THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

A NEW TRANSLATION VOLUME 118

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

A NEW TRANSLAT ION ED I TORIAL BOARD
Thomas P. Halton The Catholic University of America Editorial Director Elizabeth Clark Duke University Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J. Fordham University David G. Hunter University of Kentucky Robert D. Sider Dickinson College Michael Slusser Duquesne University Cynthia White The University of Arizona

Kathleen McVey Rebecca Lyman Princeton Theological Seminary Church Divinity School of the Pacific David J. McGonagle Director The Catholic University of America Press

Ludwig Schopp, Roy J. Deferrari, Bernard M. Peebles, Hermigild Dressler, O.F.M. Carole Monica C. Burnett Staff Editor

FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTORS

ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA

FESTAL LETTERS 112
Translated by Philip R. Amidon, S.J.
Creighton University

Edited with introduction and notes by

John J. OKeefe
Creighton University

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS

Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2009 THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standards for Information SciencePermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Public ation Data Cyril, Saint, Patriarch of Alexandria, ca. 370444. [Correspondence. English. Selections] Festal letters 112 / St. Cyril of Alexandria ; translated by Philip R. Amidon ; introduction and notes by John J. OKeefe. p. cm. (The Fathers of the church : a new translation ; v. 118) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-0-8132-0118-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Cyril, Saint, Patriarch of Alexandria, ca. 370444Correspondence. 2. Christian saintsEgypt AlexandriaCorrespondence. 3. Christian lifeEarly works to 1800. 4. Theology, DoctrinalEarly works to 1800.I. Title,II. Series. BR65.C952E5 2008 270.2092dc22 2008029287

CONTENTS

Abbreviations Select Bibliography

vii ix

Introduction
I. The Festal Genre and St. Cyril of Alexandria 3 II. Cyrils Life and the Content of the Festal Letters 8 A. Cyril the Exegete 9 B. Cyril, Politics, and the Origenist Controversy 12 C. Cyril, Egypt, the Old Testament, and the Jews 16 D. That Christ is One 26 III. Conclusion 31

F E S TA L L E T T E R S 112

Festal Letter One Festal Letter Two Festal Letter Three Festal Letter Four Festal Letter Five Festal Letter Six

35 52 68 69 83 101

Festal Letter Seven Festal Letter Eight Festal Letter Nine Festal Letter Ten Festal Letter Eleven Festal Letter Twelve

125 137 155 175 195 216

APPENDIX AND INDICES Appendix: Dates of Easter General Index Index of Holy Scripture 237 239 243

ABBREVIATIONS

FL Ep. JTS PG SC

Festal Letters. Epistle. Journal of Theological Studies. Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne. Paris. Sources Chrtiennes. Paris: Cerf.

vii

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources
Azma, Yvan, ed. Thodoret de Cyr, Correspondance. 3 vols. SC 40, 98, 111. Paris: Cerf, 19551965. Burguire, Paul, and Pierre vieux, eds. Cyrille dAlexandrie: Contre Julien, Tome 1, Livres III. SC 322. Paris: Cerf, 1985. Durand, G. M., ed. Cyrille dAlexandrie: Deux Dialogues Christologiques. SC 97. Paris: Cerf, 1964. , ed. Cyrille dAlexandrie: Dialogues sur la Trinit, Tomes 13. SC 231, 237, 246. Paris: Cerf, 19761978. vieux, Pierre. Cyrille dAlexandrie: Lettres Festales IXVII. Sources Chrtiennes, 372, 392, 434. Paris: Cerf, 19911998. McEnerney, John I. St. Cyril of Alexandria Letters 1110. The Fathers of the Church, vols. 76, 77. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987. Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologia cursus completus. Series Graeca, vols. 6877. Pusey, P. E., ed. Sancti Patris Nostri Cyrilli Archiepiscopi Alexandrini. 7 vols. Oxford, 1868. Reprint. Bruxelles, 1965. Socrates. Ecclesiastical History. PG 67. Sophronius. Laudes in SS. Cyrum et Joannem. PG 87: 341113. Wickham, Lionel R., ed. Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters. Oxford, 1983.

Secondary Sources
Boulnois, Marie-Odile. Le paradoxe trinitaire chez Cyrille dAlexandrie: Hermneutique, analyse philosophique et argumentation thologique. Paris: Institut dtudes Augustiniennes, 1994. Boyarin, Daniel. Intertextuality and the Study of Midrash. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994. . Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Cameron, Averil. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Casiday, A. M. Evagrius Ponticus. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.

Chadwick, Henry. Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy. JTS N.S. 2 (1951): 14564. Clark, Elizabeth. The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an
ix

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Early Christian Debate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Dawson, David. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Dysinger, Luke. Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Evagrius of Pontus. The Praktikos & Chapters On Prayer. Translated by John Eudes Bamberger. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Studies, 1981. Frankfurter, David. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Gorday, Peter. Principles of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 911 in Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. New York: Edwin Mellen, 1983. Guillaumont, Antoine. Aux Origines du Monachisme Chrtien. Spiritualit Orientales, no. 30. Abbaye de Belle Fontaine, 1979. Haas, Christopher. Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Hardy, E. R. The Further Education of Cyril of Alexandria (412444): Questions and Problems. Studia Patristica 17, vol. 1 (1982): 11622. Harmless, William. St. Augustine and the Catechumenate. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995. . Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Hirshman, Marc. A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996. Hurtado, Larry W. One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998. Jones, A. H. M. The Later Roman Empire. Vol. 2. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Jouassard, G. Lactivit littraire de saint Cyrille dAlexandrie jusqu 428: Essai de chronologie et de synthse, in Mlanges E. Podechard. Lyon, 1945. Kelly, J. N. D. Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. Kennedy, G. Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Kerrigan, Alexander. St. Cyril of Alexandria: Interpreter of the Old Testament. Rome, 1952. Koen, Lars. The Saving Passio: Incarnational and Soteriological Thought in Cyril of Alexandrias Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1991. Libaert, J. La doctrine christologique de Cyrille dAlexandrie avant la priode nestorienne. Lille, 1951. . Saint Cyrille dAlexandrie et la culture antique. Mlanges de Science Religieuse 12 (1955): 121. Malina, Bruce. Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology. Atlanta: John Knox, 1986. Malley, W. J. Hellenism and Christianity: The Conflict between Hellenic and

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Christian Wisdom in the Contra Galilaeos of Julian the Apostate and the Contra Julianum of St. Cyril of Alexandria. Rome, 1978. Mango, Cyril. Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome. New York: Scribner, 1980. Manoir, Hubert du. Dogme et Spiritualit chez Saint Cyrille dAlexandrie. Paris, 1944. McGuckin, John A. St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology, and Texts. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994. . Cyril of Alexandria: On the Unity of Christ. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1995. McKinion, Steven. Words, Imagery, and the Mystery of Christ: A Reconstruction of Cyril of Alexandrias Christology. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2000. Meunier, Bernard. Le Christ de Cyrille dAlexandrie: Lhumanit, le salut et la question monophysite. Paris: Beauchesne, 1997. Neusner, Jacob. Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine: History, Messiah, Israel, and the Initial Confrontation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. OKeefe, John J. Impassible Suffering? Divine Passion and Fifth-Century Christology. Theological Studies 58 (1997): 3960. . A Letter that Killeth: Toward a Reassessment of Antiochene Exegesis, or Diodore, Theodore, and Theodoret on the Psalms. Journal of Early Christian Studies 8, no. 1 (2000): 83104. OKeefe, John J., and R. R. Reno. Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. Prestige, G. L. Fathers and Heretics. SPCK, 1940. Quasten, Johannes. Patrology, vol. 3. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986. Russell, Norman. Cyril of Alexandria. The Early Church Fathers. New York: Routledge, 2000. . The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Schublin, Christoph. Untersuchungen zu Methode und Herkunft der Antiochenischen Exgse. Cologne and Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1974. Simon, Marcel. Verus Israel. Translated by H. McKeating. Oxford, 1986. Simonetti, Manlio. Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis. Translated by John A. Hughes. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. Smith, Jonathan Z. What A Difference A Difference Makes. In To See Ourselves as Others See Us. Edited by Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985. Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. Vaggione, Richard Paul. Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Visotzky, Burton. Fathers of the World: Essays in Rabbinic and Patristic Literatures. Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995.

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Wilken, Robert. John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. . Judaism and the Early Christian Mind: A Study of Cyril of Alexandrias Exegesis and Theology. Reprint of 1971 edition. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004. Young, Frances. The Rhetorical Schools and their Influence on Patristic Exegesis. In The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, edited by Rowan Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. . Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. . The Art of Performance: Towards a Theology of Holy Scripture. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1990.