CYRIL PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 643 prevailed. In the house of his uncle, the archbishop Theophilus, he imbibed the orthodox lessons of zeal and dominion, and five years of his youth were profitably spent in the adjacent monasteries of Nitria. Under the tuition of the abbot Serapion, he applied himself to ecclesiastical studies with such indefatigable ardor, that in the Cyril, course of one sleepless night he has perused the patriarch of four Gospels, the Catholic Epistles, and the Alexandria. Epistle to the Romans. Origen he detested; but the writings of Clemens and Dionysius, of Athanasius and Basil, were continually in his hands: by the theory and practice. of dispute, his faith was confirmed and his wit was sharpened; he extended round his cell the cobwebs of scholastic theology, and meditated the works of allegory and metaphysics, whose remains, in seven verbose folios, now peaceably slumber by the side of their rivals. Cyril prayed and fasted in the desert, but his thoughts (it is the reproach of a friend") were still fixed on the world; and the call of Theophilus, who summoned him to the tumult of cities and synods, was too readily obeyed by the aspiring hermit. With the approbation of his uncle he assumed the office, and acquired the fame, of a popular preacher. His comely person adorned the pulpit, the harmony of his 20 La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme des Indes, tom. i. p. 24), avows his contempt for the genius and writings of Cyril. De tous les ouvrages des anciens il y en a peu qu'on lise avec moins d'utilité: and Dupin, (Bibliothèque Ecclesiastiqué, tom. iv. pp. 42-52), in words of respect, teaches us to despise them. 20 21 Of Isidore of Pelusium, (1. i. epist. 25. p. 8). As the letter is not of the most creditable sort, Tillemont, less sincere than the Bollandists, affects a doubt whether this Cyril is the nephew of Theophilus, (Mém. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 268).† *Philosophers and laymen cannot expect to entirely comprehend the mystery of theology, which is of so intricate and abtruse a nature as to perplex and confuse the minds of the very elect. No writer of ancient or modern times has equaled in interest and vivacity the clearly expressed ideas of M. de Voltaire on theological subjects, and his explanations, will please and instruct the orthodox reader. "The theologian," says the witty Frenchman, "knows perfectly that, "according to St. Thomas, angels are corporeal with relation to God; that the soul receives its being in the body; and that man has a vegatative, sensitive, "and intellectual soul. " "That the soul is all in all, and all in every part. "That it is the efficient and formal cause of the body. "That it is the greatest in nobleness of form. "That the appetite is a passive power. "That archangels are the medium between angels and principalities. "That baptism regenerates of itself and by chance. That the catechism is not a sacrament but sacramental. "That certainty springs from the cause and subject. "That concupiscence is the appetite of sensitive delectation. "That conscience is an act and not a power. "The angel of the schools has written about 4,000 fine pages in this st a shaven-crowned young man passes three years in filling his brains "sublime knowledge, after which he receives the bonnet of a doctor "instead of going to Bedlam."-E. + The character and proceedings of Cyril have already been co 32, vol. iii. p. 514.-ENG. CH. 644 TYRANNY OF CYRIL. voice resounded in the cathedral, his friends were stationed to lead or second the applause of the congregation," and the hasty notes of the scribes preserved his discourses, which, in their effect, though not in their composition, might be compared with those of the Athenian orators. The death of Theophilus expanded and realized the hopes of his nephew. The clergy of Alexandria was divided; the soldiers and their general supported the claims of the archdeacon; but a resistless multitude, with voices and with hands, asserted the cause of their favorite; and, after a period of thirty-nine years, Cyril was seated on the throne of Athanasius." His tyranny, 415, &c. The prize was not unworthy of his ambition. A. D. 413, 414, At a distance from the court, and at the head of an immense capital, the patriarch, as he was now styled, of Alexandria, had gradually usurped the state and authority of a civil magistrate. The public and private charities of the city were managed by his discretion; his voice inflamed or appeased the passions of the multitude; his commands were blindly obeyed by his numerous and fanatic parabolani," familiarized in their daily office with scenes of death; and the præfects of Egypt were awed or provoked by the temporal power of these Christian pontiffs. Ardent in the prosecution of heresy, Cyril auspiciously opened his reign by oppressing the Novatians, the most innocent and harmless of the sectaries. The interdiction of their religious worship appeared in his eyes a just and meritorious act; and he confiscated their holy vessels, without apprehending the guilt of sacrilege. The toleration, and even the privileges, of the Jews, who had multiplied to the number of forty thousand, were secured by the laws of the Caesars and Ptolemies, and a long prescription of seven hundred years since the foundation of Alexandria. Without 22 A grammarian is named by Socrates, (1. vii. c. 13), duáлupos de axpoatic τοῦ ἐπισκόπου Κυρίλλου καθεστώς, καὶ περὶ τὸ κράτους ἐν ταῖς διδασκαλίαις αὐτοῦ ἐγείρειν ἦν σπουδαιότατος. 2: See the youth and promotion of Cyril, in Socrates, (1. vii. c. 7), and Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. pp. 106, 108). The Abbe Renaudot drew his materials from the Arabic History of Severus, bishop of Hermopolis Magna, or Ashmunein, in the tenth century, who can never be trusted, unless our assent is extorted by the internal evidence of facts. 24 The Parabolani of Alexandria were a charitable corporation, instituted during the plague of Gallienus, to visit the sick and to bury the dead. They gradually enlarged, abused, and sold the privileges of their order. Their outrageous conduct during the reign of Cyril provoked the emperor to deprive the patriarch of their nomination, and to restrain their number to five or six hundred. But these restraints were transient and ineffectual. See the Theodosian Code, 1. xvi. tit. ii, and Tillemont, Mem Eccles. tom. xiv. pp. 276-278. PLUNDER OF THE ALEXANDRIAN JEWS. 645 any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the patriarch, at the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to the attack of the synagogues. Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews were incapable of resistance; their houses of prayer were leveled with the ground, and the episcopal warrior, after rewarding his troops with the plunder of their goods, expelled from the city the remnant of the unbelieving nation. Perhaps he might plead the insolence of their prosperity, and their deadly hatred of the Christians, whose blood they had recently shed in a malicious or accidental tumult. Such crimes would have deserved the animadversion of the magistrate; but in this promiscuous outrage, the innocent were confounded with the guilty, and Alexandria was impoverished by the loss of a wealthy and industrious colony. The zeal of Cyril exposed him to the penalties of the Julian law; but in a feeble government, and a superstitious age, he was secure of impunity, and even of praise. Orestes complained; but his just complaints were too quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and too deeply remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, and continued to hate, the præfect of Egypt. As he passed through the streets, his chariot was assaulted by a band of five hundred of the Nitrian monks; his guards fled from the wild beasts of the desert; his protestations that he was a Christian and a Catholic, were answered by a volley of stones, and the face of Orestes was covered with blood. The loyal citizens of Alexandria hastened to his rescue; he instantly satisfied his justice and revenge against the monk by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius expired under the rod of the lictor. At the command of Cyril his body was raised from the ground, and transported in solemn procession to the cathedral; the name of Ammonius was changed to that of Thaumasius the wonderful; his tomb was decorated with the trophies of martyrdom, and the patriarch ascended the pulpit to celebrate the magnanimity of an assassin and a rebel. Such honors might incite the faithful to combat and die under the banners of the saint; and he soon prompted, or accepted, the sacrifice of a virgin, who professed the religion of the Greeks, and cultivated the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, was initiated in her father's studies: her learned comments have elucidated the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus, and she 646 MURDER OF HYPATIA. publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle." In the bloom of beauty, and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused her lovers and instructed her disciples; the persons most illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the female philosopher; and Cyril beheld, with a jealous eye, the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the door of her academy. A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the præfect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader, and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells," and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and religion* of Cyril of Alexandria." Constantinople, Nestorius, Superstition, perhaps, would more gently patriarch of expiate the blood of a virgin, than the banish'ment of a saint; and Cyril had accompanied his uncle to the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of Chrysostom was restored and consecrated, the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, still maintained the justice of his sentence; nor was it till after a tedious delay and an obstinate resistance, that he 25 For Theon and his daughter Hypatia, see Fabricius, Bibliothec. tom viii. pp. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of Suidas is curious and original. Hesychius, (Meursii Opera, tom. vii. pp. 295, 296), observes, that she was persecuted διὰ τὴν υπερβάλλουσαν σοφίαν ; and an epigram in the Greek Anthology (1. i c, 76, p. 159, edit. Brodæi), celebrates her knowledge and eloquence. She is honorably mentioned, (Epist. 10, 15, 16, 33-80, 124, 135, 153), by her friend and disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius.t 26 Οστράκοις ἀνεῖλον, καὶ μεληδόν διασπάσαντες, &c., Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the sea beach before the Cæsareum. I may therefore prefer the literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of tegulæ, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois. I am ignorant, and the assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was yet alive. 27 These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates, (1. vii. c. 13, 14, 15), and the most reluctant bigotry is compelled to copy an historian who cooly styles the murderers of Hypatia άνδρες τὸ φρόνημα ένθερμοι. At the mention of that injured name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius, (A. D. 415, No. 48). * Was Paganism ever guilty of such barbarism and intolerance? - E. Suidas says that Hypatia was married to the philosopher Isidorus. Clinton, F. R. i 589.-ENG. CH. NESTORIUS, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 30 28 647 yielded to the consent of the Catholic world. His enmity to the Byzantine pontiffs" was a sense of interest, not a sally of passion: he envied their fortunate station in the sunshine of the imperial court; and he dreaded their upstart ambition, which oppressed the metropolitans of Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and Alexandria, and measured their diocese by the limits of the empire. The long moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the throne of Chrysostom, suspended the animosities of the Eastern patriarchs; but Cyril was at length awakened by the exaltation of a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After the short and troubled reign of Sisinnius, bishop of Constantinople, the factions of the clergy and people were appeased by the choice of the emperor, who, on this occasion, consulted the voice of fame, and invited the merit of a stranger. Nestorius, a native of Germanicia, and a monk of Antioch, was recommended by the austerity of his life, and the eloquence of his sermons; but the first homily which he preached before the devout Theodosius betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his zeal. "Give me, O Cæsar!" he exclaimed, "give me the earth purged "of heretics, and I will give you in exchange the kingdom of heaven. Exterminate with me, the heretics; and with you, I will exterminate the Persians." On the fifth day, as if the treaty had been already signed, the patriarch of Constantinople discovered, surprised, and attacked, a secret conventicle of the Arians: they preferred death to submission; the flames that were kindled by their despair, soon spread to the neighboring houses, and the triumph of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary. On either side of the Hellespont, his episcopal vigor imposed a rigid formulary of faith and discipline; a chronological error concerning the festival of Easter was punished as an offence against the church and state. Lydia and Caria, 28 He was deaf to the entreaties of Atticus of Constantinople, and of Isidore of Pelusium, and yielded only (if we may believe Nicephorus, I. xiv. c. 18), to the personal intercession of the Virgin. Yet in his last years he still muttered, that John Chrysostom had been justly condemned, (Tillemont, Mem Eccles. tom. XIV. pp. 278-282. Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A. D. 412, No. 46-64).* 29 See their characters in the history of Socrates, (1. vii. c. 25-28); their power and pretensions, in the huge compilation of Thomassin, (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. pp. 80-91). 30 His elevation and conduct are described by Socrates, (1. vii. c Marcellinus seems to have applied the eloquentiæ satis, sapientiæ Sallust. * For the synod of the Oak and the fate of Chrysostom, see ch. 32, v -ENGLISH CHURCHMAN. |