A COMMENTARY UPON THE GOSPEL ACCOEDING TO S. LUKE, BY S. CYRIL, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA. NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH FROM AN ANCIENT SYRIAC VERSION BY R. PAYNE SMITH, M.A., SUBLIBRARIAN OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. PART I. OXFORD : AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. M.DOCO.LIX. PREFACE. W HEN I undertook the task of preparing for the press the Syriac Version of S. Cyril's Commentary upon the Gospel of S. Luke, discovered among the manuscripts lately obtained from Egypt, and depo sited in the British Museum, I was aware that my labours would be of little practical benefit, unless I also made it accessible to theologians generally by means of an English translation. In the performance of this duty, my chief assistance has been derived frdm the Nova Bibliotheca Patrum of Cardinal Mai, published in 1844-58 at Rome : for so miserably defective is even the best Syriac Lexicon, that it has repeatedly happened that I have only been able to arrive with something like certainty at the meaning of a passage, by waiting until I found in some ex tract in Mai the equivalent in Greek of the word or phrase in question. Wherever this help has failed, I have carefully examined the use of words in other Semitic dialects, or in the numerous Syriac works which during the last few ye^s have issued from the press, and in which I had been in the habit of noting the occurrence of all new and unusual terms. To A2 iv PREFACE. have discussed these difficulties in notes, would have been only to crowd my' pages with matter not gene rally interesting, and for which, I trust, I shall here after have a more fitting opportunity. I think, how ever, that I can safely say, that in no case have I come to a conclusion except upon reasonable grounds, and that, after due allowance made for possible errors, my translation will be found to convey a correct and adequate representation of the original work. Of the value of the Commentary, I shall probably not be considered an impartial judge : still my con viction is, that it can scarcely fail of being regarded as an important addition to our means of forming an accurate judgment of what was the real teaching of one of the most famous schools of thought in the early Church. It has not indeed gained entire acceptance ; its philosophy was too deep, its creed too mysterious, its longings too fervently fixed upon the supernatural, for the practical mind of the West readily to assent to doctrines which mock rather than exercise the powers of even the subtlest reason. And while the names of its doctors have become household words with us, and we oVve to their labours the establishment of the doc trine of the Trinity in Unity in its main outlines as we hold it at present, still the student of Church His tory is aware, that in many minor, though still im portant particulars, the teaching of the Alexandrine school was in excess of what we at present hold. The Athanasian Creed does not embody the actual tenets of Athanasius, nor of tke other great masters of Alex andria, except in the form in which they were modi fied and altered by the influence of rival schools : and PREFACE. v in like manner S. Cyril, the inheritor at once of Atha nasius' throne, and of his views, often uses arguments which the Monophysites could fairly claim as giving a colour to their belief, that after the union of the two natures in Christ it was no longer lawful to dis tinguish their separate limits. It was the Nestorian controversy which called out the argumentative powers and the fiery zeal of S. Cyril ; and it is certainly true that in that controversy he used Nestorius unfairly, taxing him with deduc tions, which, however logically they might seem to follow from his opponent's teaching, yet Nestorius himself expressly denied : but it is not true that the controversy led him into statements of doctrine beyond what his predecessors in the see of Alexandria had taught. For constantly what he opposed to his rival's views was the very doctrine of S. Athanasius ; and the passage which he quotes in his treatise De recta Fide, ad Imperatrices, from that father's treatise on the Incarnation of Christ, is never exceeded in any of his own dogmatic statements. Its words are as follow : — ofioXoyoS/xev, Ka), eTvai avrov vlov tov OeoS Kai Oeov Kara irvevfj.a, vlov avQpiinrov Kara arapKa' ov Svo (bvcrets TOV eva viov, p-iav 7rpoiTKVvt]TTjv Kai fxiav aTrpocr- KvvijTOv' aX\a fuav (bvcriv tov Oeoii Xoyov o'ecrapKUiy.evrjv Kai TrpocrKwovixevriv juera Ttji aapKog avTov jxia irpoaKvvrjcrei. This was S. Athanasius' doctrine, this also was S. Cyril's ; and it is only a falsification of the facts of history to endeavour to bring the Alexandrine school into verbal accordance with the decrees ofthe general council of Chalcedon. The doctrine which prevaUed there was that of the rival school of Antioch, which had always firmly stood by the literal interpretation of vi PREFACE. the plain letter of Scripture; a sound, judicious, com mon-sense school, which had never depth enough to have fought the battle of the Arian heresy with the profoundness of conviction which gave such undying- energy to the great chiefs of Alexandria ; but which nevertheless had under Providence its due place in the Church, and corrected the tendency of Athanasius and Cyril to a too immoderate love of the super natural and mysterious. That S. Cyril however felt that there was no insu perable barrier between the two schools is shown by his reconcUiation with John of Antioch, and their signing common articles of faith. For essentially both CyrU and John of Antioch held the mean be tween the extremes of Nestorius and Eutyches ; only Cyril's leaning was towards Eutyches, John's towards Nestorius. And when subsequently the council of Chalcedon, A. D. 451, modified, happily and wisely, the decrees ofthe previous general council of Ephesus, A. D. 431, and adopted as their standard of faith the teaching of the Antiochian school as embodied in the famous Epistola Flaviana of Leo, Pope of Rome, they acknowledged this substantial agreement between Antioch and Alexandria, — between themselves and the council of Ephesus, — by their declaration that Aecov eiTre ra rov J^vplWov, — that what Leo Wrote was the same that Cyril taught. And that in the main they were right this present Commentary will shew ; for S. CyrU's doctrine in it is essentially moderate. There are indeed passages in which he apparently confounds the limits of the two natures in Christ, but many more in which he gives to each its proper at tributes, and bears witness to the existence of both PREFACE. vU the godhead and the manhood in the one person of our Lord, inseparable, yet unconfused. But when Mai would go further, and deny that the Monophysites had any ground for claiming S. Cyril's authority in their favour, his uncritical turn of mind at once betrays him : for he rests chiefly upon the treatise De Incarnatione Domini, Nov. Bib. Pat. ii. 32-74, ascribed by him to S. CyrU upon the testimony of a MS. in the Vatican. But indepen dently of other internal evidence that this piece was written subsequently to the council of Chalcedon, it is absolutely impossible that Cyril could ever have adopted the very keystone and centre of Nestorius' teaching, the doctrine I mean of a a-woKpeta (pp. 59, 71), a mere juxtaposition, or mechanical conjunction of the two natures in Christ, in opposition to a real union. In the West, under the guiding minds of Augustine and Ambrose, the council of Chalcedon met at once with ready acceptance ; but not so in the East. It was there that the controversy had been really waged against Arius, and the reaction from his teaching led many of the fathers into overstrained arguments which ended in^ heresies, ejected one after another from the Church. As in the process of fermentation there is a thick scum upon the surface while the work of purification is going on below, so each ex traneous element, after mingling for a time with the great mass of Christian truth, was at length rejected with an ease or difficulty proportioned to the intense- ness of its admixture with sounder doctrines. And thus the general orthodoxy and invaluable services of the Alexandrine school caused whatever there was of viU PREFACE. exaggeration in their views long and violently to resist this purifying process in those parts of the world which had been the nearest witnesses of their struggles in defence of the doctrine of the consub stantial nature of the Son. Up to the time also of the council of Chalcedon the language ofthe Fathers had been vague and confused : and the expression of S. John i. 14, that " the Word was made flesh ;" as it had led the Arians to affirm that the Logos was a created being, so it had led orthodox Fathers to speak as if Christ's human body was " very God." And thus the Monophysites could count up a long array of all the great names in the Church, Ignatius, Poly carp, Clemens of Rome, Irena;us, Melito of Sardes, Felix and Julius of Rome, the Gregories, Athanasius, BasU, and many more, who had confounded in Christ the human with the divine. With such authorities on their side the conflict was long and dubious, and in Justinian's time they seemed likely to gain the ascendancy : for the Pope then was the mere crea ture of simony, and consequently there was nothing to balance the tendencies of the Eastern Church. Accordingly in A. D. 533 Justinian, though nominally opposed to their tenets, decreed that " one of the holy and consubstantial Trinity was crucified :" and twenty years after, the fifth general council of Con stantinople authoritatively ratified the same doctrine. But in the subsequent weak reign of Justin, the Pa triarch of Constantinople, John .the Jurist, thwarted by the Monophysite monks whom Theodora had planted in the capital, took such vigorous measures against the leaders of the party, that their principles have since exercised no appreciable influence in the Church. PREFACE. ix As the Monophysites had only pushed to excess the tendencies of the Alexandrine school — and it must be remembered that they are by no means to be confounded with the Eutychians, according to the fashion of Church histories in general, whereas really they anathematized them — the above sketch may place the reader in a position to judge of the state ments of S. Cyril regarding this doctrine, — a doctrine after all of metaphysical rather than of practical im portance. But, as a general rule, he will find the Commentary written in a tone of moderation, as might be expected in homUies addressed by a teacher to his own people, far from the baleful atmosphere of controversy, and in a place where his views were in full and hereditary possession of the teacher's chair. There is too a practical tone throughout, and while ' in his interpretation of the Old Testament he follows the usual tendencies of the fathers to see nothing there but types and allegories, in the New he chiefly follows the obvious meaning, and considers each parable or narrative or discourse as a whole, the key of which he generally finds in the occasion which gave rise to it. He even warns us against pushing! the minutiae of parables into too prominent a posi tion, by means of which the machinery to enforce a moral lesson becomes the medium for convey ing some cabbalistic mystery : as when, instead of in ferring the certainty of our having to give an account of the use of our worldly means from the parable of Dives and Lazarus, commentators use it to unveU the secrets of the future world ; or discover the two sa craments in the pence given by the Samaritan to the host at the inn. b X PREFACE. Like many other patristic Commentaries, it was delivered in a course of short Sermons, preached ex temporaneously : for so we may conclude, not only from the opening sentences of Sermon III, and the reiteration of favourite texts, but also from their evidently being quoted from memory. Repeatedly S. Cyril's reading agrees neither with the Septuagint nor with any other Greek version of the Old Testa ment, though occasionally he (apparently) purposely follows Theodotion. In the New Testament he was evidently most famUiar with S. Matthew's Gospel, and not only does he make his ordinary quotations from it, but even introduces its readings into the Commentary, after correctly giving S. Luke's text at the head of the Sermon. And as increased at tention is now being paid to the collection of the various readings of Holy Scripture contained in the works of the fathers, the caution may not be out of place, that certainly in S. Cyril, and probably in the patristic writings generally, no importance is to be attached to the substitution of the words and phrases of one Gospel for those of another. In the headings however placed before each Ser mon, we have a most valuable addition to our mate rials for biblical criticism : for evidently they give us the received Alexandrine text as it was read in the beginning of the fifth century ; and that S. Cyril was fully aware of the importance of correctness on this head is evident from his constant allusions to the readings of the other Gospels. Its value however will best appear by a comparison between it and the chief extant authorities, and I have therefore collated it in the margin, 1°. with the readings of the great PREFACE. xi Vatican MS. published posthumously by Cardinal Mai, and which I have marked as B. ; 2°, with the seventh edition of Tischendorf, now in process of publication, T. ; S°. with Griesbach, G. ; and, 4". with the textus receptus, ?. I have not however consi dered it necessary to notice unimportant transposi tions in the order of words, and where Griesbach is equally in favour of two readings, I have usually omitted his name ; as also I have done with the Sy riac, represented by S., in the few cases in which it corresponds as much with the one as with the other Greek reading. It will be noticed that in all cases I have represented the Syriac by its equivalent in Greek, which rule I have also followed wherever it has appeared expedient to give in the margin the original word ; often however of course the Greek is actually taken from the remains in Mai. The most cursory glance at the margin will shew that the high expectation naturally formed of the probable value of so ancient a text is fully carried out in fact. Its readings are almost always supported by one or other of the chief authorities, far more so than those of B. itself. And even where it seems to stand alone, an examination of the readings in Tischendorf will almost universally shew that there is a strong array of evidence in its support among the most valued MSS., while it contains nothing which mo dern criticism has definitely condemned. One obser vation is however necessary, namely, that the Syriac language indulges in a fuDer use of pronouns even than our own ; and though I have noticed in the margin their addition wherever they might possibly b2 xU PREFACE. exist in the Greek, yet, like those in italics in our own version, they are really not to be regarded as vari^ leetiones, but only as the necessary result of the idiom ofthe language. It may however be asked, whether the Syriac trans lator may be depended upon in his rendering of the original Greek text. To this I can answer unhesi tatingly in the affirmative : wherever the Greek is extant in Mai's collection, the exactness with which it is reproduced in the Syriac without the slightest alteration of tense and number, and with the most curious expedients for rendering those compound words in which Greek delights, is marvellous. Wher ever also Mai has misunderstood a passage, or wrongly punctuated a sentence, it is as a usual rule correctly given in the Syriac, and though occasionally it has erred, as in rendering o-^^oii/o?, in Jer. viii. 8, by "cord," whereas it really means "pen," stUl such instances are extremely rare. At the same time the translator has been guilty of one fault, which I am the more anxious to' mention, as otherwise it might be laid to my own charge, namely, that he has taken no care to render each quo tation always in the same words. The most glaring instance ofthis occurs in Is. i. 23, where no less than three different renderings are given of " Thy princes " are disobedient," one only of which is the exact equi valent of the Greek onretdovcn, though none deviate far from it ; while the Peschito gives a fourth word, the equivalent ofthe Hebrew " rebellious." Similarly the words crwrtiplov^ eirKpavela^ in Amos V. 22, have greatly puzzled the Syriac translator, who renders PREFACE. xiii them sometimes by " your appearances for salvation," sometimes " the salvation of your appearances," the language not admitting of a literal rendering on 'kc- count of its scanty use of adjectives. And though the same Greek text naturally suggested to the translator the same Syriac rendering, still he has not troubled himself about maintaining verbal identity in the various places in which the same text occurs. For my own part, originally I made an entry of each text upon translating it, for the purpose of retaining as much verbal accuracy as possible ; but when I found these variations in the Syriac, I gave up the attempt, and following the sarae plan as my predecessor, have contented myself with carefully rendering each text as it occurred, without comparing it with previous translations, and I think it will be found that neither of us have gone far astray from the exact sense of the original. I need scarcely mention after the above, that the Syriac translator does not take his quotations from the Peschito. Of course in the Old Testament this was impossible, as that version represents, not the Septuagint, but the Hebrew. For the same rea son, the use of our own version was equally an im possibUity to myself, since, as is well known, the Greek differs too considerably from the Masoretic text, of which ours is a translation, for one to be at aU the equivalent of the other. I am by no means however prepared to join in the general con demnation of the Septuagint, stamped as it is by the approval of our Lord and His apostles ; and though parts of it are done far less efficiently than the rest. xiv PREFACE. yet whoever neglects it throws away one of the most important means for attaining to a knowledge of the original Scriptures ; and I know of no more difficult question than the adjudication between the vocalising and arrangement of the Hebrew text as represented by the Septuagint, and that which gives us the sub sequent tradition of the Jewish schools. Not that there is the slightest room for doubting the authenti city and genuineness in all substantial points of the Scriptures of the Old Testament ; for the question affects only the vowels and the division of words ; and the vowels in Semitic languages are not so important as in those of the Indo-Germanic family. To the present day no Jewish author ever expresses them in writing, though they have so far adopted modern customs as no longer to string their consonants to gether in one unbroken line. Necessarily, however, under such circumstances reading in ancient times was a matter of no slight difficulty, and hence the dignity of the profession of the scribe, and the wonder of the Jews at our Lord and His apostles possessing the requisite knowledge. The Septuagint therefore pos sesses especial value, as being both the first attempt at fixing the meaning of the uncertain elements in the Hebrew language, and as dating prior to the establishment of Christianity: and though Jewish tradition subsequently grew more exact, and elimi nated many mistakes into which the authors of the Septuagint had fallen, stUl the fact that these subse quent labours of the Jewish schools first found their expression in the version of AquUa, who had deserted Christianity, and published his translation as a rival PREFACE. XV to the Septuagint, and certainly with no kindly in tention towards the religion which he had abandoned, may well make us hesitate before we so unceremoni ously decry a version, the mistakes of which can be ascribed to nothing worse than simple inefficiency. , That from such hands and under such auspices the Masoretic text is so trustworthy, and so free from any real ground of suspicion, entirely as regards its con sonants, and to a great extent as regards its vowels, is the result, under God's Providence, of the extreme reverence of the Jews for the letter of those ordi nances which had been entrusted to their keeping, since the Christian Church was by no means aware of the importance of an exact inquiry into the true meaning of the earlier Scriptures, and contented itself with receiving what the Jews provided for its use ; even Jerome himself scarcely giving us more than what his Jewish masters taught him, and Ori gen's knowledge of Hebrew being about as much as could be expected from the time it took him to acquire it. In the New Testament the case was different : for of course it was just possible there to have used the words of our authorized Version. But so to have done would have brought me into constant opposition to my text ; for I had not the Greek before me, but a Syriac rendering of it, punctuated to an extreme degree of nicety, and fixing the meaning to one defi nite sense. It seemed therefore my only honest course to reproduce as exactly as I could the version of the Syriac translator. Whether I shotdd myself in all cases have given the same meaning to the original xvi PREFACE. Greek is an entirely distinct thing ; for the duty of a translator is not to give his own views, but those of his author. Still, as the memory naturally sug gested the language of the authorized Version, it will no doubt be found to have exercised no little in fluence upon the words which I have used. But it seemed to me expedient for another reason to reproduce as exactly as possible the renderings of the Syriac translation. For the perfecting of the English translation of the Inspired Word is one of the noblest tasks which the mind of man can under take : and though there may be evils attendant upon interfering with our present noble Saxon Version, still none can be so great as its being regarded by a graduaUy increasing proportion of the community as deficient in correctness. To commission however any body of scholars, however competent, to under take a completely new version, or at present even a general revision of what we have, would be, in my opinion, at least premature. The controversy ought to be carried on in a region distinct from the book which we use in our worship and devotion : and such at present is the case, the attempts at improvement being made by individuals, and not by any consti tuted' authority. When, however, there has been gained a sufficient mass of results generally received, the time will have come for the proper steps to be taken for admitting them into the authorized version. And possibly in the New Testament the labours of so many scholars and commentators may in a few years bring matters to such a pass as may justify the proper authorities in undertaking its revision : but in PREFACE. • xvU the Old Testament the case is very different, and a lengthened period of far more profound study of He brew literature than at present prevaUs, carried on by many different minds, is required before anything more could be done than to bring the translation in a few unimportant particulars nearer to the Maso retic text. In the present translation, therefore, I have used the utmost exactness in rendering all quotations fi-om Holy Scripture, in the hope that it might not be without its value to shew in what way the New Tes tament was understood and rendered by so compe tent and ancient an authority as the Syriac translator of this present work. It remains now only to mention the relation in which the Syriac Version of the Commentary stands to the Greek remains collected by Mai, and of which I have given a translation wherever the MS. of the Syriac was unfortunately defective. As early then as the year 1838 Mai had shewn the great value of this Commentary by the extracts pub lished in the tenth volume of his Auctores Classici : and from that time he laboured assiduously in making his collection as complete as possible, until at length in the 2nd vol. of his Bib. Pat. Nova, the fragments gathered by him from twelve diff'erent Catenae, toge ther with a Latin translation, occupy more than 300 quarto pages. But the critical acumen of Mai was by no means commensurate with his industry. With the usual fault of collectors, the smallest amount of external xviii PREFACE. evidence was sufficient to override the strongest in ternal improbability : nor apparently did his reading extend much beyond those Manuscripts, among which he laboured with such splendid results. At all events, though Cyril was an anthor whom he greatly valued, not only does he ascribe to the Com mentary a vast mass of matter really taken from Cyril's other works, but even numerous extracts fi-om Theophylact, Gregory Nazianzen, and other writers, whose style and method of interpretation are entirely opposed to the whole tenor of Cyril's mind. Although it scarcely belonged to my undertaking to sift these extracts, yet, as it might have thrown a suspicion upon the genuineness of the Syriac Version to find it unceremoniously rejecting nearly a third of what Mai had gathered, I have in most cases in dicated the work or author to whom the rejected passages belong. A few still remain unaccounted for; but as the principle of Niketas, the compiler of the chief Catena upon S. Luke, confessedly was to gather from all Cyril's works whatever might il lustrate the Evangelist's meaning, and as in so do^ ing he often weaves two, or even three distinct ex tracts into one connected narrative, it is no wonder if it was more easy to gather such passages than to restore the disjecta membra to their original position. Several extracts also which escaped me at the time have since met my eye, of which the only one of importance is the remarkable explanation of the two birds at the cleansing of the leper, conf Com. on Luke V. 14, and which is taken from a letter of Cyril to Acacius. PREFACE. xix But the value of the Commentary does not arise simply from the uncertainty attaching to what Mai has gathered, but also from the superior form in which it gives what really is CyrU's own. As a ge neral rule, the Catenists giv€ conclusions without pre misses, striking statements separated from the context which defines their meaning, results as true generally which are only true particularly, or which at least are greatly modified by the occasion which led to them. As it is moreover the manner of the Catenists often to introduce extracts by a summary of what precedes them, or where their length precluded their admis sion to give an abstract of them in briefer words, it often happens that a passage really Cyril's is followed in Mai by an abstract of itself taken from some smaller Catena : and thus an amount of confusion and repetition is occasioned which contrasts unfa vourably with the simplicity of arrangement and easiness of comprehension which prevail throughout the Commentary itself. Nevertheless Mai probably took the best course in confining himself to the simple collection of mate rials : and at all events his works are carefully edited, punctuated inteUigibly, and translated with very con siderable correctness. No one, in using his very vo luminous works, however mubh he may be inclined to regret his want of critical abUity, wUl accuse him of an inefficient treatment of the materials before him. The very reverse is the case with the other Catena which I have used, and which was edited by Dr. Cramer. In itself it is of considerable intrinsic value, but is XX PREFACE. entirely untranslateable, except by one who will take the trouble of restoring the text, and entirely altering Dr. Cramer's punctuation. In conclusion, I have to return my thanks to the Delegates of the University Press for undertaking both the publication of the Syriac Version of S. Cyril's Commentary, and also of the present English trans lation. Oxford, Jan. 1859. COMMENTARY OF S. CYRIL, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA, UPON THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. CHAP. I. Who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers Ver. 2. ofthe Word. IN saying that the Apostles were eyewitnesses of the substan- From Mai. tial and living Word, the Evangelist agrees with John, who says, that " the Word was made flesh, and tabernacled in us, and John i. 14. " His glory was seen, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Igf^ad-'^^ " Father." For the Word became capable of being seen by peSa. reason.* of the flesh, which is visible and tangible and solid : whereas in Himself He is invisible. And John again in his Epistle says, "That which was from the beginning, That i John 1. 1. " which we have heard, That which we have seen with our " eyes, and our hands have handled around the Word of " Life, and the Life became manifest.'" Hearest thou not that he speaks of the Life as capable of being handled? This he does that thou mayest understand that the Son became man, and was visible in respect of the flesh, but invisible as regards His divinity.'' " There can be little doubt that on v. 32. is from the tenth Book this passage does not belong to the against Julian, Op. VI. 331.; the Commentary, but as I have hitherto following on v. 37. is the thirteenth been unable to find it in S. Cyril's chapter against the Anthropomor- Collected Works, I have thought it phites, VI. 380.; and the third ex- best to retain it. Mai's next extract tract on v. 42. is the Commentary L' B 2 COMMENTARY UPON V. 51. He hath shewed strength ivith His arm : He hath scattered the proud in tlie imagination of their heart. The arm enigmatically signifies the Word that was born of her : and by the proud, Mary means the wicked demons who with their prince fell through pride : and the Greek sages, who refused to receive the folly, as it seemed, of what was preached : and the Jews who would not believe, and were scat tered for their unworthy imaginations about the AVord of God. And by the mighty she means the Scribes and Pharisees, who sought the chief seats. It is nearer the sense, however, to refer it to the wicked demons : for these, when openly claim ing mastery over the world, the Lord by His coming scattered, upon Issachar's name, signifying "a reward," in the Glaphyra, I. 227. (Ed. Aub.) All these ihave omitted. The remaining extracts, forraing a continuous Commentary upon the hymns of the blessed Virgin and Zacharias, I have retained, since it is scarcely probable that S.Cyril en tirely passed them over; and, though the homilies, as proved by the Sy riac, commenced with the first verse of chap, ii., yet possibly he may have prefaced them by an Exposi tion of these hymns. Cramer's Catena, nevertheless, contains por tions of several of these extracts anonymously. The proof from the Syriac that the homilies began with the second chapter is decisive. Of the nine MSS. in which more or less ofthis Commentary is preserved, eight constantly mention the num ber of the homily, which they quote either in part or entire : in one of these, N°. 12, 154., a MS. probably of the eighth century, a series of extracts occurs occupying forty pages, beginning with the first and ending with the hundred and eighteenth homily ; and the numbering of this Codex is identical with that of the rest, wherever two or more of them contain the same passage. The Syriac numbering apparently is also identical with that of the Greek. For in my earliest authority. Cod. T2, 158, transcribed, as the Copyist states, in the year of our Lord 588., the numbering of the quotations from S. Cyril is still identical with that of the other Codices. This MS. contains a translation of two trea tises of Severus of Antioch against Julian, and is probably at least a century anterior to the Syriac ver sion of S. Cyril ; so that its agree ment with it, both in this and more material points, is of considerable importance. Evidently S. Cyril's Commentary upon the beginning of the Gospel was much more brief than it became subsequently ¦- for whereas the twenty-first homily car ries us down to the end of the fifth chapter, those that follow average ten homilies each. In like manner the concluding chapters of St. Luke were passed over by him very ra pidly. Finally, as the Syriac, from time to time, does not recognise some of the passages collected by Mai from the Catenae, it is worth notice, that of his four first extracts, not less than three have been dis covered in the published works of S.Cyril, incomplete as Aubert's edi tion is. THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 3 and transferred those whom they bad made captive unto His own dominion. For these things all came to pass according to her prophecy, that He hath put down rulers from their thrones, and exalted v. 53. the humble. Great used to be the haughtiness of these demons whom He scattered, and of the devil, and of the Greek sages, as I said, and of the Pharisees and Scribes. But He put them down, and exalted those who had humbled themselves under their mighty hand, " having given them authority to tread upon serpents Luke x. 19. " and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy :" and made the plots against us of these haughty-minded beings of none effect. The Jews, moreover, once gloried in their empire, but were stripped of it for their unbelief; whereas the Gentiles, who were obscure and of no note, were for their faith's sake exalted. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich, He V. 53. hath sent empty away. By the hungry, she means the human race : for, excepting the Jews only, they were pining with famine. The Jews, however, were enriched by the giving of the law, and by the teaching of the holy prophets. For " to them belonged the Eom. ix. 4. " giving of the law, the adoption of sons, the worship, the pro- " mises." But they became wanton with high feeding, and too elate at their dignity ; and having refused to draw near humbly to the Incarnate One, they were sent empty away, carrying nothing with them, neither faith nor knowledge, nor the hope of blessings. For verily they became both outcasts from the earthly Jerusalem, and aliens from the glorious life that is to be revealed, because they received not the Prince of Life, but even crucified the Lord of Glory, and abandoned the fountain of living water, and set at nought the bread that came down from heaven. And for this reason there came upon them a famine severer than any other, and a thirst more bitter than every thirst : for it was not a famine of the material bread, nor a thirst of water, " but a famine of hearing the Amos viii. " Word ofthe Lord." But the heathen, who were hungering B 2 4 COMMENTARY UPON and athirst, and with their sonl wasted away with misery, were filled with spiritual blessings, because they received the Lord. For the privileges of the Jews passed over unto them. V. 54. He hath taken hold of Israel His child to remember mercy. He hath taken hold of Israel, — not of the Israel according to the flesh, and who prides himself on the bare name, but of him who is so after the Spirit, and according to the true meaning of the appellation ; — even such as look unto God, and believe in Him, and obtain through the Son the adoption of sons, according to the Word that was spoken, and the promise made to the prophets and patriarchs of old. It has, however, a true application also to the carnal Israel; for many thou sands and ten thousands of them beheved. " But He has ro- " membered His mercy as He promised to Abraham :" and Gen. xxii. has accomphshed what He spake unto him, that " in thy seed '*¦ " shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed." For this pro mise was now in the act of fulfilment by the impending birth of our common Saviour Christ, Who is that seed of Abraham, Heb. ii. 16. in Whom the Gentiles are blessed. " For He took on Him the " seed of Abraham," according to the Apostle's words : and so fulfilled the promise made unto the fathers. V. 69. He hath raised up a horn of salvation for us.^ The word horn is used not only for power, but also for royalty. But Christ, Who is the Saviour that hath risen for us from the family and race of David, is both : for He is the King of kings, and the invincible power of the Father. V. 72. To ^^erform mercy. Christ is mercy and justice : for we have obtained mercy through Him, and been justified, having washed away the stains of wickedness through faith that is in Him, ^- '3 Tlie oath which He sware to our fatlier Abraham. From Cor- But let no one accustom himself to swear from hearing that God sware unto Abraham. For just as anger, when spoken of ^ Referred by Corderius to Victor. THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE. 5 God, is not anger, nor implies passion, but signifies power ex ercised in punishment, or some similar motion ; so neither is an oath an act of swearing. For God does not swear, but indicates the certainty of the event, — that that which He says will ne cessarily come to pass. For God's oath is His own word, fully persuading those that hear, and giving each one the conviction that what He has promised and said will certainly come to pass. And thou, child, shalt he called Propliet of the Highest. V. 76. Observe, I pray, this also, that Christ is the Highest, Whose From Mai. forerunner John was both in his birth, and in his preaching. What remains, then, for those to say, who lessen" His divinity? And why will they not understand, that when Zacharias said, " And thou shalt be called Prophet of the Highest," he meant thereby " of God," of Whom also were the rest of the pro phets. To give light to them that sit in darkness, and the .shadovi V. 79. of death. For those under the law, and dwelling in Judea, the Baptist was, as it were, a lamp, preceding Christ : and God so spake before of him ; " I have prepared a lamp for My Christ.' And P^- cxxxii. the law also typified him in the lamp, which in the first taber nacle it commanded should be ever kept alight. But the Jews, after being for a short time pleased with him, flocking to his baptism, and admiring his mode of hfe, quickly made him sleep in death, doing their best to quench the ever-burning lamp. For this reason the Saviour also spake concerning him ; " He was a burning and shining lamp, and ye were willing a John v. 35. " little to rejoice for a season in his light." <= " He means the Arians, who face to his translation of the Theo- " said the Son was indeed God, but phania, a Syriac version of which " nevertheless inferior to the Fa- was discovered among the Nitrian " ther : as Eusebius, who was an MSS. His translation is, however, " Arian writer, especially in his in- inaccurate to the last degree ; and " terpretation of the 78th Psalm." the treatise in question leaves no Mai. — This charge against Euse- doubt that Eusebius was the pre- bius, the late Professor Lee has cursor of Arian doctrines. endeavoured to disprove in the pre- 6 COMMENTARY UPON ST. LUKE. V. 79. To guide our feet into the way of peace. For the world, indeed, was wandering in error, serving the creation in the place of the Creator, and was darkened ovei- by the blackness of ignorance, and a night, as it were, that had fallen upon the minds of all, permitted them not to see Him, Who both by nature and truly is God. But the Lord of all rose for the Israelites, like a light and a sun. CHAP. II. " From S. CyriVs Commentary upon the Gospel of ^ro"! the " *S'^. Luke, Sermon the First.'" MS.12,154. And it came to pass in those days, Sfc. Luke ii. 1. Christ therefore was born in Bethlehem at the time when Augustus Csesar gave orders that the first enrolment should be made. But what necessity was there, some one may perhaps say, for the very wise Evangehst to make special mention of this ? Yes, I answer : it was both useful and necessary for him to mark the period when our Saviour was born : for it was said by the voice of the Patriarch : " The head shall not depart Gen. xlix. " from Judah, uor a governor from his thighs until He come, " for Whom it is laid up : and He is the expectation of the " Gentiles." That we therefore might learn that the Israelites had then no king of the tribe of David, and that their own na tive governors had failed, with good reason he makes mention of the decrees of Csesar, as now having beneath his sceptre Judsea as well as the rest of the nations : for it was as their ruler that he commanded the census to be made. Because he was ofthe house and lineage of David. v. 4. The book of the sacred Gospels referring the genealogy to From Mai. Joseph, who was descended from David's house, has proved through him that the Virgin also was of the same tribe as David, inasmuch as the Divine law commanded that marriages should be confined to those of the same tribe : and the inter preter of the heavenly doctrines, the great apostle Paul, clearly declares the truth, bearing witness that the Lord arose out of Heb. vii. Juda. The natures, however, which combined unto this real "^' union were different, but from the two together is one God 8 COMMENTARY UPOIN' the Son,