A COMMENTARY 



UPON 



THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE, 

BY 

S. CYRIL, 

PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 

NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH 

FROM AN ANCIENT SYRIAC VERSION 

BY 

R. PAYNE SMITH, M.A., 

SUBLIBRARIAN OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. 



PART I. 



OXFORD : 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
M.DCCt .LIX. 





P R E F A C E. 



WHEN I undertook the task of preparing for the 
press the Syriac Version of S. Cyril s Commentary 
upon the Gospel of S. Luke, discovered among the 
manuscripts lately obtained from Egypt, and depo 
sited in the British Museum, I was aware that my 
labours would be of little practical benefit, unless I 
also made it accessible to theologians generally by 
means of an English translation. In the performance 
of this duty, my chief assistance has been derived 
from the Nova Bibliotheca Patrum of Cardinal Mai, 
published in 1844-58 at Rome: for so miserably 
defective is even the best Syriac Lexicon, that it has 
repeatedly happened that I have only been able to 
arrive with something like certainty at the meaning 
of a passage, by waiting until I found in some ex 
tract in Mai the equivalent in Greek of the word or 
phrase in question. Wherever this help has failed, 
I have carefully examined the use of words in other 
Semitic dialects, or in the numerous Syriac works 
which during the last few years have issued from the 
press, and in which I had been in the habit of noting 
the occurrence of all new and unusual terms. To 

A 2 



iv PREFACE. 

have discussed these difficulties in notes, would have 
been only to crowd my pages with matter not gene 
rally interesting, and for which, I trust, I shall here 
after have a more fitting opportunity. I think, how 
ever, that I can safely say, that in no case have I 
come to a conclusion except upon reasonable grounds, 
and that, after due allowance made for possible errors, 
my translation will be found to convey a correct and 
adequate representation of the original work. 

Of the value of the Commentary, I shall probably 
not be considered an impartial judge: still my con 
viction is, that it can scarcely fail of being regarded as 
an important addition to our means of forming an 
accurate judgment of what was the real teaching of 
one of the most famous schools of thought in the early 
Church. It has not indeed gained entire acceptance ; 
its philosophy was too deep, its creed too mysterious, 
its longings too fervently fixed upon the supernatural, 
for the practical mind of the West readily to assent to 
doctrines which mock rather than exercise the powers 
of even the subtlest reason. And while the names of 
its doctors have become household words with us, and 
we owe to their labours the establishment of the doc 
trine of the Trinity in Unity in its main outlines as 
we hold it at present, still the student of Church His 
tory is aware, that in many minor, though still im 
portant particulars, the teaching of the Alexandrine 
school was in excess of what we at present hold. The 
Athanasian Creed does not embody the actual tenets 
of Athanasius, nor of the other great masters of Alex 
andria, except in the form in which they were modi 
fied and altered by the influence of rival schools: and 



PREFACE. v 

in like manner S. Cyril, the inheritor at once of Atha 
nasius throne, and of his views, often uses arguments 
which the Monophysites could fairly claim as giving 
a colour to their belief, that after the union of the 
two natures in Christ it was no longer lawful to dis 
tinguish their separate limits. 

It was the Nestorian controversy which called out 
the argumentative powers and the fiery zeal of S. Cyril ; 
and it is certainly true that in that controversy lie 
used Nestorius unfairly, taxing him with deduc 
tions, which, however logically they might seem to 
follow from his opponent s teaching, yet Nestorius 
himself expressly denied : hut it is not true that the 
controversy led him into statements of doctrine beyond 
what his predecessors in the see of Alexandria had 
taught. For constantly what he opposed to his 
rival s views was the very doctrine of S. Athanasius ; 
and the passage which he quotes in his treatise De 
recta Fide, ad Imperatrices, from that father s treatise 
on the Incarnation of Christ, is never exceeded in 
any of his own dogmatic statements. Its words are 
as follow: 6/J.o\oyoviJ.ev, Kal elvai avrov vtov TOV Oeou 
KOI Oeov Kara Tn/ev/xa, vtov avOpwirov Kara crapKa ov Svo 

(f)U(Tt9 TOV Va VIOV, /X/CtJ/ TTpO(TKVVr]Tr]V KO.I 

Kvvt]TOv aXXa /atai/ (pvcrtv TOV Oeov \oyov 
Kcii Trpoa-KvvovfjLevqv /xera rrjs arapKO? avrov /mia 

This was S. Athanasius doctrine, this also was S. 
Cyril s ; and it is only a falsification of the facts of 
history to endeavour to bring the Alexandrine school 
into verbal accordance with the decrees of the general 
council of Chalcedon. The doctrine which prevailed 
there was that of the rival school of Antioch, which 
had always firmly stood by the literal interpretation of 



vi PREFACE. 

the plain letter of Scripture ; a sound, judicious, com 
mon-sense school, which had never depth enough to 
have fought the battle of the Arian heresy with the 
profoundness of conviction which gave such undying- 
energy to the great chiefs of Alexandria ; but which 
nevertheless had under Providence its due place in 
the Church, and corrected the tendency of Athanasius 
and Cyril to a too immoderate love of the super 
natural and mysterious. 

That S. Cyril however felt that there was no insu 
perable barrier between the two schools is shown by 
his reconciliation with John of Antioch, and their 
signing common articles of faith. For essentially 
both Cyril and John of Antioch held the mean be 
tween the extremes of Nestorius and Eutyches ; only 
Cyril s leaning was towards Eutyches, John s towards 
Nestorius. And when subsequently the council of 
Chalcedon, A. D. 451, modified, happily and wisely, 
the decrees of the previous general council of Ephesus, 
A. D. 431, and adopted as their standard of faith the 
teaching of the Antiochian school as embodied in the 
famous Epistola Flaviana of Leo, Pope of Rome, they 
acknowledged this substantial agreement between 
Antioch and Alexandria, between themselves and 
the council of Ephesus, by their declaration that 
Aew errre TO. rov KvpiXXov, that what Leo wrote was 
the same that Cyril taught. And that in the main 
they were right this present Commentary will shew ; 
for S. Cyril s doctrine in it is essentially moderate. 
There are indeed passages in which he apparently 
confounds the limits of the two natures in Christ, but 
many more in which he gives to each its proper at 
tributes, and bears witness to the existence of both 



PREFACE. vii 

the godhead and the manhood in the one person of 
our Lord, inseparable, yet unconfused. 

But when Mai would go further, and deny that 
the Monophysites had any ground for claiming S. 
Cyril s authority in their favour, his uncritical turn 
of mind at once betrays him: for he rests chiefly 
upon the treatise De Incarnatione Domini, Nov. Bib. 
Pat. ii. 32-74, ascribed by him to S. Cyril upon the 
testimony of a MS. in the Vatican. But indepen 
dently of other internal evidence that this piece was 
written subsequently to the council of Chalcedon, it 
is absolutely impossible that Cyril could ever have 
adopted the very keystone and centre of Nestorius 
teaching, the doctrine I mean of a o-wdfata (pp. 59, 
71), a mere juxtaposition, or mechanical conjunction 
of the two natures in Christ, in opposition to a real 



union 



In the West, under the guiding minds of Augustine 
and Ambrose, the council of Chalcedon met at once 
with ready acceptance ; but not so in the East. It 
was there that the controversy had been really waged 
against Arius, and the reaction from his teaching led 
many of the fathers into overstrained arguments 
which ended in* heresies, ejected one after another 
from the Church. As in the process of fermentation 
there is a thick scum upon the surface while the 
work of purification is going on below, so each ex 
traneous element, after mingling for a time with the 
great mass of Christian truth, was at length rejected 
with an ease or difficulty proportioned to the intense- 
ness of its admixture with sounder doctrines. And 
thus the general orthodoxy and invaluable services of 
the Alexandrine school caused whatever there was of 



viii PREFACE. 

exaggeration in their views long and violently to 
resist this purifying process in those parts of the 
world which had been the nearest witnesses of their 
struggles in defence of the doctrine of the consub- 
stantial nature of the Son. Up to the time also of 
the council ofChalcedon the language of the Fathers 
had been vague and confused : and the expression of 
S. John i. 14, that " the Word was made flesh ;" as 
it had led the Arians to affirm that the Logos was a 
created being, so it had led orthodox Fathers to speak 
as if Christ s human body was " very God." And 
thus the Monophysites could count up a long array 
of all the great names in the Church, Ignatius, Poly- 
carp, Clemens of Rome, Irenseus, Melito of Sardes, 
Felix and Julius of Rome, the Gregories, Athanasius, 
Basil, and many more, who had confounded in Christ 
the human with the divine. With such authorities 
on their side the conflict was long and dubious, and 
in Justinian s time they seemed likely to gain the 
ascendancy : for the Pope then was the mere crea 
ture of simony, and consequently there was nothing 
to balance the tendencies of the Eastern Church. 
Accordingly in A. D. 533 Justinian, though nominally 
opposed to their tenets, decreed that " one of the 
holy and consubstantial Trinity was crucified :" and 
twenty years after, the fifth general council of Con 
stantinople authoritatively ratified the same doctrine. 
But in the subsequent weak reign of Justin, the Pa 
triarch of Constantinople, John the Jurist, thwarted by 
the Monophysite monks whom Theodora had planted 
in the capital, took such vigorous measures against the 
leaders of the party, that their principles have since 
exercised no appreciable influence in the Church. 



PREFACE. ix 

As the Mo nophy sites had only pushed to excess 
the tendencies of the Alexandrine school and it 
must be remembered that they are by no means to 
be confounded with the Eutychians, according to the 
fashion of Church histories in general, whereas really 
they anathematized them the above sketch may 
place the reader in a position to judge of the state 
ments of S. Cyril regarding this doctrine, a doctrine 
after all of metaphysical rather than of practical im 
portance. But, as a general rule, he will find the 
Commentary written in a tone of moderation, as 
might be expected in homilies addressed by a teacher 
to his own people, far from the baleful -atmosphere of 
controversy, and in a place where his views were in 
full and hereditary possession of the teacher s chair. 
There is too a practical tone throughout, and while 
in his interpretation of the Old Testament he follows 
the usual tendencies of the fathers to see nothing 
there but types and allegories, in the New he chiefly 
follows the obvious meaning, and considers each 
parable or narrative or discourse as a whole, the 
key of which he generally finds in the occasion which 
gave rise to it. He even warns us against pushing 
the minutia? of parables into too prominent a posi 
tion, by means of which the machinery to enforce 
a moral lesson becomes the medium for convey 
ing some cabbalistic mystery : as when, instead of in 
ferring the certainty of our having to give an account 
of the use of our worldly means from the parable of 
Dives and Lazarus, commentators use it to unveil the 
secrets of the future world ; or discover the two sa 
craments in the pence given by the Samaritan to the 
host at the inn. 

b 



x PREFACE. 

Like many other patristic Commentaries, it was 
delivered in a course of short Sermons, preached ex 
temporaneously : for so we may conclude, not only 
from the opening sentences of Sermon III, and the 
reiteration of favourite texts, but also from their 
evidently being quoted from memory. Repeatedly 
S. Cyril s reading agrees neither with the Septuagint 
nor with any other Greek version of the Old Testa 
ment, though occasionally he (apparently) purposely 
follows Theodotion. In the New Testament he was 
evidently most familiar with S. Matthew s Gospel, 
and not only does he make his ordinary quotations 
from it, but even introduces its readings into the 
Commentary, after correctly giving S. Luke s text 
at the head of the Sermon. And as increased at 
tention is now being paid to the collection of 
the various readings of Holy Scripture contained in 
the works of the fathers, the caution may not be out 
of place, that certainly in S. Cyril, and probably in 
the patristic writings generally, no importance is to 
be attached to the substitution of the words and 
phrases of one Gospel for those of another. 

In the headings however placed before each Ser 
mon, we have a most valuable addition to our mate 
rials for biblical criticism : for evidently they give us 
the received Alexandrine text as it was read in the 
beginning of the fifth century ; and that S. Cyril was 
fully aware of the importance of correctness on this 
head is evident from his constant allusions to the 
readings of the other Gospels. Its value however 
will best appear by a comparison between it and the 
chief extant authorities, and I have therefore collated 
it in the margin, 1. with the readings of the great 



PREFACE. xi 

Vatican MS. published posthumously by Cardinal 
Mai, and which I have marked as B. ; 2. with the 
seventh edition of Tischendorf, now in process of 
publication, T.; 3. with Griesbach, G.; and, 4". with 
the textus receptus, 9. I have not however consi 
dered it necessary to notice unimportant transposi 
tions in the order of words, and where Griesbach is 
equally in favour of two readings, I have usually 
omitted his name ; as also I have done with the Sy- 
riac, represented by S., in the few cases in which it 
corresponds as much with the one as with the other 
Greek reading. It will be noticed that in all cases 
I have represented the Syriac by its equivalent in 
Greek, which rule I have also followed wherever it 
has appeared expedient to give in the margin the 
original word ; often however of course the Greek is 
actually taken from the remains in Mai. 

The most cursory glance at the margin will shew 
that the high expectation naturally formed of the 
probable value of so ancient a text is fully carried out 
in fact. Its readings are almost always supported by 
one or other of the chief authorities, far more so than 
those of B. itself. And even where it seems to stand 
alone, an examination of the readings in Tischendorf 
will almost universally shew that tljere is a strong 
array of evidence in its support among the most 
valued MSS., while it contains nothing which mo 
dern criticism has definitely condemned. One obser 
vation is however necessary, namely, that the Syriac 
language indulges in a fuller use of pronouns even 
than our own; and though I have noticed in the 
margin their addition wherever they might possibly 

b2 



xii PREFACE. 

exist in the Greek, yet, like those in italics in our own 
version, they are really not to be regarded as varise 
lectiones, but only as the necessary result of the idiom 
of the language. 

It may however be asked, whether the Syriac trans 
lator may be depended upon in his rendering of the 
original Greek text. To this I can answer unhesi 
tatingly in the affirmative : wherever the Greek is 
extant in Mai s collection, the exactness with which 
it is reproduced in the Syriac without the slightest 
alteration of tense and number, and with the most 
curious expedients for rendering those compound 
words in which Greek delights, is marvellous. Wher 
ever also Mai has misunderstood a passage, or wrongly 
punctuated a sentence, it is as a usual rule correctly 
given in the Syriac, and though occasionally it has 
erred, as in rendering (T X oa/o?, in Jer. viii. 8, by "cord," 
whereas it really means "pen," still such instances are 
extremely rare. 

At the same time the translator has been guilty of 
one fault, which I am the more anxious to mention, 
as otherwise it might be laid to my own charge, 
namely, that he has taken no care to render each quo 
tation always in the same words. The most glaring 
instance of this occurs in Is. i. 23, where no less than 
three different renderings are given of " Thy princes 
" are disobedient" one only of which is the exact equi 
valent of the Greek aveiOovn, though none deviate 
far from it ; while the Peschito gives a fourth word, 
the equivalent of the Hebrew " rebellious." Similarly 
the words crwr^/ous eTri<paveias in Amos v. 22, have 
greatly puzzled the Syriac translator, who renders 



PREFACE. xiii 

them sometimes by " your appearances for salvation," 
sometimes " the salvation of your appearances," the 
language not admitting of a literal rendering on ac 
count of its scanty use of adjectives. And though the 
same Greek text naturally suggested to the translator 
the same Syriac rendering, still he has not troubled 
himself about maintaining verbal identity in the 
various places in which the same text occurs. For 
my own part, originally I made an entry of each text 
upon translating it, for the puqwse of retaining as 
much verbal accuracy as possible ; but when I found 
these variations in the Syriac, I gave up the attempt, 
and following the same plan as my predecessor, have 
contented myself with carefully rendering each text 
as it occurred, without comparing it with previous 
translations, and I think it will be found that neither 
of us have gone far astray from the exact sense of the 
original. 

I need scarcely mention after the above, that the 
Syriac translator does not take his quotations from 
the Peschito. Of course in the Old Testament this 
was impossible, as that version represents, not the 
Septuagint, but the Hebrew. For the same rea 
son, the use of our own version was equally an im 
possibility to myself, since, as is well known, the 
Greek differs too considerably from the Masoretic 
text, of which ours is a translation, for one to be 
at all the equivalent of the other. I am by no 
means however prepared to join in the general con 
demnation of the Septuagint, stamped as it is by the 
approval of our Lord and His apostles ; and though 
parts of it are done far less efficiently than the rest, 



xiv PREFACE. 

yet whoever neglects it throws away one of the most 
important means for attaining to a knowledge of the 
original Scriptures ; and I know of no more difficult 
question than the adjudication between the vocalising 
and arrangement of the Hebrew text as represented 
by the Septuagint, and that which gives us the sub 
sequent tradition of the Jewish schools. Not that 
there is the slightest room for doubting the authenti 
city and genuineness in all substantial points of the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament ; for the question 
affects only the vowels and the division of words ; and 
the vowels in Semitic languages are not so important 
as in those of the Indo-Germanic family. To the 
present day no Jewish author ever expresses them in 
writing, though they have so far adopted modern 
customs as no longer to string their consonants to 
gether in one unbroken line. Necessarily, however, 
under such circumstances reading in ancient times was 
a matter of no slight difficulty, and hence the dignity 
of the profession of the scribe, and the wonder of the 
Jews at our Lord and His apostles possessing the 
requisite knowledge. The Septuagint therefore pos 
sesses especial value, as being both the first attempt 
at fixing the meaning of the uncertain elements in 
the Hebrew language, and as dating prior to the 
establishment of Christianity: and though Jewish 
tradition subsequently grew more exact, and elimi 
nated many mistakes into which the authors of the 
Septuagint had fallen, still the fact that these subse 
quent labours of the Jewish schools first found their 
expression in the version of Aquila, who had deserted 
Christianity, and published his translation as a rival 



PREFACE. xv 

to the Septuagint, and certainly with no kindly in 
tention towards the religion which he had abandoned, 
may well make us hesitate before we so unceremoni 
ously decry a version, the mistakes of which can be 
ascribed to nothing worse than simple inefficiency. 
That from such hands and under such auspices the 
Masoretic text is so trustworthy, and so free from any 
real ground of suspicion, entirely as regards its con 
sonants, and to a great extent as regards its vowels, is 
the result, under God s Providence, of the extreme 
reverence of the Jews for the letter of those ordi 
nances which had been entrusted to their keeping, 
since the Christian Church was by no means aware 
of the importance of an exact inquiry into the true 
meaning of the earlier Scriptures, and contented 
itself with receiving what the Jews provided for its 
use ; even Jerome himself scarcely giving us more 
than what his Jewish masters taught him, and Ori- 
gen s knowledge of Hebrew being about as much as 
could be expected from the time it took him to 
acquire it. 

In the New Testament the case was different : for 
of course it was just possible there to have used the 
words of our authorized Version. But so to have 
done would have brought me into constant opposition 
to my text ; for I had not the Greek before me, but 
a Syriac rendering of it, punctuated to an extreme 
degree of nicety, and fixing the meaning to one defi 
nite sense. It seemed therefore my only honest course 
to reproduce as exactly as I could the version of the 
Syriac translator. Whether I should myself in all 
cases have given the same meaning to the original 



xvi PREFACE. 

Greek is an entirely distinct thing ; for the duty of 
a translator is not to give his own views, but those 
of his author. Still, as the memory naturally sug 
gested the language of the authorized Version, it will 
no doubt be found to have exercised no little in 
fluence upon the words which I have used. 

But it seemed to me expedient for another reason 
to reproduce as exactly as possible the renderings of 
the Syriac translation. For the perfecting of the 
English translation of the Inspired Word is one of 
the noblest tasks which the mind of man can under 
take : and though there may be evils attendant upon 
interfering with our present noble Saxon Version, 
still none can be so great as its being regarded by 
a gradually increasing proportion of the community 
as deficient in correctness. To commission however 
any body of scholars, however competent, to under 
take a completely new version, or at present even a 
general revision of what we have, would be, in my 
opinion, at least premature. The controversy ought 
to be carried on in a region distinct from the book 
which we use in our worship and devotion : and such 
at present is the case, the attempts at improvement 
being made by individuals, and not by any consti 
tuted authority. When, however, there has been 
gained a sufficient mass of results generally received, 
the time will have come for the proper steps to be 
taken for admitting them into the authorized version. 
And possibly in the New Testament the labours of 
so many scholars and commentators may in a few 
years bring matters to such a pass as may justify the 
proper authorities in undertaking its revision : but in 



PREFACE. xvii 

the Old Testament the case is very different, and a 
lengthened period of far more profound study of He 
brew literature than at present prevails, carried on 
by many different minds, is required before anything 
more could be done than to bring the translation in 
a few unimportant particulars nearer to the Maso- 
retic text. 

In the present translation, therefore, I have used 
the utmost exactness in rendering all quotations from 
Holy Scripture, in the hope that it might not be 
without its value to shew in what way the New Tes 
tament was understood and rendered by so compe 
tent and ancient an authority as the Syriac translator 
of this present work. 

It remains now only to mention the relation in 
which the Syriac Version of the Commentary stands 
to the Greek remains collected by Mai, and of which 
I have given a translation wherever the MS. of the 
Syriac was unfortunately defective. 

As early then as the year 1838 Mai had shewn the 
great value of this Commentary by the extracts pub 
lished in the tenth volume of his Auctores Classici : 
and from that time he laboured assiduously in making 
his collection as complete as possible, until at length 
in the 2nd vol. of his Bib. Pat. Nova, the fragments 
gathered by him from twelve different Catenae, toge 
ther with a Latin translation, occupy more than 300 
quarto pages. 

But the critical acumen of Mai was by no means 
commensurate with his industry. With the usual 
fault of collectors, the smallest amount of external 






xviii PREFACE. 

evidence was sufficient to override the strongest in 
ternal improbability : nor apparently did his reading 
extend much beyond those Manuscripts, among 
which he laboured with such splendid results. At 
all events, though Cyril was an anthor whom he 
greatly valued, not only does he ascribe to the Com 
mentary a vast mass of matter really taken from 
Cyril s other works, but even numerous extracts from 
Theophylact, Gregory Nazianzen, and other writers, 
whose style and method of interpretation are entirely 
opposed to the whole tenor of Cyril s mind. 

Although it scarcely belonged to my undertaking 
to sift these extracts, yet, as it might have thrown a 
suspicion upon the genuineness of the Syriac Version 
to find it unceremoniously rejecting nearly a third 
of what Mai had gathered, I have in most cases in 
dicated the work or author to whom the rejected 
passages belong. A few still remain unaccounted 
for; but as the principle of Niketas, the compiler 
of the chief Catena upon S. Luke, confessedly was 
to gather from all Cyril s works whatever might il 
lustrate the Evangelist s meaning, and as in so do 
ing he often weaves two, or even three distinct ex 
tracts into one connected narrative, it is no wonder 
if it was more easy to gather such passages than to 
restore the disjecta membra to their original position. 
Several extracts also which escaped me at the time 
have since met my eye, of which the only one of 
importance is the remarkable explanation of the two 
birds at the cleansing of the leper, conf. Com. on 
Luke v. 14, and which is taken from a letter of Cyril 
to Acacius, 



PREFACE. xix 

But the value of the Commentary does not arise 
simply from the uncertainty attaching to what Mai 
has gathered, but also from the superior form in 
which it gives what really is Cyril s own. As a ge 
neral rule, the Catenists give conclusions without pre 
misses, striking statements separated from the context 
which defines their meaning, results as true generally 
which are only true particularly, or which at least are 
greatly modified by the occasion which led to them. 
As it is moreover the manner of the Catenists often 
to introduce extracts by a summary of what precedes 
them, or where their length precluded their admis 
sion to give an abstract of them in briefer words, it 
often happens that a passage really Cyril s is followed 
in Mai by an abstract of itself taken from some 
smaller Catena : and thus an amount of confusion 
and repetition is occasioned which contrasts unfa 
vourably with the simplicity of arrangement and 
easiness of comprehension which prevail throughout 
the Commentary itself. 

Nevertheless Mai probably took the best course in 
confining himself to the simple collection of mate 
rials : and at all events his works are carefully edited, 
punctuated intelligibly, and translated with very con 
siderable correctness. No one, in using his very vo 
luminous works, however much he may be inclined 
to regret his want of critical ability, will accuse him 
of an inefficient treatment of the materials before 
him. The very reverse is the case with the other 
Catena which I have used, and which was edited by 
Dr. Cramer. 

In itself it is of considerable intrinsic value, but is 



xx PREFACE. 

entirely untranslateable, except by one who will take 
the trouble of restoring the text, and entirely altering 
Dr. Cramer s punctuation. 

In conclusion, I have to return my thanks to the 
Delegates of the University Press for undertaking 
both the publication of the Syriac Version of S. Cyril s 
Commentary, and also of the present English trans 
lation. 



Oxford, Jan. 1859. 



COMMENTARY OF S.CYRIL, 

PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA, 



TPON 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 



CHAP. I. 

Who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers v>r. 2. 
of the Word. 

IN saying that the Apostles were eyewitnesses of the substan- From Mai 

tial and living Word, the Evangelist agrees with John, who says, 

that "the Word was made flesh, and tabernacled in us, and John i. 14. 

" His glory was seen, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the "^ 

" Father." For the Word became capable of being seen by 

reason of the flesh, which is visible and tangible and solid : 

whereas in Himself He is invisible. And John again in his 

Epistle says, " That which was from the beginning, That i Joh 

" which we have heard, That which we have seen with our 

" eyes, and our hands have handled around the Word of 

" Life, and the Life became manifest." Hearest thou not that 

he speaks of the Life as capable of being handled? This he 

does that thou mayest understand that the Son became man, 

and was visible in respect of the flesh, but invisible as regards 

His divinity.* 

a There can be little doubt that on v. 32. is from the tenth Book 
this passage does not belong to the against Julian, Op. VI. 331.; the 
Commentary, but as I have hitherto following on v. 37. is the thirteenth 
been unable to find it in S. Cyril s chapter against the Anthropomor- 
Collected Works, I have thought it phites, VI. 380. ; and the third ex- 
best to retain it. Mai s next extract tract on v. 42. is the Commentary 

B 



COMMENTARY UPON 



v. 51. He hath shewed strength with His arm : He hath scattered 
the proud in the imagination of their heart. 

The arm enigmatically signifies the Wqrd that was born of 
her : and by the proud, Mary means the wicked demons who 
with their prince fell through pride: arid the Greek sages, 
who refused to receive the folly, as it seemed, of what was 
preached : and the Jews who would not believe, and were scat 
tered for their unworthy imaginations about the Word of God. 
And by the mighty she means the Scribes and Pharisees, who 
sought the chief seats. It is nearer the sense, however, to 
refer it to the wicked demons : for these, when openly claim 
ing mastery over the world, the Lord by His coming scattered, 



upon Issachar s name, signifying 
" a reward," in the Glaphyra, I. 227. 
(Ed. Aub.) All these I have omitted. 
The remaining extracts, forming a 
continuous Commentary upon the 
hymns of the blessed Virgin and 
Zacharias, I have retained, since it 
is scarcely probable that S.Cyril en 
tirely passed them over; and, though 
the homilies, as proved by the Sy- 
riac, commenced with the first verse 
of chap, ii., yet possibly he may 
have prefaced them by an Exposi 
tion of these hymns. Cramer s 
Catena, nevertheless, contains por 
tions of several of these extracts 
anonymously. The proof from the 
Syriac that the homilies began with 
the second chapter is decisive. Of 
the nine MSS. in which more or 
less of this Commentary is preserved, 
eight constantly mention the num 
ber of the homily, which they quote 
either in part or entire : in one of 
these, N. 12, 154., a MS. probably 
of the eighth century, a series of 
extracts occurs occupying forty 
pages, beginning with the first 
and ending with the hundred 
and eighteenth homily ; and the 
numbering of this Codex is 
identical with that of the rest, 
wherever two or more of them 
contain the same passage. The 



Syriac numbering apparently is also 
identical with that of the Greek. 
For in my earliest authority, Cod. 
12, 158, transcribed, as the Copyist 
states, in the year of our Lord 588., 
the numbering of the quotations 
from S. Cyril is still identical with 
that of the other Codices. This MS. 
contains a translation of two trea 
tises of Severus of Antioch against 
Julian, and is probably at least a 
century anterior to the Syriac ver 
sion of S. Cyril ; so that its agree 
ment with it, both in this and more 
material points, is of considerable 
importance. Evidently S. Cyril s 
Commentary upon the beginning of 
the Gospel was much more brief 
than it became subsequently : for 
whereas the twenty-first homily car 
ries us down to the end of the fifth 
chapter, those that follow average 
ten homilies each. In like manner 
the concluding chapters of St. Luke 
were passed over by him very ra 
pidly. Finally, as the Syriac, from 
time to time, does not recognise 
some of the passages collected by 
Mai from the Catenae, it is worth 
notice, that of his four first extracts, 
not less than three have been dis 
covered in the published works of 
S.Cyril, in complete as Aubert s edi 
tion is. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 3 

and transferred those whom they had made captive unto His 
own dominion. For these things all came to pass according to 
her prophecy, that 

He hath put down, rulers from their thrones, and exalted v. 52. 
the humble. 

Great used to be the haughtiness of these demons whom He 
scattered, and of the devil, and of the Greek sages, as I said, 
and of the Pharisees and Scribes. But He put them down, and 
exalted those who had humbled themselves under their mighty 
hand, - having given them authority to tread upon serpents Luke x. 19. 
" and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy :" and 
made the plots against us of these haughty-minded beings of 
none effect. The Jews, moreover, once gloried in their empire, 
but were stripped of it for their unbelief; whereas the Gentiles, 
who were obscure and of no note, were for their faith s sake 
exalted. 

He hath filled the hungry unth good things, and the rich He V. 53. 
hath sent empty away. 

By the hungry, she means the human race : for, excepting 
the Jews only, they were pining with famine. The Jews, 
however, were enriched by the giving of the law, and by the 
teaching of the holy prophets. For "to them belonged the Rom. ix. 4 . 
" giving of the law, the adoption of sons, the worship, the pro- 
" mises." But they became wanton with high feeding, and 
too elate at their dignity ; and having refused to draw near 
humbly to the Incarnate One, they were sent empty away, 
carrying nothing with them, neither faith nor knowledge, nor 
the hope of blessings. For verily they became both outcasts 
from the earthly Jerusalem, and aliens from the glorious life 
that is to be revealed, because they received not the Prince of 
Life, but even crucified the Lord of Glory, and abandoned the 
fountain of living water, and set at nought the bread that 
came down from heaven. And for this reason there came upon 
them a famine severer than any other, and a thirst more bitter 
than every thirst : for it was not a famine of the material 
bread, nor a thirst of water, " but a famine of hearing the Amos viii. 
" Word of the Lord." But the heathen, who were hungering f 

B 2 



4 COMMENTARY UPON 

and athirst, and with their soul wasted away with misery, were 
filled with spiritual blessings, because they received the Lord. 
For the privileges of the Jews passed over unto them. 

v - 54 He hath taken hold of Israel His child to remember mercy. 

He hath taken hold of Israel, not of the Israel according 
to the flesh, and who prides himself on the bare name, but of 
him who is so after the Spirit, and according to the true 
meaning of the appellation ; even such as look unto God, and 
believe in Him, and obtain through the Son the adoption of 
sons, according to the Word that was spoken, and the promise 
made to the prophets and patriarchs of old. It has, however, 
a true application also to the carnal Israel ; for many thou 
sands and ten thousands of them believed. " But He has re- 
" membered His mercy as He promised to Abraham :" and 

Gen. xxii. has accomplished what He spake unto him, that " in thy seed 
" shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed." For this pro 
mise was now in the act of fulfilment by the impending birth 
of our common Saviour Christ, Who is that seed of Abraham, 

Heb. ii. ,6. in Whom the Gentiles are blessed. For He took on Him the 
" seed of Abraham," according to the Apostle s words : and so 
fulfilled the promise made unto the fathers. 

v - 6 9- He hath raised up a horn of salvation for us. b 

The word horn is used not only for power, but also for 
royalty. But Christ, Who is the Saviour that hath risen for 
us from the family and race of David, is both : for He is the 
King of kings, and the invincible power of the Father. 

To perform mercy. 

Christ is mercy and justice : for we have obtained mercy 
through Him, and been justified, having washed away the 
stains of wickedness through faith that is in Him. 

The oath which He swore to our father Abraham. 

derias C r " But let n ne accustom himself to swear from hearing that 
God sware unto Abraham. For just as anger, when spoken of 

b Referred by Corderius to Victor. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 5 

God, is not anger, nor implies passion, but signifies power ex 
ercised in punishment, or some similar motion ; so neither is an 
oath an act of swearing. For God does not swear, but indicates 
the certainty of the event, that that which He says will ne 
cessarily come to pass. For God s oath is His own word, fully 
persuading those that hear, and giving each one the conviction 
that what He has promised and said will certainly come to 
pass. 

And thou, child, shah be called Prophet of the Highest. V. 76. 

Observe, I pray, this also, that Christ is the Highest, Whose From Mai. 
forerunner John was both in his birth, and in his preaching. 
What remains, then, for those to say, who lessen His divinity? 
And why will they not understand, that when Zacharias said, 
" And thou shalt be called Prophet of the Highest," he meant 
thereby " of God," of Whom also were the rest of the pro 
phets. 

To give light to them that sit in darkness, and the shadow v. 79. 
of death. 

For those under the law, and dwelling in Judea, the Baptist 
was, as it were, a lamp, preceding Christ : and God so spake 
before of him ; " I have prepared a lamp for My Christ." And p * cxxxii. 
the law also typified him in the lamp, which in the first taber 
nacle it commanded should be ever kept alight. But the Jews, 
after being for a short time pleased with him, flocking to his 
baptism, and admiring his mode of life, quickly made him 
sleep in death, doing their best to quench the ever-burning 
lamp. For this reason the Saviour also spake concerning him ; 
" He was a burning and shining lamp, and ye were willing a Jolm v - 35 
" little to rejoice for a season in his light." 

c " He means the Arians, who face to his translation of the Theo- 

said the Son was indeed God, but phania, a Syriac version of which 

* nevertheless inferior to the Fa- was discovered among the Nitrian 
ther : as Eusebius, who was an MSS. His translation is, however, 

* Arian writer, especially in his in- inaccurate to the last degree; and 
terpretation of the ;8th Psalm." the treatise in question leaves no 

Mai. This charge against Euse- doubt that Euaebius was the pre- 
bius, the late Professor Lee has cursor of Arian doctrines, 
endeavoured to disprove in the pre- 



fi COMMENTARY UPON ST. LUKE. 

79. To guide our feet into the way of peace. 

For the world, indeed, was wandering in error, serving the 
creation in the place of the Creator, and was darkened over 
by the blackness of ignorance, and a night, as it were, that 
had fallen upon the minds of all, permitted them not to see 
Him, Who both by nature and truly is God. But the Lord of 
all rose for the Israelites, like a light and a sun. 



CHAP. II. 



" From S. CyriFs Commentary upon the Gospel of From the 
" St. Luke, Sermon the First: MS.i2,i 5 4. 



And it came to pass in those days, 8fc. Luke ii. i. 

(CHRIST therefore was born in Bethlehem at the time when 
Augustus Caesar gave orders that the first enrolment should be 
made. But what necessity was there, some one may perhaps 
say, for the very wise Evangelist to make special mention of 
this ? Yes, I answer : it was both useful and necessary for him 
to mark the period when our Saviour was born : for it was said 
by the voice of the Patriarch : " The head shall not depart Gen. xlix. 
" from Judah, nor a governor from his thighs until He come, 
" for Whom it is laid up : and He is the expectation of the 
" Gentiles." That we therefore might learn that the Israelites 
had then no king of the tribe of David, and that their own na 
tive governors had failed, with good reason he makes mention 
of the decrees of Ca>sar, as now having beneath his sceptre 
Judaia as well as the rest of the nations : for it was as their 
ruler that he commanded the census to be made. 

Because he was of the house and lineage of David. v. 4 . 

The book of the sacred Gospels referring the genealogy to From Mai. 
Joseph, who was descended from David s house, has proved 
through him that the Virgin also was of the same tribe as 
David, inasmuch as the Divine law commanded that marriages 
should be confined to those of the same tribe : and the inter 
preter of the heavenly doctrines, the great apostle Paul, clearly 
declares the truth, bearing witness that the Lord arose out of Heb. vii. 
Juda. The natures, however, which combined unto this real I4> 
union were different, but from the two together is one God 



8 COMMENTARY UPON 

the Son, d without the diversity of the natures being destroyed 
by the union. For a union of two natures was made, and 
therefore we confess One Christ, One Son, One Lord. And it 
is with reference to this notion of a union without confusion 
that we proclaim the holy Virgin to be the mother of God, be 
cause God the Word was made flesh and became man, and by 
the act of conception united to Himself the temple that He re 
ceived from her. For we perceive that two natures, by an in 
separable union, met together in Him without confusion, and 
indivisibly. For the flesh is flesh, and not deity, even though 
it became the flesh of God : and in like manner also the Word 
is God, and not flesh, though for the dispensation s sake He 
made the flesh His own. But although the natures which con 
curred in forming the union are both different and unequal to 
one another, yet He Who is formed from them both is only 
One : nor may we separate the One Lord Jesus Christ into 
man severally and God severally, but we affirm that Christ 
Jesus is One and the Same, acknowledging the distinction of 
the natures, and preserving them free from confusion with one 
another. 

V 5- With Mary, his betrothed wife, being great with child. 

The sacred Evangelist says that Mary was betrothed to 
Joseph, to shew that the conception had taken place upon her 
betrothal solely, and that the birth of the Emanuel was mira 
culous, and not in accordance with the laws of nature. For 
the holy Virgin did not bear from the immission of man s seed. 
And what was the reason of this ? Christ, Who is the first-fruits 
of all, the second Adam according to the Scriptures, was born 
of the Spirit, that he might transmit the grace (of the spiritual 
birth) to us also : for we too were intended, no longer to bear 
the name of sons of men, but of God rather, having obtained 
the new birth of the Spirit in Christ first, that he might be 
Col. i. 15. " foremost among all," as the most wise Paul declares. 

And the occasion of the census most opportunely caused the 
holy Virgin to go to Bethlehem, that we might see another 

d Geo? KOI vl6i, God the Son ; as tion in these phrases is constantly 

Qeos Kal rraTTjp is used by S. Cyril retained, while in those of a later 

for God the Father. In the more date the tendency is to omit it. 
ancient Syriac MSS. the conjunc- 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 9 

prophecy fulfilled. For it is written, as we have already men 
tioned, "And thou Bethlehem, house of Ephratah, art very Mich. v. 2. 
small to be among the thousands of Judah : from thee shall 
come forth for Me to be Ruler in Israel I" 

But in answer to those who argue that, if He were brought 
forth in the flesh, the Virgin was corrupted : and if she were 
not corrupted, that He was brought forth only in appear 
ance, we say; the prophet declares, "the Lord, the God ofEzek. xiiv. 
Israel, hath entered in and gone out, and the gate remaineth 2 
closed." If, moreover, the Word was made flesh without 
sexual intercourse, being conceived altogether without seed, 
then was He born without injury to her virginity. 

And she brought forth her firstborn Son. Ver. 7. 

In what sense then her firstborn? By firstborn she here 
means, not the first among several brethren, but one who was 
both her first and only son : for some such sense as this exists 
among the significations of " firstborn." For sometimes also 
the Scripture calls that the first which is the only one ; as " I ! xiiv. 6. 
am God, the First, and with Me there is no other." To shew 
then that the Virgin did not bring forth a mere man, there is 
added the word firstUorn ; for as she continued to be a virgin, 
she had no other son but Him Who is of the Father : concerning 
Whom God the Father also proclaims by the voice of David, 
And I will set Him Firstborn high among the kings of theP.lxxxix. 
earth." Of Him also the all-wise Paul makes mention, saying, 2 
u But when He brought the First-begotten into the world, HeHeb. i. 6. 
saith, And let all the angels of God worship Him." How 
then did He enter into the world ? For He is separate from it, 
not so much in respect of place as of nature ; for it is in nature 
that He differs from the inhabitants of the world: but He 
entered into it by being made man, and becoming a portion of 
iTjby the incarnation. For though He is the Only-begotten 
as regards His divinity, yet as having become our brother, 
He has also the name of Firstborn ; that, being made the first- 
fruits as it were- of the adoption of men, He might make us 
;iU<> the sons of God. 

Consider therefore that He is called the Firstborn in respect 
of the economy: for with respect to His divinity He is the 

c 



10 COMMENTARY UPON 

Only-begotten. Again, He is the Only-begotten in respect of 
His being the Word of the Father, having no brethren by 
nature, nor being co-ordinate with any other being : for the 
Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, is One and Alone : 
but He becomes the Firstborn by descending to tha, level of 
created things. When therefore He is called the Only-be 
gotten, He is so with no cause assigned by reason of which He 
Johni. 18. is the Only-begotten, being " the Only-begotten God e into the 
bosom of the Father :" but when the divine Scriptures call Him 
Firstborn, they immediately also add of whom He is the first 
born, and assign the cause of His bearing this title : for they 
Rom. viii. say, " Firstborn among many brethren :" and " Firstborn from 
Col i 1 8 ^ e ^ad : " ^ ie one > ecau se He was made like unto us in all 
things except sin ; and the other, because He first raised up 
His own flesh unto incorruption. Moreover, He has ever been 
the Only-begotten by nature, as being the Sole begotten 
of the Father, God of God, and Sole of Sole, having shone 
forth God of God, and Light of Light : but He is the Firstborn 
for our sakes, that by His being called the Firstborn of things 
created, whatever resembles Him may be saved through Him : 
for if He must of necessity be the Firstborn, assuredly those 
must also continue to exist of whom He is the Firstborn. But 
if, as Eunomius f argues, He is called God s Firstborn, as born 
the first of many ; and He is also the Virgin s Firstborn ; then 
as regards her also, He must be the first as preceding another 
child : but if He is called Mary s Firstborn, as her only child, 
and not as preceding others, then is He also God s Firstborn, 
not as the first of many, but as the Only One born. 

Moreover if the first are confessedly the cause of the second, 
but God and the Son of God are first, then is the Son the cause 
of those who have the name of sons, inasmuch as it is through 
Him that they have obtained the appellation. He therefore 
who is the cause of the second sons may justly be called the 

e Mai translates contrary to the degree and kind, whence his follow- 

Greek " Unigenitus Dei." S. Cy- ers were called di/d/Aoiot. He flou- 

ril s reading ecdy, agrees as usual rished about A. D. 360, and was a 

with the Vatican MS., and is also disciple of Aetius. St. Athanasius 

supported by many of the fathers, often refers to him in his treatise 

and by the Oriental versions. against the Arians. For a fuller 

f Eunomius taught, that the Fa- account of him, cf. Newman s Ari- 

ther and Son are unequal, both in ans, c. iv. sect. 4. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 11 

Firstborn, not as being the first of them, but as the first 

cause of their receiving the title of sonship. And just as 

the Father being called the first "for I, He saith, am the Is. xli. 4 . 

first, and I am after these things" assuredly will not compel 

us to regard Him as similar in nature to those that are after 

Him ; so also though the Son be called the first of creation, or 

the Firstborn before all creation, it by no means follows that 

He is one of the things made : but just as the Father said " I 

am the first," to shew that He is the origin of all things, in the 

same sense the Son also is called the first of creation. "For John i. 3 

all things were made by Him/ 11 and He is the beginning of all 

created things, as being the Creator and Maker of the worlds. 

And she laid him in the manger. Ver. 7. 

He found man reduced to the level of the beasts : therefore 
is He placed like fodder in a manger, that we, having left off 
our bestial life, might mount up to that degree of intelligence 
which befits man s nature ; and whereas we were brutish in 
soul, by now approaching the manner, even His own table, we 
find no longer fodder, but the bread from heaven, which is 
the body of life. 

* For a very full and accurate TrpwrdroKo?, the reader may consult 
discussion of the sense in which S. Cyril s eighth Paschal Homily, 
our Lord is both p.ovoy(vr)t and 



C 2 



SERMON II. 



om. iSov, 
cum B. 
56a Qeo 
sol. 



KU.I KflfJLWOV 

curn B. 



From the SERMON OF S. CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, FROM THE 

Syriac, 

MS. 1 2, 165. COMMENTARY UPON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE ; UPON THE 

BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOUR IN THE FLESH. 

c. ii. ^8-18. And there were shepherds in that country, ivatching and 
keeping guard by night over their flock : and the angel of 
the Lord came unto them, and the glory of God shone upon 
them, and they luere sore afraid. And the angel said unto 
them, Fear not : for lo ! I brine/ unto you good tidings of 
great joy, which shall be to all the people : that there is 
born unto you to-day in the city of David a Saviour, Who 
is Christ the Lord. And this is your sign ; ye shall find 
a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a 
manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multi 
tude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, Glory 
to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and among men 
good will. And it came to pass that when the angels had 
gone from them unto heaven, the shepherds said unto one 
another, Let us go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing 
ivhich hath come to pass, ivhich the Lord hath made known 
unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary and 
Joseph, and the babe laid in the manger. And when 
they had seen, they made known the word that was spoken 
unto them concerning the child. And all that heard won 
dered at what was told them by the shepherds. 

LET me begin my discourse to you with that which is 

Ps. xcv. i. written in the book of Psalms, " Come let us praise the 

Lord, and sing unto God our Saviour :" for He is the Head of 

our feast-day, and therefore let us tell His noble doings, and 



ovpavtvv, 

sol. 



COMMENTARY ITON ST. U T KK. 1 

the manner of that beautifully contrived dispensation, by 
means of which He has saved the world, and having placed on 
each one of us the yoke of His kingdom, is justly the object of 
our admiration. The blessed David therefore says in the 
Psalms, "All ye people clap your hands ;" and again adds p s . xKH. 
thereto, "Sing with understanding, God hath set a king over I<7 
all the heathen." For this holy mystery was wrought with 
a wisdom most befitting Christ, if it be true, as true most cer 
tainly it is, that the Lord, though He is God, appeared unto 
us, and though He is in the form of God the Father, and pos 
sesses an incomparable and universal preeminence, took the 
likeness of a slave. But even so He was God and Lord ; for 
He did not cease to be that which He had been. 

The company of the holy prophets had before proclaimed 
both His birth in the flesh, and His assumption of our likeness 
as about in due time to come to pass : and inasmuch as this 
hope had now reached its fulfilment, the rational powers of 
heaven bring the glad tidings of His manifestation and appear 
ance in this world, to shepherds first of all at Bethlehem, who 
were thus the earliest to receive the knowledge of the mystery. 
And the type answers to the truth : for Christ reveals Himself 
to the spiritual shepherds, that they may preach Him to the 
rest, just as the shepherds also then were taught His mystery 
by the holy angels, and ran to bear the glad tidings to their 
fellows. Angels therefore are the first to preach Him, and 
declare His glory as God born in the flesh in a wonderful 
manner of a woman. 

But perchance some one may object to this; "that He Who 
was now born was still a child, and wrapped in swaddling- 
clothes, and laid in a manger : how then did the powers above 
praise Him as God ?" Against such our argument stands firm. 
Understand, man, the depth of the mystery ! God was in 
visible form like unto us : the Lord of all in the likeness of a 
slave, albeit the glory of lordship is inseparable from Him. 
Understand that the Only-begotten was made flesh ; that He 
endured to be born of a woman for our sakes, to put away the 
curse pronounced upon the first woman : for to her it was said, 
"In pains shalt thou bring forth children:" for it was asGen. Ui.i6. 
bringing forth unto death, that they endured the sting of 



14 COMMENTARY UPON 

death 11 . But because a woman has brought forth in the flesh 
the Immanuel, Who is Life, the power of the curse is loosed, 
and along with death have ceased also the pains that earthly 
mothers had to endure in bringing forth. 

Wouldst thou learn also another reason of the matter? 
Rom.viii.s. Remember what the very wise Paul has written of Him. " For 
as to the powerlessness of the law, wherein it was weak through 
the flesh, God having sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, 
and because of sin, has condemned 1 the sin in His flesh, that 
the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who 
walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit k ." 
What then is the meaning of his saying that the Son was sent 
" in the likeness of sinful flesh I" It is this. The law of sin lies 
hidden in our fleshly members, together with the shameful 
stirring of the natural lusts : but when the Word of God be 
came flesh, that is man, and assumed our likeness, His flesh 
was holy and perfectly pure ; so that He was indeed in the 
likeness of our flesh, but not according to its standard. For 
He was entirely free from the stains and emotions natural to 
our bodies 1 , and from that inclination which leads us to what is 
not lawful. 

When therefore thou seest the child wrapped in swaddling- 
clothes, stay not thy thought solely upon His birth in the flesh, 
but mount up to the contemplation of His godlike glory: 
elevate thy mind aloft : ascend to heaven : so wilt thou behold 

h Mai more correctly perhaps with great force in his treatise De 

reads rrjs dvias wrpov. Incarnat. Dom. c. xi., wherein he 

1 The Peschito has also this read- shews, that our Lord took the flesh 

ing, though manifestly wrong. holy and perfectly pure, " to con- 

k The passage which follows oc- " vict sin of injustice, and to de- 



curs also in MS. 12, 154, with no 
varies lectiones : as does also the 
subsequent explanation of Is. viii. 3. 
1 The Syriac translator has here 
misinterpreted S. Cyril, who does 
not say that our Lord was free from 
the emotions natural to bodies, but 



/cat 



TTS 



a fj.f) Offjus, that is, from 
that corruption of our nature which 
suggests sin to us, and inclines us 
to seek it. (James i. 14.) S. Cyril s 
main argument here is used by him 



stroy the power of death. For as 
long as sin sentenced only the 
guilty to death, no interference 
with it was possible, seeing that 
it had justice on its side. But 
when it subjected to the same 
punishment Him Who was inno- 
cent, and guiltless, and worthy of 
crowns of honour and hymns of 
praise, being convicted of injust 
ice, it was by necessary conse 
quence stripped of its power." 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 15 

Him in the highest exaltation, possessed of transcendent glory ; 
thou wilt see Him " set upon a throne high and lifted up;" Is. vi. i. 
thou wilt hear the Seraphim extolling Him in hymns, and 
saying that heaven and earth are full of His glory. Yea! 
even upon earth this has come to pass : for the glory of God 
shone upon the shepherds, and there was a multitude of the 
heavenly armies telling Christ s glory. And this it was which was 
proclaimed of old hy the voice of Moses, " Eejoice, ye heavens, 
with Him, and let all the sons m of God worship Him." ForDeut. 
very many holy prophets had been born from time to time, but 30 
never had any one of them been glorified by the voice of . 
angels : for they were men, and according to the same measure 
as ourselves, the true servants of God, and bearers of His 
words. But not so was Christ : for lie is God and Lord, and 
the Sender of the holy prophets, and, as the Psalmist says, 
" Who in the clouds shall be compared unto the Lord, and who PS. ixxxi 
shall be likened unto the Lord among the sons of God ?" For 
the appellation of sonship is bestowed by Him as of grace upon 
us who lie under the yoke, and are by nature slaves : but 
Christ is the true Son n , that is, He is the Son of God the 
Father by nature, even when He had become flesh : for He 
continued, as I have said, to be that which He had ever been, 
though He took upon Him that which He had not been. 

And that what I say is true, the prophet Isaiah again as 
sures us, saying, " Behold the virgin shall conceive and bearls. vii. 14 
" a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel ; butter 
" and honey shall He eat : before He knoweth or chooseth 
" the evil, He shall prefer the good : for before the Child dis- 
" tinguisheth good or evil, He is not obedient to evil in that 
" He chooseth the good." And yet how is it not plain to all, 
that a new-born babe, as yet unable, from its youth and ten 
derness, to understand anything, is unequal to the task of distin 
guishing between good and evil ? For he knows absolutely no 
thing. But in our Saviour Christ it was a great and extraordinary 
miracle : for He ate while yet a babe both butter and honey. 
And because He was God, ineffably made flesh, He knew only 

m This reading is supported by St. Paul, Heb. i. 6. 
several MSS., two Scholia, and S. n Mai reads 17 d\r)d(ia, the re- 
Augustine ; but is rejected by ality. 



16 COMMENTARY UPON 

the good, and was exempt from that depravity which belongs 
to man. And this too is an attribute of the supreme Substance; 
for that which is good by nature, firmly and unchangeably, 
Luke xviii. belongs specially to It, and It only ; " for there is none good, 
" but one God," as the Saviour has Himself said. 

Wouldst thou see another virtue of the Child ? Wouldst thou 
see that He is by nature God, Who in the flesh was of woman ? 
Is. viii. 3. Learn what the prophet Isaiah says of Him : " And I drew 
" near unto the prophetess, and she conceived, and bare a 
" male; and the Lord said unto me, Call His name, Quick 
" take captive, and spoil hastily. For before the Child shall 
" know to call father or mother, He shall take the strength of 
" Damascus." For contemporaneously with the birth of Christ 
the power of the devil was spoiled. For in Damascus he had 
been the object of religious service, and had had there very 
many worshippers ; but when the holy Virgin brought forth, 
the power of his tyranny was broken ; for the heathen were 
won unto the knowledge of the truth ; and their firstfruits and 
leaders were the Magi, who came from the East to Jerusalem ; 
whose teacher was the heaven, and their schoolmaster a star. 

Look not therefore upon Him Who was laid in the manger 
as a babe merely, but in our poverty see Him Who as God is 
rich, and in the measure of our humanity Him Who excels the 
inhabitants of heaven, and Who therefore is glorified even by 
the holy angels. And how noble was the hymn, " Glory to 
" God in the highest, and on earth peace, and among men 
"good will \ } For the angels and archangels, thrones and 
lordships, and high above them the Seraphim, preserving their 
settled order, are at peace with God : for never in any way 
do they transgress His good pleasure, but are firmly established 

D The Fathers constantly refer His birth the heavenly and super- 

i name, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, natural infant, while yet in svvad- 

to our Lord, and explain it of the dling bands and on His mother s 

overthrow of Satan. Another in- bosom, because of His human na- 

jtance of S. Cyril s use of it will be ture, stripped forthwith Satan of 

found in his i 7 th Paschal Homily, as his goods by His ineffable might as 

The prophetess is the holy God : for the Magi came from the 

gin : and the name given tolhe East to worship Him, &c. [In the 

hUd suiteth not man, but God : above I correct f *i 

for, With He, call His name, Spoil and 7ro P/ ^ (W 

(juickly : hastily plunder. For at 






T1TK GOSPEL OF ST. LURK. 



17 



in righteousness and holiness. But we,wretched beings, by having 
set up our own lusts in opposition to the will of our Lord, had put 
ourselves into the position of enemies unto Him. But by Christ 
this has been done away: for He is our peace; for He has Eph. ii. 14. 
united us by Himself unto God the Father, having taken away 
from the middle the cause of the enmity, even sin, and so jus 
tifies us by faith, and makes us holy and without blame, and 
calls near unto Him those who were afar off: and besides this, 
He has created the two people into one new man, so making 
peace, and reconciling both in one body to the Father. For it Eph. i. 10. 
pleased God the Father to form into one new whole all things 
in Him, and to bind together things below and things above, 
and to make those in heaven and those on earth into one flock. 
Christ therefore has been made for us both Peace and Good 
will ; by Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory 
and honour and might with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever, 
Amen. p 



P Several passages referred by Mai 
to this homily are not found in the 
Syriac, as was to be expected, the 
Catenists having made use not only 
of the Commentary, but also of 
S. Cyril s other works, especially 
the Julian books, besides the possi 
bility of interpolations, and passages 
erroneously ascribed to him. The 
first omitted extract from B. is to 
shew that the shepherds typified 
the pastors of the Church, as also 
Christ the chief shepherd, Who 
came to seek the lost Hock : while 
Bethlehem, the house of bread, His 
birthplace, is the Church, " where 
" daily the mystical bread of life is 
" sacrificed." The second passage 
(from what MS. is uncertain) gives 
a physical interpretation of the but 
ter which the Emmanuel ate, un 
worthy of Cyril, and at variance 
with the spiritual interpretation of 
the prophecy given above. Thirdly, 
there are a series of extracts from I . 
taken chiefly from the Commentary 
on Isaiah. Conf. Vol. II. 134. 200. 
(Ed. Aub.) And, lastly, an extract 



from B., to the effect that probably 
it was an archangel who brought 
the message, accompanied by his 
usual attendants. The first passage 
is remarkable, both as speaking of 
a daily communion, and for its ap 
plication of the word iepovpyflrai to 
the " mystical bread of life." The 
Fathers generally use this word in 
the same manner as St. Paul, Rom. 
xv. 1 6., for the discharge of any re 
ligious duty, and in this sense it 
will be found to occur more than 
once in the course of the Commen 
tary. Other examples may be seen 
in Suicer s Thesaurus under Itpovp- 
y((i> t and the only instance he gives 
of its application to the Lord s sup 
per is from Zonaras, a writer of the 
twelfth century. It occurs, however, 
in Philostorgii Hist. Eccl. ix. 4., and 
is there referred by Valerius to the 
Lord s supper, but this interpreta 
tion is far from certain. For the 
historian is speaking of the heretic 
Eunomius, who, he says, retired to 
a small estate situated on the sea 
shore near Chalcedon, oi^e Itpnvp- 



18 COMMENTARY UPON 



c.ii.ai-4, SERMON IILi 

From VERY numerous indeed is the assembly, and earnest the 

hearer : for we see the Church full : but the teacher is but 
poor. He nevertheless Who giveth to man a mouth and tongue, 
will further supply us with good ideas. 1 " For He somewhere 

Ps. Ixxxi. says Himself, " Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." Since 
therefore ye have all come together eagerly on the occasion of 
this joyous festival 5 of our Lord, let us with cheerful torches 
brightly celebrate the feast, and apply ourselves to the consi 
deration of what was divinely fulfilled, as it were, this day, 
gathering for ourselves from every quarter whatsoever may 
confirm us in foith and piety. 

But recently we saw the Immanuel lying as a babe in the 
manger, and wrapped in human fashion in swaddling bands, 
but extolled as God in hymns by the host of the holy angels. 
For they proclaimed to the shepherds His birth, God the Fa 
ther having granted to the inhabitants of heaven as a special 
privilege to be the first to preach Him. And to-day too we 
have seen Him obedient to the laws of Moses, or rather we 
have seen Him Who as God is the Legislator, subject to His 

yias f ov TTJS KV&KOV /uereo-n; ov is, that this extract is incorrectly 
pev ovv fs oa-ov evfftia) \povov fj-^aTo. referred to S. Cyril. 
This Valesius translates by " ne sa- 1 The original Greek of both the 
" era quidem mysteria unquam ce- third and fourth Sermons has been 
" lebravit;" but it rather means, that preserved in the Imperial Library 
" he entirely abstained from all the at Paris; and that of the fourth 
" duties of his sacred office." In sup- only at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
port of his rendering Valesius quotes The former has been printed by 
from Eusebius Life of Constantine, Aubert in his collected edition of 
Lib. IV. 45. ffva-iats dvaipots ical pv- S. Cyril s Works, Vol. V. part ii. 
n-TiKms itpovpyiais TO ddov IXdffKov- p. 385., where the two Sermons are 
TO, where, however, as Wernsdorf incorporated into one. 
shews, by a comparison with other r ^op^o-ei nd\iv folv evvoias 
passages of Eusebius, that historian, dya6d s . From this it appears that 
L his usual rhetorical style, thus these homilies were delivered ex- 
described the prayers for the safety temporaneously, which accounts for 
the Emperor, and the Church a certain amount of repetition in 
htant which, as in our service, them, especially of favorite texts, 
preceded the celebration of the Eu- The feast of circumcision, 
charist. 1 he probability, therefore, 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 19 

own decrees. And the reason of this the most wise Paul 
teaches us, saying, " When we were babes we were enslaved Gal. iv. 3. 
" under the elements of the world ; but when the fulness of 
" the time came, God sent forth His Son, born 1 of a woman, 
" born under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
" law." Christ therefore ransomed from the curse of the law 
those who being subject to it, had been unable to keep its 
enactments. And in what way did He ransom them ? By ful 
filling it. And to put it in another way : in order that He 
might expiate the guilt of Adam s transgression, He showed 
Himself obedient and submissive in every respect to God the 
Father in our stead: for it is written, "That as through the Rom. v. 19. 
" disobedience of the One man, the many were made sinners, 
" so also through the obedience of the One, the many shall be 
" made just." He yielded therefore His neck to the law in 
company with us, because the plan of salvation so required : 
for it became Him to fulfil all righteousness. u For having as 
sumed the form of a slave, as being now enrolled by reason of 
His human nature among those subject to the yoke, lie once 
even paid the half shekel to the collectors of the tribute, al 
though by nature free, and as the Son not liable to pay the tax. 

* Mai has the received reading " (oiKoi/o/xt a) which He had under- 
yevofifvov. I have not noticed the " taken for our sakes. And we 
many verbal discrepancies between " shall find Him, moreover, even in 
him and Aubert, as the Catenists " the payment of the half shekel 
naturally had to make many slight " marked out as a Saviour and Re- 
alterations in forming their extracts deemer (? read Avrpo>ri)i/ for Xu- 
into a connected discourse. The " TTJV.) For the half shekel was a 
v. 1. yfvv^vov, though received by " coin stamped with the royal 
some of the Fathers, is unsupported " image : and it was paid according 
by MS. authority. to the law for two persons. Be- 

u This passage, as far as " the " hold therefore again Christ repre- 

" plan of salvation," Mai for the " sented in the half shekel. For 

present omits, but afterwards gives " being the image of the Father, 

it in so different a form, and with " the impress of His substance, the 

such additions, that I think it bet- " coin that came from heaven, He 

ter to append a separate translation. " offered Himself as the ransom for 

" Again He paid the half shekel to " the two people, the Jews, I mean, 

" the collectors of the tribute, al- " and the Gentiles." This fanciful 

" though not bound to pay, as be- style of interpretation seldom ap- 

" ing in very truth the Son : but pears in the Syriac, and is equally 

" He paid as being made under the rejected in the present case by An- 

" law. For He must verily act fully bert s MS. 
" according to the dispensation 



20 COMMENTARY UPON 

When therefore thou seest Him keeping the law, be not of 
fended, nor place the free-born among the slaves, but reflect 
rather upon the profoundness of the plan of salvation. 

v Upon the arrival, therefore, of the eighth day, on which it 
was customary for the circumcision in the flesh to be performed 
according to the enactment of the law, He receives His Name, 
even Jesus, which by interpretation signifies, the Salvation of 
the people. For so had God the Father willed that His Son. 
should be named, when born in the flesh of a woman. For 
then especially was He made the salvation of the people, and 
not of one only, but of many, or rather of every nation, and of 
the whole world. He received His name, therefore, on the 
same occasion on which He was circumcised. 

But come, and let us again search and see, what is the 
riddle, and to what mysteries the occurrence directs us. The 
blessed Paul has said, " Circumcision is nothing, and uncir- 
" curncision is nothing. " To this it is probable that some may 
object, Did the God of all then command by the all-wise Moses 
a thing of no account to be observed, with a punishment de 
creed against those that transgressed it ? Yes, I say : for a& 
far as regards the nature of the thing, of that, I mean, which 
is done in the flesh, it is absolutely nothing, but it is pregnant 
with the graceful type of a mystery, or rather contains the hid 
den manifestation of the truth. For on the eighth x day Christ 
arose from the dead, and gave us the spiritual circumcision, 
For He commanded the holy Apostles: " Having gone, make 
Mat. u. (( ^ G c jj sc ip] es O f a || na ti ons? baptizing them into the Name of 
" the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And 
we affirm that the spiritual circumcision takes place chiefly in 

v This passage exists among the ness by means of the resurrection 

Syriac fragments, and is important from the dead of our Lord Jesus 

in so far establishing the accuracy Christ on the first day of the week. 

of Aubert s text, as it agrees with it For the first day of the week, while 

in omitting an interpolation of the remaining the first of all the days, 

Catenist, found in Mai. is, nevertheless, in its relation to 

So Justin Martyr s Dial, with the whole circle of the week, called 

Trypho. (p. 201. ed. F. Sylburgii, the eighth, and yet continues to be 

leidelb. 1793.) " The ordinance of the first." So again, p. 288. " The 

circumcision, which commanded in- ark, in which were eight persons, 

fants to be circumcised on the eighth symbolizes by that number tbe 

day only, was a type of the true cir- eighth day, on which Christ arose 

cumcision from error and wicked- from the dead." 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 21 



the season of holy baptism, when also Christ makes us par 
takers of the Holy Ghost. And of this again, that Jesus of Aub. &px<- 
old, who was captain after Moses, was a type. For he first jjjjj^ 
of all led the children of Israel across the Jordan : and then Aub. om. 
having halted them, immediately circumcised them with knives " f 
of stone. So when we have crossed the Jordan, Christ cir 
cumcises us with the power of the Holy Ghost, not purifying 
the flesh, but rather cutting off the defilement that is in our 
souls. 

On the eighth day, therefore, Christ is circumcised, and 
receives, as I said, His Name : for then, even then, were we 
saved by I limy and through Him, " in Whom, it saith, ye were col. ii. n. 
" circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands in the From Mai. 
" putting off of the fleshly body, with Christ s circumcision, 
" having been buried together with Him in baptism, wherein 
" also ye were raised with Him." His death, therefore, was 
for our sakes. as were also His resurrection and -His circum- 
ci>i<n. For lie died, that we who have died together with Him 
in His dying unto sin, may no longer live unto sin : for which 
reason it is said, "If we have died together with Him, we shall 
" also live together with Him." And He is said to have died 
unto sin, not because He had sinned, " for lie did no sin, nei- iPet. 11.22. 
" ther was guile found in His mouth," but because of our sin. 
Like as therefore we died together with Him when He died, 
so shall we also rise together with Him. 

Again, when the Son was present among us, though by nature 
God and the Lord of all, He does not on that account despise 
our measure, but along with us is subject to the same law, al 
though as God He was Himself the legislator. Like the Jews, 
He is circumcised when eight days old, to prove His descent 
from their stock, that they may not deny Him. For Christ 
was expected of the seed of David, and offered them the proof 
of His relationship. But if even when He was circumcised they 
said, "As for This man, we know not whence He is;" there John ix. 29. 



T The next two or three paragraphs Aubert s MS. in reducing two Ser- 

are not found in Aubert, but as they mons into one, made large omis- 

are in Mai s same MS. E, which Bions to avoid the too great length, 

contains most of the foregoing, and I have received them into the text, 
as it is possible that the Copyist of 



og COMMENTARY UPON 



would have been a show of reason in their denial, had He not 
been circumcised in the flesh, and kept the law. 

But after His circumcision, the rite was done away by the 
introduction of that which had been signified by it, even bap 
tism : for which reason we are no longer circumcised. For 
circumcision seems to me to have effected three several ends : 
in the first place, it separated the posterity of Abraham by a 
sort of sign and seal, and distinguished them from all other 
nations. In the second, it prefigured in itself the grace and 
efficacy of Divine baptism ; for as in old time he that was 
circumcised, was reckoned among the people of God by that 
seal, so also he that is baptized, having formed in himself 
Christ the seal, is enrolled into God s adopted family. And, 
thirdly, it is the symbol of the faithful when established in 
grace, who cut away and mortify the tumultuous risings of 
carnal pleasures and passions by the sharp surgery of faith, 
and by ascetic labours ; not cutting the body, but purifying 
the heart, and being circumcised in the spirit, and not in the 
Rom. ii. 29. letter : whose praise, as the divine Paul testifies, needs not the 
sentence of any human tribunal, but depends upon the decree 
from above. 2 

After His circumcision, she next waits for the time of her 
purification : and when the days were fulfilled, and the fortieth 
was the full time, God the Word, Who sitteth by the Father s 
side, is carried up to Jerusalem, and brought into the Father s 
presence in human nature like unto us, and by the shadow of 
the law is numbered among the firstborn. For even before the 
Incarnation the firstborn were holy, and consecrated to God, 
From Aub. being sacrificed to Him according to the law. a ! how great 
Kom.xi.33. and wonderful is the plan of salvation ! " the depth of the 
" riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God !" He 
Who is in the bosom of the Father, the Son Who shares 
His throne, and is coeternal with Him : by Whom all things 
are divinely brought into existence, submitted nevertheless to 
the measure of human nature, and even offered a sacrifice to 
His own Father, although adored by all, and glorified with 

Mai s next extract is from the a Aubert beging again here ffhe 
1 5th book of the De Ador. Spir. passage is also in the Aurea Catena, 
l - 553 a is omitted. upon Luke ii. 24. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 23 

Him. And what did He offer? As the firstborn and a male a 
pair of turtles, or two young doves, according to what the law 
prescribed. But what does the turtle signify ? And what too 
the other, the dove ? Come, then, and let us examine this. 
The one, then, is the most noisy of the birds of the field : but 
the other is a mild and gentle creature. And such did the 
Saviour of all become towards us, shewing the most perfect 
gentleness, and like a turtle moreover soothing the world, and 
filling His own vineyard, even us who believe in Him, with the 
sweet sound of His voice. For it is written in the Song of 
Songs, "The voice of the turtle has been heard in our land." Cant.ii. 12. 
For Christ has spoken to us the divine message of the Gospel, 
which is for the salvation of the whole world. 

Turtles, therefore, and doves were offered, when He pre 
sented Himself unto the Lord, and there might one see simul 
taneously meeting together the truth and the types. And 
Christ offered Himself for a savour of a sweet smell, that He 
might offer us by and in Himself unto God the Father, and so 
do away with His enmity towards us by reason of Adam s 
transgression, and bring to nought sin that had tyrannized 
over us all. For we are they who long ago were crying, 
" Look upon me, and pity me." b 

b A passage follows in Mai, either of the immaculate conception of the 

from E. or H., going over ground blessed Virgin Mary: for it testifies 

already traversed, and probably only that all women, except the Virgin, 

a summary gathered from S. Cyril, (at liXXaiyvvaiKfs,) conceived in sin, 

It is valuable, nevertheless, as shew- (eV 
ing how little idea the ancients had 



COMMENTARY UPON 



c. 11.25-35. 



Is. Hi. 7. 



SERMON IV. 



c THE prophet Isaiah says, " Beautiful are the feet of 
" them that bring good tidings of good :" and what could 
there be so sweet to learn as that God has saved the world by 
the mediation of the Son, in that He was made like unto us ? 

i Tim. ii. 5. For it is written, "that there is one God, and one Mediator of 
" God and men, the Man Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself a 
" ransom for us." For of His own accord He descended to our 
poverty, that He might make us rich by our gaining what is 
His. Behold Him therefore as one in our estate presented 
unto the Father, and obedient to the shadows of the law, offer 
ing sacrifice moreover according to what was customary, true 
though it be that these things were done by the instrumentality 
of His mother according to the flesh. Was He then unrecog 
nised by all at Jerusalem, and known to none dwelling there ? 
How could this be the case ? For God the Father had before 
proclaimed by the holy prophets, that in due season the Son 
would be manifested to save them that were lost, and to give 
light to them that were in darkness. By one too of the holy 

i. ixli. i. prophets He said, " My righteousness approacheth quickly, 
" and My mercy to be revealed, and My salvation shall burn 
" as a torch." But the mercy and righteousness is Christ : for 
through Him have we obtained mercy and righteousness, hav 
ing washed away our filthy vileness by faith that is in Him. 
And that which a torch going before them is to those in night 
and darkness, this has Christ become for those who are in 
mental gloom and darkness, implanting in them the divine 
light. For this reason also the blessed prophets prayed to be 

Ps. Ixxxv. made partakers of His great grace, saying, " Shew us Thy 
" mercy, Lord, and grant us Thy salvation." 



T. aylwv. 
Aub. OT 



c The text is now taken from the 
Tr. Coll. MS. B. Q. 7. apparently of 
the 1 2th century. It is a volume of 
sermons, and among them has one 
with the following superscription : 



is rov diVmop 



pp.rjvfias TOV Kara \ov<av tvayye- 
\iov Ke evXo-f 

I owe my transcript to a friend, 
himself engaged in collecting and 
editing the Greek remains of this 
Father. 



Ka CK 



. i. 25. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 25 

hrist d therefore was carried into the temple, being yet a 
little child at the breast : and the blessed Symeon being en 
dowed with the grace of prophecy, takes Him in his arms, and 
filled with the highest joy, blessed God, and said ; " Lord, 
" now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace according to 
" Thy Word, for mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation, Which 
" Thon hast prepared before the face of all the nations, the 
" Gentiles light for revelation, and a glory of Thy people 
" Israel." For the mystery of Christ had been prepared even 
before the very foundation of the world, but was manifested in 
the last ages of time, and became a light for those who in dark 
ness and error had fallen under the devil s hand. These were 
they " who serve the creation instead of the Creator/ wor- Rom 
shipping moreover the dragon, the author of evil, and the im- fx 
pure throng of devils, to whom they attach the honour due unto 
Ood : yet were they called by God the Father to the acknow 
ledgment of the Son Who is the true light. Of them in sooth 
He said by the voice of Isaiah, " I will make signs unto them, Zech. x. s 
" and receive them, because I will ransom them, and they shall 
" be multiplied, as they were many : and I will sow them 
" among the nations, and they who are afar off shall reinem- 
" ber Me." For very many were they that were astray, but 
were called through Christ : and again they are many as thcv 

d Mai, whose extracts begin again impossible to say which MS. con- 
at this clause, has admitted at the tains this interpolation, as the let- 
end of the first sentence an interpo- ters put by Mai at the commence- 
lation so curious, that I append it : ment of each extract merely mean 
. . . and offered what is appointed that those MSS. severally contain 
in the law, a pair of turtles and more or less of what follows. Im- 
two young pigeons, the type of mediately afterwards he has another 
temperance and gentleness, as passage, the false philosophy and 
well as also of each kind of life, bad Greek of which confirm its re- 
marriage, namely, and celibacy, jection by the two trustworthy 
of both of which He is the Law- MSS. It is to the effect, that Sy- 
giver. For you may say that the meon was to be set free from tho 
" active and more spiritual, who leaping-ground of life : for life is a 
have taken upon themselves the ransom and prison, (XvTpa KOI 6> 
single life, are the pigeons : but O-^T^PLOV.) Upon the offering of 
that those who occupy themselves the turtle doves, the reader may 
with a family and other domestic compare S. Cyril s explanation in 
- cares are the turtle doves." As the De Ador. Spir. Ed. Aub. I. 531. 
in the unworthy interpretation of which agrees with the present Com- 
the butter, referred to in the note mentary. 
at the end of the 2nd Sermon, it is 



26 COMMENTARY UPON 

were before ; for they have been received and ransomed, hav 
ing obtained as the token of peace from God the Father, the 
adoption into His family and the grace that is by faith in 
Jesus Christ. And the divine disciples were sown widely 
among the nations : and what is the consequence ? Those 
who in disposition were far from God, have been made near. 

Eph. ii. 13. To whom also the divine Paul sends an epistle, saying, " Now 
" ye who some time were afar off have been made near in the 
" blood of Christ." And having been brought near, they make 
Christ their glorying : for again, God the Father has said of 

Zech.x. 12. them, "And I will strengthen them in the Lord their God, and 
" in His Name shall they glory, saith the Lord." This also the 
blessed Psalmist teaches, speaking as it were unto Christ the 

PR. ixxxix. Saviour of all, and saying, " Lord, they shall walk in the light 
" of Thy countenance, and in Thy Name shall they exult all 
" the day, and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted : for 
" Thou art the glorying of their strength." And we shall find 

Jer. xvi.ip. a l so the prophet Jeremiah calling out unto God, "Lord, my 
" strength and my help, and my refuge in the day of my evils, 
" to Thee shall the heathen come from the end of the earth, 
" and say, Our fathers took unto themselves false idols, in 
" which there is no help." 

Christ therefore became the Gentiles light for revelation : 
but also for the glory of Israel. For even granting that some 
of them proved insolent, and disobedient, and with minds 
void of understanding, yet is there a remnant saved, and ad 
mitted unto glory through Christ. Arid the firstfruits of these 
were the divine disciples, the brightness of whose renown light 
ens the whole world. 

And in another sense Christ is the glory of Israel, for He 

Rom. ix. 5. came of them according to the flesh, though He be " God over 
" all, and blessed for evermore, Amen." 

And Symeon blesseth also the holy Virgin as the handmaid 
of the divine counsel, and the instrument of the birth that sub 
mitted not itself to the laws of human nature. For being a 
virgin she brought forth, and that not by man, but by the 
power of the Holy Ghost having come upon her. 

Also in the And what does the prophet Symeon say of Christ ? " Be- 

M&ia,i54. " hold This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in 
" Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against." For the 






THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 27 

Immanuel is set by God the Father for the foundations of Sion, 
" being a stone elect, chief of the corner, and honourable. 1 i Pet. ii. 6. 
Those then that trusted in Him were not ashamed : but 
those who were unbelieving and ignorant, and unable to per 
ceive the mystery regarding Him, fell, and were broken in 
pieces. For God the Father again has somewhere said, " Be- Is. xxviii. 
" hold I lay in Sion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, L uke xx 
" and He that believeth on It shall not be ashamed; but on 18. 
" whomsoever It shall fall, It will winnow him." But the pro 
phet bade the Israelites be secure, saying, " Sanctify the Lord Is. viii. 13. 
" Himself, and He shall be thy fear : and if thou trust upon 
" Him, He shall be thy sanctification, nor shall ye strike 
" against Him as on a stone of stumbling, and a rock of of- 
" fence." Because however Israel did not sanctify the Emmanuel 
Who is Lord and God, nor was willing to trust in Him, having 
stumbled as upon a stone because of unbelief, it was broken in 
pieces and fell. But many rose again, those, namely, who 
embraced faith in Him. For they changed 6 from a legal to a 
spiritual service : from having in them a slavish spirit, they 
were enriched with That Spirit Which maketh free, even the 
Holy Ghost : they were made partakers of the divine nature : 2 Pet. i. 4. 
they were counted worthy of the adoption of sons : and live in 
hope of gaining the city that is above, even the citizenship, to 
wit, the kingdom of heaven. 

And by the sign that is spoken against, he means the precious Also in the 
Cross, for as theTnost wise Paul writes, " to the Jews it is a stum- ^12,154. 
" blingblock, and foolishness to the heathen." And again, "To iCor. i. 23. 
" them that are perishing it is foolishness : but to us who are iCor. i. 18. 
" being saved, it is the power of God unto salvation." The sign 
therefore is spoken against, if to those that perish it seem to 
be folly ; while to those who acknowledge its power it is salva 
tion and life. 

And Symeon further f said to the holy Virgin, " Yea, a 
" sword shall go through thy own soul also," meaning by the 
sword the pain which she suffered for Christ, in seeing Him 

e Aubert s reading here, jzfrf^u- its compounds, occur in S. Cyril 

Tcvdrja-av, for /ifTf^oirr/o-ai/, is wor- constantly in the sense of /3aiVo>. 
thy of notice. It is possibly, never- f The Tr. MS. has rrpos TOVS TOL- 

theless, only the correction of some OVTOVS, but the Syriac 

scribe, not aware that $otrdco, and which I have adopted. 



COMMENTARY UPON 



Whom she brought forth crucified; and not knowing at all 
that He would be more mighty than death, and rise again 
from the grave. Nor mayest thou wonder that the Virgin 
knew this not, when we shall find even the holy Apostles 
themselves with little faith thereupon : for verily the blessed 
Thomas, had he not thrust his hands into His side after the 
resurrection, and felt also the prints of the nails, would have 
disbelieved the other disciples telling him, that Christ was 
risen, and had shewed Himself unto them. 

The very wise Evangelist therefore for our benefit teaches us 
all things whatsoever the Son, when He was made flesh, and 
consented to bear our poverty, endured for our sakes and in 
our behalf, that so we may glorify Him as our Redeemer, as 
our Lord, as our Saviour, and our God : gby Whom and with 
Whom to God the Father and the Holy Ghost be the glory 
and the power for ever and ever, Amen. h 



The doxology is taken from 
Aubert, and is identically the same 
with that which concludes every 
homily in the Syriac. 

h Mai does not contain the above 
explanation of the sword that was 
to pierce the holy Virgin, but in its 
place has the following adaptation 
of it : " But to speak more briefly, 
" we affirm that the sword here sig- 
" nifies the temptation like a knife, 
" or even the passion itself brought 
" upon the Immanuel by the mad- 
" ness of the Jews. And so the just 
" Symeon seems to understand, and 
" even to say. For the holy Virgin 
" was all but killed by a sword in 
" seeing Him That was born of her 
" in the flesh crucified. Such also 
" was that said by Zechariah (xiii. 
" 7.): Awake, O sword, against My 
" Shepherd, that is, forthwith let 



" the saving passion be enacted, 
" and let the time of the shewing 
" forth of good things come." To 
this Mai appends the following 
note : " In codice B. f. 31. post 
" crapKa additur, KCU a^iyvooixra 
" e t ye KOI Bavarov Kparrja-fi Qavara)- 
" Gets : quam particulam de B. Vir- 
" ginis dubitatione circa futuram 
filii sui resurrectionem cum nee 
ceteri codices in Cyrillo habeant, 
nee pietas Christiana admittat, 
baud immerito preetermisirnus : 
quamquam eadem legitur sub fi- 
nem predictse homilia? in hypa- 
pantem," &c. The danger of such 
a method of treating MS. authority 
is shewn by the additional authority 
of the Tr. Cod., which completely 
agrees with Aubert, some slight 
verbal differences excepted. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 



SERMON V. 

And the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, being filled c. 11.40-52. 

From Mai 
and Cramer. 



with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him. And * rom Mai 



again ; But Jesus increased in stature and wisdom and 
grace with God and men. 

TO say that the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, 
being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him, 
must be taken as referring to His human nature. And examine, 
I pray you, closely the profoundness of the dispensation : the 
Word endures to be born in human fashion, although in His 
divine nature He has no beginning nor is subject to time : He 
Who as God is all perfect, submits to bodily growth : the In 
corporeal has limbs that advance to the ripeness of manhood : 
He is filled with wisdom Who is Himself all wisdom. And what 
say we to this? Behold by these things Him Who was in the form 
of the Father made like unto us: the Rich in poverty : the High 
in humiliation : Him said to " receive," Whose is the fulness as 
God. So thoroughly did God the Word empty Himself ! For 
what things are written of Him as a man shew the manner of 
the emptying. For it were a thing impossible for the Word 
begotten of God the Father to admit ought like this into 
His own nature : but when He became flesh, even a man like 
unto us, then He is born according to the flesh of a woman, 
and is said also to have been subject to the things that belong 
to man s state : and though the Word as being God could have 
made His flesh spring forth at once from the womb unto the 
measure of the perfect man, yet this would have been of the 
nature of a portent : and therefore He gave the habits and 
laws of human nature power even over His own flesh. 

Be not therefore offended, considering perchance within thy- From the 
self, How can God increase? or how can He Who gives grace ^^ 151, 
to angels and to men receive fresh wisdom ? Rather reflect 
upon the great skill wherewith we are initiated into His mys 
tery. For the wise Evangelist did not introduce the Word in 
His abstract and incorporeal nature, and so say of Him that 



30 COMMENTARY UPON 

He increased in stature and wisdom and grace, but after hav 
ing shewn that He was born in the flesh of a woman, and took 
our likeness, he then assigns to Him these human attributes, 
and calls Him a child, and says that He waxed in stature, as 
His body grew little by little, in obedience to corporeal laws. 
And so He is said also to have increased in wisdom, not as re 
ceiving fresh supplies of wisdom, for God is perceived by the 
understanding to be entirely perfect in all things, and altoge 
ther incapable of being destitute of any attribute suitable to 
the Godhead : but because God the Word gradually mani 
fested His wisdom proportionably to the age which the body 
had attained. 

From Mai. The body then advances in stature, and the soul* in wisdom: 
for the divine nature is capable of increase in neither one nor 
the other ; seeing that the Word of God is all perfect. And 
with good reason he connected the increase of wisdom with 
the growth of the bodily stature, because the divine nature 
revealed its own wisdom in proportion to the measure of the 
bodily growth. 

r - 42- And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jeru 

salem according to the custom of the feast. 

After the Evangelist had said, that Jesus advanced in wis 

dom and grace with God and men, he next shews that what 

he says is true : for he carries Him to Jerusalem in company 

ith the holy Virgin, upon the summons of the feast : and 

then he says that He remained behind, and was afterwards 

Hind in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors both 

iskmg and answering questions regarding those things, as we 

1 sure, which were spoken of old by the law : and that 

was wondered at by all for His questions and answers. 

Him advancing in wisdom and grace, by reason of 

mng known unto many as being what He was. 









THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 31 

Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing. v. 48. 

His mother certainly knew that He was not the child of 
Joseph, but she so speaks to avoid the suspicions 1 * of the Jews. 
And upon her saying, that " Thy father and I have sought 
" Thee sorrowing," the Saviour answers ; 

Did ye not know that I must be at My Father s ? v 49 

Here then first He makes more open mention of Him Who 
is truly His Father, and lays bare His own divinity : for when 
the holy Virgin said, Child, why hast Thou so done unto us ? 
then at once shewing Himself to transcend the measure of hu 
man things, and teaching her that she had been made the 
handmaid of the dispensation in giving birth to the flesh, but 
that lie by nature and in truth was God, and the Son of the 
Father That is in heaven, He says, Did ye not know that I 
must be at My Father s? mere let the Valentinians, when 
they hear that the temple was God s, and that Christ was now 
at His own, Who long before also was so described in the law, 
and represented as in shadows and types, feel shame in affirm 
ing, that neither the Maker of the world, nor the God of the 
law, nor the God of the temple, was the Father of Christ. 111 

k Cramer (ii. 26.) adds, vo^i(6v- Him considered as the Word, but 

TO>V e* Tropveias avrov ytyev^aOm. either must be understood of the 

1 The style of the short extract increase of admiration on the part 
that follows is entirely unlike Cy- of all who beheld Him, and daily 
ril s. Mai says, that the Catenae witnessed a fuller manifestation of 
ascribe it to Orjgen as well as His glory : or, as the two latter ex- 
Cyril, tracts teach, it refers to the human 

m Mai s next extract upon v. 52. nature. As I have not been able 

may serve as an instance of the to find the second extract in 

manner in which the Catenists S. Cyril s collected works, I give 

joined with the utmost neatness it entire : " And observe, that that 

passages from various works. It " which increases in any thing is 

commences with S. Cyril s Com- " different from that in which it is 

mentary on John i. 14, Op. iv. 96 : " said to increase. If therefore He 

after which there follow a few lines, " is said to increase in wisdom, it 

which may possibly be from the " was not the wisdom that in- 

Commentary on Luke : and finally, " creased, but the human nature 

we have the 28th assertion of the " that increased in it. For as the 

Thesaurus, Op. v. pt. i. 253. The " Godhead day by day unveiled and 

doctrine of these extracts is nearly " manifested Itself in Him, He ever 

identical, all affirming that our " became an object of greater admi- 

Lord s increase in wisdom and sta- " ration to those that saw Him." 
ture and grace cannot be said of 



COMMENTARY UPON 
CHAPTER III. 



SERMON VI. 
From Mai. As it is ivHttcn in the look of the words of Isaiah 

the prophet. 

THE blessed Isaiah was not ignorant of the scope of John s 
preachings, but of old, even long before the time, bearing witness 
of it, he called Christ Lord and God : but John he styled His 
minister and servant, and said that he was a lamp advancing 
before the true light, the morning star heralding the sun, 
foreshowing the coming of the day that was about to shed its 
rays upon us: and that he was a voice, not a word, forerunning 
Jesus, as the voice does the word. n 

Prepare ye the ivays of the Lord, make His paths straight. 
John, being chosen for the Apostleship, was also the last of 
the holy prophets : for which reason, as the Lord was not yet 
Fr th< come, he says, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. And what is 
Ms. I2 .i 54 . the meaning of Prepare ye the way of the Lord ?" It is put 
for, Make ready for the reception of whatever Christ may wish 
.o enact : withdraw your hearts from the shadow of the law : 
cease from the types : think no more perversely. Make the 
" paths of our God straight." For every path that leadeth 
good is straight and smooth and easy : but the other is 
crooked that leadeth down to wickedness them that walk 
F Ma,, herein For of such it is written, - Whose paths are crooked 
and the tracks of their wheels awry." Straightforwardness 
fore of the mind is as it were a straight path, having no 
ps crookedness. Such was the divine Psalmist s character, who 

JOB. xxt. J sm S s > " A crooked heart hath not cleaved unto me." And 
son of Nun, in exhorting the people, said, -Make 






THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 33 

" straight your hearts unto the God of Israel :" while John 
cries, " Make straight your ways." And this means, that the 
soul must be straight, displaying its natural intuition as it was 
created : and it was created beautiful and very straight. But 
when it turns aside, and its natural state is perverted, this is 
called vice, and the perversion of the soul. The matter there 
fore is not very difficult : for if we continue as we are made, we 
shall be virtuous. P 

But when some one, as it were, exclaims against us, saying, 
How shall we prepare the way of the Lord ? or how make His 
paths straight ? for there are many impediments in the way of 
those that will live well, Satan, who hates all that is beauti 
ful, the unholy throng of wicked spirits, the law of sin itself 
that is in our fleshly members, and which arms itself against 
the inclinations of the mind to what is good, and many other 
passions besides, that have mastery over the mind of man : 
what then shall we do, with so great difficulty pressing upon 
us ? The word of prophecy meets these objections, saying, 
" Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill Is. xl. 4 . 
" shall be brought low : and the crooked way shall become 
" straight, and the rough ways shall become smooth : and all 
" flesh shall see the salvation of God." M 

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. V. 6. 

And all flesh did see the salvation of God, even of the Father : 
for He sent the Son to be our Saviour. And in these words 
by " fiesh," man generally is to be understood, that is, the 
whole human race. For thus all flesh shall see the salvation 
of God : no longer Israel only, but all flesh. For the gentle 
ness of the Saviour and Lord of all is not limited, nor did He 
save one nation merely, but rather embraced within His net 
the whole world, and has illuminated all who were in dark 
ness. And this is what was celebrated by the Psalmist s lyre, 
" All the nations whom Thou hast made shall come and wor- p s . ixxxvi. 
" ship before Thee, Lord." While at the same time the rem- 9- 
nant of the Israelites is saved, as the great Moses also long 
ago declared, saying, " Rejoice ye nations with His people." Deut.xxxii. 

P The style of this comment, so this extract. 

unlike Cyril s, and the extraordinary 1 The next extract is from the 

conclusion, both suggest caution in Commentary on Isaiah, Op. ii. 506, 

attributing to him the latter part of and is therefore omitted. 



34 COMMENTARY UPON 



SERMON VII. 

MS. 12, 1 54. 

C. iii. 7-9. The Baptist therefore said to the multitudes that came to be 

baptized of him, Generation of vipers, who hath ivarned 

you to flee from the coming wrath ? 

WE affirm therefore that the blessed Baptist, as being full 
of the Holy Ghost, was not ignorant of the daring acts that 
Jewish wickedness would venture against Christ. For he fore 
knew that they would both disbelieve in Him, and wagging 
their envenomed tongue, would pour forth railings and accusa 
tions against Him : accusing Him at one time of being born of 
X1 - J 5. fornication; at another, as one who wrought His miracles by 
the help of Beelzebub, prince of the devils : and again, as one 
that had a devil, and was no whit better than a Samaritan. 
Having this therefore in view, he calls even those of them who 
From Mai. repent wicked, and reproves them because, though they had the 
law speaking unto them the mystery of Christ, and the pre 
dictions of the prophets relating thereunto, they nevertheless 
had become dull of hearing, and unready for faith in Christ 
the Saviour of all. " For who hath warned you to flee from 
the coming wrath ?" Was it not the inspired Scripture, which 
tells the happiness of those who believe in Christ, but fore 
warns those who believe not, and are ignorant, that they will 
be condemned to severe and inevitable punishment ? 

Briny forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. 

Moreover, the fruit of repentance is, in the highest degree, 
faith in Christ : and next to it, the evangelic mode of life, and 
111 general terms the works of righteousness in contradis 
tinction to sin, which the penitent must bring forth as fruits 
worthy of repentance. And he has added ; Begin not to say 
within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father : for I 
11 you that God is able of these stones to raise up children 
unto Abraham." You see how most skilfully he humbles 
their foolish pride, and shews that their being born of Abra 
ham according to the flesh is useless for their profit For of 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 35 

what benefit is nobility of birth, if men practise not the like 

earnest deeds, nor imitate the virtue of their ancestors ? For 

the Saviour says unto them, <( if ye were Abraham s children, John ^ 

" ye would have done the works of Abraham/ 1 The relation- 39- 

ship which God requires is one in character and manners : so 

that it is a vain tiling to boast of holy and good parents, while 

we fall, far short of their virtue. 

But, says the* Jew, if this be so, in what way is the seed of 
Abraham still to be multiplied, and the promise made to him 
of God hold true, of which the terms are, that " He will mul- 
" tiply his seed as the stars of heaven ?" By the calling of 
the GentileSi O Jew : for it was said to Abraham himself, that 
" in Isaac shall a seed for thee be called :*" and that " I have Gen.xxi.i2. 
" set thee as a father of many nations." But the phrase " in id. xvii. 4 . 
" Isaac" means, According to promise. He is set therefore as 
a father of many nations by faith, that is to say, in Christ. 
And of these it was that God spake also by the voice of Eze- 
kiel : "And I will take away out of their flesh the heart of Ezek.xi.iQ. 
" stone, and will give them a heart of flesh, that they may 
" know Me, that I am the Lord." 

And the blessed Baptist apparently calls them stones, be- From the 
cause they as yet knew not Him Who is by nature God, but Ms!r2, r54 . 
were in error, and in their great folly worshipped the creation 
instead of the Creator : but they were called, and became the 
sons of Abraham, and acknowledged, by believing in Christ, 
Him Who is by nature God. 

But that he may benefit in a still higher degree those that 
hear him, the blessed Baptist brings forward something more : 
" But already even the axe is laid at the root of the trees." 
But by the axe in this passage he signifies the sharp wrath 
which God the Father brought upon the Jews for their wick 
edness towards Christ, and audacious violence: for the wrath From Mai 
was brought upon them like an axe. And this the prophet 
Zecharias has explained to us, saying. " The wailing of Jeru- Zech.xii.n. 
" salem shall be as the wailing of a grove of pomegranate trees 
" cut down in the plain." And Jeremiah also addressing her, Jer. xi. i*. 
said, " The Lord called thy name a beautiful olive tree, very 
" leafy to behold : at the sound of its felling, a fire was kindled 
" upon it : great was the lamentation over it : its branches 

F 2 






W COMMENTARY UPON 

" have been made unserviceable : and the Lord of hosts That 
" planted thee hath uttered evils against thee." And to this 
thou mayest add also the parable in the Gospels about the fig- 
tree. As being therefore a plant unfruitful, and no longer of 
generous kind, it was cut down by God. He does not, how 
ever, say that the axe was laid into the root, but at the root, 
that is, near the root. For the branches were cut off, but the 
plant was not dug up by its root : for the remnant of Israel 
was saved, and did not perish utterly. 



SERMONS VIII AND IX. 

And t1i e multitudes asked him. 

THE blessed Luke has introduced three classes of men 
making inquiry of John,-the multitudes, the publicans, and, 
thirdly, the soldiers : and as a skilful physician applies to each 
malady a suitable and fitting remedy, so also the Baptist gave 
to each mode of life useful and becoming counsel, bidding the 
multitudes m their course towards repentance practise mutual 
kindness: for the publicans, he stops the way to unrestrained 
tions : and very wisely tells the soldiers to oppress no one, 
but be content with their wages. 






- 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 37 

SERMON X. 

From the 

SERMON THE TENTH, FROM S CYRIL S COMMENTARY UPON LUKE, Syriac 
UPON JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

But when the people were in expectation, and all men rea- c. Hi. 
soned in their hearts concerning John, whether he were not I 5~ 1 7- 
the Christ, John answered, and said to them all, I indeed 
baptize you in water, but there cometh He Who is mightier 
than I : Whose shoe s latchet I am not worthy to unloose : 
He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and injire, Whose 
fan is in His hand, and He shall purge His floor, and 
gather His wheat into stores, but the chaff He ivill burn 
in unquenchable fire. 5 

IT is written, that "a just father will bring up (his children) 
" excellently." For those who are clad in the glory of the 
righteousness that is by Christ, and are acquainted with His 
sacred commands, will train up excellently and piously those 
who are their sons in the faith, giving them not the material 
bread of earth, but that which is from above, even from hea 
ven. Of which bread the admirable Psalmist also makes men 
tion, where he says, " Bread established! man s heart, and P. civ. 15. 
" wine rejoiceth man s heart." Let us therefore now also 
establish our hearts : let our faith in Christ be assured, as we 
correctly understand the meaning of those evangelic writings 
now read unto us. " For when the people, it says, were in 
" expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts of John, whe- 
" ther he were not the Christ, he answered them in the words 
" which we have just heard read." 

8 Although the preposition eV is is the simple verb " to stand." Thus 

occasionally used for the instrument v. 21. is literally ; "And it came to 

or means, yet this is only admissible " pass, when all the people stood, 

where the sense can still be traced " that Jesus also stood." And so 

back to its proper signification of the passage above is exactly; " 1 

local presence. And so here : " to " indeed make you to stand in 

" baptize," is literally in Syriac " to " water;" " He shall make you to 

" make to stand," by a metaphor " stand in the Holy Ghost," &c. 

evidently drawn from what was ac- And I have therefore in the transla- 

tually the practice of John and the tion retained " in," as most closely 

early Church : and " to he baptized" representing the Syriac. 






38 COMMENTARY UPON 

They had beheld with admiration the incomparable beauty 
of John s mode of life : the splendour of his conduct : the un 
paralleled and surpassing excellence of his piety. For so great 
and admirable was he, that even the Jewish populace began to 
conjecture whether he were not himself the Christ, Whom the 
law had described to them in shadows, and the holy prophets 
had before proclaimed. Inasmuch therefore as some ventured 
on this conjecture, lie at once cuts away their surmise, de 
clining as a servant the honours due to the Master, and trans 
ferring the glory to Him Who transcends all, even to Christ, 
For he knew that He is faithful unto those that serve Him. 
And what he acknowledges is in very deed the truth : for he- 
John iii. 2 8. tween God and man the distance is immeasurable. "Ye your- 
" selves, therefore, he says, bear me witness that I said I 
" am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him." But 
where shall we find the holy Baptist thus speaking? In 
the Gospel of John, who has thus spoken concerning him ; 
9- " And this is the testimony of John when the scribes and Pha- 
" risees at Jerusalem sent to ask him whether he were the 
Christ, And lie confessed, and denied not, and said, that I 
" am not the Christ, but am he that is sent before Him." 
Great therefore and admirable in very deed is the forerunner, 
who was the dawning before the Saviour s meridian splendour, 
the precursor of the spiritual daylight, beautiful as the morn 
ing star, and called of God the Father a torch. 

Having therefore thus declared himself not to be the Christ, 
lie now brings forward proofs, which we must necessarily con 
sider, and by which we may learn how immeasurable the dis 
tance evidently is between God and man, between the slave 
and the Master, between the minister and Him Who is min 
istered unto, between him who goes before as a servant, and 
V ho shines forth with divine dignity. What, therefore, is 
the proof? I indeed baptize in water: after me shall come He 
Vho is mightier than I, Whose shoe s latchet I am not worthy 
:oop down and unloose." As I said, therefore, the dif- 
* incomparable, the superiority immeasurable, if, as is 
se, the blessed Baptist, being so great in virtue, declare. 
that he is not worthy even, as it were, to touch His shoes. 
his declaration is true : for if the rational powers above, 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 39 

principalities, and thrones, and lordships, and the holy Sera 
phim themselves, who stand around His godlike throne, hold 
ing the rank of ministers, unceasingly crown Him with praises 
as the Lord of all, what dweller upon earth is worthy even to 
be nigh unto God ? For though He be loving unto man, and 
gentle, and mild, yet must we, as being of slight account, and 
children of earth, confess the weakness of our nature. 

And after this, lie again brings forward a second proof, say 
ing, " I indeed baptize you in water : but He shall baptize you 
" in the Holy Ghost and in fire." And this too is of great 
importance for the proof and demonstration that Jesus is God 
and Lord. For it is the sole and peculiar property of the 
Substance That transcends all, to be able to bestow on men 
the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and make those that draw 
near unto It partakers of the divine nature. But this exists in 
Christ, not as a thing received, nor by communication from 
another, but as His own, and as belonging to His substance : 
for " He baptizes in the Holy Ghost." The Word therefore 
That became man is, as it appears, God, and the fruit of the 
Father s substance. But to this, it may be, those will ol>ject 
who divide the one Christ into two sons, those I mean who, 
as Scripture says, are "animal, and dividers, and having not Jude 19. 
" the Spirit," that He Who baptizes in the Holy Ghost is 
the Word of God, and not lie Who is of the seed of David. 
What answer shall we make, then, to this ? Yes ! we too 
affirm, without fear of contradiction, that the Word being God 
as of His own fulness bestows the Holy Ghost on such as are 
worthy : but this He still wrought, even when He was made 
man, as being the One Son with the flesh united to Him in an 
ineffable and incomprehensible manner. For so the blessed 
Baptist, after first saying, " I am not worthy to stoop down 
"and loose the thong t of His shoes," immediately added, 

1 The Catenist in Mai has in- gint, whence Cyril s word is taken, 

serted in a parenthesis a curious Gen. xiv. 23, the right reading is 

observation, namely, that by the o-QvpwTrjp, " a thong for the ankles," 

<r$aipo>T7p i s meant " the tip of the whereas o-cpmpeor^p, from oxpcupn, 

" shoe, ending in a point, such as " a ball," is the word for the pome- 

" the barbarians wear." The word, granates, used in the adorning 

however, used by the Evangelist is of the golden candlestick. (Ex. 

ipds, simply a " thong :" and there xxv. 31.) 
can be no doubt that in the Septua- 



40 COMMENTARY UPON 

" He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and in fire ;" plainly 
while having feet for shoes. For no one whose mind was awake 
would say, that the Word, while still incorporeal, and not as 
yet made like unto us, had feet and shoes, but only when He 
had become a man. Inasmuch, however, as He did not then 
cease to be God, He wrought even so works worthy of the 
Godhead, by giving the Spirit unto them that believe in Him. 
For He, in one and the same person, was at the same time 
both God and also man. 

But yes, he objects, the Word wrought the works of Deity 
by means of Him Who is of the seed of David. If so then thou 
arguest, we will repeat to thee in answer the words of John ; 
John i. 30. for he somewhere said unto the Jews, " There cometh after 
me a man Who was before me, because He is before me : and 
I knew Him not, but He That sent me to baptize in water, 
He said unto me, Upon Whom thou seest the Spirit descend 
ing from heaven, and abiding upon Him, This is He That 
baptizeth in the Holy Ghost : and I saw, and bare witness, 
that This is the Son of God." Behold, therefore, while 
plainly calling Him a man, he says that He is prior to him, 
and was before him, in that He is first, evidently in His divine 
nature ; according to what was plainly said by Himself to the 
Johnviii. Jewish populace, "Verily I say unto you, before Abraham 
" was, I am." 

Next, he says as well, that the Spirit also came down from 
heaven upon Him. Do they pretend that the Holy Ghost came 
down upon the Word of God while still abstract and incor 
poreal if and represent Him Who bestows the Spirit as made 
partaker of His own Spirit ? Or rather is this their meaning, 
that having received the Spirit in His human nature, He in 
s divine nature baptizes in the Holy Ghost ? For He is 
Himself singly, and alone, and verily the Son of God the Fa 
ther, as the blessed Baptist, being taught of God, himself bare 
witness, saying, "And I saw, and bare witness that This is the 
" Son of God!" v 



In the above defence of catholic one Christ into two sons, and not 
> tnne agamst the heresies of K*. that he expressly so taught. For in 
,h y ," , """" , take " ** "" SCTen ^ quaternion he says, 

8 te 1 natUra V C ^ U f " G d the Wold CTen <*fre the 
> teaching ,s to divide the " incarnation, was Son, and God 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 4-1 

Wouldst thou have also a third proof, in addition to what Also in 
have already been given ? " His fan," he says, " is in His hand, 
" and He shall purge His floor, and gather His wheat into His 
" stores, but the chaff He shall burn with fire unquenchable." 
For he compares those upon earth to ears of corn, or rather to 
the threshingfloor and the wheat upon it : for each one of us has 
grown like an ear of corn. And our Lord once, when speaking 
to the holy Apostles, made a similar comparison of our state : 
" The harvest indeed is great : but the labourers are few : LuUe x. 2. 
" pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send forth labour- 
" ers into His harvest." We therefore, who are upon the 
earth, are called ears of corn and wheat, and the harvest. 
And this harvest belongs to God over all : for He is Lord of 
all. But behold ! says the blessed Baptist, the threshing floor 
belongs to Christ as its owner ; for as such He purges it, re 
moving and separating the chaff from the wheat. For the 
wheat is the just, whose faith is established and assured : but 



" and coexistent with the Father : 
" but in these last times assumed 
" the form of the slave. But while, 
" before He was Son, and so called ; 
" after the assumption of the flesh, 
" He cannot be called Son sepa- 
" rately, lest we should infer two 
" Sons ." The doctrine of Nesto- 
rius, as briefly sketched by the 
Council of Ephesus, was, that " He 
" Who for our sakes became man, 
" must not be called God," ov fifl 
\(yeo~dai 0fbv TOV 01 >%ui; avdpconov 
ycy(vr)p.(vov. Hence his objection 
to the title dforoxos, applied to the 
Virgin, and so valued by the fathers 
as expressing the inseparable union 
of the Divine and human natures in 
the one person of Christ. Hence 
his protest against worshipping 
Christ absolutely, 8ia TOV (popovvra 
TOV <popovp.(vov <7f/3ci>" 8ia rov Kf- 

KpVfJ.p.VOV TTpCHTKVVto) TOV (f>Uv6f*tVOV . 

ax&purTos TOV <ati/o/iVou Qtos. 
(Quat. xvi.) : and such expressions 
as, 6/joAoyof /if j/ TOV cv ai/$po)7r<i> 
(Tf/3u>[i(v TOV TTJ dtiq o~vva<fi( iq 



T<U rravTOKpaTOpi Gfai 
pevov uvdpomov. (Quat. xv. Conf. 
Hardtiin. Concil. I. 1414, 1442.) 
In drawing these subtle conclu 
sions, Nestorius (Ep. ad Cyrilliun 
Hard. Cone. I, 1281.) also made 
that distinction between the Son of 
David and God the Word, so often 
attacked by Cyril in this Commen 
tary : " God the Word, he says, 
" w*s not the Son of David ;" and 
as Cyril would fairly judge of his 
doctrine by this letter addressed to 
himself, no wonder he attributes to 
him, both here and elsewhere, a 
conclusion which follows apparent 
ly so directly from these words. In 
his seventeenth quaternion occurs 
probably Nestorius most exact 
statement, and from it equally 
S. Cyril would draw this conclu 
sion : 7rei$r)7T(p 6 vibs TOV Qcov 81- 

7T\OVS O~Tl KOTO. TOS <pl>O~flf, OVK 

iy(vvT)(r ptv r) -napBtvos TOV vlbv TOV 
6eoC, aXX rycWi}<7* TTJV dv0pa)ir6- 

TTjTd, fJTLf ffTTlV VtOS 5m TOV O~Vl>T}fJ.- 
p.fVOV VIOV. 






COMMENTARY UPON 



the chaff signifies those whose mind is weak, and their heart 
easy to be ensnared, and unsafe and timorous, and blown about 
by every wind. The wheat, then, he says, is stored up in the 
granary : is deemed worthy, that is, of safety at God s hand, 
and mercy, and protection and love : but the chaff, as useless 
matter, is consumed in the fire. 

In every way, therefore, we may perceive that the Word of 
God, even when He was man, nevertheless continued to be one 
Son. u For He performs those works that belong to Deity, 
possessing the majesty and glory of the Godhead inseparable 
from Him. If so we believe, He will crown us with His grace : 
by Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory and 
dominion with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever, Amen. x 



u In these words S. Cyril most 
accurately sums up the Catholic 
doctrine of the inseparable union of 
the two natures in Christ; which 
union Nestorius denied, anathema 
tizing all who said that the Emma 
nuel was very God, and teaching 
instead that the Emmanuel was 
God indwelling in our nature. Si 
quis Bum Qui est Emmanuel, 
Deum verum esse dixerit, et non 
potius nobiscum Deum; hoc est, 
inhabitasse earn qua? secundum 
nosmet est naturam, per id quod 
unitus est nostrae, quam de Maria 
Virgine suscepit ; anathema sit. 
(An. I. Hard. Con. I. 1298.) To 
which it might well be replied, that 
the Emmanuel is "God with us," 



God and man, not God in man. 
A similar doctrine is contained in 
his fifteenth quaternion, as quoted 
above. 

x The most importanif passages 
in the above homily have been pre 
served by the Catenists, but with 
the connection and course of the 
argument more than once broken. 
They ascribe, however, to S. Cyril, 
two short passages at the end (cf. 
Mai, p. 146.) not belonging to the 
Commentary; and there are some 
slight verbal differences in the in 
tervening extract. On the other 
hand, two passages, preserved by 
Thomas Aquinas, are both con 
tained in the Syriac. 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 43 



SERMON XI. >mth. 

oynao 

MS. 12,165. 

THE ELEVENTH SERMON OF THE COMMENTARY UPON THE GOSPEL 

OF LUKE BY THE HOLY CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, 

UPON THE MANIFESTATION OF OUR LORD. 

And it came to pass, that tvhen all the people were baptized, C. iii. 11- 
Jems also was baptized : and as He was praying, the hea- * 
vens were opened, and the Holy Ghost descended upon Him 
in bodily form like a dove. And there was a voice from 
heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son : in Thee I am 
well pleased. And Jesus Himself was beginning to be about 
thirty years old. 

AGAIN come, that fixing our mind intently upon the Evan 
gelic Scriptures, we may behold the beauty of the truth. Come 
let us direct the penetrating and accurate eyes of the mind unto 
the mystery of Christ ; let us view with wonder the admirable 
skill of the divine economy : for so shall we see His glory. 
And thus to act is for our life : as He Himself assures us, when 
speaking unto God the Father in heaven, " These things are Johnxvii.3. 
" life eternal : to know Thee Who alone art true ; and Jesus 
" Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." How therefore was He sent? 
and what was the manner of His coming unto us ? For being 
by nature God That filleth all, how, as the blessed John the 
Evangelist said, " was He in the world," Himself being Lord ? John i. 10. 
And how was He sent by the Father, when as God He is the 
Creator and Sustainer of all things ? for all things were esta 
blished by Him. 

The wise John the P>angelist then teaches us, saying, 
" And the Word was made flesh." But perchance some one John i. 14. 
will say, What then ? Having ceased to be the Word, did 

y It is to be observed, that S. omission here of vv. 18-20. : 6 p.a- 
Cyril often omits several verses in Kapios KvptXXor rov Hpo>8ov tv rfj 
his Commentary. In one of Mai s tpp.Tjvda OVK $tttpvr\<r&r\ and pro- 
MSS. some one has written the fol- ceeds to give a reason for it. 
lowing anonymous note upon the 

O 2 



44 COMMENTARY UPON 

He change into being flesh ? Did He fall from His Majesty, 
having undergone a transformation unto something which 
previously He was not ? Not so, we say. Far from it. For 
by nature He is unchangeable and immutable. In saying, 
therefore, that the Word became flesh, the Evangelist means 
a man like unto us. For we also are often called flesh our- 
* l. 5- selves. For it is written, " And all flesh shall see the salvation 
" of God," meaning thereby that every man shall see it. While 
therefore He immutably retains that which He was, yet as 
having under this condition assumed our likeness, He is said 
to have been made flesh. 

Behold Him, therefore, as a man, enduring with us the 
things that belong to man s estate, and fulfilling all righteous 
ness, for the plan of salvation s sake. And this thou learnest 
from what the Evangelist says : " And it came to pass that 
" when all the people were baptized, Jesus also was baptized, 
" and prayed." Was He too then in need of holy baptism ? 
But what benefit could accrue to Him from it ? Vhe Only- 
le. vi. 3 . begotten Word of God is Holy of the Holy : so the Seraphim 
name Him in their praises : so every where the law names 
Him : and the company of the holy prophets accords with the 
writings of Moses. What is it that we gain by holy baptism ? 
Plainly the remission of our sins. But in Jesus there was 
iPet.ii.. nought of this; "for He did no sin: neither was guile found 
< in His mouth," as the Scripture saith. He was holy, harm- 
less, undefiled, separate from sins, and made higher than the 
heavens/ according to the words of the divine Paul. 

But yes ! perchance some one will say, who has been ill 
instructed in the faith, Was it then God the Word that was 
baptized? Was He in need of being made partaker of the 
Holy Ghost ? Not at all. Therefore it is that we affirm, that 
the man who was of the seed of David, and united unto Him 
by conjunction", was baptized and received the Spirit, The 

* By |Zc2x^j I imagine the it, with respect, namely, to the 

translator means Nestorius favourite < dignity of the Sonship, that God 

rd vwafaa, as he uses it for in- the Word is also called Christ, 

stance in his xvnth quaternion : AiA inasmuch as He has a perpetual 

>TO,^C. TO aftmpa rf,s viorrjTos, icat conjunction with the Christ " 
Xtorfc * 



Adyoy bofulfrm, Hard. Con. I. 1414. Conf. also 
rJipr*p ex (Tvvdfaiav TT)I> rrpos note in page 41 
Therefore is 



THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 45 

Indivisible therefore is divided by you into two sons : and because 

He was baptized when thirty years old, He was made holy, as 

you say, by being baptized. Was He therefore not holy until 

He arrived at His thirtieth year ? Who will assent to you, 

when thus you corrupt the right and blameless faith? For 

there is one Lord Jesus Christ," as it is written. But this we iCor.viii.6. 

affirm : that He was not separate a from Him, and by Himself 

when baptized and made partaker of the Holy Ghost : for we 

know, both that He is God, and without stain, and Holy of the 

Holy: for we confess that "of His fulness have all we re- John i. 16. 

ceived." For the Holy Spirit indeed proceedeth from God the 

Father, but belongeth also to the Son. It is even often called 

the Spirit of Christ, though proceeding from God the Father. 

And to this Paul will testify, saying, at one time, " They that Rom.viii.8. 

" are in