Many historical and artistic questions concerning Cyrene remain unsettled, but since the discoveries made in Laconia in 1908, the much disputed “Cyrenaic ware” has been ascribed to Sparta. A good deal of Cyrenaic sculpture, all of comparatively late date, was sent to the British Museum by Smith and Porcher. Nothing has yet been found on the site belonging to the great age of the city’s independence, the fine vases sent to the British Museum in 1864, by Mr G. Dennis, having been discovered not there, but near Berenice (Bengazi). The latter site, with Ptolemais and Apollonia, has supplied most of the antiquities found latterly in Cyrenaica.
See authorities for [Cyrenaica], and F. Studniczka, Kyrene, eine alt-griechische Göttin (1890).
(D. G. H.)
CYRIL (c. 315-386), bishop of Jerusalem, where he was probably born, was ordained a presbyter in 345, and had the instruction of the catechumens entrusted to him. In 350 he was elevated to the see of Jerusalem, and became deeply involved in the dogmatic controversies of his time. His metropolitan, Acacius of Caesarea, inclined to Arianism, while Cyril strongly espoused the Nicene creed and was, in consequence, deposed for a time. On the death of the emperor Constantine he was restored; but on the accession of Valens, an Arian emperor, he had once more to resign his post till the accession of Theodosius permitted him to return finally in peace in 379. He attended the second oecumenical council held at Constantinople in 381, where he was received with grateful acclamations for his sufferings in defence of orthodoxy. Cyril was even more conspicuous as a pastor than as a controversialist, and this is seen in his one important work—his twenty-three addresses to catechumens delivered in A.D. 348. The first eighteen of these were meant for candidates for baptism; they deal with general topics like repentance and faith, and then expound in detail the baptismal creed of the Jerusalem church. The remaining five addresses were spoken to the newly-baptized in Easter week and explain the mysteries and ritual of baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist. These lectures are said to be “the first example of a popular compend of religion,” and are particularly interesting for the insight which they give us both into the creed-forms of the early church and the various ceremonies of initiation constituting baptism in the 4th century. The evidence which Cyril supplies as to the Jerusalem use is supplemented by the S. Silviae peregrinatio, dating from about a generation later. Other tracts and homilies have been ascribed to Cyril of Jerusalem, but they are of doubtful genuineness.
Editions.—A. A. Touttée (Paris, 1720); W. C. Reischl and J. Rupp (Munich, 1848-1860); Migne, Patrol. Graeca. xxxiii. Translation: Catecheses (“Oxford Library of Fathers,” vol. ii.). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. (Förster); Delacroix, St C. de Jérus., sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1865).
CYRIL (376-444), bishop of Alexandria, a more distinguished father of the church than his namesake of Jerusalem, was born in 376, and died in 444. Becoming patriarch of Alexandria about 412, he soon made himself known by the violence of his zeal against Jews, pagans and heretics or supposed heretics alike. He had hardly entered upon his office when he closed all the churches of the Novatians and seized their ecclesiastical effects. He assailed the Jewish synagogues with an armed force, drove the Jews in thousands from the city, and exposed their houses and property to pillage. The prefect of Egypt, Orestes, who endeavoured to withstand his furious zeal, was in turn denounced himself, and had difficulty in maintaining his ground against the fury of the Christian multitude. It was during one of the violent commotions kindled by the strifes of these parties in Alexandria that the illustrious Hypatia, famed for her beauty and her eloquent advocacy of the Neo-Platonic philosophy in opposition to Christianity, was murdered. Her murder has been attributed to the direct instigation of the patriarch himself; but this charge is held to be baseless by others, although there can be no doubt that “the perpetrators were officers of his church,” and undoubtedly drew encouragement from his own violent proceedings. Hypatia was a friend of Orestes, and the hostility that existed betwixt the prefect and the patriarch overflowed towards her, and undoubtedly led to her destruction.
But Cyril’s violence was not merely confined to those who might be considered enemies of the church. He inherited from Theophilus, his uncle and predecessor in the see of Alexandria, a strong aversion to John Chrysostom, the noble bishop of Constantinople, and even after his death opposed for a time all attempts to remove the unjust sentence of condemnation which had been passed upon him. Afterwards he so far yielded to remonstrances as to allow the name of Chrysostom to appear in the list of distinguished martyrs and bishops mentioned in the prayers of his church. These names were inserted in what were called “diptychs” (δίπτυχα νεκρῶν), or two-leaved tablets preserved in the churches—a usage which the Greek Church has continued to this day.
Cyril thus represents—though he differs largely from his predecessors—the tendencies dominant at Alexandria in the 5th century, and their antagonism to the Antiochene school. The story of his opposition to Nestorius at the council of Ephesus in 431 is told elsewhere (see [Nestorius]). He himself incurred the charge of heresy from the oriental bishops. Satisfied, however, with the deprivation and exile of his opponent, he returned to Alexandria in triumph as the great champion of the faith, and thence continued, by the “unscrupulous use of all the means at his command,” the theological strife for years. He was a bitter opponent of the great Antiochene expositor and apologist Theodoret.