and his acceptance of the test word "homoousion" (Socr. iv. 8; Soz. iv. 7).
Cyril died Mar. 18, 386 (Socr. v. 15; Soz. vii. 14; Bolland. Mar. 18, p. 625 b). He was bp. of Jerusalem for 35 years, 16 of which he passed in exile.
His works consist of 18 "Catechetical lectures" addressed to catechumens (κατηχήσεις φωτιζομένων), and 5 "Mystagogical lectures" to the newly baptized (μυσταγωγικαὶ κατηχήσεις πρὸς τοὺς νεοφωτίστους). These were composed in his youth (ἅς ἐν τῆ νεότητι συνέταξεν, Hieron. de Vir. Ill. c. 112), c. 347, while still a presbyter. The "Catechetical lectures" possess considerable interest as the earliest example extant of a formal system of theology; from their testimony to the canon of Scripture, the teaching of the church on the chief articles of the creed, and on the sacraments; and from the light they throw on the ritual of the 4th cent. The perfect agreement of his teaching, as Dr. Newman remarks (Lib. of the Fathers, vol. ii. part i. pp. ix.‒x.), as regards the Trinity, with the divines of the Athanasian school, is of great weight in determining the true doctrine of the early church on that fundamental question, and relieves Cyril from all suspicion of heterodoxy. But his Catecheses do not rank high as argumentative or expository work, nor has Cyril any claim to a place among the masters of Christian thought, whose writings form the permanent riches of the church.
All previous editions of his works were surpassed by the Benedictine ed. of A. A. Touttée (Paris, 1720, fol., and Venice, 1761, fol.). The introduction contains very elaborate and exhaustive dissertations on his life, writings, and doctrines. These are reprinted in Migne's Patrologia, vol. xxxiii.
The chief modern authorities for Cyril's life and doctrines are Touttée, u.s.; Tillem, Mémoires Ecclés. vol. viii.; Cave, Historia Lit. i. 211, 212; Schröckh, Kirchengeschichte, xii. 343 seq.; Newman, preface to the Oxf. trans., Lib. of the Fathers, ii. 1. Newman's trans. was carefully revised by Dr. E. H. Gifford in the Lib. of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1844), and furnished with a very important introduction.
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
