CYRIL was born at or near the city of Jerusalem, about the year 315. So
perfectly was he versed in the holy scriptures, that many of his
discourses,{608} and some of these pronounced extempore, are only
passages of the sacred writings connected and interwoven with each
other. He had read diligently both the fathers and the pagan
philosophers. Maximus, bishop of Jerusalem, ordained him priest about
the year 345, and soon after appointed him his preacher to the people,
likewise his catechist to instruct and prepare the catechumens for
baptism; thus committing to his care the two principal functions of his
own pastoral charge. St. Cyril mentions his sermons to the faithful
every Sunday.[1] Catechumens ordinarily remained two years in the course
of instruction and prayer, and were not admitted to baptism till they
had given proof of their morals and conduct, as well as of their
constancy in the faith.[2] This office St. Cyril performed for several
years; but we have only the course of his catechetical sermons for the
year 348, or 347. Perhaps the others were never committed to writing. He
succeeded Maximus in the see of Jerusalem about the end of the year 350.
The beginning of his episcopacy was remarkable for a prodigy by which
God was pleased to honor the instrument of our redemption. It is related
by Socrates,[3] Philostorgius,[4] the chronicle of Alexandria, &c. St.
Cyril, an eye-witness, wrote immediately to the emperor Constantius, an
exact account of this miraculous phenomenon: and his letter is quoted as
a voucher for it by Sozomen,[5] Theophanes,[6] Eutychius,[7] John of
Nice,[8] Glycas, and others. Dr. Cave has inserted it at length in his
life of St. Cyril.[9] The relation he there gives of the miracle is as
follows: "On the nones (or 7th) of May, about the third hour, (or nine
in the morning,) a vast luminous body, in the form of a cross, appeared
in the heavens, just over the holy Golgotha, reaching as far as the holy
mount of Olivet, (that is, almost two English miles in length,) seen not
by one or two persons, but clearly and evidently by the whole city. This
was not, as may be thought, a momentary transient phenomenon: for it
continued several hours together visible to our eyes, and brighter than
the sun; the light of which would have eclipsed it, had not this been
stronger. The whole city, struck with a reverential fear, tempered with
joy, ran immediately to the church, young and old, Christians and
heathens, citizens and strangers, all with one voice giving praise to
our Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the worker of miracles;
finding by experience the truth of the Christian doctrine, to which the
heavens bear witness." He concludes his letter with wishes that the
emperor may always glorify the holy and consubstantial Trinity.[10]
Philostorgius and the Alexandrian chronicle affirm, that this cross of
light was encircled with a large rainbow.[11] The Greek church
commemorates this miracle on the 7th of May.
{609}
Some time after this memorable event, a difference happened between our
saint and Acacius, archbishop of Caesarea, first a warm Semi-Arian,
afterwards a thorough Arian. It began on the subject of metropolitical
jurisdiction, which Acacius unjustly claimed over the Church of
Jerusalem; and what widened the breach between them was their difference
of sentiments with regard to the consubstantiality of the Son, which St.
Cyril had always most zealously asserted.[12] This was sufficient to
render him odious in the eyes of Acacius, who in a council of Arian
bishops convened by him, declared St. Cyril deposed for not appearing,
after two years' warning, to answer to the crimes alleged against him.
One of them was that he had lavished away the goods of the Church, and
had applied its sacred ornaments to profane uses. The ground of the
accusation was, that, in time of a great famine at Jerusalem, he had
sold some of the Church plate, and precious stuffs, to relieve the wants
of the poor. St. Cyril, not looking upon the members of the council as
qualified judges, appealed to higher powers,[13] but yielding to
violence withdrew to Antioch, and thence removed to Tarsus, were he was
honorably entertained by the bishop Sylvaims, and had in great respect,
notwithstanding the sentence of Acacius and his council against him.
Here living in communion with Sylvanus, Eustathius of Sebaste, Basil of
Ancyra. and others, who soon after appeared at the head of the
Semi-Arian faction, this gave rise to the calumny that St. Cyril himself
had espoused it. But nothing could be more falsely alleged against him,
he having always maintained the Catholic faith. He had accordingly, in
349, together with his predecessor Maximus, received the decrees of the
council of Sardica, and consequently those of Nice. And we have already
seen, in his letter to Constantius, that he made an undaunted profession
of the Consubstantial Trinity. To which we may add, that in the council
of Constantinople, in 381, he joined with the other bishops in
condemning the Semi-Arians and Macedonians. And the orthodox bishops
assembled in the same city, in 382, writing to pope Damasus and to the
western bishops, gave a most ample testimony to his faith, declaring,
"That the most reverend and beloved of God, Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem,
had been canonically elected by the bishops of the province, and had
suffered many persecutions-for the faith."[14] Upon the death of
Constantius, in 361, Julian the apostate, partly out of aversion to his
uncle, and partly in hopes to see the Christian sects and the orthodox
more at variance, suffered all the banished bishops to return to their
churches. Thus did God make use of the malice of his enemy to restore
St. Cyril to his see. He shortly after made him an eye-witness to the
miraculous manifestation of his power, by which he covered his
blaspheming enemies with confusion. The following most authentic history
of that remarkable event is gathered from the original records, and
vindicated against the exceptions of certain skeptics by Tillemont,[15]
and by our most learned Mr. Warburton, in his Julian. In vain had the
most furious tyrants exerted the utmost cruelty, and bent the whole
power which the empire of the world put into their hands, to extirpate,
if it had been possible, the Christian name. The faith increased under
axes, and the blood of martyrs was a fruitful seed, which multiplied
{610} the Church over all nations. The experience how weak and
ineffectual a means brute force was to this purpose, moved the emperor
Julian, the most implacable, the most crafty, and the most dangerous
instrument which the devil ever employed in that design, to shift his
ground, and change his artillery and manner of assault. He affected a
show of great moderation, and in words disclaimed open persecution; but
he sought by every foul and indirect means to undermine the faith, and
sap the foundations of the Christian religion. For this purpose he had
recourse to every base art of falsehood and dissimulation, in which he
was the most complete master. He had played off the round of his
machines to no purpose, and seemed reduced to his last expedient of the
pacific kind, the discrediting the Christian religion by bringing the
scandal of imposture upon its divine author. This he attempted to do by
a project of rebuilding the Jewish temple--which, if he could have
compassed, it would have sufficiently answered his wicked design; Christ
and the prophet Daniel having in express terms foretold not only its
destruction, which was effected by the Romans under Titus, but its final
ruin and desolation.
The Jewish religion was a temporary dispensation, intended by its divine
author, God himself, to prefigure one more complete and perfect, and
prepare men to embrace it. It not only essentially required bloody
sacrifices, but it enjoined a fixed and certain place for them to be
performed in; this was the temple at Jerusalem. Hence the final
destruction of this temple was he abolition of the sacrifices, which
annihilated the whole system of this religious institution. Whence St.
Chrysostom[16] shows that the destruction of Jerusalem is to be
ascribed, not to the power of the Romans, for God had often delivered it
from no less dangers; but to a special providence, which was pleased to
put it out of the power of human perversity to delay or respite the
extinction of those ceremonial observances. "As a physician," says that
father, "by breaking the cup, prevents his patient from indulging his
appetite in a noxious draught; so God withheld the Jews from their
sacrifices by destroying the whole city itself, and making the place
inaccessible to all of them." St. Gregory Nazianzen, Socrates,
Theodoret, and other Christian writers, are unanimous in what they say
of Julian's motive, ascribing to him the intention already mentioned, of
falsifying the scripture prophecies, those of Daniel and Christ, which
his actions sufficiently evidence. His historian, indeed, says, that he
undertook this work out of a desire of rendering the glory of his reign
immortal by so great an achievement:[17] but this was only an
after-thought or secondary motive; and Sozomen in particular assures us
that not only Julian, but that the idolaters who assisted in it, pushed
it forward upon that very motive, and for the sake thereof suspended
their aversion to the Jewish nation. Julian himself wrote a letter to
the body or community of the Jews, extant among his works,[18] mentioned
by Sozomen,[19] and translated by Dr. Cave, in his life of St. Cyril. In
it he declares them free from all exactions and taxes, and orders Julus
or Illus, (probably Hillel,) their most reverend patriarch, to abolish
the apostoli, or gatherers of the said taxes; begs their prayers, (such
was his hypocrisy,) and promises, after his Persian expedition, when
their temple should be rebuilt, to make Jerusalem his residence, and to
offer up his joint prayers together with them.
After this he assembled the chief among the Jews, and asked them why
they offered no bloody sacrifices, since they were prescribed by their
law. They replied, that they could not offer any but in the temple,
which then lay in ruins. Whereupon he commanded them to repair to
Jerusalem, rebuild {611} their temple, and re-establish their ancient
worship, promising them his concurrence towards carrying on the work.
The Jews received the warrant with inexpressible joy, and were so elated
with it, that, flocking from all parts to Jerusalem, they began
insolently to scorn and triumph over the Christians, threatening to make
them feel as fatal effects of their severity, as they themselves had
heretofore from the Roman powers.[20] The news was no sooner spread
abroad than contributions came in from all hands. The Jewish women
stripped themselves of their most costly ornaments to contribute towards
the expense of the building. The emperor also, who was no less impatient
to see it finished, in order to encourage them in the undertaking, told
them he had found in their mysterious sacred books that this was the
time in which they were to return to their country, and that their
temple and legal observances were to be restored.[21] He gave orders to
his treasurers to furnish money and every thing necessary for the
building, which would require immense sums: he drew together the most
able workmen from all quarters, and appointed for overseers persons of
the highest rank, placing at their head his intimate friend Alypius, who
had formerly been Pro-prefect of Britain; charging him to make them
labor in this great work without ceasing, and to spare no expense. All
things were in readiness, workmen were assembled from all quarters;
stone, brick, timber, and other materials, in immense quantities, were
laid in. The Jews of both sexes and of all degrees bore a share in the
labor; the very women helping to dig the ground and carry out the
rubbish in their aprons and skirts of their gowns. It is even said that
the Jews appointed some pickaxes, spades, and baskets to be made of
silver for the honor of the work. But the good bishop St. Cyril, lately
returned from exile, beheld all these mighty preparations without any
concern, relying on the infallible truth of the scripture prophecies:
as, that the desolation of the Jewish temple should last till the
end;[22] and that one stone should not be left on another;[23] and being
full of the spirit of God, he foretold, with the greatest confidence,
that the Jews, so far from being able to rebuild their ruined temple,
would be the instruments whereby that prophecy of Christ would be still
more fully accomplished than it had been hitherto, and that they would
not be able to put one stone upon another,[24] and the event justified
the prediction.
Till then the foundations and some ruins of the walls of the temple
subsisted, as appears from St. Cyril:[25] and Eusebius says,[26] the
inhabitants still carried away the stones for their private buildings.
These ruins the Jews first demolished with their own hands, thus
concurring to the accomplishment of our Saviour's prediction. Then they
began to dig the new foundation, in which work many thousands were
employed. But what they had thrown up in the day was, by repeated
earthquakes, the night following cast back again into the trench. "And
when Alypius the next day earnestly pressed on the work, with the
assistance of the governor of the province, there issued," says
Ammianus, "such horrible balls of fire out of the earth near the
foundations,[27] which rendered the place, from time to time,
inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen. And the victorious
element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent as it
were to drive them to a distance, Alypius thought proper to give over
the enterprise."[28] {612} This is also recorded by the Christian
authors, who, besides the earthquake and fiery eruption, mention storms,
tempests, and whirlwinds, lightning, crosses impressed on the bodies and
garments of the assistants, and a flaming cross in the heavens,
surrounded with a luminous circle. The order whereof seems to have been
as follows. This judgment of the Almighty was ushered in by storms and
whirlwinds, by which prodigious heaps of lime and sand and other loose
materials were carried away.[29] After these followed lightning, the
usual consequence of collision of clouds in tempests. Its effects were,
first the destroying the more solid materials, and melting down the iron
instruments;[30] and secondly, the impressing shining crosses on the
bodies and garments of the assistants without distinction, in which
there was something that in art and elegance exceeded all painting or
embroidery; which when the infidels perceived, they endeavored, but in
vain, to wash them out.[31] In the third place came the earthquake which
cast out the stones of the old foundations, and shook the earth into the
trench or cavity dug for the new; besides overthrowing the adjoining
buildings and porticoes wherein were lodged great numbers of Jews
designed for the work, who were all either crushed to death, or at least
maimed or wounded. The number of the killed or hurt was increased by the
fiery eruption in the fourth place, attended both with storms and
tempests above, and with an earthquake below.[32] From this eruption,
many fled to a neighboring church for shelter, but could not obtain
entrance; whether on account of its being closed by a secret invisible
hand, as the fathers state the case, or at least by a special
providence, through the entrance into the oratory being choked up by a
frighted crowd, all pressing to be foremost. "This, however," says St.
Gregory Nazianzen,[33] "is invariably affirmed and believed by all, that
as they strove to force their way in by violence, the _Fire_, which
burst from the foundations of the temple, met and stopped them, and one
part it burnt and destroyed, and another it desperately maimed, leaving
them a living monument of God's commination and wrath against sinners."
This eruption was frequently renewed till it overcame the rashness of
the most obdurate, to use the words of Socrates; for it continued to be
repeated as often as the projectors ventured to renew their attempt,
till it had fairly tired them out. Lastly, on the same evening, there
appeared over Jerusalem a lucid cross, shining very bright, as large as
that in the reign of Constantine, encompassed with a circle of light.
"And what could be so proper to close this tremendous scene, or to
celebrate this decisive victory, as the Cross triumphant, encircled with
the _Heroic_ symbol of conquest?"
This miraculous event, with all its circumstances, is related by the
writers of that age; by St. Gregory Nazianzen in the year immediately
following it; by St. Chrysostom, in several parts of his works, who says
that it happened not twenty years before, appeals to eye-witnesses still
living and young, and to the present condition of those foundations, "of
which," says he, "we are all witnesses;" by St. Ambrose in his fortieth
epistle, written in 388; Rufinus, who had long lived upon the spot;
Theodoret, who lived in the neighborhood in Syria; Philostorgius, the
Arian; Sozomen, who says many were alive when he wrote who had it from
eye-witnesses, and mentions the visible marks still subsisting;
Socrates, &c. The testimony of the heathens corroborates this evidence;
as that of Ammianus Marcellinus above quoted, a nobleman of the first
rank, who then lived in the court of Julian at Antioch and in an office
of distinction, and who probably wrote his {613} account from the letter
of Alypius to his master at the time when the miracle happened.
Libanius, another pagan friend and admirer of Julian, both in the
history of his own life, and in his funeral oration on Julian's death,
mentions these earthquakes in Palestine, but with a shyness which
discovers the disgrace of his hero and superstition. Julian himself
speaks of this event in the same covert manner. Socrates testifies, that
at the sight of the miracles, the Jews at first cried out that Christ is
God; yet returned home as hardened as ever. St. Gregory Nazianzen says,
that many Gentiles were converted upon it, and went over to the Church.
Theodoret and Sozomen say many were converted; but as to the Jews, they
evidently mean a sudden flash of conviction, not a real and lasting
conversion. The incredulous blinded themselves by various pretences: but
the evidence of the miracle leaves no room for the least cavil or
suspicion. The Christian writers of that age are unanimous in relating
it with its complicated circumstances yet with a diversity which shows
their agreement, though perfect, could not have been concerted. The same
is confirmed by the testimony of the most obstinate adversaries. They
who, when the temple at Daphne was consumed about the same time, by
lightning, pretended that it was set on fire by Christians, were not
able to suspect any possibility of contrivance in this case: nor could
the event have been natural. Every such suspicion is removed by the
conformity of the event with the prophecies: the importance of the
occasion, the extreme eagerness of Jews and Gentiles in the enterprise,
the attention of the whole empire fixed on it, and the circumstances of
the fact. The eruption, contrary to its usual nature, was confined to
one small spot; it obstinately broke out by fits, and ceased with the
project, and this in such a manner, that Ammianus himself ascribes it to
an intelligent cause. The phenomena of the cross in the air, and on the
garments, were admirably fitted, as moral emblems, to proclaim the
triumph of Christ over Julian, who had taken the cross out of the
military ensigns, which Constantine had put there to be a lasting
memorial of that cross which he had seen in the air that presaged his
victories. The same was again erected in the heavens to confound the
vanity of its impotent persecutor. The earthquake was undoubtedly
miraculous; and though its effects were mostly such as might naturally
follow, they were directed by a special supernatural providence, as the
burning of Sodom by fire from heaven. Whence Mr. Warburton concludes his
dissertation on this subject with the following corollary. "New light
continually springing up from each circumstance as it passes in review,
by such time as the whole event is considered, this illustrious miracle
comes out in one full blaze of evidence."[34] Even Jewish Rabbins, who
do not copy from Christian writers, relate this event in the same manner
with the fathers from their own traditions and records.[35] This great
event happened in the beginning of the year 363. St. Chrysostom admires
the wonderful conduct of divine providence in this prodigy, and
observes, that had not the Jews set about to rebuild their temple, they
might have pretended they could have done it: therefore did God permit
them thrice to attempt it; once under Adrian, when they brought a
greater desolation upon themselves; a second time under Constantine the
Great, who dispersed them, cut off their ears, and branded their bodies
with the marks of rebellion. He then relates this third attempt, "in our
own time," as he says, "not above twenty years ago, in which God himself
visibly baffled their endeavors, to show that no human power could
reverse his decree; and this at a time {614} when our religion was
oppressed, lay under the axes, and had not the liberty even to speak;
that impudence itself might not have the least shadow of pretence."
St. Cyril adored the divine power in this miracle, of which he had
ocular demonstration. Orosius says that Julian had destined him to
slaughter after his Persian expedition, but the death of the tyrant
prevented his martyrdom. He was again driven from his see by the Arian
emperor, Valens, in 367, but recovered it in 378, when Gratian, mounting
the throne, commanded the churches to be restored to those who were in
communion with pope Damasus. He found his flock miserably divided by
heresies and schisms under the late wolves to whom they had fallen a
prey; but he continued his labors and tears among them. In 381 he
assisted at the general council of Constantinople, in which he condemned
the Semi-Arians and Macedonians, whose heresy he had always opposed,
though he had sometimes joined their prelates against the Arians before
their separation from the church, as we have seen above; and as St.
Hilary, St. Meletius, and many others had done. He had governed his
church eight years in peace from the death of Valens, when, in 386, he
passed to a glorious immortality, in the seventieth year of his age. He
is honored by the Greeks and Latins on this day, which was that of his
death.
Footnotes:
1. Cat. 5, 10, 14.
2. See Fleury, Moeurs des Chretiens, p. 42.
3. B. 2, c. 28.
4. Ib. 3, c. 26.
5. Ib. 5, c. 5.
6. Ad an. 353.
7. Annal. p. 475.
8. Auetuar. Combefis, t. 2, p. 382.
9. T. 2, p. 344.
10. [Greek: Ten homousion Triada]. This is an argument of his firm
adherence to the Nicene faith, and that by the praises which he
bestows on an Arlan emperor in this piece, he meant not to flatter
him in his heterodox sentiments; they being only compliments of
course in an address to an eastern emperor, and his own sovereign.
11. Certain moderns imagine that the luminous crosses which appeared in
the air in the reigns of Constantine and Constantius were merely
natural solar halos; and that under Julian, which appeared in the
night, a lunar halo, or circle of colors, usually red, round those
celestial bodies. But in opposition to this hypothesis we must
observe that those natural phenomena do not ordinarily appear in the
figure of a cross, but of a ring or circle, as both experience and
the natural cause show. We ought also to take nonce, that this
prodigy appeared thrice in the same century, and always on
extraordinary occasions, in which many circumstances rendered a
miraculous manifestation of the divine power highly credible.
Moreover, how will these secretaries and confidents of the intrigues
of nature, as Mr. Warburton styles them, account for the
inscription, _In this conquer_, which was formed in bright letters
round the cross, which appeared in the air to Constantlne and his
whole army, as that emperor himself affirmed upon oath, and as
Eusebius assures us from his testimony, and that of other
eye-witnesses. (l. 1, de Vit. Constant., c. 28, olim 22.) Fabricius
very absurdly pretends that [Greek: graphen] may here signify an
emblem, not an inscription. Mr. Jor tin, after taking much pains on
this subject, is obliged to confess (vol. 3, p. 6) that, "After all,
it seems more natural to interpret [Greek: graphen legousan] of a
writing than of a picture. It is an ugly circumstance," says this
author, "and I wish we could fairly get rid of it." Those who can
explain the scripture account of the passage of the Israelites
through the Red Sea by a natural strong wind, and an extraordinary
ebbing of the waters, can find no knot too hard for them. To deny a
supernatural interposition they can swallow contradictions, and
build hypotheses far more wonderful than the greatest miracles.
12. Sozomen indeed says, (b. 4, c. 24,) that Acacius fought for
Arianism, Cyril for Semi-Arianism: but this is altogether a mistake.
For Acacius himself was at that time a Semi-Arian, and in 341, in
the council of Antioch, affirmed Christ to be like, though not equal
to his Father. It was only in 358, that he closed in with Eudoxius,
and the other rigid Arians. And as to St. Cyril, it is also clear
from the facts above mentioned, and from his writings, that he
always professed the Catholic faith with regard to the article of
the Consubstantiality of the Son of God. This is demonstrated by Dom
Toutee, in his life of St. Cyril, and by his colleague Dom Mares, in
his dissertation on the Semi-Arians, printed at Paris, in 1721, to
vindicate this father against a certain author in the memoirs of
Trevoux, an 1721.
13. Sozom. b. 4, c. 24.
14. Apud Theod. Hist. b. 5, c. 9.
15. Tillem. t. 7, p. 409.
16. Hom. 6, adv. Judae, t. 1, p. 646, ed. Ben.
17. Amm. Marcell. l. 3, c. 1.
18. Ep. 25, p. 153.
19. Soz. l. 5, c. 22.
20. It was about this time that the Jews demolished the great church of
Alexandria, two more at Damascus, and others elsewhere.
21. Naz. Or. 4, adv. Julian.
22. Dan. ix. 27.
23. Matt. xxiv. 2.
24. Rufin. Hist. l. 10, c. 37.
25. Catech. 15, n. 15.
26. Dem. Evang. l. 8, p. 406.
27. Out of the very foundations themselves, according to St. Chrysostom,
Sozomen, and Theodoret.
28. Hocque modo elemento destinatius repellente. Amm. Marcel. l. xxiii.
c. 1. A very emphatical expression in the mouth of a pagan. He seems
by it to ascribe sense to the element, by which he discovers the
finger of God visibly detesting the obstinacy of the undertaking,
and a renewal of the eruption so often, till it overcame the
rashness of the most obstinate.
29. Theod. Hist. l. 3, c. 20.
30. Soc. lib. 3, c. 20.
31. St. Greg. Naz Or. 4 adv. Julian. Theodoret, indeed, says that these
crosses were shaded with s dark color: but this without any real
contradiction to St. Gregory's relation of the matter, because, like
the phosphorus, they were {} a darkish hue by day, and lucid by
night.
32. St. Greg. Naz. Or. 9.
33. Or. 4. adv. Julian.
34. This learned author demonstrates, lib. 2, ch. 4, that the exceptions
of Mr. Basnage are founded on glaring mistakes and
misrepresentations of his authorities.
35. See Warburton, p. 88.