APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF ST. CYRIL. WORKS SUPPOSITITIOUSLY ATTRIBUTED TO ST. CYRIL. HOMILY BY AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR UNDER HIS NAME ON THE MEETING OF THE LORD.
A 359 ADMONITION.
I. The author of this oration treats of the mystery of Christ presented in the temple, which the Greeks call the *Hypapante* (Meeting), though we call it the feast of the Purification; and he explains the words of Simeon regarding Him, with a magnificent commendation of Christ’s dignity (num. 1). He invites heaven and earth to unite in joy and celebrate the praises of Christ (num. 2). He urges the people of Jerusalem and all men worthily to meet the Lord as He comes into the temple. Comparing Christ’s dignity with the humble state in which He appears, he says that He is (num. 4 and 5) at once high priest and victim, temple and altar, sacrifice and the God to whom the sacrifice is offered. Then, citing the words of the Evangelist, he summarizes them (num. 6); but he introduces Adam, in the person of Simeon, speaking at length on the praises of Christ; in which discourse he touches upon the eternal generation of the Word, the foundation of the world, the abasement of Christ in His incarnation, the prophecies that foretold His birth, the chief mysteries of His incarnation, and the fruits of the incarnation (num. 15); and he concludes the oration with a brief exhortation adapted to the present feast. The style is affectingly elaborate, sublime in its thoughts, distinguished by almost continuous antitheses, and entirely sprinkled with testimonies from the Scriptures or allusions to them; it is a discourse worthy in every way to be read.
II. It was first published at Cologne in the year 1568, by the heirs of Birkmann, translated by Laurentius Sifanus, but almost entirely defiled by errors. Then it was transferred to the *Bibliotheca Patrum Græco-Latina*, printed at Paris in the year 1624, tom. II, p. 844: which Pontanus later edited, as Combefis reports; but although I have long sought after Pontanus’s edition, I have not been permitted to see it. At length, Combefis edited it anew, having collated it with three mss.—two Royal and one Mazarin—and provided a translation; he inserted it into his *Auctuarium* of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, tom. I, p. 621, in the year 1648; and he again transferred its Latin version into the *Bibliotheca Concionatoria* for the second day of February, which is also to be found in the Lyons *Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum*, joined with other works of our Cyril. Thomas Milles represented it as Combefis had edited it in his Oxford edition of the works of Cyril of Jerusalem, having prefaced that Combefis had left nothing remaining for the diligence of others; he merely noted the variants of the Bodleian codex in the margin and transcribed Combefis’s own admonition and three very brief notes.
III. In this edition, we again offer it to the reader, once more collated against previous editions and many manuscript codices, corrected in some places, and with the version of Combefis changed in a few instances as the passage required. We have used five manuscript codices. The Royal Library provided two. The first is a parchment manuscript marked 1832 (formerly 2394), which Combefis noted in an inscription added to the codex that he himself had collated. It contains this homily on p. 219; experts judge it to have been written in the 12th or 13th century. The other is a paper manuscript marked 1959 (formerly 275), whose writing does not exceed the beginnings of the 16th century: our homily is found in it on page 198, among many other works of the Greek Fathers. The third, which we have used, is a manuscript volume communicated to us from the Colbert Library, marked 4704; it is on paper, written at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century, and our present oration is contained on its page 74. The fourth is the Coislinian 274, on most elegant paper, transcribed most elegantly, by the grace of the Most Christian King, just under a hundred years ago from another codex which had been written at the beginning of the 15th century: it has our present homily on fol. 214. Finally, the fifth is another Coislinian, 504, of the 14th century, on paper; it has this oration on fol. 95. Using these aids, we have corrected many errors that seemed to be present.
IV. There is no small difficulty regarding the author of this oration. In all editions and manuscript codices, it is attributed with marvelous consensus to Cyril of Jerusalem. There is one Mazarin codex in which it is contained under the name of Cyril of Alexandria. But, as Combefis notes, it could easily happen that a scribbling copyist in a hurry might write "Cyril of Alexandria" instead of "of Jerusalem." Another codex, the Ottobonian 360, also contains this homily under the name of Cyril of Alexandria; but the word "Alexandrinus" was erased where it was written in red lead, and "Hierosolymitanus" was substituted, with the same ink and by the same hand by which the oration was written. Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, towards the end of the preceding century, cited a fragment of this oration under the name of our Cyril, in his *Enchiridion*, page 51, without doubt. To Combefis, there remains no hesitation that it is truly the offspring of this holy father. Dupin found nothing which would B
compel one to adjudge it away from him. On the other hand, Tillemont, volume VIII of his *Memoirs for Ecclesiastical History*, note 7 on Cyril of Jerusalem, alleges grave reasons for doubting this; and although, having weighed the moments of the cause on both sides with keen judgment, he does not interpose his own decision, yet it is not hidden that he by no means judged this oration to be our Cyril’s. William Cave pronounces it spurious without hesitation and without bringing forward any reason. Milles, however, leans entirely to the opinion that it is to be adjudged to our Cyril. But that it is the work of another author, more recent than Cyril and the fourth century, we are entirely persuaded.
V. For first, that which carries every point in this matter, the author in many places of the homily, but especially at the beginning and the end, imitates and transcribes Gregory Nazianzen: a fact which I wonder has been noticed by no one. Second, I find it quite difficult to persuade my mind that the feast of the Hypapante, or Purification of the Virgin, was instituted and celebrated in the fourth century: since no memory of it exists in the certain monuments of this age; and whatever discourses are circulated concerning this mystery under the names of Methodius, or Amphilochius, or Athanasius, it is agreed that they are falsely inscribed with their names. Moreover, the carrying of candles, solemn in this festival, was far from being instituted in the fourth century, which our author, no. 2 and 15, mentions not as newly introduced, but as confirmed by usage; whereas it is usually commended by authors of the fourth century as something proper to the Paschal vigil. That this was first instituted at Jerusalem around the times of the Council of Chalcedon under the Emperor Marcian, led primarily by a certain religious woman named Icelia, is attested by the most grave author Cyril of Scythopolis in the *Life of Saint Theodosius the Cenobiarch*, in the Jerusalem tract; whose words are praised by Leo Allatius in his notes on Methodius, page 344: Αὕτη δὲ τότε ἡ μακαρία Ἰκελία, πᾶσαν ὁδὸν εὐσεβείας ἐξασκήσασα, κατέδειξεν ἐν πρώτοις μετὰ κηρίων γίνεσθαι τὴν Ὑπαπάντην τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Θεοῦ. That is: *Then that blessed Icelia, who had exercised every way of piety, first demonstrated that the Meeting of our Savior God should be celebrated with candles.* Third, the author of this homily is without doubt posterior to the Apollinarist heresy: which he seems to regard both in no. 4, when he says Christ was in the flesh truly and without defect, ἀληθῶς, καὶ ἀνελλιπῶς, moving upon the earth; and in number 10, where he says Christ is the integral human with all our parts, that he might purify the human; that he exists wholly above and wholly below: which words were familiar to the Fathers after the Apollinarist heresy, not to mention that in this place the author imitates the style and words of Gregory Nazianzen. But he is also like one intentionally refuting the Nestorian heresy throughout: whether while he urges with such a great apparatus of words, no. 3, that the infant God is to be adored, the same one both forty days old and eternal; which is the opposite of that Nestorian blasphemy: I do not adore a two-month or three-month old God; or while he teaches that the same is at once on the earth and in the bosom of the Father, no. 4 and 5, wholly in the heavens, and wholly on the earth, no. 10, the same receiving the priesthood and the sacrifice; which so greatly displeased Nestorius: so that the entire oration almost revolves around this argument, that he is completely the same one to whom belong the divine honors and the human infirmities. That it is also posterior to the heresy of Jovinian can be persuaded by the things which he so studiously inculcates, that Christ did not come into the light through open virginal gates, no. 2 and 6. But before Jovinian, you would rarely find the virginity of Mary in giving birth so explained, which some have denied, and others have discussed differently.
VI. Fourth, there is nothing in this oration similar to the Cyrillian style; on the contrary, everything is dissimilar. Cyril used to pronounce ex tempore even those orations which require more study and diligence, such as his Catecheses; here the style is elaborately studied, with refined and heaped-up antitheses; the oration is cut into members, with elect words, and sentences full of great spirit and swelling: whereas the Cyrillian oration runs more freely and loosely, and rejects all ornamentation, even where he is rhetorically most intense. Cyril, writing in haste, delights in parentheses, especially when he explains passages of Scripture; which he is accustomed to discuss by dissecting them into pieces with a continuous, though short, paraphrase. This author, on the contrary, inserts no parentheses; he touches on innumerable testimonies of Scripture, but dwells on none; he remains in the same figure of speech for a long time; for example, no. 8, 9, 10 and 11, whereas Cyril is accustomed to vary the oration, and not to linger in one tenor of speaking. Furthermore, our author employs many compound expressions, some of which are later than the fourth century, or very rare, certainly not Cyrillian, such as θεομήτωρ, Θεοδόχος, πρωτότοκος τῶν πρωτοτόκων. In one flow of the pen, no. 9, he heaps all these up: ὁμοούσιος, ὁμόθρονος, ὁμόδοξος, ὁμοδύναμος, παντοδύναμος, together with ten others following continuously: which ornaments of words redolent of the more exuberant abundance of the Greeks of a later age, rather than the gravity and majesty of the fourth century, and the simplicity of our Cyril. Fifth, those things which I subjoin will perhaps seem light. Scriptures here are sometimes cited otherwise than Cyril reported them. No. 13, alleging the passage of Deuteronomy XVIII, 15, or Acts III, 22, *He will raise up a Prophet*, etc., he omits the words, *as me*, which Cyril, praising the same passage in *Cat.* 12, no. 17, not only does not pass over, but notes must be observed with special attention. No. 2, he cites the passage of Isaiah from chapter IX, 6, with additions which Cyril, *Cat.* 12, no. 24, does not report, but also seems to have been entirely ignorant of them. For he would have cited them in *Cat.* 11, no. 15. No. 8, he reads in Isaiah, *καταίγων τὴν γῆν πᾶσαν ὀρακί*, Cyril *Cat.* 18, no. 2, and *Cat.* 4, no. 5, *τὴν ὀρακί*. No. 13, he calls the prophet Habakkuk, ’Αμβακούμ; Cyril constantly writes that name, ’Αββακούμ, *Cat.* 12, no. 20, and *Cat.* 14, no. 25. The author makes the angels incorporeal, no. 10, which Cyril would scarcely acknowledge. From all of which I consider it abundantly proven that this oration is falsely inscribed with the name of our Cyril.
VII. Whose author it is, remains to be inquired. Some manuscripts present the name of Cyril of Alexandria; but the elaborated style disagrees with the easy and unstudied oration of Cyril. Furthermore, at Jerusalem it is said
Besides, the observation in section 13, that Bethlehem is situated to the south of Jerusalem—a fact that was common to many Fathers writing outside of Jerusalem—persuades me that this homily is authentic; but because, in sections 1 and 2, it seems to address the people of Jerusalem as if they were present; and because it exhorts that the earthly Jerusalem celebrate with the heavenly Jerusalem; and because in section 2, it invites Jerusalem to open its gates to Christ, bids the daughters of Jerusalem to go forth first to meet him, and then urges the peoples of the nations to carry torches before the coming Christ. Moreover, in section 3, it cites the Trisagion as it is sung in the liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem. Since the work deals at length with the defeat of Nestorius, but directs little or nothing specifically against the Eutychian heresy, it seems to me that the author wrote during the time of Zeno or Anastasius, when the authority of the Council of Chalcedon was struggling in the East, vexed by the calumnies of the Monophysites; and so, the labor of the Catholics was occupied more with vindicating the faith of that council from the accusation of Nestorianism than with insisting upon its authority. For this reason, I would believe this oration to be the work of one of those patriarchs who lived at that time, such as Sallustius or Elias, or perhaps some presbyter in that Church who lived then under the name of Cyril. I certainly do not consider this work later than the sixth century; for its vigor, the density and strength of its thoughts, and the elegance of its speech differ greatly from the jejune eloquence of the later Greeks, which consists entirely of long, frigid dialogues, desiccated copiousness, and a humble style of oratory.
VIII. However, I ought not to omit that the style of this homily seems to me similar to the style of Oration 11 on the Annunciation under the name of Damascene, vol. II, p. 837, which, however, was delivered after his age. The author’s doctrine is the same in both regarding Simeon the Elder, whom our author in section 11, and the pseudo-Damascene on p. 837, make a priest. There is the same love for compound words and heaped-up epithets. Just as our author in sections 9, 10, and 11 importunately begins many phrases with the same words, "This is," or "This child," so the other repeats "Rejoice, full of grace" two hundred times. All the attributes of the Son which the pseudo-Cyril heaps up in section 9 et seqq., are recited by the pseudo-Damascene on p. 836. Thus, either the author of both orations appears to be the same, or, what I consider more likely, one—the pseudo-Damascene—either transcribed or imitated the pseudo-Cyril. I also wish to note this: the parts here in section 15, which are partly imitated and partly transcribed from Nazianzen, are so similar and twin-like to those found in Eulogius of Alexandria, or any other author of a homily on the branches of palms (first among the works of Cyril of Alexandria, then published by Combefis in the *Auctuarium*), that it seems to me that one read and expressed the other; however, it may suffice that both proposed Nazianzen to themselves as a model to imitate.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF JERUSALEM, A Homily on the Meeting of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and on Simeon who received God.
S. P. N. CYRILLI, ARCHIEPISCOPI HIEROSOLYMORUM, Oratio in occursum Domini nostri et Salvatoris Jesu Christi, et in Symeonem qui Deum suscepit.
I. Rejoice exceedingly, daughter of Zion, proclaim joy, daughter of Jerusalem. Lead the dances, O people of the city.
A Leap, gates and walls of Zion, and all the earth; cry out, O mountains and hills, leap greatly. O rivers, clap your hands; and you, O crowds, surround Zion, seeing the presence of God within her. Let the heavenly things harmonize today with the earthly, and let the Jerusalem above sing with the Jerusalem below, on account of Christ who is in her, both heavenly and earthly. O heavenly ones, B O intellectual powers, dance around; O earthly ones, you who are upon the earth, sing with the angels.
II. For today the God of gods has appeared in Zion; today glorious things have been spoken of you, O city of God, Jerusalem, the city of the great King. Open C your gates to Him who opened to all the gates of paradise, and who, upon the Cross, opened the gates of the graves, and who smashed the gates of Hades that had been barred for ages, and who miraculously closed the gates of virginity. Today, He who formerly spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai in a manner worthy of God, fulfills the Law, having become under the Law, in a manner befitting a servant. Today God from Theman comes into Zion; today the heavenly bridegroom, with the Mother of God, his bridal chamber, arrives in the temple. Daughters of Jerusalem, come out to meet Him; light your lamps brightly for the true light; prepare the tunics of your souls for the bridegroom, Christ.
III. D Together with Zion, let the nations of the Gentiles come forth, bearing light; let us enter into the temple, together with the temple, and with God and Christ. Together with the angels, let us shout the hymn of the angels: "Holy, holy, holy Lord Sabaoth; the heaven and the earth are full of His glory." The ends of the world are full of His goodness; the whole creation is full of His praise; the whole human race is full of His condescension. The heavenly things, the earthly things, the infernal things are full of His compassion; they are full of His mercy, full of His pity, full of His gifts, full of His benefits.
IV. Therefore, A "O all you nations, clap your hands." "All the ends of the earth, come and see the works of God." "Let every spirit praise the Lord." "Let all the earth adore." Let every tongue sing; let all psalmody; let all glorify the child God, forty days old, yet older than the ages; a small child, yet the Ancient of Days; a suckling child, yet the Creator of the ages. I behold an infant, and I recognize my God. An infant suckling, yet the one who sustains the world; an infant wailing, yet the one who bestows life and joy upon the world; an infant swaddled, yet the one who delivers me from the swaddling bands of sin; an infant in the arms of his mother, truly with flesh, without failing, upon the earth; and the same one is in the bosom of the Father, truly and without failing, in the heavens.
V. I see an infant passing from Bethlehem B to Jerusalem, yet in no way departing from the Jerusalem above. I see an infant, according to the prescription of the Law, offering a sacrifice in the temple upon the earth, but the same one receiving the pious sacrifices of all in the heavens; the same one in the arms of the elder in accordance with the dispensation, and the same one upon the cherubic thrones in accordance with the divine majesty; the same one being offered and sanctified, and the same one sanctifying and purifying all things. He is the gift, and he is the temple; he is the high priest, and he is the altar; he is the propitiatory. He is also the one who offers, and he is the one who is offered as a sacrifice for the world, and he is the wood of life and of knowledge. He is the Lamb, and he is the fire; he is the whole burnt offering. C D
A He is the holocaust, and he is the sword of the Spirit. He is the shepherd, and he is the lamb himself; he is the same who sacrifices, and he is the same who is sacrificed; he is the one who is offered, and he is the one who receives the sacrifice. He is the Law, and he is the same who has now been made under the Law.
VI. Come now, let us hear what pertains to the present day from the holy Gospels. For the admirable Luke says concerning Christ: "After the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; as it is written in the law of the Lord: Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord." Samuel, indeed, and Isaac, together with Jacob, Joseph, and others who were born of sterile women beyond hope and who opened the barren wombs of their mothers, were called B holy to the Lord. But Christ, who as the only begotten of the one and only, was born of the virgin alone and did not open the virginal gates, shall be called, and shall be believed in, and shall be worshipped not merely as "Holy to the Lord," but as the Holy of holies, and Lord of lords, and God of gods, and the firstborn of the firstborn, and prince of princes, and king of kings; and even now he shall be proclaimed by Simeon in the temple.
VII. "There was," it says, "a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and this man was just, and the Holy Spirit was in him. And it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came in the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the C custom of the law, Simeon also himself took him into his arms, and blessed God, and said: Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace; because my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." Who shall speak of the mighty acts of the Lord, and shall make all his praises to be heard? He who holds the whole earth in his D fist, [is carried] in the arms of an old man.
and He who bears all things by the word of His power is sustained.
VIII. Let Adam exult through Symeon, addressing Christ in these words: "Now you dismiss your servant, O Master, according to your word, in peace B. Now you release me from eternal bonds; now you release me from corruption; now you deliver me from death; now you release me from grief, you who are my Son and God." Symeon, taking Him in his arms in the temple, and announcing to all nations and to the Jews the strange mystery of the economy of the flesh, leaps for joy and exults; and with a bright and resounding voice he cries out concerning Him, saying: "This is He who is, and who was before, and who is ever present with the Father; consubstantial, sharing the same throne, the same glory, of the same power, of equal power, omnipotent, without beginning, uncreated, immutable, uncircumscribed, invisible, ineffable, incomprehensible, untouchable, beyond thought, beyond all conjecture."
IX. This is the radiance of the paternal glory; this is the character C of the constitution of all things. This is the light of lights, rising from the paternal bosom; this is the God of gods, and recognized as God from God. This is the fountain of life, proceeding from a fountain, the life of the Father; this is the river of God, proceeding from the divine abyss, but not separated from it. This is the treasury of paternal goodness and of everlasting blessedness; this is the water of life, and that which bestows life upon the world. This is that uncreated ray, born from the light before the sun, but not divided D from it.
A He is the God the Word, who by his word alone made all things out of non-existent things to be; he is the morning star, who before the morning star distinguished the powers and orders of the incorporeal, celestial, and invisible hosts; he is the one who alone stretched out the heaven, and walks upon the sea as if upon dry ground; he is the one who wrapped the abyss in a cloud as if in a garment; he is the one who established the earth upon the waters; he is the one who walled in the sea with sand; he is the one who divided the light from the darkness; he is the one who arranged the cyclical decoration of the stars; he is the one who established the entire universe, both visible and intelligible, in wisdom; he is the one who with uncreated hands fashioned and formed man from clay; he is the one who created us according to the image of God, and now he himself has become man according to our image. Man, but truly also the same God; man as to what is seen, entirely just as I myself am with all that is mine, so that by cleansing me he might save me: God as to what is understood, having essence complete from the complete Father. Who, existing in the sovereign form of God, has now taken my servile form; not diminishing the dignity of his divinity, but sanctifying the mass of my nature; who is recognized as entirely in the heights, and likewise entirely here in these lower places: born above without time, and below without man as a creature, as man.
C XI. Hear these things, all ye nations: hear, Israel: the Lord thy God, this is he whom I, thy priest Symeon, bearing in my arms, proclaim with a great voice, testifying to the people in the temple. Therefore attend, my people, to my word: incline your ear to the words of my mouth. This is the child concerning whom Isaiah prophesied, saying, A child is born to us, a son is given to us: and his name is called the angel of great counsel (that is, the counsel of the Father), wonderful, counselor, mighty God, exercising power.
A If, therefore, this child is mighty God, it was surely of him that David spoke: "God shall be seen, the God of gods, in Sion." Concerning this child B Jeremiah cries out, that "God has appeared on earth, and has lived among men."
XII. This child is he who of old divided the sea for Israel, and drowned Pharaoh; who gave the Law to the Israelites, and rained down manna, and guided the race of the Hebrews with a pillar of fire, and cleft the rock, and kept the bush unconsumed by the flame that was cool as dew. This child made Moses, at forty years of age, the slayer of the Egyptian; and he appointed him for forty years as a shepherd of sheep; and he established him for forty years as a leader for Israel; and he gave him power to fast for forty days—just as this child himself, after his baptism, fasted forty days; and after forty days from his resurrection from the dead, he ascended into the heavenly Jerusalem; and now, after forty days from his birth from the Virgin, he has entered into the earthly Jerusalem.
XIII. Concerning this child, Habakkuk foretold, saying: "God shall come from Thaeman," that is, from the South; for from the South of Jerusalem, he has now entered into Bethlehem and into Sion. For this reason, Moses testified to you concerning this child, saying: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from among your brethren; and whoever shall not hear him, his soul shall be destroyed." C It was of this child that the prophet David prayed, saying: "Thou who sittest upon the cherubim, appear. Stir up thy power, and come to save us"; and again: "Let thy mercies speedily prevent us, O Lord"; and again: "O Lord, bow thy heavens and descend"; and elsewhere: "Thou, O Lord, D our savior."
A Deus virtutum, intende ad visitandas omnes gentes. Idcirco intelligite, gentes, ac vincimini.
XIV. See, O Jews, and be persuaded, that this child is praised by angels; the archangels worship him; the powers tremble before him; the virtues glorify him; the cherubim serve him; the seraphim proclaim his divinity. The sun serves him; the moon ministers to him; the elements obey him; the fountains are subject to him. When the gates of hell saw this child, they were broken; but the heavenly gates were opened, and hell, seeing him, trembled. This child abolished death, confounded the devil, dissolved the curse, put an end to sorrow, crushed the serpent, broke down the middle wall of partition, tore up the evil handwriting of sins, trampled upon sin, destroyed error, and raised up creation. This child saved Adam, refashioned Eve, called the nations, and illuminated the world. B
XV. Therefore come also, you who love Christ and love God; let us all, bright and pure, meet the Lord and Master in his encounter; not legally, but spiritually; not indulging in the pleasures of the belly, but leaping in the spirit; not drunken with wine, but fervent in the spirit. Thus, today, let us brightly adorn our lamps; thus, as sons of light, let us bring our candles to the true light, Christ; for "a light to the revelation of the nations" has appeared to the world. Therefore, as lights from light, let us shine more brightly than snow, C more curdled than milk, more lucent than the sapphire stone; flying into the heavens like spotless doves, let us go out in the clouds to meet the Lord.
XVI. May we all, both today and always... D
APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF ST. CYRIL
A festal duties are ours, let us cry aloud. With the angels let us join in the dance; with the shepherds let us be enlightened; with the Magi let us offer worship; with Bethlehem let us keep the feast; with Zion let us meet the Lord; with the temple let us be sanctified; with the Virgin let us magnify and rejoice. With Joseph let us offer, as two turtledoves, the soul and the body; with Symeon let us embrace Christ, and with Anna let us give thanks, so that we may be admitted to the inheritance of eternal blessings, by the grace and mercies and loving-kindness of the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ. To whom be glory and dominion, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
FRAGMENT ATTRIBUTED TO ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM BY ST. THOMAS
(Opusculum against the Errors of the Greeks, Ch. 67, Vol. XVII, p. 9, col. 1)
Item, Cyril of Jerusalem, the patriarch, speaks in the person of Christ [to Peter]: "You are finite, and I am infinite with all those in whose place I set you; fully and perfectly, in sacrament and authority, I will be with them, just as I am with you."
Launoy, in his epistle to Paul Ratuyn, a Parisian theologian, in which he examines many similar testimonies brought forward by St. Thomas in his *Opusculum against the Errors of the Greeks*, proves that this also is a forgery. For, first, the work from which St. Thomas derived it—or rather, the one who adorned this collection of testimonies which the holy Doctor defends and explains in this *Opusculum*—is not identified; second, excessive affectation is evident in this testimony, so that certain traces of fraud appear; third, the authenticity of these testimonies was not fully explored by St. Thomas himself, since in his preface to Urban IV, he confesses that he undertook the *Opusculum* in order to remove the offense which seemed to reside in these testimonies.
CHRONOLOGY INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME OF ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM
This Chronology is taken from the codex of the most eminent Cardinal Ottoboni, marked 25, table 5. That this is not Cyril's Chronology is evidenced by the fact that this computation differs greatly from the Chronicle of Eusebius, which Cyril followed. Yet, I did not think it should be passed over in this appendix.
From Adam until the flood are 2150 years. From the flood until Abraham are 1270 years. From Isaac until David are 1020 years. From Solomon until the captivity are 560 years. The years of the captivity are 70. From the captivity of the Jews until Christ, are 430 years. The sum total is 5500 years.
SPURIOUS EPISTLES. SPURIOUS LETTERS OF S. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM TO POPE JULIUS, AND OF JULIUS TO CYRIL.
369 ADMONITION.
A I. In these epistles, Cyril of Jerusalem—or, according to another exemplar, Juvenal, one of his successors—is introduced as asking Julius of Rome to inquire, in the commentaries of the Jews carried off to Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem, concerning the true day of Christ's nativity. For since the Church of Jerusalem celebrated this day on the sixth of January, together with the feast of Christ's baptism, it was extremely inconvenient for the bishop that, on the same day, he had to hasten to Bethlehem and to the Jordan, so that each solemnity could be celebrated in the proper places of their mysteries; for which reason, it was necessary for the sacred readings and the other duties of the holy assembly to be truncated and shortened. It is said, indeed, that Julius replied that he had discovered in the aforementioned commentaries that Christ was born on the 25th of December; for which reason, the festivals were to be separated, having been wrongly joined together by mistake.
B II. The authenticity of this fact depends upon a twofold monument: 1° On the authority of John, Bishop of Nicaea (who lived in the beginning of the tenth or eleventh century), who makes mention of these letters, which had been reduced to an epitome, in his epistle to Zacharias, the Catholic of Greater Armenia, concerning the nativity of Christ; published by Combefis in Vol. II of the *Auctarium Bibliothecae Patrum Graeco-Latini*, p. 302, from the Royal codex once marked 696, now 2428, folio 149. 2° The same matter is contained in an anonymous writing whose title is *Ἀναγκαία διήγησις*, or "Necessary Narrative," of the same codex, fol. 120, which was edited by Cotelier in the notes to the *Apostolic Constitutions*, book v, chap. 13. There is some disagreement between both authors; but that especially, that the Nicene says Cyril wrote to Pope Julius, while the anonymous writer asserts that Juvenal did so. But the hallucination of the anonymous writer is ridiculous, supposing that Juvenal wrote to Julius almost a hundred years after the latter was deceased. No better chronologer is John of Nicaea, who relates that not our Cyril, but another of the same name, his successor, wrote to Julius. In truth, it is read in Epiphanius (Haer. LXVI, no. 20) that another Cyril, different from ours, occupied the see of Jerusalem during the times of Valens, while ours was in exile. Verily, even if it were necessary to distinguish two Cyrils, if any one of them wrote to Julius, it could not be anyone other than our own; the beginnings of whose episcopate coincide with the final years of the pontificate of Julius. But that other Cyril could not possibly have written to Julius, since Julius died in the year 352, whereas our Cyril became bishop in the preceding year and, not until six years later, was he driven from his seat by invaders—not to mention that the other Cyril, if he existed, was tainted by the company of the Arians, according to Epiphanius, and appears to have had no communion with the Roman pontiffs. I omit the other mistake of the Nicene, which may perhaps be an error of the scribes, that he reports that Cyril wrote the former to Constantine; for he indicates that the letter concerning the apparition of the cross was given to Constantius.
C III. This contradiction of the primary authors of this history, and the manifest errors by which they are held, undermine its credibility entirely. It is asked, however, whether these are to be counted altogether as Greek fables, or whether there is some truth in them, corrupted by the anachronisms and changes of names of the more recent Greeks? And indeed, my argument on this matter consists in these points. It seems certain that Cyril never consulted Julius on this question, nor did he separate the feasts of the Theophany and the Lights into different days. For the author of the Latin homily *On the Nativity of the Lord* at chapter II of Luke, which is found in Latin editions of Saint Chrysostom, while arguing that both these feasts must be separated, objects to himself the authority and tradition of the Orientals, among whom the mysteries were performed. At that time, therefore—namely, in the fourth century or at the beginning of the fifth—the Church of Jerusalem celebrated the Nativity of Christ on the 6th of January; the authority of which the aforementioned author contends should be entirely neglected. Furthermore, Basil of Seleucia, in the panegyric on Saint Stephen, which was published separately from his Works by Combefis in the *Bibliotheca Concionatoria*, while praising Juvenal, says that he began to celebrate the glorious and salutary Nativity of the Lord in 370; which I understand to refer to the separation of the Nativity from the feast of Baptism. He may have consulted the Romans concerning this matter; or perhaps, on the occasion of this innovation, an epistle was forged by the Greeks under his name to Julius, which has even been attributed by the ignorant to Cyril.
D IV. If we come to the matters contained in these epistles: what is said about the commentaries on Jewish affairs being carried to Rome and kept there, given the sole authority of these letters, can hardly find belief. That work of Josephus, also, in which the vision of Zacharias and the promise made to him by the angel of his future offspring is contained, can be seen as completely forged; since in the *Antiquities*—in which the holiness of John the Baptist is magnificently commended—Josephus says nothing of the birth promised through the vision. Otherwise, that apparition in the feast of Expiation supposes that which is false.
APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF ST. CYRIL. 1207
[1207]...is that Zacharias the high priest, to whom alone it was permitted to enter the inner part of the temple within the veil on that feast day, was the one who appeared. This opinion, since it seems to have some foundation in the words of holy Luke and is indeed supported by the testimony of certain Fathers, is nevertheless proved false by the most certain monuments: for Zacharias did not cross the veil, but offered incense at the altar of incense placed outside the veil. These letters are therefore entirely supposititious under the name of Cyril; but we have deemed that they should not be excluded from this appendix.
Compendium of the supposititious letters of St. Cyril of Jerusalem and of Pope Julius. From the work of John of Nicaea, in a letter to Zacharias, Catholicos of Greater Armenia, edited by Combefis in *Auctarium Bibl. PP. Græco-Lat.*, vol. II, p. 302.
A Cyril, not the one who wrote the letter to Constantius, but he who succeeded him in his see, once wrote to Julius, Bishop of Rome, in these words: "Great labor and loss occur during the great and solemn feasts, because they are celebrated on a single day. For the readings and the order of the service for both feasts remain incomplete, because the Nativity and the Baptism of Christ cannot be celebrated [together]. Since, therefore, we cannot in one day reach Bethlehem and the place of the Baptism (for Bethlehem lies three miles to the south of Jerusalem, and the Jordan lies fifteen miles to the east), may your Holiness command that all the commentaries of the Jews be investigated, which Caesar Titus carried off as spoils from Jerusalem to Rome. Perhaps you may certainly find the day of the Nativity of Christ our God."
B Then Julius of Rome eagerly inquired regarding this request. And when he had collected all the writings of the Jews that had been captured and transported to Rome, he discovered a commentary by Josephus, the historian of the times, written by his own hand, in which it was contained that in the seventh month, on the feast of Scenopegia [or Tabernacles], on the day of Atonement, the angel of God appeared, and the priest was made mute, remaining without speech until that time when Elizabeth his wife gave birth in her old age.
371. The author of the writing in the Royal Library, codex 2428, fol. 120, which bears the title *A Necessary Narrative*, attributes this letter not to Cyril but to Juvenal. It was edited by Cotelerius in his notes to the *Apostolic Constitutions*, book V, ch. 13, p. 234, from a codex of the Royal Library, then 696, now 2428.
C Moreover, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Juvenal, wrote to the Roman Patriarch Julius concerning this matter: "I cannot betake myself in one day to Bethlehem and to the Jordan. For the Jordan is distant from the city [1208]...
east of the city A of Jerusalem at a distance of twenty-five miles, and holy Bethlehem six miles to the south of the city; and I cannot celebrate both feasts in one day. I therefore request your holiness, Father, that you search the records, or give to us, venerable one, from an accurate investigation via your writing, the information concerning these matters: on what day Christ the Lord was born, and on what day He was baptized. For we know accurately that the documents from the beginning were carried off from Jerusalem to Rome B by Titus and Vespasian.
Having received this letter, Julius, the patriarch of Rome, having searched the records, found that our Lord Jesus Christ was born on the twenty-fifth of December, and thirty years after His birth was baptized by John in the Jordan river on the sixth of the month of January. Therefore, when the Fathers had divided the feast according to this investigation, there was grumbling among many, etc.
SUPPOSITE EPISTLES.
SUPPOSITITIOUS EPISTLES OF SAINT AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO, TO CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, AND OF CYRIL TO AUGUSTINE.
NOTICE.
I have long hesitated whether to annex to the works of Cyril the foolish and insane inanities of that most wicked scoundrel who foisted these epistles onto the venerable names of the holy Fathers. Nothing could ever be imagined more tasteless or more criminal. Saint Augustine is introduced as inquiring of Cyril concerning the death of Jerome: whereas Augustine, at the time when Cyril died, had not yet been baptized in the holy font; and Jerome records the death of Cyril in his *Catalog of Ecclesiastical Writers*, and lived for many years after him, seeing two successors of Cyril. From another point of view, that ill-fated impostor was unskilled and ignorant of the Catholic faith, who concocted a false epistle of Cyril, while in chapter 4 he characterizes as a "pestiferous heresy" the most certain and Catholic dogma of the Church regarding the two wills of Christ. Because of this wickedness, the portents of signs and miracles which he relates are less intolerable, though they are devoid of every shred—I will not say of truth, but even of the color of truth. Behold these, lest you should miss in this appendix anything that bears the name of Cyril. They have been edited long ago, both in the appendices of Augustine and in those of Jerome.
*Of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, to Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, concerning the magnificence of the blessed Jerome.* Most glorious athlete of the Christian faith, etc. See *Patrologia Latina* volume XXXIII, col. 1120, in the Appendix to the epistles of Saint Augustine.
*Epistle of Blessed Cyril to Saint Augustine, concerning the miracles of the blessed priest Jerome celebrated after his death.* To the venerable man, that excellent bishop, the prelate Augustine of Hippo, Cyril, the pontiff of Jerusalem and lowest of all priests, the lowest, he says, who seeks to follow the footsteps of him whose holiness never ceases to shine upon the earth. To wit, that of the glorious Jerome, etc. (See ibid., col. 1126.)