with his reply, and seventeen long letters to his friend Olym pias, a pious widow and deaconess. They all breathe a noble Christian spirit, not desiring to be recalled from exile, convinced that there is but one misfortune,-departure from the path of piety and virtue, and filled with cordial friendship, faithful care for all the interests of the church, and a calm and cheerful looking forward to the glories of heaven.'

The so-called Liturgy of Chrysostom, which is still in use in the Greek and Russian churches, has been already noticed in the proper place.'

Among the pupils and admirers of Chrysostom we mention as deserving of special notice two abbots of the first half of the fifth century: the elder NILUS OF SINAI, who retired with his son from one of the highest civil stations of the empire to the contemplative solitude of Mount Sinai, while his wife and daughter entered a convent of Egypt;' and ISIDORE OF PELUSIUM, or PELUSIOTA, a native of Alexandria, who presided over a convent not far from the mouth of the Nile, and sympathized with Cyril against Nestorius, but warned him against his violent passions. They are among the worthiest representatives of ancient monasticism, and, in a large number of letters and exegetical and ascetic treatises, they discuss, with learning, piety, judgment, and moderation, nearly all the theological and practical questions of their age.

'The Epistles are in tom. iii. The Epistolæ ad Olympiadem, and ad Innocen tium are also included in Lomler's selection (pp. 165-252). On Olympias, compare above, § 52, and especially Tillemont, tom. xi. pp. 416-440.

* See above, § 99.

Comp. S. P. N. NILI abbatis opera omnia, variorum curis, nempe Leonis Alla. tii, Petri Possini, etc., edita, nunc primum in unum collecta et ordinata, accurante J. P. Migne, Par. 1860, 1 volume. (Patrol. Gr. tom. 79.)

• Comp. S. ISIDORI PELUSIOTA Epistolarum libri v, ed. Possinus (Jesuit), repub. lished by Migne, Par. 1860. (Patrol. Gr. tom. 78, including the dissertation of H. AG. NIEMEYER: De Isid. Pel. vita, scriptis et doctrina, Hal 1825.) It is not certain that Isidore was a pupil of Chrysostom, but he frequently mentions him with respect, and was evidently well acquainted with his writings. See the dissertation of Nis meyer, in Migne's ed. p. 15 sq.

$171. Cyril of Alexandria.

L S. CYRILLUS, Alex. archiepisc.: Opera omnia, Gr. et Lat., cura et studic Joan. Auberti. Lutetiæ, 1638, 6 vols. in 7 fol. The same edition with considerable additions by J. P. Migne, Petit-Montrouge, 1859, in 10 vols. (Patrol. Gr. tom. lxviii.-lxxvii.). Comp. Angelo Mai's Novs Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. ii. pp. 1-498 (Rom. 1844), and tom. iii. (Rom. 1845), where several writings of Cyril are printed for the first time, viz. De incarnatione Domini; Explanatio in Lucam; Homiliæ; Excerpta; Fragments of Commentaries on the Psalms, and the Pauline and Catholic Epistles. (These additional works are incorporated in Migne's edition.) CYRILLI Commentarii in Luca Evangelium quæ supersunt, Syriace, e manuscriptis apud museum Britannicum edidit Rob. Payne Smith, Oxonii, 1858. The same also in an English version with valuable notes by R. P. Smith, Oxford, 1859, in 2 vols.

II. Scattered notices of Cyril in SOORATES, MARIUS MERCATOR, and the Acts of the ecumenical councils of EPHESUS and CHALOEDON. TILLEMONT: Tom. xiv. 267-676, and notes, pp. 747-795. CELLIER: Tom. xiii. 241 899. AOTA SANOTORUM: Jan. 28, tom. ii. A. BUTLER: Jan. 28. FABRICIUS: Biblioth. Gr. ed. Harless, vol. ix. p. 446 sqq.

(The Vita

of the Bollandists and the Noticia literaria of Fabricius are also re printed in Migne's edition of Cyril, tom. i. pp. 1-90.) SCHROCKH Theil xviii. 313-354. Comp. also the Prefaces of ANGELO MAI to tom. ii. of the Nova Bibl. Patrum, and of R. P. SMITH to his translation of Cyril's Commentary on Luke.

While the lives and labors of most of the fathers of the church continually inspire our admiration and devotion, CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA makes an extremely unpleasant, or at least an extremely equivocal, impression. He exhibits to us a man making theology and orthodoxy the instruments of his passions.

Cyrillus became patriarch of Alexandria about the year 412. He trod in the footsteps of his predecessor and uncle, the notorious Theophilus, who had deposed the noble Chrysos tom and procured his banishment; in fact, he exceeded Theophilus in arrogance and violence. He had hardly entered upon his office, when he closed all the churches of the Novatians in Alexandria, and seized their ecclesiastical property. In the year 415 he fell upon the synagogues of the very numerous Jews with armed force, because, under provocation of his

bitter injustice, they had been guilty of a trifling tumult; he put some to death, and drove out the rest, and exposed their property to the excited multitude.

These invasions of the province of the secular power brought him into quarrel and continual contest with Orestes, the imperial governor of Alexandria. He summoned five

hundred monks from the Nitrian mountains for his guard, who publicly insulted the governor. One of them, by the name of Ammon, wounded him with a stone, and was thereupon killed by Orestes. But Cyril caused the monk to be buried in state in a church as a holy martyr to religion, and surnamed him Thaumasios, the Admirable; yet he found himself compelled by the universal disgust of cultivated people to let this act be gradually forgotten.

Cyril is also frequently charged with the instigation of the murder of the renowned Hypatia, a friend of Orestes. But in this cruel tragedy he probably had only the indirect part of exciting the passions of the Christian populace which led to it, and of giving them the sanction of his high office.'

From his uncle he had learned a strong aversion to Chrysostom, and at the notorious Synodus ad Quercum near Chalcedon, A. D. 403, he voted for his deposition. He therefore obstinately resisted the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, when, shortly after the death of Chrysostom, they felt constrained to repeal his unjust condemnation; and he was not

Comp. above, § 6, p. 67, and Tillemont, tom. xiv. 274-76. The learned, but superstitious and credulous Roman Catholic hagiographer, Alban Butler (Lives of the Saints, sub Jan. 28), considers Cyril innocent, and appeals to the silence of Orestes and Socrates. But Socrates, H. E. 1. vii. c. 15, expressly says of this revolting murder: Τοῦτο οὐ μικρὸν μῶμον Κυρίλλῳ, καὶ τῇ τῶν ̓Αλεξανδρέων ἐκκλησίᾳ εἰργά· OaTo, and adds that nothing can be so contrary to the spirit of Christianity as the permission of murders and similar acts of violence. Walch, Schröckh, Gibbon, and Milman incline to hold Cyril responsible for the murder of Hypatia, which was perpetrated under the direction of a reader of his church, by the name of Peter. But the evidence is not sufficient. J. C. Robertson (History of the Christian Church, i. p. 401) more cautiously says: “That Cyril had any share in this atrocity appears to be an unsupported calumny; but the perpetrators were mostly officers of his church, and had unquestionably drawn encouragement from his earlier proceedings; and his character deservedly suffered in consequence." Similarly W. Bright (A History of the Church from 313 to 451, p. 275): "Had there been no onslaught or the syna gogues, there would doubtless have been no murder of Hypatia."

even ashamed to compare that holy man to the traitor Judas, Yet he afterwards yielded, at least in appearance, to the urgent remonstrances of Isidore of Pelusium and others, and admitted the name of Chrysostom into the diptychs' of his church (419), and so brought the Roman see again into com munication with Alexandria.

From the year 428 to his death in 444 his life was inter woven with the Christological controversies. He was the most zealous and the most influential champion of the anti-Nestorian orthodoxy at the third ecumenical council, and scrupled at no measures to annihilate his antagonist. Besides the weapons of theological learning and acumen, he allowed himself also the use of wilful misrepresentation, artifice, violence, instigation of people and monks at Constantinople, and repeated bribery of imperial officers, even of the emperor's sister Pulcheria. By his bribes he loaded the church property at Alexandria with debt, though he left considerable wealth even to his kindred, and adjured his successor, the worthless Dioscurus, with the most solemn religious ceremonies, not to disturb his heirs."

His subsequent exertions for the restoration of peace cannot wipe these stains from his character; for he was forced to those exertions by the power of the opposition. His successor Dioscurus, however (after 444), made him somewhat respectable by inheriting all his passions without his theological abili ty, and by setting them in motion for the destruction of the peace.

Cyril furnishes a striking proof that orthodoxy and piety are two quite different things, and that zeal for pure doctrine may coëxist with an unchristian spirit. In personal character

1 That is, the díπruxa venpŵv, or two-leaved tablets, with the list of names of distinguished martyrs and bishops, and other persons of merit, of whom mention was to be made in the prayers of the church. The Greek church has retained the use of diptychs to this day.

2

1 Dioscurus, however, did not keep his word, but extorted from the heirs of Cyril immense sums of money, and reduced them to extreme want. So one of Cyril's relatives complained to the council at Chalcedon against Dioscurus (Acta Conc. Chalc. Act. iii. in Hardouin, tom. ii. 406). A verification of the proverb: N gotten, ill gone.

he unquestionably stands far below his unfortunate antagonist. The judgment of the Catholic historians is bound by the authority of their church, which, in strange blindness, has canonized him.' Yet Tillemont feels himself compelled to admit that Cyril did much that is unworthy of a saint. The estimate of Protestant historians has been the more severe. The moderate and honest Chr. W. Franz Walch can hardly give him credit for anything good;' and the English historian, H. H. Milman, says he would rather appear before the judg ment-seat of Christ, loaded with all the heresies of Nestorius, than with the barbarities of Cyril.

But the faults of his personal character should not blind us to the merits of Cyril as a theologian. He was a man of vigorous and acute mind and extensive learning, and is clearly to be reckoned among the most important dogmatic and polemic divines of the Greek church. Of his contemporaries Theodoret alone was his superior. He was the last considera

' Even the monophysite Copts and Abyssinians celebrate his memory under the abbreviated name of Kerlos, and the title of Doctor of the World.

' Mémoires, xiv. 541: "S. Cyrille est Saint: mais on ne peut pas dire que toutes ses actions soient saintes."

• Comp. the description at the close of the fifth volume of his tedious but thor ough Ketzerhistorie, where, after recounting the faults of Cyril, he exclaims, p. 932: "Can a man read such a character without a shudder? And yet nothing is fabricated here, nothing overdrawn; nothing is done but to collect what is scattered in history. And what is worst: I find nothing at all that can be said in his praise." SCHRÖCKн (1. c. p. 352), in his prolix and loquacious way, gives an equally unfavorable opinion, and the more extols his antagonist Theodoret (p. 355 sqq.), who was a much more learned and pious man, but in his life-time was persecuted, and after his death condemned as a heretic, while Cyril was pronounced a saint.

History of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 210: "Cyril of Alexandria, to those who esteem the stern and uncompromising assertion of certain Christian tenets the one paramount Christian virtue, may be the hero, even the saint: but while ambition, intrigue, arrogance, rapacity, and violence, are proscribed as unchristian means -barbarity, persecution, bloodshed, as unholy and unevangelic wickednesses—— posterity will condemn the orthodox Cyril as one of the worst heretics against the spirit of the Gospel. Who would not meet the judgment of the divine Redeemer loaded with the errors of Nestorius rather than the barbarities of Cyril?"

BAUR (Vorlesungen über Dogmengeschichte, i. ii. p. 47) says of Cyril: "The current estimate of him is not altogether just. As a theologian he must be placed higher than he usually is. He remained true to the spirit of the Alexandrian theology, particularly in his predilection for the allegorical and the mystical, and he had a doctrine consistent with itself."