Commemoration of Cyril of Alexandria: Bishop and Confessor
We pray:
Heavenly Father, You used Your servant Cyril to confess the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and of Your Son being one person with fully divine and human natures. Grant that we, also, might be constant in Your Word, bold in Your confession, and steadfast in Your worship, to the glory of Your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Saint Cyril (ca. AD 376-444) became Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt in 412. Throughout his career he defended a number of orthodox doctrines, among them the teaching that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is “rightly called and truly is the Mother of God” — Theotokos, “the God-Bearer” (Formula of Concord, Epitome, VIII, 12). In 431 the Council of Ephesus affirmed this teaching that the Son of Mary is also true God.
The Council was responding to the Nestorian heresy, which distinguished so completely between the divine and human natures of Christ that claims were made that the divine Christ did some things while the human Jesus did others.
Some of the differences are quite subtle; perhaps even Nestorius himself could not have foreseen the full ramifications of his position, including a “resurrection” of only the divine nature. Ephesus condemned the title of “Christ-Bearer” (Christotokos) for the Virgin, since the Nestorians would only claim that Mary bore the Christ, but not God Himself.
Cyril receives almost as many brickbats as he does bouquets, even from orthodox Christians, because he’s also known for being what one person calls “an ill-tempered, quarrelsome, hasty, and violent man.” This seems especially so during his early years as Bishop of Alexandria.
A particularly acute example of his extreme rigity comes from his closing of Novatianist churches, although the Novationists weren’t particularly unorthodox. Their “fault” was as much one of pride as of theology — they descended from those who’d stood firm in the persecutions of earlier years and refused to associate or worship with the heirs of those who recanted the Faith under persecution. Their main theological aberration were insisting upon rebaptism of converts from “lapsed” Christianity and an attitude that was, perhaps, less than Christ-like in dealing with erring brothers.
Cyril also ran the Jews out of town. The reason given was that they were seditious and violent, although we’re left with little evidence. This action likely contributed to an ongoing feud with Orestes, the imperial prefect. These disagreements seemingly spilled over into a quarrel with the prefect’s friend, the neo-platonist scholar Hypatia, who was later murdered by a mob.
Few have directly condemned Cyril for her death but the leaders of the mob certainly claimed the bishop as their leader. In modern times, Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, blamed Hypatia’s death (and the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria) on dogmatic Christianity’s desire to root out rational paganism. However, other scholars see the whole feud as an internal Church struggle and no one has yet established a definitive cause (or date) for the final destruction of Alexandria’s library.
At any rate, and despite the considerable rancor that accompanied his early years as bishop, the mature Cyril worked diligently to reconcile the Nestorian and Orthodox parties. His efforts led many of the less virulent Nestorians back to full communion.
The writings of Cyril on the doctrines of the Trinity and the person of Christ reveal him to be one of the most able theologians of his time. Cyril’s Christology influenced subsequent church councils and was a primary source for Lutheran confessional writings. He still speaks clearly to our age, especially as the old Christological heresies are trotted out under new guises.
Collect
Heavenly Father, You used Your servant Cyril to confess the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and of Your Son being one person with fully divine and human natures. Grant that we, also, might be constant in Your Word, bold in Your confession, and steadfast in Your worship, to the glory of Your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Paul,
Good post, except that Cyril was not rigid, but godly. He is accused of rigidity because of his faithfulness and orthodoxy. And also because he did not let the unorthodox have their ways but played the power game. You could not step on the toe of Orthodoxy without making him defend truth with all his strength! His sermons are great and have the Gospel as the centre. BTW you also had a good sermon this morning. I was at St. Paul.
I like the graphic. A refreshing change from Eastern iconography which I see on many blogs.
Now before we get too negative about iconography, the reality is that the vast majority of depictions of the Eastern Fathers, of whom Cyril is one, are icons because, well, they are Eastern Fathers. I just happened to luck out on this one.
: )
First, I’ll second Pastor Kozak and say I also really liked the graphic. Second, I have to admit that I think Cyril really was a nasty guy, even by standards of the time. There definitely seem to have been several Christian virtues he had in short supply and even his defense of orthodoxy was mixed with what we would see today as desire for secular political gain (although, to be fair, the sacred and secular of course weren’t so easily parsed out then). However, I find this makes him an even more appealing character for me. His theology is wonderful and spot on and he made a strong defense of what became orthodoxy. It’s good to remember that God can use sinners like Cyril or any of us for His purposes. So, Cyril – sinner? Yes! Saint in Christ by God’s grace? Yes!
Bethany Kilcrease
It’s been just 100 years since the Imperial conversion, and now during Kyril’s time the Hellenes live at the mercy of the Christians. In 100 years more, Justinian will close the University of Athens and the last of the temples, their treasures long since taken for the glory of God through the power of the Christian state. If we had expected to see the Roman Empire behave better as a Christian Empire, Kyril’s story gives us a peek at some reality on the ground.
The Imperial Prefect is a close friend of the most productive scholar at the Serapion at this time, Hypatia, who is unfortunately female, a Hellene of course, and has way too many Christian students, a terrible problem often commented upon down at the cathedral. It is the nature of Hypatia’s profession that she consorts primarily with males. She becomes the object of rumors that she consorts sexually with lots of males, but did you hear this, she and Orestes, the Imperial Prefect have a thing going too and that’s why he protects her from the party down at the cathedral. No, I never!
Well, you know how Egypt is, nothing really changes there, a rumor is a rumor until a mob of monks from the Thebaid wind themselves up and come crashing into the city to kill the queen adultress who teaches sin to young Christians. The mob says they have the bishop’s blessing to do what they do, and what they do is catch Hypatia and scrape the flesh off her bones with abalone shells. Ewwwwww!
So, who is in charge in Alexandria? The Emperor and his Prefect, or the Bishop? Who is the civil authority? I can’t tell. Seems like Kyril will let the Prefect run the city until Kyril disagrees, and then Kyril will run the city and determine who lives there. It seems that Kyril will even lecture the Emperor on who is fit to be the Prefect. Orestes was compromised we hear.
In Luther’s last days he travelled to Mansfeld and while there he encouraged the local Lords to enforce a law they had on the books. It was a local law that said that Jews could not reside in the lands of the lords of Mansfeld, but one of the ducheses had been allowing Jews to live on her lands to do particularly remuerative work for her. Over time enforcement had gotten lackser and more jews had settled there. Luther, only days before his death, encouraged the Mansfeld lords to be vigilent in enforcing their law and to soon send away the Jews from their lands.
I find this situation in Mansfeld somewhat similar to Kyril’s sending the Jews out of Alexandria and perhaps somewhat dissimilar as well. The Lutheran Reformation was at least as involved with the civil powers as was the church in Kyrils day, was it not?
Sagan wasn’t all wrong at all. The Catholic Church, formed by the Imperial Edict of Thessalonica in 380 as the state religion, in 390 destroyed the Temple of Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi, in 391 destroyed the Serapeum and Library in Alexandria, the same year Augustine id ordained a priest, in 392 shut down the Eleusinian Mysteries and in 393 the other great public work the Olympic Games, in 394 put out the fire in the Temple of Vesta and the Easter Roman Empire wiped out Roman resistance to the “Catholic Church” at the Battle of the Frigidus, a real “internal church struggle”. and the next year Augustine becomes “bishop” of the Imperial Diocese of Hippo. So I guess the “bishop” of the Imperial Diocese of Egypt throwing out the Jews and his supporters hauling a pagan philosopher on good term with the diocesan Imperial prefect out of her chariot, hacking her to pieces and then burning the pieces is relatively late and small potatoes. God’s purposes would have to wait a thousand years for the sinners of a Reformation to shake the Whore of Babylon these sinners constructed.