Cyril of Jerusalem

Cyril of Jerusalem was bishop of Jerusalem from about 350 until 386. His fame rests on a series of lectures he gave to candidates for baptism. Those lectures give the fullest surviving picture of how the fourth-century church prepared new believers.

His time as bishop was stormy. He was exiled three times, once for selling church treasures to feed the poor during a famine. He returned for good in 378 and attended the Council of Constantinople in 381.

## Major Work: Catechetical Lectures

Cyril delivered the lectures around 350 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built by Constantine over the site of Christ’s death and burial. They were taken down in shorthand as he spoke.

The collection includes an opening lecture called the Procatechesis, 18 lectures during Lent, and 5 Mystagogical Lectures during Easter week. Some scholars credit the last five to his successor, John, though many still assign them to Cyril.

## Instruction for New Believers

The Lent lectures walk through the Jerusalem creed one article at a time: God the Father, Christ, His birth, cross, burial, resurrection, ascension, and return, the Holy Spirit, the church, and the resurrection of the body.

Cyril took the Bible as the test of his own teaching. In Lecture 4 he tells his hearers not to believe him simply because he said something, unless he proves it from the Holy Scriptures. He also told candidates not to repeat what they learned to outsiders, to protect the faith from mockery.

## Christian Doctrine

Cyril preached from the actual places of the gospel. In Lecture 13 he points to Golgotha, the rock nearby, and the tomb. He tells his hearers that the wood of the cross had spread in pieces around the world.

He taught the full deity of Christ, though he avoided the Nicene term homoousios for much of his career. The Council of Constantinople in 381 affirmed him as a defender of the Nicene faith.

## Baptism and the Sacraments

The Mystagogical Lectures explain what the newly baptized had just experienced. They faced west and renounced Satan, then turned east to confess Christ. They removed their clothes, were anointed with oil, and were immersed three times. After baptism they were anointed with fragrant oil on the forehead, ears, nose, and chest.

The last lectures explain the Lord’s Supper and the prayers of the liturgy, including the Lord’s Prayer line by line. A pilgrim named Egeria, who visited Jerusalem in the 380s, described the same kind of teaching in her travel diary.

## How to Read Cyril Today

Start with Lecture 4. It summarizes Christian doctrine in about 45 minutes.

Read the five Mystagogical Lectures next. Together they take about an hour.

Use the lectures as a model if you teach a new believers’ class. Each one covers one topic, ties it to Scripture, and gives practical application.

The lectures are free in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 7.

## About the Author

CK Quarterman is a USAF veteran, independent author, and publisher at CKQbooks. He writes the Malaterrestrials nonfiction series, which examines evil earthbound non-human intelligences through Scripture and history, along with the Watchers’ Universe and Sons of the Flood fiction series. Find his books at ckqbooks.com.

Truth · History · Scripture