Bible Dictionaries
Cyrillus, Archbishop of Alexandria

Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

Search for…

Enter query below:

or

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V Z

Prev Entry
Cyrillus (13), Hagiologist

Next Entry
Cyrillus, Bishop of Jerusalem

Resource Toolbox

Print Article

Cyrillus (7) , St., archbp. of Alexandria. He was a native of Alexandria, and had learned theology under monastic discipline in "the desert." During this period he had been reproved by Isidore of Pelusium, who was for years his venerated monitor, for occupying himself, even in "solitude," with worldly thoughts and interests (Isid. Ep. i. 25); and it is evident from his whole career that so strong a will and so vehement a nature could never be thoroughly satisfied with a life of contemplation. After five years' abode in mount Nitria, his uncle, the then archbp. Theophilus, summoned him to Alexandria, where he was ordained, and expounded and preached with great reputation (Neale, Hist. Alex. i. 226). Theophilus died Oct. 15, a.d. 412. Cyril was put forward for the vacant chair; and after a tumultuous contest was enthroned, three days after his uncle's death. (See his first Paschal homily.) His episcopate, begun in trouble and discord, seemed at first to forebode nothing better than a course of violent and untempered zeal, as if the fierce spirit of Theophilus were governing his conduct. He shut up the chamber of the Novatianists, took away their "sacred treasure," and deprived their bishop, Theopemptus, of all his property (Socr. vii. 7). He then made an attack upon the large body of Jewish residents. They had provoked him by implacable hostility. One Hierax, a schoolmaster, always foremost in applauding Cyril's sermons, was denounced by the Jews as an encourager of sedition when he was in the theatre at the promulgation of a prefectorial edict. Orestes, the prefect, who hated Cyril as a formidable rival potentate, had Hierax publicly tortured in the theatre. Cyril thereupon tried the effect of menaces on the principal Jews of Alexandria. This only increased their bitterness; they began to organize plots against the Christians; and one night a cry rang through the streets that "Alexander's church was on fire." The Christians rushed to save their sanctuary: the Jews, recognizing each other, as prearranged, by rings made from the bark of palm branches, slew the Christians whom they met. At daybreak Cyril, at the head of an immense crowd, took forcible possession of the synagogues, expelled the Jews from the city and abandoned their property to plunder. Orestes, naturally indignant, complained to the emperor, Theodosius II., then a boy of fourteen. Cyril addressed to the court an account of the Jewish outrages, and, at the suggestion of the people, endeavoured to pacify the prefect. Orestes would not listen. Cyril extended to him, as a form of solemn appeal, the book of the Gospels; it might well have occurred to Orestes that the archbishop had forgotten some of its precepts when he in person led a multitude of Christian zealots to revenge one violence by another. The gifted female philosopher, Hypatia, the boast of Alexandrian paganism, was dragged from her carriage into the great Caesarean church, where her body was torn to pieces. This hideous crime, done in a sacred place and in a sacred season—it was the Lent of 415—brought, as Socrates expresses it (vii. 15), "no small reproach on Cyril and the church of the Alexandrians." Was this foul murder what Gibbon calls it, an "exploit of Cyril's"? Did he take any part in it, or approve it ex post facto ? It has been said that "Cyril was suspected, even by the orthodox, of complicity in the murder" (Stanley's Lect. on East. Ch. 293). Socrates, as sympathizing with the Novatianists, has been considered to do Cyril less than justice; but he does not suggest such a suspicion against him, or against the whole church of Alexandria. He says, fairly, that this church and its chief pastor were to some extent disgraced by such a deed of members of it. As for Damascius's assertion that Cyril really prompted the murder (Suidas, p. 1059), we cannot consider as evidence the statement of a pagan philosopher who lived about 130 years after the event, and was a thorough hater of Christianity. We are justified in regarding it, with Canon Robertson ( Hist. Ch. i. 401), as "an unsupported calumny"; but, as he adds, "the perpetrators were mostly officers of his church, and had unquestionably derived encouragement from Cyril's earlier proceedings; and his character deservedly suffered in consequence." The turbulent and furious "parabolani" and others, who shed Hypatia's blood at the foot of the altar, were but "bettering the instruction" which had let them loose upon the synagogues. Cyril's name has paid dearly for the error, and the great doctrinal cause which he upheld so stoutly in after-years has suffered for the faults of his earlier life.

It was but natural that the government should the next year restrain the clergy from political action, especially by restrictions on the number and conduct of the parabolani.

Cyril had inherited his uncle's animosity against John Chrysostom, who, in his opinion, had been canonically deposed; he rejected with bitterness the advice of Atticus of Constantinople to place "John's" name on his church diptychs (Ep. p. 204); and it was not until after the memory of that persecuted saint had been rehabilitated at Constantinople as well as at Antioch that the archbp. of Alexandria, urged by Isidore of Pelusium (Isid. i. 370), consented in 417 to follow these precedents. (See Tillemont, xiv. 281.)

We pass over several uneventful years during which Cyril doubtless occupied himself in ordinary church affairs and in theological literature and come to the great controversy with which his name is pre-eminently associated. In the end of 428 he became aware of the excitement caused in Constantinople by the preaching of archbp. Nestorius. The line of thought which Nestorius had entered upon (under the influence as it seems of Theodore of Mopsuestia) led him to explain away the mystery of the Incarnation by reducing it to a mere association between the Eternal Word and a human Christ. The Alexandrian see had agents at Constantinople and the denial by Nestorius and his supporters of the strict personal oneness between "God the Word" and the Son of Mary—expressed by the formula "Let no one call Mary Theotokos"—was an event which was certain to excite the vigilant zeal of a prelate like Cyril opposed alike by temperament and antecedents to whatever undermined the mysterious majesty of the Christian faith. Very early in Jan. 429 Cyril dealt with the subject in his Paschal letter or homily the 17th of the series; in which while affirming with great vividness and emphasis the reality and permanence of Christ's manhood he enforced the singleness of his Divine Personality and applied to His human mother in two distinct passages a phrase even stronger than "Theotokos"—μήτηρ Θεοῦ. About the end of Apr. 429 when the controversial sermons of Nestorius—exhibiting no little confusion of thought but clearly indicating a disbelief in what is theologically termed the Personal Union—had reached Egyptian monks Cyril wrote to all who within his jurisdiction were "practising the solitary life," a long letter upholding the term "Theotokos" in its true sense as not meaning "mother of the Godhead," but mother as regarded the manhood of Him Who being in the form of God assumed the form of a servant and being the Lord of Glory condescended to suffer the death of the cross. If it was true Cyril argued that Jesus Christ was God it was by consequence not less true that His mother was "Theotokos." If she was not rightly so called her Son was a human individual external to the divine nature and not in a true sense Emmanuel. This letter cites at length the Nicene Creed in its original form ignoring the alterations made by the council of Constantinople and insisting that the creed identified Jesus Christ with the Divine Co-essential Son. Nestorius was much displeased at the reception given to this letter by some official persons at Constantinople. He ordered one Photius to answer it and encouraged some Alexandrians residing at the imperial city who had been rebuked by Cyril for gross offences to prefer complaints against him (Mansi iv. 1003 887). On the other hand Cyril having also been interrogated by Celestine of Rome as to the genuineness of Nestorius's sermons wrote his first letter to Nestorius (Cyr. Ep. p. 19; Mansi iv. 883) the point of which was that the prevailing excitement had been caused not by the letter to the monks of Egypt but by Nestorius's own refusal to allow to Christ's mother a title which was the symbol of her Son's real Divinity. Cyril also referred to a work On the Holy and Co-essential Trinity which he himself had written in the lifetime of Nestorius's predecessor Atticus and in which he had used language on the Incarnation which harmonized with his letter to the monks. Nestorius replied very briefly and in a courteous tone; although he intimated dislike of what he deemed harsh in Cyril's letter (Cyr. Ep. p. 21; Mansi iv. 885). He evidently did not wish to quarrel with the see of Alexandria although he practised considerable severities on monks of his own city who withstood him to the face. Cyril too was not forward to press the controversy to extremes. During the latter part of 429 he was even blamed by some for inactivity. But he may have written at this period as Gamier thinks his "Scholia," or "Notes," on the Incarnation of the Only-begotten (Mar. Merc. ii. 216) and in Feb. 430 (probably after hearing how Nestorius had upheld a bishop named Dorotheus in his anathema against the word "Theotokos") he wrote in synod a second Ep. to Nestorius—the letter which became a symbolic treatise sanctioned by general councils. (See it in Cyr. Ep. p. 22; Mansi iv. 887; cf. Tillemont xiv. 338). Nothing can be more definite and luminous than his disclaimer of all Apollinarian notions which had been imputed by Nestorius to those who confessed the "Theotokos"; his explanation of the idea intended by that phrase; his peremptory exclusion of the theory of a mere association as distinct from a hypostatic or personal union and his not less emphatic assertion of the distinctness of the natures thus brought together in the one Christ. "Not that the difference of the natures was annulled by the union but rather that one Godhead and Manhood constituted the one Lord Jesus Christ by their ineffable concurrence into unity. . . . Thus we confess one Christ and Lord." The answer of Nestorius was characterized by ignoratio elenchi and could not be regarded as a satisfactory statement of belief (Cyr. Ep. p. 25; Mansi iv. 891). Cyril wrote another letter to some of his own clergy resident at Constantinople; the Nestorian argument from the impassibility of the Godhead he put aside as not to the purpose; and charged Nestorianism with making two Christs and two Sons (Cyr. Ep. p. 32; Mansi iv. 1003). This letter recognizes the proverbial eloquence of "John" Chrysostom and expresses the writer's desire for peace if peace could be had without a sacrifice of truth. He disapproved of a draft petition to the emperor sent him by these clerics as too vehement. In a similar strain he wrote to a common friend of Nestorius and himself declaring earnestly that he cared for nothing so much as the faith and desired that Nestorius might be preserved from the charge of heresy (Cyr. Ep. p. 31 Mansi iv. 899). A long letter "on the Right Faith," which he wrote about the same time to the emperor Theodosius contained an elaborate survey of former heresies and of the error now spreading in the church (Cyr. tom. v. par. 2; Mansi iv. 617). Cyril's keen-eyed speculative orthodoxy did not stand coldly apart from all care for practical religion. He felt the vital importance of his cherished doctrine in its bearings on the Christian life; he urged in this treatise that if the Word were not personally incarnate i.e. if the human Teacher and Sufferer were not really one with the eternal Son of God the faith of Christian men would be made void the work of their salvation annihilated and the cross lose its virtue. For the very principle of Christian redemption lay in this that it was one and the same "Ego" Who possessing by virtue of His incarnation at once a divine and a human sphere of existence could be at once the God of mankind and the Saviour Who died for them. In c. 21 he dwells in pursuance of this idea on the death of Christ as being a full satisfaction (δῶρον ἀληθῶς ἀντάξιον). This treatise contains an argument on which Cyril was never weary of insisting: it was particularly congenial to the depth and awe the richness and the tenderness of his thoughts on the great mystery of incorporation into Christ. >From the admitted truth that the flesh of Christ was received in the Eucharist as life-giving he argued that it must be in a real sense the flesh of God. In c. 6 of the treatise he says that Nestorians would not have erred by dwelling simply on the difference between the natures of "God" and "flesh"—that difference was undeniable; but they went on to assert an individual and separate being for the man Jesus as apart from the Divine Word and this was the very point of their heresy. In c. 27 he rises to almost Chrysostomic eloquence when he sets forth the superangelic greatness involved in the idea of "the Lord of Glory." Another treatise in two books was addressed to the princesses Pulcheria the gifted sister of the feeble emperor Arcadia and Marina (Cyr. tom. v. par. 2; Mansi iv. 679 seq.). In bk. i. he argued at length from Scripture for the oneness and Divinity of Christ for His position as the true object of faith and for His office as life-giver and atoner; and among the texts he urged were Heb_1:3; Heb_1:6; Heb_13:8; Tit_2:13; 1Co_2:8; 2Co_8:9; Eph_3:17; Gal_1:1; Php_2:6; Mat_11:28; Mat_16:16; Mat_16:20; Joh_1:14; Joh_17:3; 1Jn_5:5 (without the words about the "heavenly witnesses"). He laid great stress on the vastness of the claim advanced by and for Christ in Scripture and on the unreasonableness of demanding so absolute an obedience if He were not personally Divine. He asked how the death of a mere man could be of such importance for the race? Many a saint had lived and died but not one by dying had become the saviour of his fellows. He quoted nine passages from earlier writers in support of the term "Theotokos," or of the doctrine which it guarded. In bk. ii. he explained texts relied on by Nestorians including parts of Hebrews 2 and Mat_27:46 Luk_2:40; Luk_2:52 Joh_4:22 Mar_12:32; in the last text seeming to recognize as he does elsewhere (though sometimes favouring a different view) a limitation of knowledge in Christ's manhood analogous to His submission in His human sphere to pain and want and consistent with a perpetual omniscience in His Divine consciousness (ad Regin. ii. 17). In accordance with the emphatic assertion (ii. 7) of the value imparted to Christ's death by His Divinity the work concludes with "for all our hope is in Christ by Whom and with Whom," etc.

In these treatises, if some texts are strained beyond their natural meaning, there is yet a remarkable exhibition of acuteness and fertility of thought, pervaded and quickened by what Dorner calls Cyril's "warm interest" in Christianity as a religion. Probably c. Apr. 430 Cyril answered the letter of the Roman bishop, received a year before ( Ep. p. 26); he informed him that the main body of the faithful of Constantinople (acting on the principle fully recognized in the ancient church, that loyalty to the faith was a higher duty than ecclesiastical subordination) were holding off from the communion of Nestorius, but greatly needed support and countenance; and in very deferential terms asked Celestine to say whether any fellowship could be maintained by orthodox bishops with one who was disseminating heresy (Mansi, iv. 1011). With this letter he sent a series of passages illustrative of what Nestorius held and of what church-writers had taught, translated into Latin "as well as Alexandrians could" perform such a task, and to be shewn by his messenger Posidonius to Celestine, if the latter had received anything from Nestorius. One other letter of Cyril's belongs to the summer of 430: he addressed himself to the aged Acacius, bp. of Berrhoea, who communicated the letter to John, patriarch of Antioch, but informed Cyril that many who had come to Syria, fresh from the preaching of Nestorius, were disposed to think him not committed to heresy. It is observable that Cyril tells Acacius that some had been led on by Nestorianism into an express denial that Christ was God (see Mansi, iv. 1053).

We now reach a landmark in the story. On Aug. 11 430 Celestine having held a synod which pronounced Nestorius heretical gave Cyril a stringent commission (see this letter in Mansi iv. 1017) to "join the authority of the Roman see to his own" in warning Nestorius that unless a written retractation were executed within ten days giving assurance of his accepting the faith as to "Christ our God," which was held by the churches of Rome and Alexandria he would be excluded from the communion of those churches and "provision" would be made by them for the church of Constantinople i.e. by the appointment of an orthodox bishop. Had Cyril been as violent and imperious as he is often said to have been he would not have deferred by a single day the carrying out of these instructions. But he took time to assemble at Alexandria a "council of all Egypt," and then probably on Mon. Nov. 3 430 wrote his third Letter to Nestorius (Ep. p. 57; Mansi iv. 1067; Routh Scr. Op. ii. 17) in which he required him to anathematize his errors and added a long dogmatic exposition of the true sense of the Nicene Creed with a careful disclaimer of all confusion between Godhead and manhood. To this letter were appended 12 "articles," or "chapters," anathematizing the various points of the Nestorian theory—e.g. that Emmanuel is not really God and Mary not Theotokos; that the Word was not personally joined to flesh; that there was a "connexion" of two persons; that Christ is a "God-bearing man"; that He was a separate individual acted on by the Word and called "God" along with Him; that His Flesh was not the Word's own; that the Word did not suffer death in the flesh. These propositions were not well calculated to reclaim Nestorius; nor were they indeed so worded throughout as to approve themselves to all who essentially agreed with Cyril as to the Personal Deity of Christ and he was afterwards obliged to put forth explanations of their meaning. Cyril wrote two other letters to the clergy laity and monks of Constantinople urging them to contend or praising them for having already contended for that faith in Christ's true Godhead of which "Theotokos" was the recognized expression (Mansi iv. 1094). Four bishops were sent from Alexandria to bear the synodal documents to Constantinople and deliver the anathemas to Nestorius in his palace after the conclusion of the Eucharistic service either on Sun. Nov. 30 430 or Sun. Dec. 7. Nestorius met the denunciations of the Alexandrian synod by enlisting several Eastern bishops in his cause including John of Antioch and Theodoret who accused Cyril of Apollinarianism; by preaching in an orthodox strain to his own people and by framing 12 anathemas of his own some of which betrayed confusion of thought while some tended directly to confirm the charges against his teaching—e.g. he would not allow Emmanuel to be called Very God. Theodoret whose views on the subject were not as yet clear or consistent composed a reply to Cyril. Andrew of Samosata in the name of the "Eastern" bishops properly so called also entered the lists against the great theologian of Egypt who answered both his new antagonists in an Apology for the 12 articles (Mansi v. 19) and a Defence of them against Theodoret's objections the latter addressed to a bishop named Euoptius (Mansi v. 81). These treatises threw light on the state of mind to which Cyril's anathemas had seemed so offensive. The Easterns or Andrew speaking in their name exhibit some remarkable misconceptions of Cyril's meaning—e.g. they tax him with denying Christ's flesh to be of real human derivation; but they absolutely disclaim the view which would make Jesus merely a preeminent saint and they speak of worship being due to the One Son. Theodoret uses much language which is prima facie Nestorian; his objections are pervaded by an ignoratio elenchi and his language is repeatedly illogical and inconsistent; but he and Cyril were essentially nearer in belief than at the time they would have admitted (Hooker v. 53 4). for Theodoret virtually owns the personal oneness and explains the phrase "God assumed man" by "He assumed manhood." Both writers speak severely of each other: Theodoret calls Cyril a wolf and Cyril treats Theodoret as a calumniator. Cyril in his Reply to the Easterns and in his letter to Euoptius earnestly disclaims both forms of Apollinarianism—the notion of a mindless manhood in Christ and the notion of a body formed out of Godhead. The latter he says is excluded by Joh_1:14. In the reply (on art. 4) he admits "the language appropriate to each nature." Cyril points out the confusions of thought which had misled Theodoret as to "God" and "Godhead"; insists that the eternal Son retaining His divine dignity and perfections condescended to assume the limitations of manhood; and so (ad Euopt. 4 as in ad Regin. ii. 17 etc.) explains Mar_12:32 and says with a touch of devotional tenderness particularly refreshing amid the clash of polemics "He wept as man that He might stop thee from weeping. He is said to have been weak as to His manhood that He might put an end to thy weakness" (ad Euopt. 10). He adhered with characteristic definiteness to the point really involved—the question whether Jesus were a human individual (to be viewed ἰδικῶς as he repeatedly says) or whether He were the Divine Son Himself appearing in human form and occupying without prejudice to His inalienable and pre-existent majesty a human sphere of existence. In the former case the Son of Mary must be regarded simply as a very highly favoured saint and Christianity loses its distinctive power and preciousness; in the latter case He is a Divine Redeemer and Christianity is a Gospel worthy of the name. "Let us all acknowledge as Saviour the Word of God Who remained impassible in the nature of the Godhead but suffered as Peter said in the flesh. For by a true union that body which tasted death was His very own. Else how was "Christ from the Jews according to the flesh," and "God over all and blessed for ever amen"? and into Whose death have we been baptized and by confessing Whose resurrection are we justified? . . . The death of a mere man," etc. "or do we as is indeed the case proclaim the death of God Who became man and suffered for us in flesh and confessing His resurrection put away the burden of sin?" (ad Euopt.) To this same period or the preceding year (429) may be assigned Cyril's five books Against Nestorius. In these he comments on passages in Nestorius's sermons and by all forms of argument and illustration sets forth the question really at stake—Had the Divine Son Himself become incarnate or had He closely allied Himself to a man?

We must now return to the events of Nov. 430. Before the Egyptian deputies could reach Constantinople, Theodosius II. issued letters to the metropolitans of his empire, summoning them to meet at Ephesus in the Pentecost of 431, with such bishops as each might select, to hold a general council. This resolution, taken at the instance of Nestorius, had the effect of suspending all hostile action on the part of any individual bishop or provincial synod. Theodosius, who was prejudiced against Cyril, wrote sharply to him, censuring his "meddlesomeness" and "rashness," and complaining of his having written separately to the princesses. In compliance with the imperial order, Cyril arrived at Ephesus with 50 bishops, about June 2, 431. For the details of the history of the Ephesine Council, or third oecumenical synod, see art. "Ephesus, Councils of," in D. C. A. It is enough here to specify the occasions on which Cyril came prominently forward. A fortnight elapsed before the council was opened: Cyril, like other prelates, employed himself in strengthening the cause he had at heart by earnest addresses. After waiting long for the arrival of John of Antioch and his attendant bishops, Cyril received a cordial letter from his brother patriarch, announcing that he had been travelling incessantly for a month, and hoped to "embrace Cyril" in five or six days more ( Ep. p. 83). There also arrived two metropolitans, who bore from him a message to the bishops requesting them to proceed with business if he were delayed. The question at once arose—"Should the bishops wait any longer?" It would have been clearly better, even as a matter of policy, to wait a few days for John's arrival. The cause of orthodoxy could never be aided by its being associated with, to say the least, the appearance of unfairness or impatience. But Cyril and his suffragans were probably not at all desirous of John's presence, for they knew he would be hostile to the Cyrilline articles: they encouraged the idea that he was purposely loitering from reluctance to join in measures against Nestorius (an idea which appears to have been unfounded, Evagr. i. 3), and took advantage of the fact that other bishops were weary of waiting, the rather that illness, and even death, had occurred among them. So the council was opened on June 11, 431; and John's message, which evidently referred to a possible delay beyond the six days specified, was unjustifiably quoted to defend a refusal to wait even that period. In this it is impossible to acquit Cyril of blame; and the fault brought its own punishment in the confusions that ensued" (Neale, Hist. Alex. i. 259).

Cyril presided in the assembly; not in virtue of the commission from Celestine to act in his stead—which had been already acted upon in the Alexandrian council of Nov. 430—but as the prelate of highest dignity then present, and as holding the proxy and representing the mind of the Roman bishop, until the Roman legates should arrive (see Tillem. xiv. 393). Cyril called on the council to judge between himself and Nestorius: the main facts were stated by his secretary; when Nestorius refused to appear, Cyril's second letter to him was read, and at Cyril's request the bishops pronounced upon its orthodoxy, declaring it in entire accordance with the faith. His third letter was received merely with a tacit assent, which might be held to extend to the "articles." (The council professed afterwards, that it had approved Cyril's epistles; Mansi, iv. 1237.) After evidence as to Nestorius's opinions and the mind of orthodox Fathers had been laid before the council (great stress being doubtless laid on Nestorius's recent avowal, "I never will admit that a child of two or three months old was God," Mansi, iv. 1181, 1239), his deposition and excommunication were resolved on by the assembled bishops; and Cyril signed the sentence before his brethren in these words: "I, Cyril, bp. of Alexandria, sign, giving my judgment together with the council."

When the patriarch of Antioch with a few bishops arrived on June 26 or 27 in vexation at the course taken by the majority they held a "council" of their own and "deposed" Cyril and Memnon bp. of Ephesus imputing to the former not only Apollinarianism but also the heresy of the ultra-Arian rationalist Eunomius. On the other hand the council of Ephesus now reinforced by the Roman legates treated Cyril and Celestine as one in faith and proceeded to summon John—Cyril being disposed had not the bp. of Jerusalem prevented it to move for a sentence of deposition on the patriarch of Antioch after the first summons (see Mansi iv. 1311). Cyril repudiated and anathematized the heresies imputed to him and coupled with them the Pelagian errors and those of Nestorius. John of Antioch having disowned the council's summons was excommunicated with his adherents. Late in July count John the imperial high treasurer was sent by Theodosius to Ephesus with a letter in which Cyril Memnon and Nestorius were treated as deposed. Accordingly all three were arrested and guards slept at Cyril's chamber door. His opponents induced Isidore of Pelusium to write to him exhorting him to avoid the bad precedents of his uncle's violent conduct and not to give occasion for the charge of personal animosity (Ep. i. 310). Cyril for his part spoke in a letter to three of his suffragans then at Constantinople (Ep. p. 91) of infamous falsehoods circulated against him but detected by count John. He thanked God for having been counted worthy to suffer for His Name's sake not only bonds but other indignities. He received from a priest named Alypius a letter describing him in glowing terms as an imitator of Athanasius. While the two rival assemblies of bishops the council and the "conciliabulum," sent deputies to the court of Theodosius Cyril wrote an "Explanation" of his "articles," vindicating them against the charge of a confusion between the Godhead and the Manhood or of teaching inconsistent with the distinct existence of the latter in the one Divine Person of the Incarnate Lord. Theodosius finally ordered Cyril and his friends to return home but abstained from condemning the "Eastern" bishops who on their side complained of his partiality to their opponents. On Oct. 30 431 Cyril returned to Alexandria; and shortly afterwards Maximian a pious and simple-hearted man who by virtue of an imperial mandate had been consecrated to the see of Constantinople in the room of Nestorius announced his accession to Cyril who in his reply compared him to the faithful Eliakim invested with the stewardship of Hezekiah's household on the deprivation of the unworthy Shebna. This letter contained a statement of orthodox doctrine and a disclaimer of all ideas of "confusion" or "alteration" in the divine nature of the Word (Ep. p. 94 seq.; Mansi v. 257 seq.). Cyril next began a vindication of his conduct to be laid before the emperor (Mansi v. 225). Theodosius hoping for a reconciliation endeavoured to arrange a meeting between John and Cyril at Nicomedia. Cyril was now disposed to moderation and resolved to insist only upon the condemnation of Nestorius and the recognition of Maximian. The meeting it was found could not take place; but a council at Antioch framed six articles expressly rejecting those of Cyril while accepting Athanasius's letter to Epictetus as an exposition of Nicene orthodoxy. Cyril's reply shewed that he had mastered his tendency to vehement and unyielding self-assertion. He wrote to Acacius of Berrhoea the oldest bp. in Syria who had forwarded to him the six articles by the hands of the "tribune and notary" Aristolaus. Cyril's letter (preserved in a Lat. version in the "Synodicon," Mansi v. 831) is worth attention: he represented the impossibility of withdrawing what he had written against Nestorius—it would be easy to come to a good understanding about the "articles" of the Alexandrian synod if only the Easterns would accept the deposition of Nestorius. "Those who anathematize them will see that the meaning of the articles is directed solely against his blasphemies." For himself Cyril disavowed and condemned once more the heresies imputed to him and asserted the impassibility of the divine nature in Christ while insisting that He the Only-begotten Son Himself "suffered for us in the flesh," according to the words of St. Peter. This letter (referred to by Cyril in subsequent letters Ep. pp. 110 152 155) opened the way to his reconciliation with John. The latter although in his recent council he had bound himself to demand a recantation of the Cyrilline articles now declared that Cyril had fully cleared himself from all heretical opinions. After a conference with Acacius of Berrhoea John sent to Alexandria Paul bp. of Emesa a man of experience whom they both could trust to confer with Cyril (see Cyril's letters to Acacius and Donatus Ep. pp. 111 156). When Paul reached Alexandria Cyril was laid up with illness (Mansi v. 987) but when able received him as Paul himself said kindly and pacifically (Mansi v. 188). They began their conference: Paul presented to Cyril a confession of faith as exhibiting the mind of John of Antioch (Ep. p. 103); it had been originally written at Ephesus by Theodoret (Tillem. xiv. 531). "We confess," so ran this formulary "our Lord Jesus Christ the Only-begotten Son of God to be perfect God and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and a body before the ages begotten of the Father according to Godhead but in the last days Himself the self-same for us and for our salvation born of the Virgin Mary according to Manhood; of one essence with the Father as to Godhead of one essence with us as to Manhood. For there took place an union of two natures; wherefore we confess one Christ one Son one Lord. According to this idea of an union without confusion we confess the Holy Virgin to be Theotokos because God the Word was incarnate and made Man and from His very conception united to Himself the temple assumed from her." The formulary although it dwelt more than Cyril had been wont to do on the double aspect of the Incarnation was accepted by Cyril as representing Paul's own faith and he placed a corresponding statement in the hands of Paul. The latter asked whether he would stand by Athanasius's letter to Epictetus. "Certainly; but is your copy of it free of corruption?" Paul produced his copy; Cyril comparing it with the authentic text found that it had been tampered with (Mansi v. 325). After further conversation the two bishops agreed to "forget" the troubles of Ephesus. Paul gave Cyril a letter from John which though gentle and dignified in tone referred to the "articles" in language which annoyed Cyril and he spoke of the letter as "insulting." Paul soothed him with courteous assurances but Cyril proceeded to the point which John had ignored—the recognition of the deposition of Nestorius and the condemnation of his heresy. Paul offered to make such a declaration in John's name but Cyril promptly and keenly insisted that John himself should make it (ib. 313). Just as little could Cyril give way as to the four Nestorianizing metropolitans deposed by the new archbp. of Constantinople: that sentence he insisted must stand good (ib. 349). Paul then in writing satisfied Cyril as to his own orthodoxy and Cyril allowed him to join in the church-service of Alexandria even inviting him to preach on Christmas Day 432 in the great church (ib. 293). The bp. of Emesa began with the angelic hymn proceeded to the prophecy of Emmanuel and then said "Thus Mary Mother of God brings forth Emmanuel." A characteristic outbreak of orthodox joy interrupted the discourse. The people cried out "This is the faith! 'Tis God's own gift O orthodox Cyril! This is what we wanted to hear." Paul then went on to say that a combination of two perfect natures the Godhead and Manhood constituted "for us" the one Son the one Christ the one Lord. Again the cry arose "Welcome orthodox bishop!" Paul resumed his discourse and explained St. Peter's confession as implying a duality of nature and an unity of person in Christ. On New Year's Day 433 after alluding to Cyril as a kind-hearted trainer who had smiled upon his performance he preached at greater length on the unity of the Person and the distinctness of the natures as being co-ordinate and harmonious truths; and his teaching was heartily endorsed by Cyril who sent two of his own clergy to accompany him and Aristolaus the emperor's secretary who was very zealous for the reunion to Antioch with a paper for John to sign and a letter of communion to be given him when he had signed it. But Cyril considered Maximian also languid in the cause and he wrote many letters to persons connected with the imperial court including the "Augusta" Pulcheria to bring their influence to bear upon John and separate him definitely and finally from Nestorius (Mansi v. 988). These letters were backed up by presents euphemistically called "blessings" (eulogiae) which were employed by Cyril as a matter of course for he knew but little of delicacy and scrupulosity as to the means to be used in gaining a court to the church's interests. Cyril also assured Theognostus Charmosynus and Leontius his "apocrisiarii" or church agents at Constantinople (Ep. p. 152) that this peace with John implied no retractation of his old principles. In the spring of 433 John of Antioch wrote to Cyril reciting the formulary of reunion abandoning Nestorius and condemning Nestorianism (Mansi v. 290). In another letter John entreated Cyril in a tone of warm friendship to believe that he was "the same that he had known in former days" (Ep. p. 154) On Apr. 23 (Pharmuthi 8) Cyril announced this reconciliation in a sermon (Mansi v. 310 289) and began his reply to John "Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad" (Ep. p. 104; Mansi v. 301). In this letter (afterwards approved by the council of Chalcedon) he cited the text "one Lord one faith one baptism," as expressing the happiness of the restored peace; and added his usual disclaimers of all opinions inconsistent with the reality of Christ's manhood. He commented on Joh_3:13; 1Co_15:47 1Pe_4:1. He also sent to John a copy of the genuine text of Athanasius's letter to Epictetus. John himself became an object of suspicion and animosity to the thoroughgoing Nestorians; and even Theodoret though he admitted that Cyril's recent language was orthodox would not abandon Nestorius's cause. In another direction doubts and anxieties were excited by the language now sanctioned by Cyril. Isidore to whom Cyril had always allowed great freedom of admonitory speech and who had blamed him for unyieldingness now expressed a fear that he had made too great concessions (Ep. i. 324) Other friends of his were scandalized by his acceptance of the phrase "two natures." Was not this they began to ask equivalent to a sanction of Nestorianism? To vindicate his orthodoxy herein Cyril wrote a long letter to Acacius of Melitene (Ep. p. 109; Mansi v. 309) who had signified to him that some disquietude was felt. He narrated the recent transactions; and after insisting shat the formulary was not (as some had represented it) a new creed but simply a statement called forth by a special emergency (as those who signed it had been accused of rejecting the Nicene faith and were therefore constrained to clear themselves) he proceeded to exhibit the essential difference between the formulary and the Nestorian error. Nestorius in fact asserted two Christs: the formulary confessed one both divine and human. Then Cyril added that the two natures spoken of in the formulary were indeed separate in mental conception i.e. considered apart from Christ but that "after their union" in Christ "the nature of the Son was but one as belonging to one but to One as made man and incarnate." Again "The nature of the Word is confessedly one but has become incarnate," for "the Word took the form of a servant," and "in this sense only could a diversity of natures be recognized for Godhead and Manhood are not the same in natural quality." Thus in regard to the Incarnation "the mind sees two things united without confusion and nowise regards them when thus united as separable but confesses Him Who is from both God Son and Christ to be one." "Two natures," in Nestorius's mouth meant two natures existing separately in One Who was God and in One Who was Man; John of Antioch and his brethren while admitting that Godhead and Manhood in Christ might be regarded as intrinsically different yet unequivocally acknowledged His Person to be one. The phrase "one incarnate nature of God the Word or "one nature but that incarnate," had been already (ad Regin. i. 9) quoted by Cyril as Athanasian: although it is very doubtful whether the short tract On the Incarnation of God the Word in which it is found was really written by Athanasius. But as now used by Cyril in his vindication of the formulary from Nestorianism it became in after-days a stumbling-block and was quoted in support of Monophysitism (Hooker v. 52 4). Did then Cyril in fact hold what was condemned in 451 by the council of Chalcedon? Would he have denied the distinct co-existence of Godhead and Manhood in the one incarnate Saviour? Were the Fathers of Chalcedon wrong when they proclaimed Cyril and Leo to be essentially one in faith? What has been already quoted from the letter to Acacius of Melitene seems to warrant a negative answer to these questions. What Cyril meant by "one nature incarnate" was simply "Christ is one." He was referring to "nature" as existing in Christ's single Divine Personality (cf. adv. Nest. ii.; cf. note in Athan. Treatises Lib. Fath. i. 155). When he denounced the idea of the separation of the natures after the union he was in fact denouncing the idea of a mere connexion or association between a human individual Jesus and the Divine Word. Therefore when he maintained the nature to be one he was speaking in a sense quite distinct from the Eutychian heresy and quite consistent with the theology of Chalcedon. Other letters written by Cyril under the same circumstances throw light on his true meaning. Successus an Isaurian bishop had asked him whether the phrase "two natures" were admissible (Ep. p. 135; Mansi v. 999). Cyril wrote two letters to him in reply. In the first after strongly asserting the unity of the Son both before and since the Incarnation he quoted the "one nature incarnate" as a phrase of the Fathers and employed the illustration from soul and body "two natures" being united in one man in order to set forth the combination of Godhead and Manhood in one Christ (cf. his Scholia de Inc. 8). There was he added neither a conversion of Godhead into flesh nor a change of flesh into Godhead. In other words Christ's body though glorified and existing as God's body was not deprived of its human reality. In the second letter replying to objections made by Successus to statements in the first Cyril fully admitted that Christ "arrayed Himself with our nature," so that in Him both Godhead and Manhood in Christ retained their natural distinctness (cf. p. 143) and that the human nature was neither diminished nor subtracted. Further on he repeated the phrase "one nature but that incarnate," in the sense (as the context shews) of "one Who in His original nature was God by incarnation becoming man." In another letter he gave to a priest named Eulogius a similar account of the phrase and obviously viewed it as guarding the truth of the Personal Union (Ep. p. 133). In another addressed to a bishop named Valerian (and remarkable for the emphasis with which the Divinity of Christ is exhibited as bearing on His Atonement) the word "nature," in this connexion is evidently used as synonymous with "person" or hypostasis; and as if specially anxious to exclude all possible misconception he wrote: "He being by nature God became flesh that is perfect man. . . . As man He was partaker of our nature." This language agrees with that of his 17th Paschal Homily (Cyr. v. ii. 226). Cf. also his statement in adv. Nest. ii. t. vi. 50 that while the divine and the human natures are different things as all right-thinking men must know yet after the Incarnation they must not be divided for there is but one Christ. Again (ib. p. 45) that Christ is not twofold is explained by the context to mean that Christ before and since the Incarnation is one and the same Person; and (ib. p. 48) the reason for calling Christ's Godhead the φύσις is explained by the consideration that He was originally God while in the fifth book (ib. p. 139) He is said to have given up His body to the laws of its own nature (τῆς ἰδίας φύσεως.). In the ninth book de S. Trinitate (dial. quod unus est Christus) he denies all transmutation or confusion of the natures asserts the distinctness of Godhead and Manhood adding that "the bush burning yet unconsumed was a type of the non-consumption of the Manhood of Christ in its contact with His Divinity" (cf. Scholia 2 9).

To return to the history. Maximian, dying in Apr. 434, was succeeded by Proclus, whose glowing sermon on the Incarnation had been among the earliest expressions of orthodox zeal against the Nestorian theory, and who deserves to be remembered as a very signal example of the compatibility of orthodox zeal with charitable tenderness (Socr. vii. 41). Soon after his accession the imperial court resolved to enforce on all Eastern bishops the acceptance of the concordat which had reconciled John of Antioch with Cyril, upon pain of expulsion from their dioceses. The Nestorians, on their side, were indefatigable in circulating the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who had formed the theological mind of Nestorius; and Cyril, who was informed of this during a visit to Jerusalem, was stirred to new energy by the evident vitality of the theory which he so earnestly abhorred. He wrote to the "tribune" Aristolaus, and to John of Antioch, complaining that, as he was informed, some bishops were repudiating Nestorianism insincerely or inadequately, and were declaring that its author had been condemned merely for denying the "Theotokos" (Mansi, v. 996, cf. ib. 970). He urged that the bishops should anathematize Nestorianism in detail. John wished no new test to be imposed; and Cyril found he had gone too far ( ib. 969, 972, 996). John was much annoyed at Theodoret's pertinacious refusal to anathematize Nestorius—a refusal in which Theodoret persisted until the eighth session of the council of Chalcedon ( ib. 997). As the Nestorianizers professed entire adhesion to the Nicene Creed, Cyril drew up an exposition of it ( Ep. p. 174, Mansi, v. 383, cf. ib. 975) addressed to certain "fathers of monks," in which he urged the incompatibility of that "venerable and oecumenical symbol of faith " with the denial of the personal unity of the Saviour. In this tract, a copy of which he sent to Theodosius, he disclaimed, as usual, any "fusion, commixture, or so-called consubstantiation" ( συνουσίωσιν ) of the Godhead with the flesh. He drew up a short treatise in three books to prove that Mary was Theotokos, that Christ was one and not two, and that while He was impassible as God, He suffered for us in flesh that was His own. This he intended as an antidote to the Nestorian arguments which, as he learned, were rife in Syria (Mansi, v. 995). The name of Theodore of Mopsuestia was at this time a watchword of eager controversy. Proclus of Constantinople, in his "Tome" addressed to the Armenian clergy, in which he spoke of "one incarnate person" (not "nature") of God the Word, had condemned Theodore's opinions without naming him (ib. 421): the messengers who carried this document to John of Antioch inserted Theodore's name, without authority from Proclus, as the author of certain passages selected for censure. John and his suffragans accepted the Tome, but declined to condemn Theodore by name. Proclus rejoined that he had never wished them to go beyond a condemnation of the extracts. Cyril, so far from feeling any tenderness towards Theodore, traced Nestorianism to his teaching and to that of Diodore of Tarsus ( ib. 974) and wrote vigorously in support of this thesis ( ib. 992). A synodal letter from John and his suffragans, stating their objections to Theodore's name being anathematized on the score of expressions which, they urged, could be taken in a sense accordant with the language of eminent Fathers, drew forth from Cyril a somewhat indignant reply. Theodore, he said ( Ep. p. 195), had "borne down full sail against the glory of Christ"; it was intolerable that any parallel should be drawn between his language and that of Athanasius or Basil: he insisted that no one should be allowed to preach Theodore's opinions; but he did not urge any condemnation of his memory, and even dwelt on the duty of welcoming all converts from Nestorianism without a word of reproach as to the past. He saw that it would be imprudent to proceed publicly against the memory of a theologian so highly esteemed that the people cried out in some Eastern churches, "We believe as Theodore did," and would rather be "burnt" than disown him; and he wrote to Proclus advising that no further steps should be taken in the matter ( Ep. p. 199). The remaining events of Cyril's long episcopate may be told briefly. He wrote to Domnus, the successor of John in the see of Antioch (and afterwards unhappily conspicuous in the Eutychian controversy), in behalf of Athanasius sometime bp. of Perrha, who described himself, falsely it appears, as sorely wronged by some of his own clergy ( Ep. p. 208). In another letter to Domnus, peremptory in style, he took up the cause of another aged bishop named Peter, who professed to have been expelled and plundered of his property on the pretext of a renunciation of his see, which after all had been extorted from him ( Ep. p. 209). In both these cases Cyril shewed a somewhat impulsive readiness to believe the story of a petitioner, and a somewhat dictatorial temper in regard to the affairs of another patriarchate. He wrote also a work against the Anthropomorphites, whose wild fancies about the Divine nature (as being limited and corporeal) had given such trouble in the days of his predecessor; and in a letter on this subject to Calosirius, bp. of Arsinoe, he added a caution against the false mysticism which insisted on prayer to the exclusion of all labour, and on the "senseless" opinion that the Eucharistic consecration lost its efficacy if the sacrament was reserved until the following day. "Christ's holy Body," wrote Cyril, "is not changed; but the power of consecration and the life-giving grace still remain in it" ( Op. vi. 365). In the last year of his life he wrote to Leo, then bp. of Rome (to whom, as archdeacon of Rome, he had written in 431 against the ambitious schemes, as he regarded them, of Juvenal bp. of Jerusalem [Leon. Ep. 119, 4]) on the right calculation of Easter for a.d. 444, which, according to the Alexandrian cycle of 19 years, he fixed for April 23. In 444, on June 9 or 27, his eventful life ended.

Cyril's character is not, of course, to be judged by the coarse and ferocious invective against his memory, quoted as Theodoret's in the fifth general council (Theod. Ep. 180; see Tillem. xiv. 784). If this were indeed the production of Theodoret, the reputation to suffer would assuredly be that writer's. What Cyril was, in his strength and in his weakness—in his high-souled struggle for doctrines which were to him, as to all thoughtful believers in Christ's Divinity, the expressions of essential Christian belief; or in the moments when his old faults of vehemence and impatience reappeared in his conduct—we have already seen. He started in public life, so to speak, with dangerous tendencies to vehemence and imperiousness which were fostered by the bad traditions of his uncle's episcopate and by the ample powers of his see. It would be impossible to maintain that these evils were wholly exhausted by the grave errors which—exaggerations and false imputations set aside—distinguished his conduct in the feud with the Jews and with Orestes; when, although guiltless of the blood of Hypatia, he must have felt that his previous violence had been taken as an encouragement by her fanatical murderers. The old impatience and absolutism were all too prominent at certain points of the Nestorian struggle; although on other occasions, as must be admitted by all fair judges, influences of a softening and chastening character had abated the turbid impetus of his zeal and had taught him to be moderate and patient. "We may," says Dr. Newman ( Hist. Sketches , iii. 342), "hold St. Cyril a great servant of God, without considering ourselves obliged to defend certain passages of his ecclesiastical career. . . . Cyril's faults were not inconsistent with great and heroic virtues, faith, firmness, intrepidity, fortitude, endurance, perseverance." Those who begin by condemning dogmatic zeal as a fierce and misplaced chivalry for a phantom, will find it most difficult to be just to a man like Cyril. But if his point of view, which was indeed that of many great religious heroes, and eminently of Athanasius, be fully understood and appreciated, it ought not to be difficult to do justice to his memory. The issue raised by Nestorianism was to Cyril a very plain one, involving the very essence of Apostolic Christianity. Whatever ambiguities might be raised by a Nestorian use of the word πρόσωπον , it was clear to Cyril that the new theory amounted to a denial of the Word Incarnate. Nor was it a mere theory of the schools. Its promulgator held the great see of the Eastern capital, involving a central position and strong court influence, and was no mere amiable dreamer or scholastic pedant, whose fancies might die away if left to themselves. He has in modern times been spoken of as "the blameless Nestorius": he was in his own times spoken of as "the incendiary" on account of a zeal against other forms of heresy which impelled him to take strong measures against opponents of his own. This was the enemy against whom Cyril did battle for the doctrine of a real Incarnation and a really Divine Christ. He had to reckon on opposition, not only from Nestorius himself, but from large numbers—a miscellaneous company, including civil functionaries as well as prelates—who accepted the Nestorian theology, or who thought strong language against it uncalled-for and offensive. He might have to encounter the displeasure of an absolute government—he certainly had for some time the prospect of that displeasure, and of all its consequences; he had the burden of ill-health, of ever-present intense anxiety, of roughly expressed censure, of reiterated imputations affecting his own orthodoxy, of misconceptions and suspicions which hardly left him a moment's rest. Whatever faults there were in his conduct of the controversy, this at least must be said—not only by mere eulogists of a canonized saint, but by those who care for the truth of history—that the thought as well as the heart of Christendom has for ages accepted, as the expression of Christian truth, the principle upheld by Cyril against Nestorius. A real and profound question divided the disputants; and that stanza of Charles Wesley's Christmas hymn which begins,

"Christ, by highest heaven adored,"

conveys the Cyrilline or Ephesine answer to that question in a form which exhibits its close connexion with the deepest exigencies of spiritual life. Cyril, as a theological writer, has greater merits than are sometimes allowed by writers defective in a spirit of equity. His style, as Cave admits, may be deficient in elegance and in eloquence; he may be often tedious, and sometimes obscure, although, as Photius says (Cod. 136), his Thesaurus is remarkable for its lucidity. His comments on Scripture may be charged with excessive mysticism, or with a perpetual tendency to bring forward his favourite theological idea. There may be weak points in his argument— e.g. undue pressing of texts, and fallacious inferences, several of which might be cited from the treatise To the Princesses . But any one who consults, e.g. , the Thesaurus , will acknowledge the ability with which Cyril follows up the theological line of Athanasius (see pp. 12, 23, 27, 30, 50), and applies the Athanasian mode of thought to the treatment of Eunomian rationalism (p. 263), and the vividness with which, in this and in other works, he brings out the Catholic interpretation of cardinal texts in N.T. His acquaintance with Greek literature and philosophy is evident from the work against Julian; but he speaks quite in the tone of Hippolytus's "Little Labyrinth" (Eus. v. 28) when he deprecates an undue reliance on Aristotelian dialectics and a priori assumption on mysteries transcending human thought ( Thesaur. 87, de recta fide 16, 17).

Fragments of Cyrilline treatises not otherwise extant are preserved in synodal acts and elsewhere, and other works, as his Paschal Cycles and The Failure of the Synagogue , are mentioned by Sigebert and Gennadius. The Monophysites used on festivals a "Liturgy of St. Cyril," which is substantially identical with the Gk. "Liturgy of St. Mark" (see Palmer's Orig. Liturg. i. 86, and Neale's Introd. East. Ch. i. 324), and their traditionary belief, expressed in a passage cited from Abu’lberkat by Renaudot, Lit. Orient. i, 171, is that Cyril "completed" St. Mark's Liturgy. "It seems highly probable," says Dr. Neale, quoting this, "that the liturgy of St. Mark came, as we have it now, from the hands of St. Cyril"; although, as Palmer says, the orthodox Alexandrians preferred to call it by the name of the Evangelist founder of their see. The Coptic Cyrilline Liturgy is of somewhat later date, and more diffuse in character. It seems not improbable that the majestic invocation of the Holy Spirit which is one of the distinctive ornaments of St. Mark's Liturgy, if it was not composed during the Macedonian controversy in the 4th cent., represents to us the lively zeal of the great upholder of the Hypostatic Union for the essential Divinity of the Third Person in the Godhead.

Cyril's works were well edited by John Aubert (1658) in six volumes, an edition not yet superseded; there is no Benedictine St. Cyril. In 1859 Dr. Payne Smith pub. Cyril's Commentary on St. Luke's Gospel, trans. from a Syriac version. An elaborate edition by P. E. Pusey, M.A., of Christ Church, of the Commentary on the Minor Prophets (2 vols.) and the Commentary on S. John's Gospel (3 vols.) is pub. by the Clarendon Press, as is also the text and trans. with Lat. notes of the Comm. in Luc. ed. by R. P. Smith. An important work has recently been published by Dr. Bethune Baker, of Cambridge, entitled Nestorius and his Teaching, a Fresh Examination of the Evidence , which adduces much, from new discoveries; in vindication of Nestorius from the heresy attributed to him. See also CHRISTOLOGY, in D. C. B. (4-vol. ed.).

[W.B.]