Lat. S. Cyrillus. Ital. San Cirillo. Fr. St. Cyrille. (Jan. 28, A.D. 444.)
St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria from the year 412 to 444, was famous in his time as deeply engaged in all the contests which disturbed the early Christian Church. He has left a great number of theological writings, which are regarded as authority in matters of faith. He, appears to have been violent against the so-called heresies of that day, and opposed Nestorius with the same determined zeal and inexorable firmness with which Athanasius had opposed Arius. The ascendency of Cyril was disgraced by the death of the famous female mathematician and philosopher Hypatia, murdered with horrible cruelty, and within the walls of a church, by the fanatic followers of the Patriarch, if he did not himself connive at it. He is much more venerated in the Greek than in the Latin Church. In the Greek representations he is the only bishop who has his head covered; he wears a veil or hood, coming over his head, falling down on his shoulders, and the front embroidered with a cross, as in the illustration.
With the Greek Fathers I conclude the list of those saints who are generally represented in their collective character, grouped, or in a series.
St. Mary Magdalene, St. Martha, St. Lazarus, St. Marímín, St. Marcella, St. Mary of Egypt, and the Beatified Penitents.
St. Mary Magdalene, St. Martha, St. Lazarus, St. Marímín, St. Marcella, St. Mary of Egypt, and the Beatified Penitents.
St. Mary Magdalene.
Lat. Sancta Maria Magdalena. Ital. Santa Maria Maddalena. Fr. La Madeleine. La Sainte Demoiselle pécheresse. (July 22, A.D. 68.) Patroness of Provence, of Marseilles, and of frail and penitent women.
Of all the personages who figure in history, in poetry, in art, Mary Magdalene is at once the most unreal and the most real:—the most unreal, if we attempt to fix her identity, which has been a subject of dispute for ages; the most real, if we consider her as having been, for ages, recognised and accepted in every Christian heart as the impersonation of the penitent sinner absolved through faith and love. In this, her mythic character, she has been surrounded by associations which have become fixed in the imagination, and which no reasoning, no array of facts, can dispel. This is not the place to enter into disputed points of biblical criticism; they are quite beside our present purpose. Whether Mary Magdalene, ‘out of whom Jesus cast seven devils,’ Mary of Bethany, and the ‘woman who was a sinner,’ be, as some authorities assert, three distinct persons, or, as others affirm, one and the same individual under different designations, remains a question open to dispute, nothing having been demonstrated on either side, from Scripture or from tradition; and I cannot presume even to give an opinion where doctors—and doctors of the Church, too—disagree; Origen and St. Chrysostom taking one side of the question, St. Clement and St. Gregory the other. Fleury, after citing the opinions of both sides, thus beautifully sums up the whole question:—‘Il importe de ne pas croire témérairement ce que l’Évangile ne dit point, et de ne pas mettre la religion à suivre aveuglement toutes les opinions populaires: la foi est trop précieuse pour la prodiguer ainsi; mais la charité l’est encore plus; et ce qui est le plus important, c’est d’éviter les disputes qui peuvent l’altérer tant soit peu.’ And this is most true;—in his time the fast hold which the Magdalene had taken of the affections of the people was not to be shaken by theological researches and doubts. Here critical accuracy was nothing less than profanation and scepticism, and to have attacked the sanctity of the Blessed Mary Magdalene would have embittered and alienated many kindly and many believing spirits. It is difficult to treat of Mary Magdalene; and this difficulty would be increased infinitely if it were absolutely necessary to enter on the much-vexed question of her scriptural character and identity: one thing only appeals certain,—that such a person, whatever might have been her veritable appellation, did exist. The woman who, under the name of Mary Magdalene,—whether that name be rightfully or wrongfully bestowed,—stands before us, sanctified in the imagination and in the faith of the people in her combined character of Sinner and of Saint, as the first-fruits of Christian penitence,—is a reality, and not a fiction. Even if we would, we cannot do away with the associations inseparably connected with her name and her image. Of all those to whom much has been forgiven, she was the first: of all the tears since ruefully shed at the foot of the cross of suffering, hers were the first: of all the hopes which the Resurrection has since diffused through nations and generations of men, hers were the first. To her sorrowful image how many have looked up through tears, and blessed the pardoning grace of which she was the symbol—or rather the impersonation! Of the female saints, some were the chosen patrons of certain virtues—others of certain vocations; but the accepted and glorified penitent threw her mantle over all, and more especially over those of her own sex, who, having gone astray, were recalled from error and from shame, and laid down their wrongs, their sorrows, and their sins in trembling humility at the feet of the Redeemer.