He is the greatest orator of the Greek church, with the exception perhaps of Chrysostom; but his oratory often degen erates into arts of persuasion, and is full of labored ornamenta tion and rhetorical extravagances, which are in the spirit of his age, but in violation of healthful, natural taste.

As a poet he holds a subordinate, though respectable place. He wrote poetry only in his later life, and wrote it not from native impulse, as the bird sings among the branches, but in the strain of moral reflection, upon his own life, or upor doctrinal and moral themes. Many of his orations are poetical, many of his poems are prosaic. Not one of his odes or hymns passed into use in the church. Yet some of his smaller pieces, apothegms, epigrams, and epitaphs, are very beautiful, and betray noble affections, deep feeling, and a high order of talent and cultivation.'

We have, finally, two hundred and forty-two (or 244) Epistles from Gregory, which are important to the history of the time, and in some cases very graceful and interesting.

§ 167. Didymus of Alexandria.

I. DIDYMI ALEXANDRINI Opera omnia: accedunt S. Amphilochii et Nec tarii scripta quæ supersunt Græce, accurante et denuo recognoscente J. P. Migne. Petit-Montrouge (Paris), 1858. (Tom. xxxix. of the Patrologia Græca.)

II. HIERONYMUS: De viris illustr. c. 109, and Prooem. in Hoseam. Scattered accounts in Rufinus, Palladius, Socrates, SozOMEN, and THEODORET. TILLEMONT: Mémoires, x. 164. FABRICIUS: Bibl. Gr. tom. ix. 269 sqq. ed. Hurless (also in Migne's ed. of the Opera, pp. 181-140)

'His poems fill together with the Epistles the whole second tome of the magnificent Benedictine edition, so delightful to handle, which was published at Paris, 1842 (edente et curante D. A. B. Caillau), and vols. iii. and iv. of Migne's reprint. They are divided by the Bened. editor into: I. Poëmata theologica (dogmatica, moralia); II. historica (a. autobiographical, quæ spectant ipsum Gregorium, repì kauroû, De seipso; and b. wepl tŵv étépwv, quæ spectant alios); III. epitaphia; IV. epigrammata; and V. a long tragedy, Christus patiens, with Christ, the Holy Virgin, Joseph, Theologus, Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, Nuntius, and Pilate as actors. This is the first attempt at a Christian drama. The order of the poems, as well as the Orations and Epistles, differs in the Benedictine from that of the older editions. See the comparative table in tom. ii. p. xv. sqq. One of the finest passages in his poems is his lamentation over the temporary suspension of his friendship with Basil, quotei above, p. 914.

SCHROECKH: Church History, vii. 74-87. GUERIOKE: De schola Alux andrina. Hal. 1824.

DIDYMUS, the last great teacher of the Alexandrian cate chetical school, and a faithful follower of Origen, was borr probably at Alexandria about the year 309. Though he became in his fourth year entirely blind, and for this reason has been surnamed Cacus, yet by extraordinary industry he gained comprehensive and thorough knowledge in philosophy, rhetoric, and mathematics. He learned to write by means of wooden tablets in which the characters were engraved; and he became so familiar with the Holy Scriptures by listening to the church lessons, that he knew them almost all by heart.

Athanasius nominated him teacher in the theological school, where he zealously labored for nearly sixty years. Even men like Jerome, Rufinus, Palladius, and Isidore, sat at his feet with admiration. He was moreover an enthusiastic advocate of ascetic life, and stood in high esteem with the Egyptian anchorites; with St. Anthony in particular, who congratulated him, that, though blind to the perishable world of sense, he was endowed with the eye of an angel to behold the mysteries of God. He died at a great age, in universal favor, in 395.

Didymus was thoroughly orthodox in the doctrine of the Trinity, and a discerning opponent of the Arians, but at the same time a great venerator of Origen, and a participant of his peculiar views concerning the pre-existence of souls, and probably concerning final restoration. For this reason he was long after his death condemned with intolerant zeal by several general councils.'

We have from him a book On the Holy Ghost, translated by Jerome into Latin, in which he advocates, with much discrimination, and in simple, biblical style, the consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Father, against the Semi-Arians and Pneumatomachi of his time; and three books on the Trinity,

'First at the fifth ecumenical council in 553. The sixth council in 680 stigmaized him as a defender of the abominable doctrine of Origen, who revived the heathen fables of the transmigration of souls; and the seventh repeated this in 787.

'Didymus wrote only one book De Spiritu Sancto (see Jerome, De viris illustr

n the Greek original.' He wrote also a brief treatise against the Manichæans. Of his numerous exegetical works we have a commentary on the Catholic Epistles,' and large fragments, in part uncertain, of commentaries on the Psalms, Job, Prov. erbs, and some Pauline Epistles."

§ 168. Cyril of Jerusalem.

Í S. CYRILLUS, archiepisc. Hierosolymitanus: Opera quæ exstant omnia, &c., cura et studio Ant. Aug. Touttaei (Touttée), presb. et monachi Bened. e congreg. S. Mauri. Paris, 1720. 1 vol. fol. (edited after Touttée's death by the Benedictine D. Prud. Maranus. Comp. therewith Sal. Deyling: Cyrillus Hieros, a corruptelis Touttæi aliorumque purgatus. Lips. 1728). Reprint, Venice, 1763. A new ed. by Migne, Petit-Montrouge, 1857 (Patrol. Gr. tom. xxxiii., which contains also the writings of Apollinaris of Laodicea, Diodor of Tarsus, and others). The Catecheses of Cyril have also been several times edited separately, and translated into modern languages. Engl. transl. in the Oxford Library of the Fathers, vol. ii. Oxf. 1889.

II. EPIPHANIUS: Hær. lx. 20; lxxiii. 23, 27, 87. HIERONYMUS: De viris illustr. c. 112. SOORATES: H. E. ii. 40, 42, 45; iii. 20. SOZOMEN: iv. 5, 17, 20, 22, 25. THEODORET: H. E. ii. 26, 27; iii. 14; v. 8. The Dissertationes Cyrilliana de vita et scriptis S. Cyr. &c. in the Benedictine edition of the Opera, and in Migne's reprint, pp. 31-322. The ACTA SANotorum, and BUTLER, sub mense Martii 18. TILLEMONT : tom. viii. pp. 428–439, 779–787. Also the accounts in the well-known

a 135; librum unum de Sp. S. Didymi quem in Latinum transtuli). The division into three books is of later date.

1 Discovered and edited by Joh. Aloys. Mingarelli, at Bologna, 1769, with a Latin translation and learned treatises on the life, doctrine, and writings of Didy. mus. (Dr. Herzog, Encykl. iii. p. 384, confounds this edition with a preliminary advertisement by the brother Ferdinand Mingarelli: Veterum testimonia de Didymo Alex. cœco, ex quibus tres libri de Trinitate nuper detecti eidem asseruntur, Rom. 1764. The title of the work itself is: Didymus, De Trinitate libri tres, nunc primum ex Passioneiano codice Gr. editi, Latine conversi, ac notis illustrati a D. Joh. Aloys. Mingarellio, Bononiæ, 1769, fol.)

The Latin version is found in the libraries of the church fathers. The origina Greek has been edited by Dr. FR. LÜCKE from Muscovite manuscripts in four academic dissertations: Quæstiones ac vindicia Didymianæ, sive Didymi Alex. enarratio in Epistolas Catholicas Latina, Græco exemplari magnam partem e Græcis scholiis restituta, Gotting. 1829-'32. Reprinted in Migne's edition of Opera Didymi, pp. 1731-1818.

'In Migne's ed. p. 1109 sqq.

patristic works of DUPIN, CEILLIER, CAVE, FABLICIUS.
Part xii. pp. 369-476.

SOHRÖCKE

CYRILLUS, presbyter and, after 350, bishop of Jerusalem, was extensively involved during his public life in the Arian controversies. His metropolitan, Acacius of Cæsarea, an Arian, who had elevated him to the episcopal chair, fell out with him over the Nicene faith and on a question of jurisdiction, and deposed him at a council in 357. His deposition was confirmed by an Arian council at Constantinople in 360.

After the death of the emperor Constantius he was restored to his bishopric in 361, and in 363 his embittered adversary, Acacius, converted to the orthodox faith. When Julian encouraged the Jews to rebuild the temple, Cyril is said to have predicted the miscarriage of the undertaking from the prophecies of Daniel and of Christ, and he was justified by the result. Under the Arian emperor Valens he was again deposed and banished, with all the other orthodox bishops, till he finally, under Theodosius, was permitted to return to Jerusalem ir 379, to devote himself undisturbed to the supervision and restoration of his sadly distracted church until his death.

He attended the ecumenical council in Constantinople in 381, which confirmed him in his office, and gave him the great praise of having suffered much from the Arians for the faith. He died in 386, with his title to office and his orthodoxy universally acknowledged, clear of all the suspicions which many had gathered from his friendship with Semi-Arian bishops during his first exile.'

From Cyril we have an important theological work, complete, in the Greek original: his twenty-three Catecheses.' The work consists of connected religious lectures or homilies, which he delivered while presbyter about the year 347, in preparing a class of catechumens for baptism. It follows that form of the Apostles' Creed or the Rule of Faith which was then in use in the churches of Palestine, and which agrees in

'His sentiments on the holy Trinity are discussed at length in the third pre Himinary dissertation of the Bened. editor (in Migne's ed. p. 187 sqq.).

2

* Κατηχήσεις φωτιζομένων (or βαπτιζομένων), Catecheses lluminandorum. They are preceded by a procatechesis.

all essential points with the Roman; it supports the various articles with passages of Scripture, and defends them against the heretical perversions of his time. The last five, called the Mys tagogic Catecheses,' are addressed to newly baptized persons, and are of importance in the doctrine of the sacraments and the history of liturgy. In these he explains the ceremonies then customary at baptism: Exorcism, the putting off of garments, anointing, the short confession, triple immersion, confirmation by the anointing oil; also the nature and ritual of the holy Supper, in which he sees a mystical vital union of believers with Christ, and concerning which he uses terms verging at least upon the doctrine of transubstantiation. In connection with this he gives us a full account of the earliest eucharistic liturgy, which coincides in all essential points with such other liturgical remains of the Eastern church, as the Apostolic Constitutions and the Liturgy of St. James.

The Catecheses of Cyril are the first example of a popular compend of religion; for the catechetical work of Gregory of Nyssa (oyos xatnxntikòs ó μéyas) is designed not so much for catechumens, as for catechists and those intending to become teachers.

Besides several homilies and tracts of very doubtful genuineness, a homily on the healing of the cripple at Bethesda,' and a remarkable letter to the emperor Constantius of the year 351, are also ascribed to Cyril. In the letter he relates to the emperor the miraculous appearance of a luminous cross extending from Golgotha to a point over the mount of Olives (mentioned also by Socrates, Sozomen, and others), and calls upon him to praise the "consubstantial Trinity."`

1 Κατηχήσεις μυσταγωγικαί. The name is connected with the mysterious prac tices of the disciplina arcani of the early church. Comp. the conclusion of the first Mystagogic Catechesis, c. 11 (Migne, p. 1075). The mystagogic lectures are also separately numbered. The first is a general exhortation to the baptized on 1 Pet. v. 8; the second treats De baptismo; the third, De chrismate; the fourth, De corpore et sanguine Christi; the fifth, De sacra liturgia et communione.

Homilia in paralyticum, John v. 2–16 (in Migne's ed. pp. 1131–1158).

Ep. ad Constantium imper. De viso Hierosolymis lucida crucis signo, pp. 1154-1178.

• Τὴν ἁγίαν καὶ ὁμοούσιον Τριάδα, τὸν ἀληθινὸν Θεὸν ἡμῶν, ᾧ πρέπει πασα δόξε εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.