Early Church Fathers
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43 eu'qresth/sewj, Bened. and Reischl, with best Mss. Milles and the earlier editions have e'reunh/sewj, "searching."
44 Luke xxiii. 43; the argument is used again in Cat. xiii. 31.
49 S. Chrysostom (Hom. xxix. in 1 Cor. xii. 9, 10) in like manner distinguishes dogmatic faith from the faith which is "the mother of miracles." The former S. Cyril calls our own, not meaning that God's help is not needed for it, but because, as he has shewn in § 10, it consists in the mind's assent, and voluntary approval of the doctrines set before it: but the latter is a pure gift of grace working in man without his own help. Compare Apostolic Constitutions, VIII. c. 1.
50 This Lecture was to be immediately followed by a first recitation of the Creed. See Index, Creed.
51 e'p0 auQth=j th=j le/cewj. "in ipsâ lectione" (Milles): "ipsis verbis" (Bened.): "in the very phrase" (R. W. C.). See below note 4.
52 Compare S. August. Serm. ccxii., "At the delivery of the Creed," and Index, Creed.
53 Compare Aeschylus, Prometheus V. 789: h=n e'ggra/qou su\ mnh/mosin de/ltoij qrenw=n.
54 e'fo/dion, Viaticum, I. e. provision for a journey, and here for the journey through this life. It is applied metaphorically by other Fathers (a) in this general sense, to the reading of Holy Scripture, Prayer, and Baptism, and (b) in a special sense to the Holy Eucharist when administered to the sick and dying, as a preparation for departure to the life after death. Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), Canon xiii. "With respect to the dying, the old rule of the Church should continue to be observed, which forbids that any one who is on the point of death should be deprived of the last and most necessary viaticum (e!fovdion)."
57 e'p0 auqth=j th=j le/cewj. (Bened. Reischl. with best Mss.). tau/thj th=j le/cewj, "this my recitation," (Milles).
58 2 Thess. ii. 15. Compare Cat. xxiii. 23.
59 Prov. vii. 3. Note 9, above.
60 Matt. xxv. 27; Luke xix. 23. See note on Catech. vi. 36: "Be thou a good banker."
3 This clause is omitted in some Mss. Various forms of the Doxology were adopted in Cyril's time by various parties in the Church. thus Theodoret (Hist. Eccles. II. c. 19) relates that Leontius, Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 348-357, observing that the Clergy and the Congregation were divided into two parties, the one using the form "and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost," the other "through the Son, in the Holy Ghost," used to repeat the Doxology silently, so that those who were near could hear only "world without end."
The form which was regarded as the most orthodox, and adopted in the Liturgies ran thus: "Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, now and ever, and to the ages of the ages." See Suicer's Thesaurus, Docologi/a.
4 Iranaeus II. xxviii. 4: "But since God is all mind, all reason, all active Spirit, all light, and always exists as one and the same, such conditions and divisions (of operation) cannot fittingly be ascribed to Him. For our tongue, as being made of flesh, is not able to minister to the rapidity of man's sense, because that is of a spiritual nature; for which reason our speech is restrained (suffocatur) within us, and is not at once expressed as it has been conceived in, the mind but is uttered by successive efforts, just as the tongue is able to serve it."
5 Tertullian, Apologeticus, § 17: "That which is infinite is known only to itself. This it is which gives some notion of God, while yet beyond all our conceptions - our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is. He is presented to our minds in His transcendent greatness, as at once known and unknown." Cf. Phil. Jud. de Monarch. i. 4: Hooker, Eccles. Pol. I. ii. 3: "Whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of His name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him not as He is, neither can know Him."
8 The opinion of Aristarchus of Samos, as stated by Archimedes (Arenarius, p. 320, Oxon), was that the sphere of the fixed stars was so large, that it bore to the earth's orbit the same proportion as a sphere to its centre, or more correctly (as Archimedes explains) the same proportion as the earth's orbit round the sun to the earth itself. Compare Cat. xv. 24.
11 Job xxxvi. 27: a'riqmhtai\ de\ auQtw= otago/nej u 9etou=. R.V. For He draweth up the drops of water.
14 John i. 18. They are the Evangelist's own words.
19 The Benedictine and earlier printed texts read o 9 gennhqei=j a'paqw=j pro\ tw\n xro/nwn ai'wni/wn: but the words in brackets are not found in the best Mss. The false grammar betrays a spurious insertion, which also interrupts the sense. On the meaning of the phrase o 9 gennhqei/j a'paqw=j, see note on vii. 5: ou'pa/qei path\r geno/menoj.
21 Iren. II. xiii. 3: "He is altogehter like and equal to Himself; since He is all sense, and all spirit, and all feeling, and all thought, and all reason, and all hearing, and all ear, and all eye, and all light, and all a fount of every good, - even as the religious and pious are wont to speak of God."
22 monooeidh=. A Platonic word. Phaedo, 80 B: tw= me\n qei/w kai\ a\qana/tw kai\ nohtw= kai\ monooeidei= kai\ a'dialn/tw kai\ a'ei\ w'san/twj kuta\ ta\ au'ta\ e!xonti e 9autw= oo 9mooioo/tatoon ei\nai yuxh/n. See Index "hypostasis."
23 Iren. II. xiii. 3: "If any object that in the Hebrew language different expressions occur, such as Sabaoth, Elöe, Adonai, and all other such terms, striving to prove from these that there are different powers and Gods, let them learn that all expressions of this kind are titles and announcements of one and the same Being."
24 See the passages of Irenaeus quoted above, § 2 note 4, and § 7 note 3.
31 Philo Judaeus (Leg. Alleg. I. 14. p. 52).. Qeou= ga\r ou'de\ o 9 su/mpaj ko/smoj a'ci/on a@n ei!h xwri/on kai\ endiai/thma, e'pei\ au'to\j e 9autw= th/poj. So Sir Isaac Newton, at the end of the Principia, asserts that God by His eternal and infinite existence constitutes Time and Space: "Non est duratio vel spatium, sed durat et adest, et existendo semper et ubique spatium et durationem constituit."
35 Job xi. 7 (R. V.): Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? Cyril seems to have understood ta\ e!sxata as "the least," not as "the utmost."
39 The cat was sacred to the goddess Pasht, called by the Greeks Bulastis, and identified by Herodotus (ii. 137) with Artemis or Diana. Cats were embalmed after death, and their mummies are found at various places, but especially at Bubastis (Herod. ii. 67).
"The Dogs are interred in the cities to which they belong, in sacred burial-places" (Herod. ii. 67), but chiefly at Cynopolis ("City of Dogs") where the dog-headed deity Anubis was worshipped.
Mummies of wolves are found in chamber excavated in the rocks at Lycopolis, where Osiris was worshipped under the symbol of a wolf.
40 The lion was held sacred at Leontopolis (Strabo, xvii. p. 812).
41 "In the neighbourhood of Thebes there are sacred serpents perfectly harmless to man. These they bury in the temple of Zeus, the god to whom they are sacred." (Herod. ii. 74.)
At Epidarus in Argolis the serpent was held sacred as the symbol of Aesculapius. Clement of Alexandria (Exhort. c. ii.) gives a fuller list of animals worshipped by various nations. Compare also Clement. Recogn. V. 20.
Illic aeluros, hic piscem fluminis, illic
Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam.
Possum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu.
46 The early Creeds of the Eastern Churches, like that which Eusebius of Caesarea proposed at Nicaea, expressly declare the unity of God, in opposition both to the heathen Polytheism, and to the various heresies which introduced two or more Gods. See below in this Lecture, §§ 12-18; and compare Athan. (contra Gentes, § 6, sqq.)
47 Clement of Alexandria (Exhort. cap. ii. § 37), quotes a passage from a hymn of Callimachus, implying the death of Zeus;
"For even thy tomb, O king, The Cretans fashioned."
Adonis, or "Thammuz yearly wounded," was said to live and die in alternate years.
48 By the word "falls" (a'poptw/seij) Cyril evidently refers to the story of Hephaestus, or Vulcan, to which Milton alludes (Paradise Lost, I. 740):-
"Men call'd him Mulciber, and how he fell
From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, form noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day."
49 The "thunder-strokes" refer to "Titan heaven's first-born, With his enormous brood" (Par. Lost, I. 510). Cf. Virgil, Aen. vi. 580:-
"Hic genus antiquum Terrae, Titania pubes,
Fulmine deject fundo volvuntur in imo."
Ibid. v. 585:-
"Vidi et crudeles dantem Salmonea poenas,
Dum flammas Jovis et sonitus imitatur Olympi."
Clem. Alex. (Exhort. II. § 37):- "Aesculapius lies struck with lightning in the regions of Cynosuris." Cf. Virg. Aen. vii 770 ss.
50 The theory of two Gods, one good and the other evil, was held by Cerdo, and Marcion (Hippolytus, Refut. omnium Haer. VII. cap. 17: Irenaeus, III. xxv. 3, quoted in note on Cat. iv. 4). The Manichees also held that the Creator of the world was distinct from the Supreme God (Alexander Lycop. de Manichaeorum Sententiis, cap. iii.).
51 2 Cor. vi. 14. Cyril's description applies especially to the heresy of Manes. See § 36, note 3, at the end of the Lecture; also Cat. xi. 21. and Cat. xv. 3.
