Part 32 (1/2)

The extraordinary devotion of this holy doctor towards the holy sacrament appears from the zeal with which he frequently inculcates the glorious effects which it produces in the soul of him who worthily receives it, especially in healing all his spiritual disorders, strengthening him against temptations,{279} subduing the pa.s.sions, giving life, and making us one with Christ by the most sacred union, not only in spirit, but also with his humanity. Hence this father says that by the holy communion we are made concorporeal with Christ.[12] The eminent dignity and privileges of the ever glorious Virgin Mary were likewise a favorite subject on which he often dwells. In his tenth homily,[13] after having often repeated her t.i.tle of Mother of G.o.d, he thus salutes her: ”Hail, O Mary, mother of G.o.d, rich treasure of the world,[14] inextinguishable lamp, crown of virginity, sceptre of the true doctrine, temple which cannot fall, the residence of him whom no place can contain, Mother and Virgin, by whom He is who cometh Blessed in the name of the Lord. Hail, Mary, who in your virgin womb contained Him who is immense and incomprehensible: You through whom the whole blessed Trinity is glorified and adored, through whom the precious cross is honored and venerated over the whole world, through whom heaven exults, the angels and archangels rejoice, the devils are banished, the tempter is disarmed, the creature that was fallen is restored to heaven, and comes to the knowledge of the truth, through whom holy baptism is inst.i.tuted, through whom is given the oil of exultation, through whom churches are founded over the whole earth, through whom nations are brought to penance. And what need of more words? Through whom the only begotten Son of G.o.d has shone the light to those who sat in darkness and in the shade of death, &c.--What man can celebrate the most praiseworthy Mary according to her dignity?”

Footnotes: 1. Ep. 56, and 35 apud Lupum.

2. Synesius, ep. 153.

3. Vie d'Hypacie par l'abbe Goujet. Memoires de Litterature, t. 5.

4. It is very unjust in some moderns to charge him as conscious of so horrible a crime, which shocks human nature. Great persons are never to be condemned without proofs which amount to conviction. The silence of Orestes, and the historian Socrates, both his declared enemies, suffices to acquit him.

5. We have nothing further of the life of this father, until the year 428, when his zeal was first exerted in defence of the faith against Nestorianism: we shall introduce this period of his labors with some account of the author of this heresy.

6. Conc. t. 3, p. 343. Liberat. in Breviar. c. 4.

7. St. Leo, Ep. 72, c. 3. Conc. t. 3, p. 656, 980.

8. They have a liturgy under the name of Nestorius, and two others which they pretend to be still more ancient. See Renaudot, liturg.

orient. t. 2, and Le Brun, liturg. t. 3. The former contains a clear profession of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the ma.s.s.

9. Ep. ad Theopomp, t. 3. Conc. p. 771.

10. Smith on the present state of the Greek church, p. 13. Thoma.s.sin Tr.

des Fetes, l. 1, ch. 7.

11. Conc. t. 3, p. 1077.

12. {Footnote not found in text.} L. 4, contra Nestor, t. 6, parte 1, p.

110. l. 7, de adoratione in spiritu et verit. t. 1, p. 231, c. 10, in Joan. t. 1, c. 13.

13. T. 5, parte 2, p. 380. Item Conc. t. 3, p. 583.

14. [Greek: Keimelion tes oikomenes]. The rich furniture of the world.

APPENDIX

ON

THE WRITINGS OF ST. CYRIL

OF ALEXANDRIA.

The old Latin translations of the works of this father were extremely faulty, before the edition of Paris, by John Aubert, in 1638, in six tomes, folio, bound in seven, which yet might be improved. Baluze and Lupus have published some letters of this holy doctor, which had escaped Aubert and Labbe. If elegance, choice of thoughts, and beauty of style be wanting in his writings, these defects are compensated by the justness and precision with which he expresses the great truths of religion, especially in clearing the terms concerning the mystery of the Incarnation. Hence his controversial works are the most valuable part of his writings. His books against Nestorius, those against Julian, and that called The Treasure, are the most finished and important.

His treatise On Adoration in Spirit and Truth, with which he begins his commentary on the Bible, contains, in seventeen books, an exposition of several pa.s.sages of the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, (though not in order,) in moral and allegorical interpretations.

In the thirteen books ent.i.tled Glaphyrs, _i.e._ profound or elegant, the longer pa.s.sages of the same books are explained allegorically of Christ and his church.

In his commentaries on Isaiah, and the twelve lesser prophets, he gives both the literal and allegorical sense.

On the Gospel of St. John, we have ten books entire, and fragments of the seventh and eighth. In the old editions, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books, which were entirely wanting, were patched up by Clictou from the writings of other fathers: which, for want of reading the preface, have been quoted by some as St. Cyril's. In this great work, the {280} saint gives not only the literal and spiritual senses of the sacred text, but likewise refutes the reigning heresies of that age, especially those against the consubstantiality of the Son, as the Eunomians. He also answers all the objections of the Manichees. He is very clear in establis.h.i.+ng in the holy sacrament of the altar the reality of Christ's body contained in it and the holy sacrifice, teaching that ”the holy body of Christ gives life to us when received, and preserves us in it, being the very body of life itself, according to nature, and containing all the virtue of the Word united to it, and being endued with all his efficacy by whom all things receive life, and are preserved.” (L. 4, in Joan. p. 324.) That we shall, by tasting it, ”have life in us, being united together with his body as it is with the Word dwelling in it.” (Ibid. p. 361.) That ”as death had devoured all human nature, he who is life, being in us by his flesh, might overcome that tyrant.” (Ibid. p. 272.) ”Christ by his flesh, hides in us life and a seed of immortality, which destroys in us all corruption,” (Ibid. p.

363,) and ”heals our diseases, a.s.suaging the law of the flesh raging in our members.” (ibid. p. 365.) In the tenth look he is most diffusive and clear on this sacrament, extolling its miraculous inst.i.tution, the most exalted of all G.o.d's mysteries, above our comprehension, and the wonderful manner by which we are united and made one with him; not by affection, but by natural partic.i.p.ation; which he calls ”a mixture, an incorporation, a blending together; for as wax melted and mingled with another piece of melted wax, makes one; so by partaking of his precious body and blood, he is united in us, and we in him,” &c. (L. 10, in Joan.

pp. 862, 863, item pp. 364, 365.) See the longer and clearer texts of this doctrine in this book itself, and in the controversial writers upon that subject. Also, in his works Against Nestorius, whom he confutes from the blessed eucharist, proving Christ's humanity to be the humanity of the divine Person. ”This,” says he, ”I cannot but add in this place, namely, that when we preach the death of the only begotten Son of G.o.d, that is, of Jesus Christ, and his resurrection from the dead, and confess his ascension into heaven, we celebrate the unb.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice in the church, and do by this means approach the mystical benedictions, and are sanctified, being made partakers of the sacred flesh and precious blood of Christ, the Saviour of us all. And we do not receive it as common flesh, ([Greek: me genoito],) G.o.d forbid; nor as the flesh of man who is sanctified and joined to the Word by a unity of dignity, or as having a divine habitation; but we receive it, as it is truly, the life-giving and proper flesh of the Word.” (Ep. ad Nestorium, de Excommun. p. 72, t. 5, par. 2, and in Declaratione undecimi Anathematismi, t. 6, p. 156.) In this latter place he speaks of it also as a true sacrifice: ”We perform in the churches the holy and life-giving and unb.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice, believing the body which is placed, and the precious blood to be made the very body and blood of the Word, which gives life to all things, &c. He proves that it is only to be offered in Catholic churches, in the only one house of Christ” (L. adv.

Anthropomorph. t. 6, p. 380.) He heard that some imagined that the mystical benediction is lost if the eucharist is kept to another day; but says, ”they are mad; for Christ is not altered, nor his body changed.” (T. 6, p. 365, ep. ad Calosyrium.) In his fourth book on St.

John, (t. 4, p. 358,) he as expressly confutes the Jewish doubt about the possibility of the holy sacrament, as if he had the modern Sacramentarians in view.

To refute the whole system of Arianism, he wrote the book which he called The Treasure, which he divided into thirty-five t.i.tles or sections. He answers in it all the objections of those heretics, and establishes from scripture the divinity of the Son of G.o.d; and from t.i.tle thirty-three, that of the Holy Ghost.

His book On the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, consists of seven dialogues, and was composed at the request of Nemesm and Hermias. This work was also written to prove the consubstantiality of Christ, but is more obscure than the former. The holy doctor added two other Dialogues, the eighth and ninth, On the Incarnation, against the errors of Nestorius, then only known by report at Alexandria. He afterwards subjoined Scholia, to answer certain objections; likewise a short book On the Incarnation, in which he proves the holy Virgin to be, as she is called, the Mother of G.o.d; as Jesus Christ is at the same time both the Son of G.o.d, and the Son of man. By his skirmishes with the Arians he was prepared to oppose and crush the extravagances of Nestorius, broached at that time against the same adorable mystery of the Incarnation, of which G.o.d raised our holy doctor the champion in his church; for by his writings he both stifled the heresy of Nestorius in the cradle, and furnished posterity with arms against that of Eutyches, says Basil of Seleucia. (T. 4, Conc. p. 925.)

St. Cyril composed at Ephesus his three treatises On the Right Faith, against Nestorius. The first is addressed to the Emperor Theodosius. It contains an enumeration of the heresies against the Incarnation, namely, of Cerinthus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and Nestorius, with a refutation of each, especially the last. The second is inscribed to the princesses Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina, the emperor's sisters, all virgins, consecrated to G.o.d. This contains the proofs of the Catholic faith against Nestorius. The third is a confutation of the heretics'