Category: Cyril of Alexandria

After the Council of Ephesus in 433, Cyril of Alexandria had to politick fairly hard for his side of the arguments over whether it was OK to call Mary “mother of God” or not.  One of the texts that he wrote at this time was a vindication of himself and his actions, directed to the emperor Theodosius II.  Actually the emperor was a figurehead, so presumably the real addressee was the imperial court, courtiers, and above all the eunuch Chrysaphius, who was the real ruler of the empire.

The text has never been translated into any modern language.  Some time back a scholar agreed to translate it for me.

I’ve just heard that the first sample chunk should be available this weekend.  I can’t wait!

Looking through Quasten’s Patrology, at the works of Cyril of Alexandria, it’s obvious that most of the works relating to the Council of Ephesus in 433 have never been translated into any modern language.

These aren’t just any old texts.  These are the ones that defined the shape of christology from then on.  He wrote a whole series of works to various people, De recta fide — on the correct faith.  After the council he was obliged to write a justification of his actions there to the emperor; Apologeticus ad imperatorem.

That last one isn’t too big and I’ve commissioned someone to translate it into English for about $600.  It’s in the Patrologia Graeca, of course.  But the best text of all these works is a critical edition done by E. Schwartz in a series, the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum. 

After a mighty struggle with the interlibrary loan system, today I got a copy of the volume I want — “Tome 1, Volumen 1, Pars 3” (yes, the series really is subdivided like that).  It contains Greek only, with critical apparatus, of all sorts of letters and documents relating to the council.  Frankly it’s quite amazing what is in there, in only 100 pages.  If I were a millionaire, I think I’d commission a translation of the lot!

Because the schism with the ‘Nestorians’ is not history; it’s been a fact for 15 centuries now.

Of course translating the stuff requires a theological education in all the issues.  You have to understand why Nestorius objected to calling Mary “Mother of God”; and why Cyril considered that objection tantamount to claiming that Jesus was not God. 

But shouldn’t it be in English?

Aren’t links wonderful?  Someone on TheoGreek has noticed my work with Cyril of Alexandria, and asks questions about it, and why I’m writing about him.  I’m flattered!  But rather than write a long comment there, I thought I’d blog about it here.

I suppose that I have been looking at Cyril’s works a lot lately.  As part of my hobby to digitise patristic works, sooner or later I was going to reach Cyril.  His big commentaries on Luke and John and the anti-Nestorian works published in the Library of the Fathers were all silently omitted from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, despite there being available translations which could be pirated for the series.  Perhaps that says something about his reputation in the west!  Naturally I have scanned these, and indeed found snippets of genuine pastoral wisdom in the sermons on Luke.  He may be a bit of a dodgy character, to us, but he is widely revered in the Greek orthodox and eastern orthodox churches, as my correspondence shows.  I’m trying to keep an open mind.

His controversial works from the Nestorian period are mostly untranslated.  This is a shame.  I have commissioned a translation of one of them, the Apologeticus ad imperatorem, as I said elsewhere.  The others ought to be available, and I have a translator, but whether I can afford to do it I don’t know!  It’s not as if I really want to read De recta fide after all.  But… access is all.

The other text that really should exist in English is his reply to Julian the Apostate’s attack on Christianity.  Contra Julianum needs to be translated and online.  A critical text is being prepared in Switzerland, and I hope to do something with this in due course.  This work would cost around $10,000 to translate. Ouch!  But it really, really must be done.

Then there is Norman Russell’s excellent book on Cyril.  Tellingly it starts by quoting a sermon by Theodoret written after the death of Cyril in which he hopes that someone will bury Cyril under a large rock, in case he comes back again!  Apparently the sermon is probably spurious, tho.

Was Cyril corrupt?  Politically he was, in his role as Mob-boss of Alexandria.  But… is it quite fair to condemn a man for using the methods necessary to get his way in a corrupt society?  It is easy for Christians today to say that it was.  The means corrupt the end.  We all know this.  And yet, we live in a society in which the Christians are being forced out of the churches by those willing to use corrupt means.  Cyril would have suggested that we were simply wimping out, I think.  It will be interesting to see if he indicates anything like this in the Apologeticus, defending his conduct.

I don’t pretend to know.  But it is useless to attempt to evade the fact that some churchmen have been wicked men, and others who are revered have been accustomed to methods that we find disgusting.  We know that the church has become corrupted whenever it wields political power, as the Borgia Pope proves.  But however we think about the past, we need to recognise the reality of sin, in the history of the church and in the lives of too many of its most eminent men.  Let us avoid their mistakes, let us pray for them, and also for ourselves: “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner”.  If Tertullian could invite the prayers of the newly baptised for “Tertullian, a sinner” in De baptismo, we need not shrink from doing the same.

At the Council of Ephesus in 433, Cyril obtained the condemnation of his rival Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople for heresy.  The vote was taken before the eastern bishops who supported Nestorius could arrive.  When they did arrive they excommunicated Cyril.  Both sides then appealed to the imperial government, then run by the eunuch Chrysaphius, who wisely deposed them both.  After a campaign of letter writing and bribery, Cyril was allowed to return and the decisions of the synod endorsed.  The Nestorian schism had begun, and has still not been resolved to this day.

After the synod, Cyril’s reputation was tarnished.  Isidore of Pelusium wrote to him that, while he agreed with Cyril theologically, a lot of people thought that the Alexandrian Archbishop had behaved like a jerk.

At this time Cyril wrote a number of theological treatises justifying his position.  Three treatises De recta fide (On the true faith) were addressed to the emperor and his female relatives.  Another Apologeticus was directed to emperor justifying his behaviour.  None of these have been translated into English as far as I am aware.  Probably the need to understand some fairly complicated theology has deterred many.

I have now found a translator with the right area of interest to work on the Apologeticus.  This should cost me around $600.   The intention would be to sell printed copies, to recover some of the money, and then release the translation into the public domain.  If this works, the other three works might also be done.

There is a text in Migne, of course.  P. E. Pusey edited it again in the 1870’s.  According to Quasten the best text is in Edward Schwartz’ series Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum.  This series has been republished by DeGruyter, here.  The series has an unusual structure; the series consists of 4 ‘tomes’ each divided into a number of volumes, and each volume is divided into half a dozen parts.  Each part is a separate physical volume, and costs around $200.  I need tome 1, volume 1, part 3, it seems, so have requested an ILL.

It will be interesting to see how this goes.

With great thankfulness I have now completed scanning the English translation of the “Commentary on Luke” by Cyril of Alexandria, comprising 156 sermons.  The files can be found here.

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#Cyril_on_Luke

The files and their contents, including my preface, are all in the public domain — please use them in any way you please.

The text did not survive in Greek. But a very literal translation into Syriac was discovered in 1842 among the manuscripts from the Syrian monastery in the Nitrian desert in Egypt which had been brought back to the UK by Archdeacon Tattam. Long fragments also existed in the catena-commentaries published by Cramer, and by Angelo Mai. Robert Payne Smith edited the text and produced the translation. The process made clear to him the need for a proper Syriac dictionary, and his name is associated with Syriac studies forever because he produced the definitive one.

The Nitrian manuscript was in two volumes. It had become mutilated during the centuries, and the final few leaves were missing, as well as odd other ones.

“How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And I say unto you, that it is easier for a camel to enter in through the eye of a needle, than a rich man into the kingdom of God.” Now by a camel He means not the animal of that name, but a thick cable rather: for it is the custom of those well versed in navigation to call the thicker cables “camels.”

Observe however, that He does not altogether cut away the hope of the rich, but reserves for them a place and way of salvation. For He did not say that it is impossible for a rich man to enter in, but that he does so with difficulty.

… He has reserved therefore for those who possess wealth the possibility of being counted worthy, if they will, of the kingdom of God: for even though they refuse entirely to abandon what they have, yet it is possible for them in another way to attain unto honour. And the Saviour has Himself showed us how and in what way this can happen, saying, “Make to yourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon: that when it has failed, they may receive you into eternal tabernacles.” For there is nothing to prevent the rich, if they will, from making the poor partakers and sharers of the abundance which they possess.

What hinders him who has plentiful possessions from being affable of address, and ready to communicate to others, easily prevailed upon to give, and compassionate, and full of that generous pity which is well-pleasing to God. Not unrewarded, nor unprofitable shall we find carefulness in this respect; for “mercy boasts over judgment,” as it is written.

Commentary on Luke, Sermon 123

I was browsing the Fathers of the Church translation of Cyril of Alexandria’s Letters.  None of these are personal; rather the whole collection is concerned with the events before and after the Council of Ephesus in 433, and the dispute with Nestorius about the theotokos.  Possibly the collection is a dossier of evidence, assembled for some now forgotten purpose?

But I was astonished to find, as ‘letter’ 96, a list of ‘presents’ to be given to various court personages in Constantinople.  The FoC editor simply describes these as bribes, and, since they indicate that the purpose of the gifts is to purchase favour or disarm opponents, so they must indeed be!

Today I read on the news that the Irish Prime Minister has resigned after being found with trousers full of other people’s money.  I read that the Speaker of the UK parliament has been found to be using taxpayers money ($8,000) to hire taxis so that his wife could go shopping.  I’ve been reading a volume of journalism by the late Auberon Waugh from the 1970’s, which suggests that the Labour government of Harold Wilson was fantastically corrupt.  Little changes, it seems.  Do we suppose that at least some of our current lot of politicians are not touting for bribes too, to betray our interests?

It is hard for anglophone readers to like Cyril.  He was a Byzantine politician, as well as a churchman — the two roles, indeed, being typically combined in that unhappy realm — and the political necessities of his role as the political leader of the Alexandrian mob mean that we perhaps condemn the churchman for doing what we would regard as less damnable in a mere politician.

Or are these just excuses?

But those who love a voluptuous course of life, imagine probably that they are gaining their soul by living in pleasure and effeminacy: whereas certainly they lose it. “For he that sows, it says, to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.”  (Commentary on Luke, Sermon 118)

Cyril of Alexandria writes:

Purchase the grace that comes from God; buy for your friend the Lord of heaven and earth: for indeed we often purchase men’s friendship with large sums of gold, and if those of high rank are reconciled to us, we feel great joy in offering them presents even beyond what we can afford, because of the honour which accrues to us from them. And yet these things are but transitory, and quickly fade away, and are like the fantasies of dreams.

It’s an interesting picture of a society where the influence of the wealthy and powerful had replaced law and order.