Cyril

ON ST. CYRIL

PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH.

At Antioch in Syria.

IN THE YEAR 300.

Cyril, Patriarch of Antioch (St.)

BY P. B.

Of St. Cyril, treatment was made in the Treatise on the patriarchs of Antioch, which we prefixed to tome 4 of July; and there he holds the nineteenth place among them. We said that he succeeded Timaeus about the year of Christ 280; The Acts of St. Cyril do not seem ever to have been written. and that he ceased to live in the year 300; in which Tyrannus was substituted for him. Of the communion of him, as well as of his two predecessors, St. Lucian the martyr was deprived on suspicion of heretical doctrine; as from the epistle of St. Alexander of Alexandria was said on the seventh of January, page 358. That his other Acts were never written seems probable enough: since not even Eusebius himself—than whom no one could know Cyril more closely, no one, if he knew anything worthy of history or above the rest memorable, wrote more willingly—touched with even one word the things done by him: for thus he has it, nor anything more concerning St. Cyril, in the Ecclesiastical History, book 7, chapter 32, in the Valesian edition:

[2] "At the same times Timaeus presided over the Antiochene church after Domnus: Scarcely anything is known of him, except what Eusebius hands down. to whom in our memory succeeded Cyril. Under him we knew Dorotheus, a most learned man, then a presbyter of the Antiochene church. Who, since he was most studious of the sacred Scriptures, learned also the Hebrew tongue, so that he read even the Hebrew codices themselves most skillfully. He was of a very liberal genius, and excellently erudite in the humaner disciplines: but from his very mother's womb a eunuch. Whence the emperor also, as if astonished at a miracle, admitted him into his familiarity, and constituted him procurator of the dye-house (in which the purple is dyed) which is at Tyre. Him we heard not unskillfully expounding the sacred Scriptures in the church. After Cyril, Tyrannus undertook the episcopate of the Antiochene church: in whose time the devastation of the churches greatly flourished" (ἤκμασεν, that is, blazed up, boiled over). This only concerning Cyril Eusebius, and from him Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapters 34 and 35; erring nevertheless in this, that he places Dorotheus not under Cyril, but under Tyrannus.

[3] Nay, that he was not known even to the ancient Martyrologists, whether Greek or Latin? He is not known in the ancient Martyrologies, For the things which in the preceding paragraph were said of St. Cyril the martyr,

they cannot pertain to this our Cyril, as was there shown: for he was a martyr, not a bishop; but this one a bishop, not a martyr; since not even the modern Roman Martyrology attributes this epithet to him, in these words: "At Antioch, of St. Cyril the bishop, conspicuous for doctrine and sanctity." But indeed, you say, that he too was a bishop, several copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology testify, and that this our Cyril was also a martyr, in the notes to the Roman Martyrology on this day Baronius openly enough professes, when he thus writes: "There are held his (St. Cyril the bishop of Antioch's) Acts joined to those of Saints Claudius and Nicostratus, which from ancient codices Mombritius published, tome 1, where it is written that he himself suffered for the faith of Christ, and at last in prison rendered his spirit to God."

[4] nor in the Acts of Saints Claudius, etc. To the first the response is plain from the preceding paragraph: since of so many copies of the Hieronymian Martyrology, both manuscript and printed, which we consulted, there are only two, and those everywhere interpolated, which add to Cyril, adorned at Antioch with the laurel of martyrdom together with four others, the appellation of bishop. But as to what pertains to the Acts of Cyril, which in Mombritius are joined to those of Saints Claudius and Nicostratus, they equally prove anything; unless they be said both to be sincere, and to treat there of the same Cyril whom the Hieronymian Martyrology notes on this day; and prove him to be our patriarch of Antioch. Of which none, I think, will easily be persuaded to anyone. And of the sincerity of those Acts indeed this is not the place to speak: for they pertain to the eighth of November, on which they must be discussed. Meanwhile Baronius confesses in the notes to the same day that they must in some things be corrected. But grant that in this place they are not interpolated; would anyone believe that the same Cyril is there assigned as the Hieronymian, or indeed even our own? Judge for thyself, Reader: for after it had been narrated in what manner St. Simplicius the sculptor had been brought to a desire of the true faith; namely because, among the stones to be cut in Pannonia, he had again and again noticed his own instruments break; but not so those of the others, who were Christians, and invoked the name of Christ before the work, these things are subjoined in the Mombritian Acts:

[5] by Baronius "And they (the Christian companions, who had persuaded the faith to Simplicius) began to seek a priest; and they found a bishop bound in custody, named Cyril, brought from Antioch (which Ado on the eighth of November does not add), and bound for the name of Christ; who had already for three years been macerated with many scourges. To whom coming by night Symphorian, Claudius, Nicostratus, and Castorius together with Simplicius: whom they found bound with chains with very many confessors. And having entered to Cyril the bishop, they cast themselves at his feet, and begged that he would baptize Simplicius. And when blessed Cyril the bishop had heard this, he was filled with great joy, and said to Simplicius: 'Son, see if thou believest with all thy heart; and all things shall be ministered to thee.' And Claudius, Symphorian, Nicostratus, and Castorius, answering, told him the thing done, concerning the iron tools, what had happened.

[6] cited: "And then blessed Cyril the bishop, giving thanks to almighty God, said to Simplicius: 'Son, thou hast seen the power in our working. Now only believe faithfully.' Simplicius answered with tears, and said to him: 'And how do you bid that I show my belief?' Blessed Cyril the bishop said: 'That thou believe in Jesus Christ our Lord, the Son of God, the creator of all things; and spurn all idols made by hand.' Simplicius said: 'I believe that in truth He Himself is the true God, Jesus Christ.' And, he being made a catechumen according to the ecclesiastical custom, he baptized him in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit there in the prison; and dismissed them." Then, having related what presently followed, the martyrdom of St. Simplicius and his companions, and the tortures borne, of St. Cyril it is added: "But holy Cyril the bishop, hearing this, while he was in prison, afflicted himself, and passed to the Lord." These are the things which in those Acts regard St. Cyril.

[7] You see, I think, that St. Cyril, of whom these Acts make mention, for there it is another St. Cyril that is treated; is altogether different from the Hieronymian one: for the Hieronymian Cyril was not a bishop: but that one is narrated in the Acts to have been so: the Hieronymian one made martyrdom at Antioch with Andrew, Tebellius, Aureus, and Stertheus; but the Mombritian Cyril in a Pannonian prison alone, or certainly (if you will call his companions those on whose occasion he expired from sadness) not with those four whom we just reviewed, but with five others, namely Claudius, Nicostratus, Symphorian, Castorius, and Simplicius. You see also that each of those Cyrils is different from ours: for each of those perished in a persecution, and the Mombritian one indeed in the Diocletianic; whereas ours ended his last day in the sixteenth year of Diocletian, of Christ 300, that is, three years before the persecution arose, which according to Eusebius, book 8, chapter 2, was first proclaimed in the nineteenth year of Diocletian, of Christ 303, when already Tyrannus, the successor of St. Cyril, presided as patriarch over the Antiochene church, as the same testifies in book 7, chapter 32: since in the East before that time there had been so great a tranquillity of the churches and bishops; that then at last the devil "began first to be roused as it were from a most deep sleep," as the same says, book 8, chapter 4.

[8] whoever he was. Whoever therefore either of those Cyrils was, he could not have been ours; but either later than ours or earlier. Nor does it matter that Cyril in the Acts of Mombritius is said to be a bishop brought from Antioch, since there was ever only one Cyril patriarch of Antioch. For these words, first, as I said, Ado does not have, who seems to have had the more sincere Acts before his eyes; then, besides Antioch of Syria placed on the river Orontes, which was the see of the patriarchs, there was another metropolis of Pisidia, and several others elsewhere; but those Acts do not say that their blessed Cyril was brought from Antioch of Syria; and so they ought not to be understood of St. Cyril the patriarch of Antioch, as in the cited notes Baronius believed. I omit the other arguments which can here be brought: these suffice, so that, what I said at the beginning, it may be understood that nothing was left by antiquity to posterity concerning St. Cyril the patriarch of Antioch, except that which at numbers 1 and 2 we noted; nay, that neither his eulogy, as it now is in the Roman Martyrology, is found in the more ancient and sincere Martyrologies, nor indeed even his memory: for Rabanus could not here signify Cyril the patriarch, but one of the five Martyrs of Antioch (whom from the corrupted Hieronymian ones he made a bishop), as appears from the adjoined Andrew. Think the same said of Notker; the same of the supposititious Plantinian Bede, whom Baronius cites. Nor indeed does Galesinius, who inscribed our St. Cyril in the Roman calendars before Baronius, cite any more ancient Martyrologies for himself in the subjoined notes, but only certain ecclesiastical Annals, I know not what, written in Greek: which after him Baronius did not even dare to name.