Life and Times

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313–386) was bishop of the holy city for some thirty-five years, a span that carried him through the turbulent middle decades of the fourth-century controversies: from his formation as a Scripture-steeped presbyter and catechist, through an episcopate punctuated by three exiles under Arianizing pressure, to his vindication at the Council of Constantinople in 381 and a peaceful death five years later. This file offers a connected biography, registering the chronological uncertainties lightly and pointing toward the fuller treatments of his Lectures, his exiles, and his doctrine in their proper sections.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

Birth and Background

Cyril was born around 313, in or near Jerusalem, into the world that Constantine’s conversion was beginning to transform. The exact year is nowhere recorded, and scholars accordingly give a range, commonly c. 313–315, reconstructed from the indirect evidence of his career rather than from any document (Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Brill 2004). Almost nothing is known of his family or childhood with certainty; what the sources make plain is the result of his upbringing rather than its circumstances — a man profoundly and almost exclusively formed by the Scriptures.

[Disputed: Cyril’s precise birth year. The standard range is c. 313–315 (Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Brill 2004; Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, Routledge 2000), inferred chiefly from the dating of his catechetical activity and accession rather than fixed by direct testimony; the repository adopts c. 313 as a round figure consistent with that range.]

The texture of Cyril’s later preaching reveals his formation. His Catechetical Lectures are saturated with Scripture, citing and weaving together passages from across both Testaments with a fluency that marks a mind shaped from youth by the biblical text rather than by the philosophical schools (Procatechesis and Catechetical Lectures 4.33–36; trans. NPNF II/7). He insists to his hearers that nothing concerning the divine mysteries is to be believed without the warrant of the Scriptures, and he supplies the proof-texts at every turn (Catechetical Lecture 4.17; trans. NPNF II/7). Where a figure like the Cappadocians paraded the secular learning of the Greek academies, Cyril’s authority is consistently scriptural and ecclesial, the authority of a teacher transmitting the received faith of the Church to those preparing for baptism. This biblical and pastoral cast of mind, rather than speculative theology, is the keynote of everything that survives under his name (Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, Routledge 2000).

Presbyter and Catechist under Maximus

Cyril entered the clergy of Jerusalem under Bishop Maximus, his predecessor, who ordained him to the presbyterate (Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Brill 2004). It was in this office that he found the vocation that would define him. Maximus entrusted to the presbyter Cyril the instruction of the catechumens — the candidates preparing for baptism — and it was in discharging this charge that Cyril developed the body of catechetical teaching for which he is chiefly remembered (see The Catechumenate). The charge of catechizing was no minor office in the Jerusalem of his day: the Lenten preparation of candidates for the Paschal baptism, conducted at the very sites of the passion and resurrection, was among the most solemn of the bishop’s and his clergy’s responsibilities, and it placed the young presbyter at the center of the city’s spiritual life. The Catechetical Lectures, delivered most plausibly during Lent in the years around his accession, grow directly out of this pastoral office; their detailed treatment belongs to a later section (see The Procatechesis and Eighteen Lectures).

Accession to the See

On the death of Maximus, around 350 or 351, Cyril succeeded him as bishop of Jerusalem. He was consecrated by Acacius, the metropolitan of Caesarea, whose Arianizing sympathies and jurisdictional authority over Palestine would make him Cyril’s principal antagonist (see Jerusalem and the See). Hostile ancient writers — Jerome and Rufinus among them — later cast aspersions on the manner of his accession, alleging an Arian or irregular ordination; these are the charges of unfriendly partisans and are best reported as allegations rather than received as fact (Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Brill 2004). The dramatic appearance of a luminous cross in the sky over Jerusalem in 351, which Cyril reported to the emperor Constantius in a famous letter, fell at the very outset of his episcopate and signaled, to his mind, the heavenly favor resting upon the holy city and its new bishop (Letter to Constantius; trans. NPNF II/7).

The Shape of a Thirty-Five-Year Episcopate

Cyril’s tenure stretched across some thirty-five years, from c. 350/351 to 386, and through the whole of the Arian crisis in its most confused middle phase (see Cyril and the Arian Crisis). Three broad strands run through it.

First, he remained throughout a bishop and catechist, a pastor whose enduring monument is the instruction he gave to the faithful and the catechumens of Jerusalem, and whose see drew an ever-swelling stream of pilgrims to the holy places (see The Catechumenate).

Second, his episcopate was repeatedly broken by exile. His conflict with Acacius over both jurisdiction and doctrine led to his deposition and to three successive periods of banishment under Arianizing imperial pressure, interspersed with restorations as the political and theological winds shifted at court (Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Brill 2004). By his own later reckoning, reported at Constantinople, he had spent a large portion of his episcopate driven from his see. The pattern tracks the reigns: deposition and exile under the Arianizing settlement of Constantius, a respite under Julian, renewed banishment under the pro-Arian Valens, and final restoration under Theodosius. The full course of these exiles is treated elsewhere (see The Three Exiles); here it is enough to register that they shaped the rhythm of his entire career and that he weathered each without abandoning the moderate, broadly Nicene course that ultimately secured his vindication.

Third, his life ended in vindication. With the accession of Theodosius and the convening of the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381, Cyril was present as a recognized and orthodox bishop, his standing affirmed by the council, which explicitly attested both the orthodoxy of his faith and the legitimacy of his struggles against the Arians (Drijvers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Brill 2004; see Vindication at Constantinople 381). The council’s commendation set the seal of catholic approval on a career that hostile parties had spent decades attempting to discredit.

Death and Canonical Standing

Cyril died in 386, having held the see of Jerusalem, with interruptions, for roughly thirty-five years. The Church received him as a saint and a Father, and in the Christian East and West alike his name stands among the authoritative teachers of the patristic age (see Church Fathers). His commemoration is kept on 18 March. His enduring stature rests above all on the Catechetical Lectures and the Mystagogical Catecheses associated with his name, which preserve a uniquely detailed window onto the baptismal and eucharistic liturgy of fourth-century Jerusalem and rank among the most valuable documents of early Christian initiation (Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, Routledge 2000; Doval, Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogue, CUA Press 2001). In 1882 the Roman Catholic Church formally declared him a Doctor of the Church, a recognition that, while Western in form, reflects the broad and ancient esteem in which his catechetical legacy has been held across the Christian world.

See Also

• Jerusalem and the See — the institutional and topographical setting of this life
• The Procatechesis and Eighteen Lectures — the catechetical corpus that is his chief monument
• The Three Exiles — the banishments that punctuated his episcopate
• Vindication at Constantinople 381 — the council that affirmed his orthodoxy
• Cyril and the Arian Crisis — his theological position amid the controversy
• Church Fathers — Cyril among the Fathers of the Church

References

• Cyril of Jerusalem. Catechetical Lectures (Catecheses) and Procatechesis. PG 33.331–1181; trans. NPNF Series 2, Vol. 7 (NPNF II/7); and McCauley, Leo P., and Anthony A. Stephenson, The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, FOTC 61 & 64. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1969–1970.
• Cyril of Jerusalem. Letter to Constantius. PG 33; trans. NPNF II/7.
• Drijvers, Jan Willem. Cyril of Jerusalem: Bishop and City. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 72. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
• Doval, Alexis James. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogue: The Authorship of the Mystagogic Catecheses. Patristic Monograph Series 17. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001.
• Yarnold, Edward. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 2000.
• The Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople) (381). In The Seven Ecumenical Councils, NPNF II/14.