The Five Tomes (Books) Against Nestorius: Large Print Edition

Features of The Five Tomes (Books) Against Nestorius: Large Print Edition

Excerpt ON the death of Theophilus Archbishop of Alexandria in A D 412 his nephew and successor S Cyril comes suddenly before us For of S Cyrils previous life we have only a few scattered notices We do not know in what year he was born nor any thing of his parents nor where he was brought up That S Cyril had received a thoroughly good education is abundantly clear not only from his very extensive reading which a mind of such large grasp as S Cyrils would ever provide for itself but that his reading being so well digested implies good early training The great accuracy of his Theology implies a most accurate Theological education That education included a large range of secular study as well as of Divinity and probably comprised a good deal of learning by heart not only of the holy Scriptures but also of profane authors as witness a line of Antipater Sidonius quoted in his Commentary on Zechariah He quotes too Josephus on the Jewish war On Hab 32 he mentions interpretations of that verse of two different kinds on Hosea he gives a long extract from a writer whom we do not apparently possess Tillemont remarks that his books against Julian shew that he had a large acquaintance with secular writers We may infer that S Cyril was brought up at some monastery as a place of Christian education and from the great reverence which he ever paid to S Isidore Abbot of Pelusium it seems not unlikely that S Isidore was his instructor during some part of his early life S Isidore alludes to some especial tie in one of his brief letters to S Cyril when Archbishop Near the beginning S Isidore says If I be your father as you say I be or if I be your son as I know I am seeing that you hold the chair of S Mark c The large number of Platonic words in S Isidores letters seem to indicate that he too had extensive reading of Plato and S Cyril may have acquired from him some of his knowledge of Aristotle But a mind of S Cyrils grasp would feel itself lost in the desert yearning for its own calling and another Letter of the same S Isidore to S Cyril reproaching him with his heart being in the world may belong to this period His uncle Archbishop Theophilus had him to live with him and we may infer ordained him priest and made him one of his Clergy Excerpt Much of these quiet years S Cyril probably employed on his earlier writings of these two were on select passages of the Pentateuch one volume being allotted to those which S Cyril thought could in any way be adapted as types of our Lord the other to the rest as being types of the church The commentaries on Isaiah and the Minor Prophets and the Books against the Emperor Julian probably belong to this period Besides these S Cyril following the example of his great predecessor S Athanasius wrote two Books against the Arians first the Thesaurus in which S Cyril brought to bear his knowledge of Aristotle then the de Trinitate which was written though not published till later before A D 424 In his Paschal homily for that year A D 424 S Cyril also speaks of the Eternal Generation of the SON and towards the close of the homily he opposes the Arian terms Generate Ingenerate A D 429 the circulation of tracts of Nestorius in Egypt occasioned him first to write on the heresy of Nestorius There can be little doubt that the powerful mind of S Leo who was the soul of the Council of Chalcedon was in his young days when S Celestines Archdeacon in 429 taught through those writings as S Cyril himself had been taught by the writings of S Athanasius