from various parts of the East assembled at Seleucia, divided into three parties or factions. The first and more numerous was that of the Semi-Arians, [numbering] 105, according to Hilar. *lib. II cont. Const.*, num. 12; the leaders and chiefs of this [party] were Basil of Ancyra, Eleusius of Cyzicus, George of Laodicea, Eustathius of Sebaste, Sophronius of Pompeiopolis, Macedonius of Constantinople, Sylvanus of Tarsus, and our Cyril. The second [LI] was that of 42 prelates, according to Epiphanius, *Heresy* LXXI, num. 26, though only forty of their names are recorded. But those omitted are not—
A null, whom it is certain were present either by Epiphanius’ own account or by others. The leaders of this faction were George, the invader of the Alexandrian see; Eudoxius of Antioch; Uranius of Tyre; and Acacius, who also appears to have been the instigator, actor, and moderator of the entire faction, with Patrophilus of Scythopolis and Eutychius of Eleutheropolis B joined to him, along with three or four others from Palestine. Epiphanius (Heresy LXXIII, num. 23 and 27) appears to say that Acacius formed a separate faction out of hatred for Cyril; and he adds that Eutychius joined these parties because of the hatred he burned with toward Cyril. Philostorgius also brings forward this as the primary cause why Acacius opposed himself to Basil and the bishops united with him: because they held Cyril in honor (book IV, cap. 12). The third division of bishops was of those who were very few in number, about fifteen; who alone, as Hilary testifies (*Against Const.*, num. 12), most steadfastly maintained the *homoousion*. Regarding the first faction, in which Cyril was, he says: "Of those who preached the *homoeousion*, some put forward some things piously in words, as that the Son was from God, that is, from the substance of God, and had always existed." Athanasius speaks much more favorably C of all the bishops of the first faction (*On the Synods*, num. 12), saying that all the articles of the Nicene faith were entirely approved by them, except for the word "consubstantial" alone, the obscurity of which they used as a pretext. Yet I would not wish this to be said of all; for that there was no defender of the Nicene faith in the entire East is an incredible thing. They certainly received Hilary into the fellowship and communion of the council, even though he professed himself a defender of the Nicene D faith. It is therefore credible that Cyril and other professors of the "consubstantial" did not labor greatly over the little word, lest they be separated from others and become more vulnerable to the snares of the Acacians, since they saw the reality itself in safety. In the third faction, nothing but the most profane was heard; by the testimony of the same Hilary, they denied that anything could be similar to the substance of God, nor could generation exist from God, but that Christ was a creature; so that whatever is created, birth was attributed to it; and that it was from nothing, and therefore was not the Son nor similar to God. Nor is it to be believed that those blasphemous decrees belonged to all of this faction, but only to Eudoxius and those like him; for all of Acacius’ actions before and after the council are repugnant to this impious sentiment: such was not the opinion of Eutychius of Eleutheropolis, who, however, for the sake of retaining his dignity, tacitly suppressed the Catholic faith in which he had been nurtured: nor, finally, was it the opinion of Meletius, the later bishop of Antioch, if indeed he was present at the Council of Seleucia and joined to the Acacian party, which Epiphanius appears to say in *Heresy* LXXIII, num. 23. In both of the first two factions, there were bishops who were accused of various crimes, and there were accusers. In the Acacian faction, many more were accused, against whom the bishops of the opposing party proceeded severely. Acacius was summoned to justice, first of all by Cyril, to render an account of his judgment against him, according to Socrates (book II, cap. 40). Cyril was also, along with Eustathius of Sebaste [LIII], among the number of those who were accused, since both had been deposed (Sozom. book IV, cap. 22).
51. The council was concluded within five days, the history of which is described in summary, and not poorly, by Socrates from the acts collected by Sabinus (book II, *Hist.*, cap. 39 and 40): but we shall represent here those things which pertain to the affairs of Cyril. At the first session, which was celebrated on the 27th of September, the bishops of all factions convened; yet some deliberately remained absent, who, Socrates says, under the fear of the accusations hanging over them, pretended various reasons why they were absent. Among these, Macedonius and Patrophilus are noted; but the historians represent Cyril, not as one fleeing judgment, but willingly provoking and challenging his adversaries: his presence, therefore, was an index of an excellent conscience. The bishops who were present denied that anything should be brought into question before those who were absent had arrived; and when Leonas the quaestor, sent by the Emperor to moderate the council and more inclined toward the Anomoeans, pronounced this as by no means necessary, an altercation arose among the Fathers; since some said that the lives and characters of those who were accused should be investigated first, before the faith was disputed; others contended that the question of faith should be handled before all else. Those who stood by the former opinion were primarily the Acacians, who, Athanasius says (*On the Synods*, num. 12), having seized upon the pretext of the question of the faith to be held, revealed by no obscure indications the fear they had conceived from their accusers. "They pretended, forsooth, to seek into the faith, but they did not hide that they feared their accusers." Sozomen also says (book IV, cap. 22) that Acacius intentionally drew out the disputes about the faith, so that by the dissension of the parties, the examination of the accusations might be rejected further and utterly removed. Cyril indeed stood by the opinion of those who wanted the cases of the accused bishops to be handled first: since he had come to the council for the sole cause of disputing his case with Acacius. Yet the opinion that the cause of the faith should be handled before the examination of specific cases prevailed. Hence the grave altercations, which Acacius and his associates intentionally drew out, seizing the opportunity of dissolving the council and removing the examination of the accusations. For Acacius wanted a new creed to be written and the Nicene symbol to be abrogated; and above all, the name of "substance" to be taken out of the middle, just as had been done in the Sirmian confession of the same year, signed before Constantius by the leaders of the semi-Arians. Others, on the contrary, fiercely defended the "similarity of substance," approving all things of the Nicene council except for the one word "consubstantial," the obscurity of which they criticized. For the *homoousion*, only the Egyptians, according to Hilary, fought most steadfastly; to whom Hilary himself is to be added. Meanwhile, those who admitted the "consubstantial" on the side of the Orientals remained silent, since they saw a general conspiracy of both semi-Arians and Acacians against that word, and since they did not wish to wrangle over words.
A I believe that this was the opinion of Cyril and perhaps certain others in the council. When they had wrangled with great contention until evening, Sylvanus cried out that no new formula of faith should be written, but that they ought to acquiesce in the Antiochene one. At this utterance, the Acacians withdrew; the rest, however, had the aforementioned formula read to them and departed once it was read. Sylvanus, perhaps, had proposed it as something suitable for reconciling the minds of all; for Acacius had long ago confirmed it with his own signature.
52. The next day, September 28, the semi-Arians alone, though some lectors and deacons of the opposing party, sent by their own prelates, were present, met in the church of Seleucia with the doors locked; and then they approved the aforementioned formula of the Antiochene council at the Dedication with their own signatures; together with those lectors and deacons of the absent bishops, who had declared by them that they would accommodate their consent to the settling of matters. These things are from the semi-Arian side. Whether Hilary and the Egyptians were present, and whether they signed the Antiochene formula along with the others, the historians do not sufficiently state. No one says that they were absent; and from Hilary, number 14, it is clear that he was present at the fourth session altogether; for why he might be absent from the second and third, there was no reason. But the Acacians, meeting separately, composed a petition or protest, which they offered to Leonas the quaestor and Lauricius the governor of the province. In it, they first complained that some of their own group in the synod had been attacked with insults, others forbidden to speak, and others excluded from the session against their will; then that some bishops from various provinces who had been deposed (among these, Acacius pointed out Cyril first and foremost) had been admitted to the session against ecclesiastical canon by their adversaries, and from this it happened that the synod was full of tumult on all sides. Professing their own faith thereafter, they denied that they were rejecting the faith set forth at Antioch at the Dedication and opportune for the times in which it had been published: but because the words *homousion* and *homoiousion* had disturbed the Church in past times, and were disturbing it even now, and because *to anomoion*, that is, dissimilarity of substance, was said to be innovated by some: therefore they professed both to reject the former as foreign to the Scriptures, and to condemn the latter with anathema. They then proved that the Son is similar to the Father, and subjoined their own symbol, in which there is nothing concerning the similarity of the Father and the Son. This instrument is held described in its entirety in Socrates, book II, chap. 40, and Epiphanius, B heresy LXXIII, number 25, under which at number 26 the names of forty bishops are subjoined; and there are missing, to complete the number of forty-three prelates noted at the end, three names: Patrophilus, Theodulus bishop of the Chaerctapori, and Asterius, whom Socrates cites and Athanasius in *De syn.* n. 12 mentions as joined with the Acacians.
53. The third day, which was September 29, Leonas devoted to seeing that all might convene: and there were present then for the first time Macedonius of Constantinople and Basil of Ancyra. When both had joined themselves to the one and same side of the bishops opposed to Acacius, the Acacians denied that they would approach, unless those were ejected from the session who had either been deposed before, or were currently accused. He attacked Cyril most especially [LV] with these words, whom he later used as an example before the emperor, accusing the entire council because, with him received into communion, it had set out to pass judgment on others. Contention having been held over this matter, the request was granted to the Acacians, the bishops of the opposing party suspecting that Acacius was seizing this cause for dissolving the council, and at the same time maliciously evading the condemnation of the Aetian heresy and the judgment of the accusations brought against him. Therefore, those who had either been deposed or were being accused left the council. From them, our Cyril is to be excepted, concerning whom Theodoret says in book II, chap. 26: When they had gathered at Seleucia, Cyril sat with Basil, Eustathius, Sylvanus, and the rest. But Acacius of course also approached the bishops gathered there, who were one hundred and fifty in number. But he refused to enter into counsel with them, unless Cyril were removed from the council; inasmuch as he had been stripped of his episcopacy. And some of those who were studious of peace asked Cyril to leave the council, promising that they would examine his case after the discussion of the doctrine of faith. But when Cyril did not comply, Acacius left them. But if he departed, he returned a little later, for on this and the following day he disputed many things most bitterly in the frequent council. I fear that Theodoret, who reports the acts of many days in an epitome, or rather confuses and mixes them into one, may have reported the departure of Acacius, which happened either on the first or the fifth day, in this place by error. It is probable that Cyril, so that he would not leave the session, alleged this reason: that they ought to deal between themselves and C Acacius with equal right; that he had indeed been deposed by Acacius; but that whether by him or by others, Acacius was being accused; therefore, both should abstain from the council or both be present at the same time. Furthermore, he could have pretended the iniquity of the Acacian judgment, which was manifestly null and void, and his own appeal, by the aid and benefit of which he ought to enjoy for so long until his case were legitimately discussed. By these reasons, Acacius without doubt conceded. These things having been settled, Leonas read the petition offered to him by the Acacians to the council: concerning which matter a huge controversy was excited, Sophronius exclaiming that if a new exposition of faith were edited daily, the integrity of the truth could not be preserved. When many things, however, were then D concerning this...
matter, and concerning those bishops who were being called into question, A tossed back and forth, the council was dismissed.
54. On the fourth day, when all had gathered again, the controversy regarding the faith remained, with no happier outcome than on the day before. First, when Acacius, proceeding to the discussion of the previous day, said that once the faith of the Nicene Council had been changed, nothing stood in the way of a new formula of faith being established after so many others, Eleusius replied that the council had not gathered in order to learn what it had not learned, nor to receive a faith it had not held, but to follow the faith of the Fathers, from which it would not depart until death. He meant the formula of the council at Antioch at the Dedication, by which, assuredly, Acacius’s argument was rather ineffectively refuted. A second contention arose B concerning the formula of the Acacians read the day before. When it was asked in what sense they asserted the Son to be "like the Father," Acacius replied: not according to essence, but according to will alone. The most impious sense of this response, revealed by the opinion of a certain bishop of his faction on the preceding days, is reported by Hilary, *Cont. Const.*, num. 14. Opposed to Acacius by his adversaries is his own opinion, who, whether in a letter to Macedonius or in a book written by himself, had confessed the Son, along with all other things, to be also "like in substance." To this Acacius replied ridiculously that no one had ever been judged by what he had written. But when the Acacians, as it appears, objected to the semi-Arians the Sirmium formula of the same year, written by Basil and Marcus of Arethusa, by which the term "substance" had been removed by them shortly before, Eleusius replied that whatever Basil or Marcus had done separately, and whatever Acacius and the men of the opposing party had privately objected to one another, and whether the formulas issued by both were correct or otherwise, was of no concern to the council; but that one must absolutely acquiesce in the Antiochene confession of faith. And when all his own party, *οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ πάντες*, had applauded this opinion, and nothing certain could be established among the bishops of the opposing factions, C Leonas rose and dismissed the council.
55. The day after, [that is] on the first day of October, the questor was asked to attend the council as usual, [but] he refused, saying he would not be present: for he said he had been sent by the emperor to attend a unified council. "But when some dissent," he said, "I cannot be present. Go away, therefore, and play at trifles in the church." These words favored the Acacians, whom those delegated to invite him had found in his house. His remarks were greedily seized upon by the Acacians, so that they might depart the council, as they themselves desired. But the prelates of the opposing side gathered in the church as usual; and some time passed while some called the Acacians to sit in judgment upon the case of Cyril of Jerusalem, D while others demanded that certain bishops meet in the house of Leonas; and others said they had received orders from the emperor to judge others. The Acacians, however, would neither confess the same faith with the others, nor answer the charges brought against them, nor did they consent to examine the business of Cyril, whom they themselves had deposed. When, therefore, they failed to appear after being summoned many times, the council finally pronounced sentence, by which, first of all, they deposed Acacius along with George of Alexandria, Eudoxius of Antioch, Patrophilus of Scythopolis, and some others; but as for the others, among whom was Eutychius, they ordered them to be content with the communion of their own church for the time being, until they had cleared themselves of the charges brought against them by legitimate satisfaction. That Cyril was restored by the council, although historians are silent, cannot be doubted. Jerome reports in his *Chronicle* that he was returned to his Church before Herennius, having been driven out again, was imposed upon his see. But we cannot place the intrusion of Herennius anywhere except after the Council of Constantinople of the following year. Therefore, Cyril had returned to Jerusalem before that council, relying without doubt on the authority of the Council of Seleucia. Even if no decree of that council existed specifically in favor of Cyril, yet the very deposition of Acacius, which seems to have been conceded chiefly because of the accusations against Cyril, could be taken for an acquittal of Cyril’s cause and his reinstatement. But it is certain that Cyril was present at the judgment of Acacius and, along with the others, cast a vote against him; for Acacius complained to the emperor that the Seleucians, with him as an assessor and advisor, had presumed to judge and to pass sentence upon others, according to Theodoret, *Hist.*, lib. II, cap. 27. From which we conjecture that the council first examined Cyril’s case, and having proven him innocent, admitted him to the assembly and made him a participant in all the deliberations and judgments which were passed upon Acacius or others.
CAPUT X.
Acacius excites the emperor's mind against Cyril, who is deposed again by the Council of Constantinople in the year 360, and sent into exile.56. The Seleucian council delegated ten bishops by his order, to report on what had been done; to these it seems some others joined themselves; the rest returned home, and Cyril returned to Jerusalem and took up the reins of his Church again. But the leaders of the Acacian faction, deposed at Seleucia, also set out for the court at Constantinople; and, having arrived more quickly than the Seleucian legates, on the one hand they brought those who had the most power in the palace — partly by agreeing with them in dogmas of their own accord, partly by being led to their opinion by the enticements of speech, and partly by gifts — to their own side.
A They prove this from all other deeds (Soz., lib. iv, cap. 24), and send [the formula] throughout the whole world to be subscribed under penalty of exile by the emperor’s command (Soz., lib. iv, cap. 26). They demanded subscription to this, both from the semi-Arians, whom they had led to their own opinion by a promise of the condemnation of "dissimilitude," which they did not fulfill (Soz., lib. vi, cap. 7), and also from those who preached the dissimilitude of substance, according to Philostorgius (lib. iv, cap. 12). Then, they also deposed Aetius from the diaconate and excluded him from the Church, and against certain bishops who had been unwilling to subscribe to his condemnation, they decreed a sentence of excommunication unless they should assent to the definition of the council within six months (Theodor., lib. ii, cap. 28). Then, proceeding to take vengeance on the Council of Seleucia, they deposed for various reasons almost all the leaders of the semi-Arian faction, whether present or absent— Basil, Eleusius, Silvanus, etc., and our Cyril, to whom they imputed these two things only, according to Sozomen (lib. v, cap. 25): namely, that he had communicated with Elpidius and Eustathius, who had striven to abrogate the decrees of the Council of Melitene, at which Cyril himself had been present; and that, after his deposition in Palestine, he had entered into communion with George of Laodicea and Basil of Ancyra. We have said above how insipid and unjust these accusations were; concerning the first in chapter 6, number 39, and concerning the second, in chapter 7, number 44. And the iniquity of this judgment, by which Cyril had been condemned while absent and unheard, was manifest. Nor was the condemnation of the others any more equitable. For, as Nazianzen says (Orat. 21, p. 387), no law was observed in investigating their lives; calumniators were redeemed with money, and testimonies were sold by them for a set price. Those whom they deposed, they also took care to have punished with exile by the emperor, according to Philostorgius (lib. v, cap. 1); and the Council of Paris complains most indignantly, in its epistle to the Orientals (Hilar., fragm. xi, num. 4), that they were languishing in exile. But to what place Cyril was relegated, no historian has recorded.
D Those who were present at the council did not grant [that the acts of the council] were held, calling the synod a synod of prevaricators, whom they did not even wish to be considered bishops, as they were assertors of a perverse heresy. They sent letters, according to Basil (ep. 73), against Eudoxius and his whole faction to all the churches, so that they might flee their communion like a pestilence of the soul, protesting that they could not abide by the judgment by which they had been condemned by them, because it had been decreed by heretics, by men who, as the same epistle 182 (p. 157) reports, they denied were partakers of the Holy Spirit and governed the churches through the grace of God, because they had snatched up their positions of governance by the favor of human power and a desire for empty glory. Whether Cyril gave such letters in his own name is uncertain, but Basil attributes this to all those who were deposed, in common. Those, however, who were staying at Constantinople, through Saint Hilary [sent] letters to our people.
A They sent bishops to them, and in doing so denounced to them the impious dogmas of Aetius and declared their own condemnation, requesting that they should not recognize as bishops those who had been substituted into their own places (Hil., fragm. xi, num. 4). The Gallican bishops, gathered in the council of Paris in the year 360, responded to them most benevolently by a letter, which is fragment 11 of Saint Hilary, further strengthening the communion with them, and testifying that they would consider as apostates those who had been substituted into the places of their brethren who were so unworthily sent into exile (ibid., n. 4). This letter was properly addressed to those who met [with] Hilary, the Gallicans, at Constantinople. But since it was inscribed to the "most beloved and blessed fellow-priests, all the Eastern bishops remaining in Christ through diverse provinces," it must be said that it pertained to each one of the B bishops of Seleucia who were deposed in the Constantinopolitan council; and indeed the letter was given in the name of all who were in the same cause, to whom the Gallicans respond. Philostorgius notes, lib. v, cap. 1, that the deposed bishops, when they were being led into exile, had revoked their own subscriptions by which they had confirmed the faith of the council of Ariminum; and that some proclaimed the Son as consubstantial again, others as of like substance. But Cyril had no subscription to retract: and it seems that he made a gain from his deposition, so that he was immune from the sin of subscribing to the Ariminensian formula, which was common and general to almost all the bishops of the Roman empire. For when others, established in the same cause, condemned those subscriptions, to which they had been forced at Constantinople by both guile and violence; how could Cyril have subscribed of his own will and volition to a decree which emanated from the council in which he had been unjustly condemned? In place of the deposed bishops, by divine providence many were substituted, even better than those cast out [LXI]. Of these, Acacius appointed the greater part; and it is hardly to be doubted that Herennius was substituted into Cyril’s place by him.
CHAPTER XI. Cyril returns to Jerusalem under Julian. He predicts that the efforts of the Jews to restore the temple will be in vain.
59. The Church seemed to be dragging toward ruin in the East, with the Arians triumphing and devising daily new ways for the subversion of the Catholic faith, having driven out and cast from their sees as many bishops as resisted their audacity, [with] incalculable numbers subscribing to the condemnation of the Nicene faith, some by force, others by fraud, when God, having pitied his long labors, took away Constantius, on the 3rd day of Nov. in the year 361, and because of the perverse will of Julian his successor against the Church, [it] was used to restore the orthodox faith in all places. For as soon as he was raised to the empire, thinking to distract and dissipate the Church with internal dissensions, he granted free C access to their churches to everyone, whether Catholic, Arian, or otherwise heretical, who had been in exile under Constantius for the sake of religion (Sozom., lib. v, cap. 5): from which it resulted that the Catholics, recovering their lost sees, recalled the ancient faith in them. Cyril also returned along with the others, as the Menaea recount, and history confirms: and there, during the entire time of Julian and Jovian, and at the beginning of the reign of Valens, he lived peaceably until the year 367. What was done about Herennius, whether he died or was driven out at this time, is unknown. It is probable that Cyril sought Jerusalem again immediately after liberty was restored to the exiles: if so, it must be said that he went shortly thereafter to Antioch; whence he returned to Jerusalem toward the end of the year 362; for then, believing in his faith, Meletius entrusted to him to be taken away to Jerusalem a certain young man, the son of a priest of Daphne, who was fleeing the anger of his own father and the emperor. Having been converted to the Christian faith through the work of a certain deaconess, when he had taken refuge with her and had been hidden by Meletius in an upper chamber, he was discovered by his father and dragged home: and having been beaten with rods and his feet, hands, and back burned with glowing spits, he was shut up in a chamber with bolts added from the outside and groaned; until, in the absence of his father, who had returned to Daphne, he smashed all his father’s idols; and fearing his father’s anger, he prayed earnestly to Christ the Lord to bring him help in his labor, and that He might open the doors for him, the bolts being shattered. Immediately the bars fell, and with the doors opened he ran to the deaconess; who, having placed him in a woman's garment in a carriage, led him back to Meletius again. Him Meletius handed over to Cyril, with whom he set out for Palestine that very night. After the death of Julian, the young man led his father to the true religion. Theodoret relates this in lib. iii, cap. 14, told to him as a young man by the son of the priest himself when he was already old. Cyril washed the youth, who had not yet been baptized, with the sacred font, having undoubtedly instructed him. These things happened while Julian was staying at Antioch. For on the day the youth first took refuge with the deaconess, he had been present with his father and brother at the Daphnitic feast at which the emperor was present; and because he was a temple-keeper, he had sprinkled the food with lustral waters according to custom. Furthermore, Julian came to Antioch in the month of July: and since the Daphnitic temple was destroyed by fire from heaven on October 22, 362, it is necessary that this history occurred before that time. From it we learn that Cyril was joined in communion and friendship with St. Meletius: which in fact caused grief to the Paulinian parties and hence the curses of Jerome and Rufinus against him. Many of the bishops of the Seleucian council, who had also used the favor of Julian, were deposed and relegated by the council of Constantinople; and they celebrated meetings in several cities, in which, having condemned the Acacians and the Ariminensian formula, they acquiesced in the Antiochene one: and they boasted of holding a middle path, between the Aetians, the professors of dissimilarity, and the Westerners, who under the pretext of consubstantiality confused the property of the divine hypostases (Sozom., lib. v, cap. 14). From this the Macedonians were born, D
who were for the most part insulting to the divinity of the Holy Spirit. But there appears no association or joint counsel of Cyril in these matters.
60. Julian, arming all the enemies of the Church to overthrow her, incited even the Jews; not only permitting them, but by exhortation, command, and provided expenses, adding spirit so that they would most diligently restore the Solomonic temple in Jerusalem, which had been burned and razed by Titus. The Jews flew together from all places and eagerly set themselves to completing the work. The women themselves were not only contributing their necklaces and ornaments for the expenses of the work; but, oblivious to precious garments and their natural softness, they handled the task with their hands and dug the earth. There still remained the great ruins of the old building, not only of the foundations and the outer circuit of the temple, but also of the inner sanctuary where the temple proper consisted, where the cherubim were (from Cyril, Catecheses XV, n. 15), and from there B daily the citizens of Aelia were accustomed to take stones for private and public buildings (from Eusebius, Demonstr. evang. lib. VIII, p. 406). And first indeed the Jews began to tear down and remove the old structures, hoping that they would construct all things new; then they dug deeper the foundations for new underpinnings and prepared mortar. But when they began to dig and carry out the earth, although many thousands of men were working at this task by day, by night the earth was carried back into the trench. Also, infinite measures of lime and gypsum, which they had heaped into one place, were suddenly dissipated in all directions by winds and storms that arose. This is from Theodoret, Hist. lib. III, cap. 17. Yet it was permitted to them by God to tear down the old, and to lay bare the foundations for laying the new work. Meanwhile the Jews were insulting our people—these are the words of Rufinus, Hist. lib. I, cap. 37—and, as if times of the kingdom had been restored to them, they were threatening more fiercely, and showing savagery, and in every way acting with immense swelling and pride. C But while Theodoret says (Hist. lib. III, cap. 17) that they destroyed the remains of the old building, this is to be understood of all structures prominent above the ground and of the greater part even of the old foundations; [LXIII] for after this age, most serious authors testify that at least some foundations of the Solomonic temple were still to be seen. St. Ephrem, hom. de margarita gr., p. 398: "Up to the present day the foundations stand." Chrysostom, homil. tom. I, 36 (veter. edit., p. 436; nove tom. I, Adv. Jud. V, num. 11, p. 646), relates the history of which we are speaking, and says that when the Jews had begun to uncover the foundations, and had exhausted much of the earth, and were just about to attack the structure, many were burned—fire leaping out from the foundations—along with the stones of that very place. From which we gather that they did not tear out all the foundations, but at least wished to strengthen certain ones by adding mortar to the sides. The D same author in hom. 75 in Matth., p. 794, on these words: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another*"—objects: "How then did it remain?" Then he answers: "And what is that to the matter? For the sentence of the Lord did not thereby fall and become void. For either He was designating in these words a complete and total solitude, or He was speaking of that place in which He then was; for certain parts of this were destroyed down to the foundations (μέχρι τῶν θεμελίων ἠφανισμένα). We can also say this besides, that from those things which have already happened, even the more stubborn ought to be persuaded that the very remains also will be completely destroyed." The Anonymous Vatican author, who cites Julian of Halicarnassus (Catena in Marcum, cited at cap. xiv, vers. 2, p. 277), denies that the prophecy of Christ is to be understood of the stones, but of those things which were being done religiously in the temple; for we see some parts of the temple still standing (ὁρῶμεν γάρ τινα μέρη τοῦ ναοῦ ἑστῶτα). Victor of Antioch in the same place, p. 278, objects to himself just as Chrysostom does, that Christ's prophecy about the structures of the temple was not yet perfectly fulfilled, but that traces of them still remain (ἀλλ’ ἔτι σώζεσθαι λείψανον [I believe it should be λείψανον] τούτων), to which he replies first with the words of Chrysostom cited above, but slightly changed; then he adds the words of another author, who refers these things to the general ruin and destruction of all things at the consummation of the world, in which even the stones of the temple will be overthrown along with other things. Finally, William of Tyre, Belli sacri lib. I, cap. 2, reporting that the Omar had asked Sofronius where the Solomonic temple had once existed, says: "Showing him, they pointed out the place, demonstrating some remains of the ancient work." These things have been treated by me somewhat more fully, because the opinion has now prevailed that the Jews in the time of Julian tore down all the buildings and foundations of the temple, and with their own hands fulfilled the prophecy of Christ; which, as it is true in the greatest part, so it is not to be pressed in every way. Nor for that reason was Christ's prophecy any the less fulfilled: for whether then, or several centuries later, when the temple was erected by the Saracens in the same place, it met with a full and entire effect. And another prophecy of Cyril himself was also fulfilled at that time, which he had declared ten and seven years before (Catech. XV, num. 15), that all the stones of the temple would some day be torn out; and this would perhaps happen for other reasons, and perhaps also under the pretext of rebuilding [LXIV]. But that he adds that for this reason the Antichrist will come, that this is false is confirmed by the event itself. 61. After the Jews had torn down everything necessary for the new building, they eagerly prepared themselves for constructing the new. Therefore, once the foundations were opened—these are the words of Rufinus, Hist. lib. I, c. 37—and mortar and cement applied, nothing at all was wanting, provided that on the following day, after the old ones were pushed down, they would lay new foundations (or corroborate the old ones with new underpinnings),
Cyril, however, remained undeterred, and after diligent consideration, derived A either from those things which he had read in Daniel's prophecy regarding the times, or from those things which the Lord had foretold in the Gospels, he persisted that it was in no way possible that a stone should be placed upon a stone there by the Jews. It was certain to Cyril that the Jewish temple would not be repaired until the end of the world by the Antichrist, and indeed that the vestiges of the old building would remain until that very time, when Christ’s prophecy about the stone not remaining upon a stone would at last be perfectly fulfilled; he had taught this in Catechesis 15, no. 15. Moreover, he had designated in that same place many signs of the Antichrist, which he observed could not apply to Julian. Ten Roman emperors, as he indeed thought according to Daniel, were perhaps destined to rise in different places at one and the same time; three were to be humbled by the Antichrist, and the remaining seven were to be subjugated by him (cat. 15, no. 12). Nothing of this sort was detected in the Roman Empire and the beginnings of Julian. The Antichrist was to be a hater of idols (ibid., no. 15), but he saw that the utmost zeal for idols was preferred by Julian. I pass over the other signs of the Antichrist—namely, that he would call himself Christ, and claim for himself a lineage from David (ibid., no. 15)—all of which were entirely alien to Julian. Therefore, he was not that Antichrist, by whom alone the temple was thought to be destined for restoration.
Whence, however, he held that the temple could not, by any human effort, be repaired before the end of the world and the times of the Antichrist, is to be inquired into more diligently from his teaching. Rufinus says that he gathered this from the prophecies of Daniel and Christ. In Daniel, chapter 9, verses 26 and 27, there exists a clear prophecy according to the Vulgate: *Christ shall be killed... and the people with the leader that shall come shall destroy both the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof is waste, and after the end of the war is appointed desolation. And there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation, and even unto the consummation and the end shall the desolation continue.* These are, I say, the clear words: after the death of Christ, the city and the temple or sanctuary, previously profaned by the abomination of desolation, will be destroyed by the Romans; and that desolation of the city and temple is to persist until the end of the world; since they have never been able to repair the city for its own republic, nor the temple for the uses of the Jewish religion. But Cyril read Daniel from the version of Theodotion, which is slightly different. For instead of these words, *Christ shall be killed*, it holds: *the unction shall perish*; the rest does not differ much, for instead of these words, *and the end thereof is waste, and after the end of the war is appointed desolation*, it is read: *they shall be cut off as in a flood, and until the end of the war, shortened by decree, with slaughters*. From whence Chrysostom, homily 3 against the Jews (first [LXV] volume 56, page 354, new edition; volume 1, no. 10, page 644), concludes from this prophecy that the final captivity of the Jews under the Romans would endure until the end of the world; and he takes as an argument that their attempts to assert their freedom under Hadrian and under Constantine were in vain, and under Julian the restoration of the temple was impeded by heaven. But Chrysostom recognized that the previous, irreparable ruin of that same temple was brought about by the abomination of desolation under the Romans, with a statue placed in the temple. Cyril, on the contrary, imagined that the same desolation of abomination foretold by Daniel was the Antichrist himself—cat. 15, nos. 9 and 15. Wherefore, he could not entirely posit that that desolation of the temple was to persist until before the Antichrist from Daniel, unless he admitted a double abomination of desolation, which I believe: the first under the Romans in the Jewish temple, and the second, the Antichrist himself sitting in a temple repaired by him, so that the first desolation might constantly persist until the second. Another prophecy of Daniel exists, chapter 11, verse 34, which Jerome, commenting on this place, reports as being explained by some as referring to the present event. It is read thus: *And when they shall have been weakened, they shall be helped with a little help, and many shall be joined to them in offenses.* These things can indeed not badly be accommodated to our matter. For when the Jews were crushed, Julian offered them a certain help; but it was such that it was almost nothing. Then many of the Gentiles were joined to them, but so that they themselves fell offended along with them.
62. That, as testified by Rufinus, Cyril confirmed the efforts of the Jews would be in vain, is established B and recorded in three Gospels: *There shall not be left a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed.* Cyril asserted that this prophecy had already been fulfilled when the temple had been overturned by the Romans (cat. 10, no. 11). Yet the same person, in cat. 15, no. 15, said it would not be perfectly fulfilled until the end of the world, very close to the times of the Antichrist, who was about to be present immediately. We ought not to wonder that a double execution is assigned to one prophecy at a different time. He himself teaches in the epistle to Constantius, no. 6, about the sign of the cross that was to appear in the heavens from the prediction of Christ; but that he should assign the event of the other of Christ's prophecies, after the ruin of the temple under Vespasian, to the end of the world, was caused by the fact that the prediction of the ruin of the temple is joined in the Gospels with the last times and with the signs of the Antichrist, as Cyril understood (cat. 15, nos. 5, 6, 7, 8), and most especially with the abomination of desolation, which he did not suppose to be anything other than the Antichrist himself, who would restore the temple so that he might propose himself therein for the adoration of the peoples in place of God (cat. 15, nos. 9 and 15). He thought, therefore, that the ruins of the old temple would remain until that time, and that the efforts of others to restore it were ineffective; until Christ's prophecy, once it had begun to be fulfilled, had obtained its full and complete effect. However, it was only going to have this effect very close to the times of the Antichrist; but no sign of the near Antichrist was being observed. Therefore, there was no reason to fear that even Julian would raise a new building of the temple for the uses of the Jewish religion, [LXVI] which was reserved for the Antichrist; or that the Jews would dig up all the stones of the old building, which was to happen only at the imminent coming of the Antichrist, which was not yet close. These things were to be thought about and considered by Cyril according to the doctrine once exposed by him in the catecheses.
should have been said. But Cyril’s statement is reported slightly differently by Socrates (lib. III, c. 20), who appears to have drawn from and altered Rufinus. He says that Cyril publicly predicted at that time to the many who were standing by that before long there would not remain stone upon stone in the temple, but that the Savior’s oracle would be completely fulfilled. Cyril could not say this, following the doctrine of his own catecheses, without assuming the near approach of the end of the world and the coming of the Antichrist. Unless, when he saw all the structures of the ancient building that were standing leveled to the ground, and by far the greatest part of the foundations themselves torn out, he corrected that opinion of his which events truly proved false, that Christ’s oracle concerning the temple was only to be completely fulfilled at the end of the world and in the times of the Antichrist. But he could certainly affirm that the temple would never be restored for the uses of the Jewish religion, from the countless prophecies of both the Old and New Testament, by which the eternal abrogation and change of the ancient covenant and the dispersion of the Jewish people, which was to last until the end of the world without priesthood and sacrifice, were portended. Whence it comes about that the Fathers could not hear with equanimity the restoration of the temple and the ancient sacrifices asserted by the Apollinarists in the thousand-year kingdom of Christ.
63. The event did not deceive Cyril’s prophecy. For on the following night, which alone remained for the beginning of the work (I use the words of Rufinus, lib. I, c. 38), a huge earthquake arose, and not only were the stones of the foundations thrown far and wide, but also the buildings of the entire place were almost leveled. The public porticoes, in which a multitude of Jews who seemed to be pressing on with the work were staying, were brought down to the ground and crushed all the Jews who were found there. After the earthquake had ceased, those Jews who survived, pressed by the emperor’s commands—which it was forbidden to disobey—and stimulated by their own desire to see the work finished, again persisted in the work. And while they were preparing to strip bare the foundations and build, globes of flame, having burst forth with frequent assaults (I use the words of Ammianus, lib. XXII, at the beginning) from near the foundations according to Ammianus, or from the very foundations according to Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Sozomen, made the place inaccessible to the workers, who were burned several times; so that many of the excavators were consumed, and the rest were forced to save themselves by flight. The same fires, according to Chrysostom, even consumed the stones of that place which the shaking of the earth had not dislodged at night. Those who then fled went to a certain nearby church, partly for the sake of prayer, partly, as is wont to happen in such matters, because they used it as a refuge for the warding off of danger. Nazianzen proceeds to report what happened to them. There are some, he says, who record that they were not even admitted by the temple; but when they approached the open doors, they suddenly found them closed and bolted from A within by some invisible power. All now agree and hold it for certain that when they attempted to open them with the greatest force and contention, fire meeting them at the temple restrained them: and it partly burned and consumed them; and others, truncated in the principal parts of their bodies, it left as a living column of divine warning and movement against sinners. Nor did the avenging flame stop there. For in another part, when at first light the Jews ran together to look for those whom the ruin of the porticoes had crushed at night; from a certain shrine and lower chamber that had lain between the crushed porticoes, into which had been placed the tools and other things necessary for the work, a certain globe of fire suddenly flashed out; which, running through the middle of the street, while having burned and killed the Jews who were present, was carried to and fro. Which, indeed, was continued again, and most often and very frequently throughout that whole day. Socrates narrates another prodigy of fire that fell from heaven; which, when a great multitude of Jews had gathered to witness so many wonders, in their presence consumed all the workmen’s tools, hammers, chisels, axes, and so on, so that the whole day was consumed in that fire. Nor did the demonstration of divine wrath rest here, since the stubbornness of the rebellious people was not yet broken by so many B prodigies. For on the same and the very next following night, a light stood in the sky describing a circle of a cross, which marked the trophy of victory won by Christ against the impious. That cross, according to Theophanes in his *Chronographia*, page 44, extended from Golgotha as far as the Mount of Olives, and appeared much more splendid than that which had been seen under Constantius. Furthermore, on the garments of all the Jews, crosses were divinely branded and marked, according to Theodoret, infused with a dark color, which could not be erased by any washings, and were of such tenacity that Nazianzen would later call upon the witnesses and those privy to the miracle, so that they might bring forth their garments, signed at that time with the crosses; and marked, according to Theodoret, not in one place alone, but covered with those signs. But Nazianzen adds that as soon as anyone, whether of our own people or foreigners, spoke of these things or heard others telling them, he immediately perceived this miracle in himself or in his neighbor: so that he would look upon either himself or the other person as starred and distinguished by the marks; such that they C surpassed the elegance of the weaver's art and an elaborately wrought picture at the highest level of care by the admirable variety of those marks. And he reports that this wonder happened not only in Jerusalem, but in Antioch and the other cities; and not only on the garments of Jews or Christians, but also on the cloths of the altars, in books, and other church ornaments of this kind.
64. Terrified by all these prodigies, both the Jews and Julian himself were forced to abandon the work that had been begun. Many of the Jews and pagans at that time...
acknowledge that they had come to the Christian religion. A It is commonly admitted. Nazianzenus says that almost all of them, as if by a single sign and a single voice, invoked the God of the Christians and strove to appease Him with many praises and prayers. Many also, not drawing the matter out further, but at that very time in which these things happened, hastened to our priests; and having been admitted into the Church with many prayers, were imbued with the more sublime mysteries and purified by holy baptism. In that matter, the charity and pious solicitude of our Cyril shone forth, without a doubt; just as no event could be more illustrious for the glory of Christ, so none could happen more honorable for recommending Cyril's faith in the divine oracles and his diligence in expanding the Church of God. That many Jews existed, however, who remained incredulous and stubborn, Chrysostom testifies in his 45th homily, vol. V, page 510. Others, as Rufinus reports (chap. 39), who saw that fire running from the lower building through the middle of the street and burning everyone in its path, terrified by great fear and trembling, were forced against their will to confess the one true God, Jesus Christ; but, as Socrates adds, they did not for that reason obey His will, but were held bound entirely by the opinion of Judaism previously seized upon in their minds. That event, of such moment for the glory of Christ and the truth of His religion, and in itself incredible, is confirmed by so many witnesses of diverse kinds that, if one should wish to reject the faith, he could have nothing certain in history. B From the Christians, the saints bear testimony, whose faith and perspicacity it is a crime to accuse. Gregory Nazianzenus reported the fact in the same year in which it happened, or in the following, calling upon the faith of those who were conscious of it and witnesses to it. Chrysostom, who recounts the same history not in one but in many places of his works, reports that the matter occurred twenty years earlier; and he says it was known and manifest not only to the old but especially to the young, and calls the revealed facts foundations for testimony. "We are all witnesses of this thing," he says (19). Ambrose reports the same fact in Epistle 40, written in the year 388, n. 13; to these are added Rufinus, who spent much time in the places of Jerusalem; Theodoret, who lived not far away in Syria; Socrates, who records that these things were celebrated by the fame of all and had reached the ears of Julian; C Sozomen, who says that there were those in his own time who had heard this from the spectators themselves, and that no other testimonies need be sought besides the very ruins and traces of the imperfect work; from the Arians, Philostorgius, book VII, num. 9 and 14. Finally, from the pagans, Ammianus Marcellinus, book XXIII, n. 4. When, however, that same Ammianus commemorates that event in the year in which Julian was consul for the third time with Sallust, it is necessary for it to be consigned to the year 363. The death of that emperor, following shortly after, snatched from Cyril the grace of martyrdom. For he had commanded, if we are to believe Orosius reporting in book VII, ch. 30, that the amphitheater in Jerusalem be built, in which, having returned from the Parthians, he might subject bishops, monks, and all the holy men of that place to beasts made even more savage by a certain art, and wait for them to be torn apart. But God overturned those monstrous plans beforehand, with Julian being taken from the living by divine clemency on the twenty-sixth of June of the same year.
[LXIX] CAPUT XII. Cyril's deeds in the first times of Valens.
65. Sweet and pleasant for the Church was the dominion of Jovian, who succeeded Julian; but it was not of long duration. He, having reconciled peace to the churches, having recalled Athanasius, and having rejected the petitions of the Arians against him, and having restored liberty to the professors of the Nicene faith—whose follower he declared himself to be—strove to restore all things to the best state. Nothing concerning Cyril was handed down by historians of that time (20). There is no mention of him in the supplicatory libel offered to the emperor by Basil of Ancyra, Silvanus of Tarsus, and five others ejected by the Constantinopolitan council, who were involved in the same cause as Cyril; in which they asked that the decrees of the council of Seleucia might remain, and that the things which had been done contrary to them might be abrogated, and that with the Anomoeans cast out, they themselves might be introduced into the churches invaded by them, in their place. D He is even passed over in silence in the council of Antioch in the year 563 [sic], in which, under the leadership of Meletius and Eusebius of Samosata, more than 25 bishops, and also Acacius himself with Eutychius of Eleutheropolis and other bishops of the same province joined to their faction, approved the Nicene faith and the term "consubstantial" (21); for that word, which to some seemed strange, had been given by the Fathers a true interpretation not liable to error, so that it might signify that the Son was begotten from the substance of the Father, and that He is similar to Him according to substance, with any stain of carnal generation removed. Cyril was acting peacefully at Jerusalem: and Socrates reports in book IV, ch. 1, that he held the Church of Jerusalem in the beginning of the reign of Valens, that is, in the year 364.
66. Jovian was taken away by sudden death following the sixteenth of February. Valentinian, by the choice of the soldiers, took hold of supreme power on the 26th of the same month; and one month later, on the 28th of March, he admitted his brother Valens as consort in the empire; to whom, having reserved the empire of the West for himself, he committed the provinces of the East to be governed. Valens, whether he was already contaminated by the Arian heresy and baptized by Eudoxius before he came to the empire, which is the opinion of Socrates (lib. IV, cap. 1), or later, as Theodoret reports (lib. IV, c. 12), was corrupted by his wife Albia Dominica and transferred to the Arian parts, and baptized by Eudoxius (as Jerome says in the Chronicle in the year of Christ 367), was nevertheless from the very beginnings of his empire more accommodating to the Arians and more unjust to the Catholics. But after the victory reported over Procopius the tyrant, in the year...
A 366, and especially after receiving baptism from Eudoxius in the year 367, he afflicted the Church most gravely, first in Asia, then in Palestine, and afterwards in other parts of the empire. The council of Lampsacus of the semi-Arians or Macedonians has nothing to do with Cyril, although it was celebrated by bishops who were united before in the same cause with him (22). These men, gathering at Lampsacus in the year 365 by the permission of Valens, after a preceding deliberation of two months, decreed that the Acts of the council of Constantinople, sanctioned by the effort and zeal of Acacius and Eudoxius, should be abrogated; that the definition of faith made at Ariminum should be rejected; that one should stand by the term "similar in substance," which was necessary for preserving the distinction of the persons; and that the Antiochian profession, confirmed in the council of Seleucia, should be held in all the Churches. Moreover, they decreed that bishops unjustly ejected by the Anomoeans should recover their churches; and if anyone had an accusation to bring against any of these bishops, that this dispute should be settled before the bishops of the province and neighboring bishops, under equal law and at equal risk to the accuser and the accused. They then summoned Eudoxius and his associates to judgment, offering them a place for repentance. When they did not appear, they passed judgment against Acacius and Eudoxius as having been legally deposed. No part of Cyril seems to have been in these decrees. Since, however, it is doubtful whether anything from the consequences of this council pertains to him, it was necessary for us to touch upon these matters briefly.
67. C When the council of Lampsacus had finished its work at the end of the year 365 or 366, (23) Cyril, as the primary and most noble bishop of the province, taking up the care of that Church, appointed one Philumenus to that see. Whether he resigned of his own accord because of the disturbances, or was removed by a hostile faction, Eutychius of Eleutheropolis—whom we read had exercised continuous enmities with Cyril—or the faction of the deceased man himself, appointed one Cyril, an elder, to that Church. Cyril did not bear this injustice; but, having expelled the aforementioned, he appointed as bishop Gelasius, the son of his sister, a man distinguished by all the ornaments of virtues and learning. He did not hold the see for long. For at the time when Cyril himself went into exile during the persecution of Valens, in the year 367, as we suppose, the Arians, being masters of the situation, having deposed Gelasius, installed Euzoius from their own flock in the Cæsarean see; who then governed the Church throughout the entire empire of Valens, with no one disturbing him, and attempted with much labor to restore on parchment the library of Origen and Pamphilus (24) that had been corrupted, and published various and manifold treatises, which it was very easy to know; but in the end, under the Emperor Theodosius, he was expelled; and Gelasius was restored to his own see, which he retained until his death, around the year 395.
68. A It happened in this year that a delegation of nearly sixty bishops was sent to Rome, and through their legates a union was formed with the Roman pontiff Liberius: among whom when one Cyril is counted, whom many think to be the same as ours; and since other leaders of theirs were formerly joined by the bond of the same cause with Cyril of Jerusalem, we cannot pass over the history of this matter in this place, intending to investigate later whether that Cyril, whose name is found among the bishops to whom the letters of Liberius were given, was a different person from ours or the same one. While Valens was occupied by the war against Procopius, the Macedonians who had celebrated the council at Lampsacus the previous year did not think they had anything to fear greatly. (25) But once the tyranny of Procopius was removed on May 28, 366, fearing lest Eudoxius should win over the emperor and his intimates to his own side and oppress his adversaries with calumnies, they decided to forestall his attempts and signify the Acts of the council of Lampsacus to the Augustus: and they met him B at Heraclea as he was returning from Thrace. But they offended the emperor and the courtiers, who were already occupied by the arts of Eudoxius. For when he first exhorted them not to separate from Eudoxius: and when they resisted and objected to Eudoxius the fraud committed in the council of Constantinople, and the decrees of the council of Seleucia overturned there; inflamed with anger, he ordered them to go into exile, and their churches to be handed over to others (26). Then, a council of the Arians having been indicted at Nicomedia, he himself being present, he forced Eleusius, by the fear of exile and confiscation of goods, to assent to their dogmas against his will and resisting. He, repenting of the deed, returned to Cyzicus and confessed his own fault; and wishing to leave, he was retained by the charity and love of his own people. (27) But the remaining Macedonians, from fear of the looming evils, since they had to send legates from their cities to one another, signified that they must necessarily take refuge both with Valentinian, the brother of the emperor, and with Liberius, the Roman pontiff: whose faith they ought to embrace rather than join, as the emperor wished, in communion with Eudoxius. But since it was not permitted for them to convene in one place, various assemblies having been celebrated at Smyrna, in Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Lycia, they sent three legates to the West: Eustathius of Sebaste, Silvanus of Tarsus, and Theophilus of Castabala: to whom it was given in their instructions not to contend with Liberius concerning the faith, but, entering into communion with the Roman Church, to approve the faith of consubstantiality with their assent. They gave letters to these men both to the Emperor Valentinian, whom the legates could not approach because he was occupied in Gaul in the war against the Sauromatae; and to Liberius, the Roman pontiff, and the rest of the bishops of the West, as those who held the faith sincere and firm from the apostles, and…
A they were bound to look out for the rest regarding religion: praying that they would be of assistance to their legates with all their power; and that they should consult with them as to what was best to be done, so that the state of the Church might be restored for the better. Those who wrote these letters are, without doubt, those fifty-nine bishops to whom Liberius responds by his own letters, with all their names prefixed in the inscription. The identity and sees of a few are known. Cyril is listed in the second place: whether he is our own or another will soon be investigated.
69. The three legates arrived in Rome and offered their letters to the pontiff. He at first rejected them, as if they were offered by men of the Arian party who had abrogated the Nicene faith. But when they declared that they had repented, having recognized the truth—that they had long since rejected the heresy of the Anomoeans, and confessed the Son to be like the Father in all things, such that he differed in nothing from the consubstantial—he ordered them to profess their faith and sentiment in writing. By the booklet given to Liberius, they declare that they had been deputed by various conventions of bishops, and that in the name of both themselves and those who sent them, they had held, did hold, and would hold until the end, the Nicene faith, in which the word "consubstantial" was holily and piously placed against the Arian heresy. They also condemn Arius and his doctrine, together with his disciples and followers, and all the heresies of Sabellius, the Patripassians, the Marcionites, the Photinians, the [LXXII] Marcellians, and Paul of Samosata: they strike with anathema every doctrine that opposes the Nicene council, especially the Ariminian formula, to which—having been led astray by deceit and perjury—they had subscribed at Constantinople, after it was brought from Nice in Thrace; C then, having set forth the faith of the Nicene council in its entirety, they add this clause at the end of the letter: that if anyone in the future should wish to bring any charge against them, or against those by whom they were delegated, he should come with the pontiff's letters to those orthodox bishops whom the pontiff may have approved, and dispute with them as judges; and whatever crime shall have been proven, let it be punished in the author. Bound by this pledge, Liberius received them into communion, and having given letters to the delegating prelates and all the orthodox bishops of the East, both in his own name and in the name of the bishops of Italy and the West, he dismissed them. In these, he congratulates the Eastern bishops that, both from their letters brought to him and from the profession of the three legates, he has understood them to agree in the same faith both with him and with the other bishops of the West; and he desires them to be advised that all those bishops who, at Ariminum, had been compelled by deceit and injuries to subscribe, had already recalled their judgment and condemned that impious formula with anathema, and had subscribed to the Nicene faith with great hatred and horror of the Arian doctrine. These acts took place at Rome before the 24th of September, the day on which Liberius died, in the consulship of Gratian and Daglaifus, that is, in the year 366. The returning legates set out for Sicily: where, a provincial council having been convened and the faith of the Nicene council confirmed, they received letters D from the Eastern bishops of the same tenor with the Liberian ones. It is credible that they did not contend for Sicily alone, but also into other parts of the West, either together or separately, one to one part and another to another; since they brought to the council of Tyana, from Sozomen, book VI, ch. 12, along with the letters of Liberius and the Sicilian bishops, the letters of other prelates of Italy, Africa, and Gaul (28). That council of Tyana was celebrated in the following year, 367, in the spring: in which the legates were received into communion, and letters were given to all the Churches to admit them into communion, also having requested the written testimony of this fact and of the concord of the suffrages. They also appointed a council at Tarsus for a certain day, so that the peace of the Church and concord might be stabilized by common consent. That Tarsan council was hindered, both by the emperor, incited against the Catholics by Eudoxius, and by certain more stubborn Macedonian bishops, who, having gathered at Antioch in Caria to the number of thirty-four, never wished to admit the word "consubstantial," and professed that they acquiesced in the Antiochene sym- bol confirmed at Seleucia. A more severe persecution by Valens followed thereafter. Such is the end of the delegation of the Asiatic bishops to Liberius. Now it must be inquired whether our Cyril is the one who is called second in the letters of Liberius.
70. I cannot at all persuade myself that it is he, for many reasons. First, because what was this Roman delegation to Cyril, who was living peacefully at Jerusalem, and whom that fear which impelled the delegates to seek [LXXIII] a patron in the West had not affected? They feared for themselves from the council of Lampsacus, in which they had ill-treated Eudoxius, whom the reason of the Procopian war alone had delayed from avenging his injuries (from Socrates, book IV, ch. 3). The emperor had threatened them that they should join themselves with Eudoxius (Soz., book VI, ch. 7); to avert which evil, they judged that protection was to be sought at Rome and from Valentinian. Cyril had nothing in common with that offense to Eudoxius, nothing in those mandates of the Augustus to unite in society with him. Secondly, all those bishops belonged to that part of the Roman empire which we are now accustomed to call Asia Minor: whose sees and names we know; they are from Thrace, Lydia, Cilicia, Armenia, Cappadocia, Isauria. Their conventions, as Socrates attests in book IV, ch. 10, from which they gave letters to Liberius, were celebrated at Smyrna, in Pisidia, Isauria, Pamphilia, Lycia. These are very distant from Palestine; nor does it seem Cyril could have occurred there, since these councils were convened hastily and in a rush. For the affair was transacted so quickly that it is a wonder they had enough time for so many things. The delegation arrived in Rome not later than the beginnings of the month of September: and it was not decreed until some time after the death of Procopius, which had happened in the last days of May. For Procopius having been defeated and killed in Phrygia, Va-
Valens accompanied his brother while he set out for Rome as far as it was a journey of some days. Upon his return from there, the legates of the council of Lampsacus meet him at Heraclea; these having been ill-treated, the bishops consult together, sending delegates from one city to another, concerning seeking aid in the West, and then in private conventions which they hold in the most remote places, they decide upon sending a delegation to the West. Only A bishops in the neighborhood could take part in these meetings; nor was there time to wait for distant bishops, so that Cyril could arrive from Palestine into Cilicia and Isauria. Thirdly, occupations in Palestine arising from the death of Acacius prevented Cyril from going there. For in that year he created two bishops at Caesarea, Philumenus, and upon his immediate expulsion, Gelasius. Fourthly, all those bishops had abrogated the Nicene faith, whose letters Liberius at first refused to receive for that reason: to whom the legates replied that, having acknowledged the truth, they had recovered their senses. By that abrogation of the Nicene symbol, Liberius understood the subscription to the confession of Ariminum, which in his letter to them he says was subscribed to by them, having been deceived by fraud and perjury. And yet we do not read anywhere that Cyril subscribed to this formula; and his exile, which followed before it was carried through the provinces, seems to B have freed him from this subscription. Although I admit that the words of Liberius are not to be pressed so that no one of those to whom he writes was free from that subscription; and by the same reasoning as with Cyril, certain people deposed while absent at the Council of Constantinople, who are nevertheless included in the letters of Liberius, could be acknowledged as immune from this subscription, such as Neon of Seleucia. Fifthly, it is gathered from the acts of the Council of Tyana, that the bishops of whom we are speaking were strangers to the communion of those prelates who, under Jovian, together with Meletius, had received the consubstantiality [LXXIV]. For they admitted their legates and themselves to communion, and urged through letters that the same should be done in all churches. Yet Cyril had already been admitted into both the communion and the familiarity of Meletius before the Council of Antioch under Jovian, as we saw in chapter II, n. 59. By all these arguments I am led to believe that a person altogether different from our Cyril is commemorated in the letters of Liberius. Who that might be, we may conjecture, not affirm; for we do not know all the Cyrils who lived at that time. I could easily believe him to be the Cyril who was bishop in Armenia, of whom Basil writes in letters 58 and 187, if it were certain that he had been ordained before those times.
CHAPTER XIII.
Cyril, deposed for the third time under Valens, goes into exile. Who was the state of the Church of Palestine and above all of Jerusalem in his absence.71. It is certain that Cyril, having been punished with exile under Valens, lost his Church for the third time. Epiphanius, who was writing in the year 375, lists the bishops who had held his Church at C the time he was deposed; and he testifies that at this time it was occupied by Hilarion. Jerome and Sozomen relate that Cyril recovered his Church after the death of Valens, under Emperor Theodosius; he had therefore lost it under Valens. In which year of Valens this was, is not sufficiently certain; but since his exile was long-lasting, and not one but several invaders of his see are mentioned in the meantime in history, we cannot assign his expulsion to any more opportune time than the year 367, in which Valens, having been baptized by Eudoxius (30), gave a mandate to each of the prefects of the provinces, that bishops who had been dismissed in the times of Constantius, who had been restored to their priesthoods under Julian, should be expelled from the churches. By which mandate indeed Athanasius departed from Alexandria, and many other Catholic bishops were ejected from their cities. Among these it is permitted to count our Cyril. His see, during that whole time, was held according to Socrates, Sozomen, and Nicephorus, by Heraclius and Hilarius, who is the same as Helladius, named after Heraclius by the author of the Coislinian Catalog: according to Epiphanius, D Cyril is another man than ours, and Hilarion is the same as Hilarius. Jerome, after Cyril was restored for the second time, reports one Hilarius who succeeded him. Whither Cyril had migrated in the meantime is a subject of silence in history; but it can be gathered that he had shifted between various places of exile from the words of the Council of Constantinople, in which the Fathers, while praising Cyril, say that he underwent many struggles in various places against the Arians: the causes and manners of all of which struggles history has kept silent.
72. How mournful, in the absence of Cyril, the state of the Church of Jerusalem was, writers have not been silent. For both Arians and Apollinarists and Pneumatomachians and heretics of every kind flowed into it: and domestic disturbances followed upon this corruption. Gregory of Nyssa, in book II against Eunomius, page 315, counts Palestine among the provinces that experienced heretical devastation and ravaging, with the distinguished presidents of the churches being driven out [LXXV] on account of their defense of the faith. With Gelasius having been driven out of Caesarea, whom Cyril had placed over that Church, Euzoius was substituted from the flock of the Arians. There were also other bishops from that same faction, such as Gemellinus, Philippus of Scythopolis, the successor of Patrophilus, and Anastasius of Philippi and others. Who indeed, says Epiphanius, Haer. LXXIII, num. 37, not secretly but openly and boldly, as if devoid of all goodness, not only teach the decrees of Arius, but also defend their own heresy, and pursue the professors of the truth; whom they strive to overthrow not only by words, but harass with hostile enmities and wars, and even strike with the sword the followers of the true faith; and not in one province only, but in most they have raged with fury. This he says around the year 375; he adds
that they are “the Son of God, but a created Holy Spirit, and alien to the substance of God.” The same author, in number 24, says of them: “Today, having obtained boldness and license, and relying on the arm of the flesh, with nothing now standing in their way, they openly preach those things whose council they had entered into. For no shame any longer restrains them, nor are they forced by any command to maintain a certain simulation or appearance of caution, lest they seem to be doing things that are new and unusual.” The Apollinarian heresy was also spreading in that same province; for when, after the death of Athanasius, some Egyptian bishops had been relegated to Palestine, St. Basil, in epistle 293, which he sent to them, praises Divine Providence because they seemed to have been sent to that province to suppress the heresy of the Apollinarians.
73. All these evils poured themselves out more readily upon the Church of Jerusalem, which had been well-disposed toward the legitimate and Catholic bishop. And since the place was celebrated by a great concourse of Christians coming from all parts, it was more easily exposed to the approach of heretics and pests of every kind under the Arian bishops. The Arian heresy was especially dominant, supported by the authority of the emperor under Hilarion, who, as Epiphanius relates (Haer. 66, no. 20), was accused of being in communion with the Arians. He was not joined in any communion with those Egyptians in exile for the sake of the faith who were staying in Diospolis. For Jerome, in epistle 38 (formerly 61), reproves John, Cyril’s successor, who seems even then to have been enrolled in the clergy as a young man, in these words: “At that time, when the heresy of the Arians and Eunomians held the entire East, except for Pope Athanasius and Paulinus, when you did not communicate with the Westerners and the confessors in the midst of exile; he (he means Epiphanius) was heard of either as a presbyter of a monastery by Eutychius, or later was not troubled by Valens as bishop of Cyrus.” But at the time Epiphanius became bishop, namely in the year 367, John was scarcely ten or twelve years old. Wherefore this separation of the Jerusalem Church from the communion of the West cannot be extended to those times, when Epiphanius was still a presbyter of a monastery and Cyril held the helm of the Church. The same Jerome, further down in the same epistle, does not wish to inquire whether [LXXVI] John believed, at the time of the persecution of Valens, what he later professed: “The Most Holy Trinity is of the same substance and co-eternal, of the same glory and divinity”; whether he loved those who preached such things; with whom he was when they, saying these things, were suffering exile; but he objects against him that when Theonas the presbyter was preaching the Holy Spirit as God in the Church, he closed his ears and fled outside with his followers, lest he hear such a great sacrilege. From which, however, we gather that the Church was not so given over to the Arians that it did not have generous professors of the sound and orthodox doctrine taught by Cyril; but there were in that same Church Pneumatomachi, who, being outcasts from the communion of the Church, after Cyril’s return from exile, were reconciled to the Church by the cares and solicitudes of Melania, as we shall say in the following chapter. The contagion of the Apollinarian heresy also plagued that same Church, from which great disturbances were stirred up among the faithful. Of those most inflamed after Cyril’s return, we shall treat in the same chapter; but before he was recalled from exile, disputes concerning the incarnation, having arisen without a doubt from the Apollinarists, had disturbed and divided the solitaries of the monastery built on the Mount of Olives. Palladius and Innocentius from that same monastery asked Basil to be a mediator of peace. He answered in epistle 184, in the year 372, that he earnestly desired to be an arbiter of peace, but that, as this wish was not succeeding, he truly felt grief from that matter, yet could not therefore be an enemy to anyone, since the good of peace had been lost long before. The same author wrote about these disturbances to Epiphanius in epistle 325, in the year 377, and says that Epiphanius had taken the dissension of the brethren on the Mount of Olives unpleasantly, and had desired peace to be reconciled between them; nor was he ignorant of what had been badly devised by some and had generated disturbances. He then adds that Palladius and Innocentius had written to him about adding to the Nicene faith, beyond the article regarding the Holy Spirit, certain chapters concerning the incarnation, which he had neither examined nor received. The cause was undoubtedly their altogether unnecessary subtlety. In the absence of Cyril, who ought to have been the mediator of peace by his office, Basil and Epiphanius had been called to the rescue. Added to all these evils was the divorce of the Catholics among themselves, on account of the opposing factions of Paulinus and Meletius. The Westerners followed Paulinus, many of whom lived the monastic life at Jerusalem. All these things caused much trouble for Cyril when he returned from exile.
CHAPTER XIV.
Cyril returns from exile after the death of Valens; he finds the Church greatly divided.74. Valens having been defeated and burned near Adrianople on August 9, in the year 378, Gratian, having added Asia and the remaining part of Africa to his empire (31), intending to remedy the evils inflicted on the Church by his uncle, commanded that the bishops ejected into exile by him for the sake of religion should be restored, and that the churches should be returned to those who embraced the communion of Damasus. By the power of this law, many bishops did indeed return. That Cyril was one of them [LXXVII] is proved both by what Sozomen asserts, that at the time when Gratian adopted Theodosius as his partner in the empire, namely on January 19, 379, the Arians still held all the patriarchal churches of the East, the Jerusalem church excepted; and because Socrates says (bk. v, ch. 3) that at the same time Cyril presided over the Church of Jerusalem. But if the aforementioned Sozomen says elsewhere (namely bk. iv, ch. 30) that Cyril returned to his Church finally while Theodosius was reigning, it is to be understood as if all the time which, from the death...
of Valens, was spent in that empire were computed. Jerome says in his *Catalogus* that Cyril, having been frequently driven from the Church and received back, finally held the episcopate undisturbed for eight years under the emperor Theodosius. Since Cyril died in the year 386, and in the month of March, if he did not return already from the year 378, eight years of an undisturbed episcopate cannot be counted; and even so, they are not obtained as full and complete, being curtailed by a space of nearly six months.
75. The confusion of previous times disturbed the Church, while everything was permitted to the heretics and there was no moderator. From internal disturbances and schisms, corruption flowed into the morals, which, as we shall see below, were most corrupt in Jerusalem. The Apollinarists and Pneumatomachi caused the disturbances; to these were added the Paulinians and the fervent Catholics, who suspected Cyril on account of his former alliances with the semi-Arians. (32) These disturbances were the reason known to the churches why a certain council was celebrated at that time, and when it decreed that Gregory of Nyssa should go with public authority to restore the Church of Arabia, it was simultaneously decided that, since Arabia was adjacent to Jerusalem, Gregory should also visit that city, to consult with the leaders of the Jerusalem churches as to what remedy could be brought to the troubled affairs; for a mediator was needed there. As to which council that was, while there is a dispute among the learned, A I easily agree with the opinion of Baronius, which Tillemont follows, note 5 on Gregory of Nyssa, p. 735, that the Council of Antioch is designated here, held in the year 379, the ninth or tenth month after the death of St. Basil, that is, held in September or October, according to Nyssen, *Vita S. Macrinae*, p. 187. Nyssen did not proceed directly from Antioch to Arabia and Jerusalem, but returned to his homeland to attend the funeral of his sister Macrina, *ibid.*, who said, when she was placed in extremis, that he was sent and called by the churches for help and correction. This holy virgin died towards the end of the year 379, and he could not complete the intended journey before the following year. Meanwhile, Melania and Rufinus, after the recall of the Egyptian confessors from exile, arrived in Jerusalem and built a monastery there: they honored the clergy of the Church with many gifts and supplied provisions; and, being intent on reconciling peace, they achieved by care, study, and persuasion that they brought all the heretical B Pneumatomachi, that is, the enemies of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, to the Church. "Having persuaded all the Pneumatomachi, they brought them into the Church." This is Palladius, *Lausiaca Hist.*, c. 118. Those heretics, as we saw in the previous chapter, n. 73, were in the Church and perhaps in the clergy while Cyril was absent; so that when our John, his successor later on, heard the contrary doctrine being preached in the Church by Theones the presbyter, he fled along with his fellow heretics. It is likely that he did not harshly attack the Arian heresy—which was milder, and which he was tainted by owing to the Arian communion—or the sect born from it.
Quamobrem that separation and excommunication of the Pneumatomachi from the Church C can be attributed to Cyril with the best of rights; since, when he was a presbyter and delivering catecheses, he had more than once sharpened his pen against those who separated the Holy Spirit from the Trinity. Furthermore, we refer the conversion of the Pneumatomachi to this year; for when Nyssen came to Jerusalem the following year, he testifies in his letter to Eustathia, etc., p. 657, that he found everyone in agreement in the orthodox faith of the Holy Trinity. Obstacles to the fact that we might also place the end of the Paulinian schism, completed by the cares of the same Melania, in this year are the disturbances which the same Nyssen later encountered.
76. Gregory, having begun his journey in the spring of the following year, traversed Arabia and arrived in Jerusalem. He found the authors of the disturbances so inflamed that they avoided even the communion of Gregory himself, who had come as a mediator of peace. "Why," he says, ep. to Eustathia, p. 660, "are we judged as if to be fled and avoided, and why is another altar raised against us, as if the holy things were contaminated?" Gregory had no altar in Jerusalem, except that in which the catholic bishop of the place, joined to him in communion, performed the sacred rites, and which was common to all who retained the unity of the catholic Church. Therefore, these men were building another altar against Cyril, with whom Gregory communicated, and, as Gregory speaks, p. 657, "tearing the undivided tunic of Christ, they were cutting the name into the appellations of Paul and Cephas." What kind of schismatics those were, Gregory does not sufficiently disclose, but from the notes with which he depicts them, it is to be conjectured that they were Apollinarists, or those who labored under the suspicion of his heresy. First, that they held nothing alien to the catholic doctrine regarding the Trinity, these complaints of Gregory, p. 657, sufficiently prove, while he says he wonders "whence the divisions were born, when all pious people glorify and adore the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who possess one nature, glory, and power in the inconfused and distinct Trinity." Secondly, he describes them in the same place as men boasting that they were driven by divine zeal, who arrogated to themselves more knowledge and purity and innocence than the rest, and who so despised the simplicity of others that they would look upon as abominable those who approached them with the correct, albeit preached, teaching of Christ. Thirdly, it is clear besides that they despised Cyril out of a vain fear of Arianism, as if he were one of those bishops who in the wicked times of the Church had been raised by human grace and favor; whom it would be right to reject and cast off, lest human power should exalt itself against the truth. Those words of Gregory suggest this, which, as I think, cannot pertain to anything else, p. 657: "What can be the probable cause of war here? Then certainly, when heretical dogmas were widely prevailing, D it was even a praiseworthy thing to expose oneself to danger against the powers through whom the dogma of the adversaries seemed to be established, lest saving doctrine be crushed by force by human powers. Now, however, when piety is preached equally throughout the whole world...
A in Christ, they said, consisted in a conversion. Yet I believe that these Apollinarians spread the suspicion of heresy about themselves more than they openly professed it: for had they done so, Gregory would not have branded them merely in secret and silently, as if by irony, but [would have] defamed them openly and publicly; nor would he have invited them to peace before they had laid aside their error. But the well-known craftiness of the Apollinarians consists in the fact that they lie hidden under ambiguous professions, so that they might creep into the communion of others, or retain it once obtained. I am also persuaded that they were joined with the Catholics of the Paulinian party in Jerusalem, for to the Paulinians, it seems to me, belong those complaints about the ordination of Cyril, which are twin and very similar to those that Rufinus and Jerome narrate, beyond doubt drawn and accepted from them. For Rufinus says that Cyril took up the priesthood, with the ordination already confused on account of the Arian domination: Jerome [says] that he obtained this dignity as a reward for having complied with the wishes of Acacius. B Nothing could Gregory achieve on account of the inflexible stubbornness of the schismatics (33): wherefore, grieving and sad, he was compelled to depart for home, unsuccessful, having first toured the Holy Places. (34) Besides that dissension, he found the state of the Jerusalem Church deformed by a grave corruption of morals. There was no kind of impurity that was not perpetrated among them with impunity. Poisonings, adulteries, envies, murders, were heard of everywhere. Such was the proclivity and fury there for slaughtering, that for the sake of a paltry gain they would set upon one another in blood, in beastly fashion, against their own fellow-citizens. The cause of this evil we attribute, first, to the promiscuous influx of pilgrims; for among those who for the sake of piety approached the Holy Places, a collection of vagabonds and wicked men, as is wont to happen, mingled [with them] and infected the city with its own evils. Second, C there was added the long absence of the legitimate bishop and perhaps of many of the better ministers: since the invaders of the Church, intent on their own affairs rather than on those of Christ, concerned only with maintaining their wavering authority, neglect to rectify the morals of their subjects, or perhaps, through a defect of legitimate authority, are unable to do so. It cannot be doubted that Cyril, for the rest of his life and episcopate, worked diligently at reforming the state of the Church, nor do we truly read such complaints about the corrupt morals of Jerusalem afterward. And Jerome in his epistle, now [numbered] 49, dissuading Paulinus from his journey to Jerusalem, criticizes nothing at Jerusalem except what was wont to be [found] in other great cities: namely, the curia, the retinue of soldiers, prostitutes, mimes, buffoons, and all things that are wont to be in other cities. D 78. After the departure of Gregory of Nyssa, we place the reconciliation of the monks of the Paulinian faction, who lived separated from the Church, a task accomplished through the efforts and work of Rufinus and Melania. For Palladius narrates, in the Lausiac History, c. 118, that by their diligent care, nearly four hundred monks of the Paulinian party
and schismatics separated from the Church were brought into union with it. "They united the schism of the Paulinians, which consisted of four hundred monks." It is probable that a large part of these monks were Latins. It is certain that many Latins were accustomed to set out for Jerusalem to profess the monastic life. Those who were turning them back from embracing the communion of Cyril were, without doubt, the slanders spread in that region by Paulinus against the canonical ordination of Cyril. Rufinus was little suited to refute them, for it is agreed that he had some faith in those men, and it appears that he was otherwise not very well disposed toward Cyril. We also believe that the story told in the *Lives of the Fathers* (book v, translated by Pelagius, book or § xv, *Concerning Humility*, no. 88) occurred in this same year, or at least before the Council of Constantinople, in which such a degree of honor was granted to the bishop of that city. Two brothers, while living in a certain district of the Alexandrian episcopate, and having professed the monastic life, castrated themselves out of a zeal for chastity devoid of knowledge and discretion, as if for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. When the archbishop of Alexandria learned of this, he excommunicated both of them. Defending their fault with a poorly understood passage from the Gospel, they approached the bishop of Jerusalem so that through him they might be released from the bond of excommunication; but he, having listened to them patiently, gave them the same response: "And I excommunicate you." Repulsed by him, they went first to the bishop of Antioch, by whom they were treated no better; having set out for Rome, they received nothing else from the supreme pontiff than this response: "I excommunicate you, and you are separated." Not yet having broken their stubbornness with so many rejections, they supposed that the four bishops were showing honor to one another without regard for fairness, and they decided to approach Epiphanius of Salamis as a holy man, a prophet, and one alien to human dissimulation. When they were approaching the city, the bishop, having been warned from heaven, sent men to meet them who announced to them that they should not enter the city. Struck by the harmony of so many bishops and by the prophetic oracle of Epiphanius, they finally acknowledged their fault and, having confessed it, were received into communion and sent back to their own bishop with letters of commendation. That this did not occur to those brothers among the senior bishops at Constantinople is proof that this story took place before the Council of Constantinople, which otherwise declares the eminence of the Jerusalem see not a little.
CAPUT XV.
Cyril takes part in the Council of Constantinople, at which he approves his own ordination and is commended by its authority.For the sake of composing the state of the Oriental Church, which was torn by dissensions not only of heretics but also among the Catholics themselves, the Emperor convened at Constantinople a council from the bishops of his entire empire. (55) One hundred and fifty is the number commonly assigned to these bishops, including those who professed consubstantiality; for there were thirty-six from the Macedonian party. But among those fifty-one hundred are included, according to Socrates, Egyptians and Macedonians, who, however, did not arrive until after the death of Meletius, summoned by the Emperor rather than by the council. Cyril was summoned there from Jerusalem along with Gelasius of Caesarea, who in the subscriptions of the council is listed after Cyril. [LXXXII] Socrates and Sozomen count Cyril among the bishops of the council and reckon him among the bishops of the three major sees; Sozomen also narrates that he presided alongside them at the council, and from him Theophanes, Cedrenus, and Glycas affirm this. But it is insulting to Cyril that Socrates and Sozomen affirm that Cyril at that time adhered to the consubstantial faith out of repentance, whereas before, Sozomen adds, he had adhered to the opinion of Macedonius. For no other association of Cyril with Macedonius is read of except at the Council of Seleucia. Already from the year 362 he was following the communion of Meletius, who had then cast off all connection with the Arians, and he seems always to have been separated from Macedonius. Cyril never had anything in common with the Macedonian cause, especially in those matters which they carried out against the Nicene faith and the divinity of the Holy Spirit; indeed, when he returned from exile, he kept the *Pneumatomachi* in Jerusalem alien from the communion of the Church until they had amended their heresy; and Gregory of Nyssa, when he was staying in Jerusalem the previous year, had borne sure witness to Cyril's most upright faith regarding the Most Holy Trinity. I shall not recount the acts of the council, which are known to all; I shall only commemorate what will seem peculiar to Cyril. When the synod had pronounced the ordination of Maximus against Gregory to be illegitimate and had confirmed Gregory in the possession of that see with the highest favor, Meletius of Antioch was suddenly overtaken by death; whom Gregory of Nyssa, one of the Fathers of the council, in an oration delivered at his funeral before the council (p. 587), calls the "common Father and leader of the council." His funeral rites having been performed, some, ignoring the pact which had not long before been agreed upon between Meletius and Paulinus (namely, that whichever of the two survived would hold the Church alone), brought to the council the matter of choosing a successor to Meletius, and requested the help and assistance of Gregory of Nazianzus, who was then presiding over the council, in that matter. He (carm. 1, p. 23, 27) pleaded with all his strength that this should not happen, and that the occasion for ending the Antiochian schism should be seized. His oration pertaining to peace was not heard. The younger members even rose up against him with force, and the elders allowed themselves to be led astray too softly by them. Their reasoning was that since Christ was born in the East, it was therefore fitting that primary authority should remain with the Orientals. This reasoning was certainly to be urged most strongly by Cyril, as the prelate of the place in which all that glory of the East was situated. Certainly as—
A he had preached the one divinity of the most holy Trinity, and the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and had judged the Pneumatomachians, shortly before, as strangers to the Church unless they should repent. Since, therefore, that double contention—to wit, over assigning a successor to St. Meletius, and the all too ready acceptance of the abdication of Gregory—had resulted in his calling the council (carm. 1, p. 27) “a flock of jackdaws and a swarm of wasps,” and (carm. 11, p. 81) calling a great part of its bishops “cranes and geese,” we can separate Cyril from this flock.
80. The reluctance of the council toward the excellent advice of Gregory cast such grief into his soul that he began to withdraw himself from the assemblies and to think of retirement. Meanwhile, the Egyptians and Macedonians arrived, who took it badly that Gregory—held in high esteem by Timothy of Alexandria—had been raised to the Constantinopolitan see by the Orientals, and they alleged various pretexts against this ordination of his, posing as defenders of the canons. On the other hand, the Egyptians and Macedonians differed little from the Orientals. Wherefore Gregory (carm. 1, p. 26) decided to carry out what he had already proposed in the solemn assembly, namely, that he should abdicate the episcopate, and he besought the prelates to allow him, after the example of Jonah, to be cast into the sea in order to calm the tempest in the Church, which he had not himself stirred up. The condition was received with applause by the greater part of the bishops, even the Orientals, to the astonishment and indignation of Gregory (pp. 29, 30), although he rejoiced to be freed from the burden. There were, however, very many who, when they saw that what Gregory demanded was so easily granted, stopped their ears and departed from the gathering, not tolerating that any other man should be brought into his seat. Who those were, Gregory is silent. Since not a few saints sat in this council whom the Church has inscribed in the registers of the saints, it is credible that these, being less liable to human passions, followed better counsels. One of them, therefore, was Cyril, whom at least one may exempt from the crowd of bishops applauding the abdication of Gregory. For those, he says, were the ones who were either more ardent in designating a successor to Meletius, a matter to which he was opposed (carm. 13, p. 85), or who were tormented by some envy of his eloquence (De episcopis, p. 502, col. 2), or who looked upon his virtue with envious eyes (ibid.), or finally who were more hostile to the doctrine preached by him concerning the Holy Spirit, or at least censured the confidence and freedom with which he preached that the Holy Spirit is God (orat. 32, p. 519, and carm. 123, p. 187). But none of those reasons pertained to Cyril, who had reconciled himself to the Paulinians at Jerusalem even while Meletius was still alive; who taught and desired that virtue and the faith in his disciples should be even greater and firmer than his own (cat. 5, n. 12; cat. 15, n. 7); who possessed eloquence, which, although inferior to the Gregorian, was not to be despised, by which he kept the peoples bound in devotion to him; who, finally, long before Gregory, in his catecheses, had preached B the one divinity of the most holy Trinity and the divinity of the Holy Spirit just as eloquently and had judged the Pneumatomachians shortly before as strangers to the Church unless they should repent. It is also probable that Cyril reported on the state of the Jerusalem Church; and, having commemorated and refuted the calumnies of his adversaries against his own ordination, he had it approved by the council and strove to have it confirmed by its authority. This is sufficiently clearly signified by the testimony of the Fathers of this council, gathered again into a council the following year, which we shall refer to below.
The state of the churches [LXXXIV] having been ordained, the synod decreed certain things for the refutation of heresies and the establishment of ecclesiastical discipline, to which Cyril readily assented (37). The Nicene faith was confirmed, the doctrine of which Cyril had expressed in his catecheses, already approved from the very beginning of his episcopacy by the word “consubstantial” itself, and preached in his letters to Constantius. Heretics were pronounced not only the Arians, but also the Semi-Arians, or Pneumatomachians, already excluded by him from the Church; the Apollinarists, the authors of the disturbances against Cyril; and the Marcellians themselves, most hostile to him, whose heresy he had indeed overcome many years before, in the very beginnings (cat. 15, n. 27). The Nicene symbol was augmented with articles whose doctrine he had already taught in his catecheses, and the words themselves were all but expressed from the Hierosolymitan symbol. Concerning the other canons, since they pertain nothing to Cyril, I am silent. The council over, he returned home with the others.
In his return, however, he seems to have stopped at Antioch for the ordination of Flavian, which the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan council of the following year affirm (in Theodoret, lib. v, cap. 9) to have been done in a council by the bishops of the province and of the Eastern diocese, with the highest and unanimous suffrage and consent of the Antiochene Church. And one of the fifteen provinces of the Eastern diocese was Palestine. When he had seen in the Constantinopolitan council that almost all the Fathers were conspiring in the opinion to assign a successor to Meletius, and the desire of almost the entire Antiochene Church for that same thing, he judged that his own suffrage also should not be denied, whatever he might have thought of the whole matter previously in the council.
82. In the same year that this council was celebrated, another was celebrated at Aquileia by the Westerners toward the end of the year, in the month of September; they, having heard the decree of the Orientals that another should be substituted in place of Meletius, neglecting Paulinus, sent letters to the emperor (apud Ambr. epist. 12) and requested that a general council be held regarding this matter.
Emperor Theodosius, however, commanded the Orientals only to come to Constantinople. A general council was, nevertheless, indicted at Rome. While this was awaited, Maximus, fortified by the old letters of Peter of Alexandria which he had offered at some council in Italy, stirred up the Westerners greatly against the B ordination of Gregory, and later of Nectarius, in the Constantinopolitan see: referring his case to the general council that was to be celebrated at Rome, they besought the emperor by letters to send the Orientals to Rome to deliberate together on the common affairs of the Church (Ambr., epist. 13, n. 6 et 7).
The Orientals, following the mandates given by Theodosius the previous year, arrived at Constantinople in the year 382. These were a large portion of the same prelates who had celebrated the council at Constantinople the year before; whether Cyril also arrived at the same time is uncertain. Having gathered there, they received the synodical letters of the bishops who were already assembling at Rome to celebrate the council, letters by which they were being invited to that synod, along with the emperor’s letters commanding the same. But they, who had been ordered by the emperor to convene at Constantinople alone since the previous year, and who had heard nothing of that Roman journey before their arrival in the royal city [LXXXV], being unprepared for a longer journey, and having no consensus or authority from the bishops who had remained in the provinces, and being unequipped for the celebration of any council other than the one at Constantinople, and pressured by the narrowness of the defined time, sent synodical letters to the Roman council through three bishops delegated for that purpose, in which they excused their absence, as well from the aforementioned points as from many other causes. Then, preparing to give an account of their faith, they revealed their utmost concern for the Nicene Creed, and issued a concise explanation of the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, referring back for a fuller account to the declaration made by them, both in the Antiochene council of the year 379, and in the Constantinopolitan council of the previous year. C They signified, furthermore, that according to the precept of the Nicene council, the churches among them were being administered, and that at the general council in Constantinople, Nectarius, and at Antioch, Flavianus, had been canonically ordained, both with the provincial and with the entire Oriental diocese having been assembled. As for Jerusalem, the mother of all churches, they declared the most reverend and God-beloved Cyril to be bishop, having been ordained long ago by the bishops of the province according to the prescriptions of the canons, and having endured many struggles against the Arians in various places. These things were added with such concern regarding the canonical ordinations of the three prelates—the Constantinopolitan, the Antiochene, and the Hierosolymitan—because the first was displeasing to the Westerners, who had been deceived by the fraud of Maximus; the second was said to have been attempted by them against treaties and laws; and the third, they knew, had been attacked by his enemies, both in the East and in the D West, with unjust accusations.
CHAPTER XVI. The death of Cyril, and his cult in the universal Church. The description of his form according to more recent Greeks. A representation of his spirit expressed from his deeds and writings. His chief virtues. His faith vindicated from crimes laid upon him.
83. Of Cyril, after the council of Constantinople in the year 382, nothing more is heard in history. In the council which Theodosius gathered at Constantinople in the year 383, at which he wished the heads of all sects to be present, there were Palestinians, Phoenicians, and Syrians, who, on behalf of the party of Flavianus of Antioch, undertook a contention against the Egyptians, Arabs, and Cypriots. Whether Cyril was one of those Palestinians is uncertain. And not long after, he died; they commonly assign his death to the year 386; Sozomen, book VII, chap. 14, joins it after Rufinus with the death of Timothy of Alexandria, but Timothy died, according to Socrates, book V, chap. 12, in the first consulship of Arcadius and Bauto, which is the year 385. But since, on the other hand, Jerome affirms that Cyril held the episcopate unshaken for eight years under the Emperor Theodosius, his death cannot be marked earlier than the year 386. And since he died in the month of March, from the extreme time of the year 378 when he recovered his see, up to the month of March in the year 386, we cannot obtain eight full and complete years; rather, at least six months are missing. The Greeks mark his death on the eighteenth day of March, both in the Menaea and in the Typicon of St. Sabas, which was followed by those who entered his name on that same day into the Roman Martyrology. In the Claromontane Synaxary, his memory is noted on the eleventh day of March, on which day the feast of St. Sophronius is principally celebrated. But another eulogy of Cyril is found in the same book for the 18th of March, on which day he died. In the Syriac calendar, printed at Rome in 1624, which is prefixed to the ecclesiastical office of that nation, the death of our Cyril is commemorated on the same day of the month of March. But in the Arabico-Egyptian Martyrology sent to the Bollandists at Rome, the memory of St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, is held on the 20th day of the month of March. Also in the month of March, but without the notation of a day, the eulogy of Cyril is held in a double and very ancient Arabic calendar: in one of which the most illustrious Risius, Archbishop of Damascus, found the name of Cyril with a eulogy of the divine. In the other, however, which was rendered into Latin by Amabilis Burzaeus of Riom, and which responds almost to the prior calendar, are contained certain prayers, comprising a commemoration of many saints at once, of which the seventh, serving the month of March, has these words toward its middle: "Let us magnify Cyril the innocent." From all these things, which we owe almost entirely to the diligence of the Bollandists, it is clear that the memory of Cyril is celebrated in all churches—Roman, Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian—as one of the saints. Which indeed universal cult abundantly
refutes the calumnies cast upon him both while alive and after death. Since he began his episcopate at the beginning of the year 351, he was bishop for 35 years, from which one must exclude nearly sixteen years during which he was absent: wherefore he ruled the Church in person for only nineteen years. Furthermore, his life was approximately seventy years.
84. Greeks in the *Menaea* narrate some things about his outward appearance, which I fear may not have been derived from the best evidence. For they say that Cyril was of medium stature, pale, with long hair and a snub nose; with a broad mouth, or a square face, and eyebrows growing in a straight line; with grey and thick hair covering his cheeks, and a beard divided into two parts below the chin; and they add that he displayed a certain rusticity in all his manners. I would easily believe that he was most patient of labor, for he indefatigably sustained the great burden of preaching at Jerusalem. If there was any rusticity in him, it was entirely in his countenance and habit, since a great gentleness and kindness toward those subject to him shines forth throughout his catecheses. A
85. Moreover, his better image is to be expressed from his writings, deeds, and virtues. He was, as far as we can conjecture, of an elevated and strong spirit, which he demonstrated especially in the contention he undertook with Acacius. For, fearing nothing, he confronted a man who was as crafty as he was bold—a man most powerful in the emperor's court—and stood up firmly and intrepidly for the rights of his Church; and though unjustly deposed and expelled by him, he appealed to a larger council in the civil manner, by a new example, as they say; B and when requested in the Council of Seleucia to withdraw from the assembly for a time at the demand of Acacius, he most steadfastly refused to yield even the slightest degree. His fortitude also shone forth [LXXXVII] in presiding against the faction of Eutychius and the Arians at the Church of Caesarea, not once only, but also a second time after the expulsion of the first, and the violent invasion by another. His faith was firm, free from the curiosity of others, devoid of vacillation, and fearless, cat. 5, n. 12. About to deliver the Creed, he warns them to keep this faith undefiled and intact for their whole life, and not to allow another to be imposed upon them by any art or force, even if he himself were changed and taught otherwise. He repeats a thousand times that curiosity in divine matters is to be avoided, and that nothing beyond what God has revealed in the Scriptures is to be inquired into. His whole catechesis 22 and 23 teaches how much the refutation of one’s own reason or senses against the mysteries of faith is to be neglected; but with what constancy and fidelity one should persist in the midst of scandals that arise in the Church, cat. 15, n. 7. Firm in the faith of divine oracles and in the expectation of divine promises, he denies that he wavers in strength and vitality during the most wicked times of the Antichrist, cat. 15, n. 16, and he laughed at the attempts of the Jews to restore the temple under Julian. He held the Church's tradition and decrees to be inviolable, and he was convinced that one could not move even a nail's breadth from them. See cat. 4, n. 35, cat. 18, n. 16. With the highest religious devotion, he observed all the uses and rites of the Church C and looked up to them; magnificent are the things he discusses everywhere regarding the power of exorcisms and of exorcised things, such as water, oil, and chrism, and about having confidence in the sign of the cross as something most powerful for many things, and about the power and efficacy of holy relics. Born from that love for the Church was that hatred of heretics, which he everywhere preaches and inculcates with great zeal. See cat. 6, n. 13, 19, 33, 35, cat. 7, n. 1, cat. 16, n. 11. With what depth he had imbibed the faith in his mind, he bravely confessed whenever the occasion was given. He preached the consubstantial Trinity at the beginning of his episcopate in letters sent to Constantius, who was most inimical to this doctrine: he underwent many contests in various places for the Catholic truth against the Arians, suffering a triple exile; and returning himself to the Church as soon as it was permitted, he so resisted the Apollinarists and schismatics that he brought upon himself heavy harassment from them. D
86. A sense of God shines forth everywhere in his writings: magnificent are the things he discusses on that subject at the beginning of the sixth catechesis. Following this was that lowly estimation of himself, and his self-abasement, declared in word and deed, a virtue accumulated with such great praises in the Gospel and the Holy Fathers; it brings about, first, that we think there is little help in ourselves, and that we place our whole hope in God. This sentiment shines everywhere in Cyril’s writings; in almost all his catecheses, about to speak of chief matters, he says that he awaits divine grace, which is necessary for him to speak rightly, and he approaches his sermon confident in the prayers of his hearers. See cat. 12, n. 4, cat. 13, n. 8, cat. 16, n. 1. He did not want anything to be accepted and believed by hearers by his own authority alone; and unless he produces suitable arguments from the Scriptures, he allows, in many places—especially cat. 4, n. 17, cat. 12, n. 5, cat. 13, n. 8—for belief to be denied him with an impartial mind. The same virtue of humility makes it so that, for the goods of which we feel ourselves to be destitute and unworthy, we not only do not envy others, but we greatly desire that they possess them, and we congratulate those who do. Cyril frequently prays for the gifts of miracles and prophecy for his hearers, [LXXXVIII] gifts quite common in those times, while he professes not only that he lacks the gift of prophecy, but that he is unworthy of it, cat. 15, n. 4. "Not that we prophesy," he says, "for we are unworthy." Distrusting himself, he warns that if he himself were changed and taught the contrary, they should not follow him, cat. 5, n. 12, or if he himself succumbed to guilt, they should not wish to perish together with him, cat. 15, n. 7. "And even if I who teach you perish, you should not perish together with me. But it is right for a hearer to become better than the teacher, and that he who comes last becomes the first." This sense of lowly opinion regarding himself is made all the more praiseworthy in that it did not dwell in a slight and abject mind, but in a sublime, upright, strong, and great spirit. Wherefore it happens that we ought to ascribe the fortitude and constancy he retained in pursuing his cause, not to stubbornness and self-love, but to the preservation of his duty. He burned with great zeal for promoting the worship of God, so that he did not spare his own labor; indefatigable then in his...
duties, he consistently applied himself to the preaching of the divine word both in the Church, which God had committed to him, and in those places where he was being entertained. She declared his love and benevolence toward the poor, A by the distribution of sacred vessels to relieve their need during a public famine; and [he was] crowned by God for the vexation and persecution stirred up against him by his enemies on that account. A lover of peace and a hater of dissension, while Maximus was still alive, he held himself as a neutral party, addicted to no faction in the most grave ecclesiastical disputes: later, having embraced the consubstantiality, he did not refuse communion with those who, having safely established the faith, seemed to hesitate only concerning the word; and although Meletius had been ordained by his enemies, since he professed the sincere and orthodox faith, Cyril held him not only as a bishop, but even in his number of intimate friends. He also admitted into peace without hesitation the Paulinian monks, from that party, however much he was most gravely offended by them. Of the many councils that were celebrated under Constantius, there are few in which he was present, offering himself as a guide or an intermediary in no matter. And although he had been deposed, along with many others, in the Council of Constantinople, they and he immediately, and under Julian, Jovian, and Valente, celebrated many councils and meetings against those by whom they had been condemned, in none of which is Cyril read to have participated. The Greeks recount many other of his virtues in his Office, saying B "that he adorned his soul with virtues, and made his mind superior to bodily things; for, having his mind inflamed by the fear of God, he reduced every tinder of pleasure into ashes; with showers of tears he extinguished the flames of the passions, and preserved his lamp inextinguishable; and finally, having constantly driven the drowsiness of sloth from the eyelids of his soul, he slept peacefully, a sleep befitting the just." Whether all these things are commonplaces with which the piety of all the saints is adorned, or whether they are expressed from the peculiar characters of his virtues, may rightly be doubted.
87. The Lord tested the patience of the holy man throughout his entire episcopate in various ways: three times he was removed from his see by unjust accusations and driven into exile. In his exiles, at least in the last one, he suffered much from the Arians. Returning home, he found the Church disturbed by internal dissensions and by factions raised against him; he grieved that his ordination was defamed by unjust suspicions, which even holy and learned men, such as Jerome and Rufinus, committed to writing for posterity. C Three things are especially criticized in Cyril: his ordination, his variation in the faith, and in communion. Rufinus says his ordination was done in the confusion of the times, but Jerome reports that it was endowed with altogether incredible circumstances. We hope to have resolved all these in their proper place from better authors and monuments. Rufinus says that Cyril sometimes varied in faith, and more often in communion. Socrates and Sozomen nearly agree, when they say that he attended the Council of Constantinople, and regarding the changed opinion concerning the variation of communion. First, when he was still only a priest while Maximus was alive, following the custom and judgment of his Church and bishop, he neither properly fostered nor broke communion with Athanasius, who had been deposed from his see in the Council of Tyre, but kept himself neutral and inexperienced in the ecclesiastical disturbances of that time, together with his whole Church. He embraced his communion at the time of the synod of Jerusalem in the year 349. D Whether he received ordination from the hand of Acacius is doubtful; but suppose it were so: he did not immediately break communion with Athanasius; who, since he held his see at that time with no one disturbing him, doubtlessly sent to him synodical and communion letters at the beginning of his episcopate, if that custom already prevailed. Acacius had been struck by the grave lightning bolt of the Council of Sardica, which the Church of Jerusalem had received; but it happened by the iniquity of the times that this sentence lacked effect. Nor [did he break] the communion of Acacius at the time of the Council of Seleucia, when that man [had previously...]