Catechetical Lectures

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–1.7 · 2.1–2.21 · 3.2–4.14 · 4.15–4.37 · 5.2–6.8 · 6.11–6.25 · 7.1–8.8 · 9.1–9.10 · 10.1–10.18 · 11.1–12.3 · 12.4–12.27 · 12.28–13.15 · 13.16–13.36 · 14.1–14.23 · 14.24–15.15 · 15.16–16.6 · 16.7–16.29 · 16.30–17.22 · 17.23–18.10 · 18.11–18.33 · 19.1–22.9 · 23.1–23.22

1. 0.1Cyril welcomes the candidates for baptism, who are at the threshold of the kingdom, and urges that their purpose be sincere.
2. 0.2Simon Magus was baptized but not enlightened, and the guest without a wedding garment was thrown out; the candidates must come with sincere purpose.
3. 0.4The church has opened its doors to all; the candidates have forty days to put off their sins, become “faithful,” and prepare their souls for the heavenly bridegroom.
4. 0.7Baptism cannot be repeated, so the candidates must come with good will, guard tongue, eye, and mind, and welcome the exorcisms that purify the soul like fire refining gold.
5. 0.8The exorcisms work like a goldsmith’s bellows, driving out the demon and purifying the soul; the candidates should remain in hope.
6. 0.9The catechetical lectures are a building that must be laid in order, so the candidates must learn and remember every part.
7. 0.10The candidates must not repeat to catechumens what they are taught, for the mysteries heard out of season harm the hearer as wine harms the sick.
8. 0.11A fragment of Cyril’s instructions on conduct while waiting for the exorcisms.
9. 0.12The candidates should drop idle curiosity about public affairs and, unlike the baptized, keep a holy fear while their acceptance is undecided.
10. 0.13Fragment: men and women should wait apart after the exorcism.
11. 0.14As in Noah’s ark, men and women should wait separately in church, reading or praying quietly; women should pray silently like Hannah.
12. 0.15Cyril urges the candidates to be refined like iron and looks forward to the night of their baptism, when angels will rejoice over their salvation.
13. 0.16Cyril praises the gifts of baptism and warns of the dragon who lies in wait, urging prayer, vigilance, and resistance to mockery of the rite.
14. 0.17Cyril closes the Procatechesis with an exhortation and a prayer that God will forgive, enlist, and seal the candidates with the Holy Spirit.
15. 1.1Opening his first lecture, Cyril calls the candidates to a new heart, to wash away their sins as Isaiah says, and to keep the torches of faith burning.
16. 1.2Cyril urges the candidates to put off the old self by confession and come to the baptismal seal with a sincere heart, since God, like a recruiting officer, examines every purpose.
17. 1.4Through baptism the candidates will be grafted into the true olive and the holy vine, and must bear fruit and guard the grace freely given.
18. 1.5Lent is the time for confession, attention to the instructions, and prayer; the Spirit is given in proportion to each one’s faith.
19. 1.7The candidates must forgive others, attend the assemblies faithfully now and after baptism, and feed on the Scriptures, so that Christ may present them to the Father.
20. 2.1Opening his second lecture, Cyril teaches that sin is a self-chosen disease of the soul, terrible but curable by repentance.
21. 2.2Sin is not an outside power but an evil shoot from within; remembering God and the judgment keeps it from growing.
22. 2.3The devil prompts sin but cannot compel it; evil thoughts must be shut out and uprooted at once, before they take root.
23. 2.4The devil, created good, fell by his own choice and drew others after him; yet repentance is always possible, for God’s mercy is greater than any sin.
24. 2.5God’s patience with Adam, Cain, Noah’s generation, Rahab, the people who made the calf, and Aaron shows that repentance is always welcomed.
25. 2.11David, rebuked by Nathan for his sin, confessed at once without anger and was quickly forgiven.
26. 2.12Though forgiven, David continued his repentance with sackcloth, ashes, tears, and fasting, and forgave Shimei who cursed him.
27. 2.13Solomon, Ahab, Jeroboam, Manasseh, and Hezekiah all show that confession and repentance obtain God’s mercy, even reversing a pronounced sentence.
28. 2.14The three young men’s confession in the furnace quenched the flames, showing that repentance can quench even the fire of Gehenna.
29. 2.17Cyril recounts Nebuchadnezzar’s crimes against Jerusalem and its temple.
30. 2.18Nebuchadnezzar, punished by being made like a beast, repented and acknowledged the Most High, and God restored his kingdom.
31. 2.19If Nebuchadnezzar was pardoned, so will the penitent be; Peter, after denying Christ, wept and kept his apostleship.
32. 2.20Cyril urges the candidates to confess their sins so as to receive forgiveness and the heavenly gift.
33. 2.21Close of the second lecture.
34. 3.2Cyril urges the candidates, as guests called to a wedding, to prepare their souls by repentance and faith to receive the Holy Spirit.
35. 3.3Baptism is a solemn enlistment before God and the angels; its water carries spiritual grace.
36. 3.4Water with the invocation of Father, Son, and Spirit acquires sanctifying power.
37. 3.5Water cleanses the body and the Spirit seals the soul; both are needed, as Christ’s words and Cornelius’s baptism show.
38. 3.6Why water: Scripture shows water at creation, the exodus, the covenants, Elijah’s ascent, and the priests’ washing.
39. 3.7John the Baptist, greatest of those born of women, stands at the turn of the covenants; his baptism with confession points to repentance and the putting off of the old life.
40. 3.8The fruits of repentance are generosity to the poor; even the worst sinners may hope, for sins of ignorance are pardoned.
41. 3.9Christ, who baptizes with the Spirit and fire, is the glory of baptism; without baptism there is no salvation, except for martyrs baptized in their own blood.
42. 3.10Christ calls martyrdom a baptism; the candidates will soon make their own confession.
43. 3.11Christ, though sinless, was baptized to give grace to the baptized; going down into the waters he bound the dragon and broke death’s sting.
44. 3.12In baptism the believer goes down dead in sin and rises alive in righteousness, buried and raised with Christ.
45. 3.13After baptism the believer may wrestle with evil powers; as Christ began preaching only after his baptism, so the baptized become sons by adoption, while Christ is Son by nature.
46. 3.15Baptism forgives every sin, even the crucifixion of Christ, as Peter’s Pentecost sermon shows; whoever has sinned by word, denial, or deed may repent and hope.
47. 3.17Close of the lecture: God will cleanse Jerusalem’s children; the soul, made the Bridegroom’s own, receives the twofold grace of water and Spirit.
48. 4.1Error disguises itself as truth, like wolves in sheep’s clothing; the catechumens need grace, sobriety, and discernment.
49. 4.2Godliness needs both right doctrine and good deeds; Cyril gives a summary of doctrines before the Creed, beginning with the one God, maker of souls and bodies and Father of one Son.
50. 4.5God the Father is uncircumscribed, greater than all he made, all-knowing and almighty, unchanging, and judge of sinners and the righteous.
51. 4.6Belief in the one God roots out idolatry and heresy; Cyril then sets out faith in the eternally begotten Son, who reigns with the Father from all eternity.
52. 4.7The Son is neither separated from the Father nor merged with him; he is the eternal Word, a living person, not a spoken word.
53. 4.9The Son truly became human from the Virgin, not in appearance only; he acted both as man and as God.
54. 4.10Christ was truly crucified, as Golgotha itself and the relics of the cross attest, and creation recognized him as God.
55. 4.11Christ was truly buried and went down to the dead to free the righteous of old, the prophets and John among them.
56. 4.12Christ truly rose on the third day, as Jonah and Elisha’s bones foreshadow, and twelve witnesses testified to it even to death.
57. 4.13Twelve witnesses more than satisfy the law’s requirement; the resurrection should be believed.
58. 4.14Christ ascended, and the worldwide power of the cross proves it; believers should seal themselves with the sign of the cross in every action.
59. 4.15Christ will come again from heaven, not as the antichrists from the earth, and his kingdom has no end; the Holy Spirit, one and indivisible, is honored with the Father and the Son.
60. 4.17The faith must be proved from Scripture; the catechumens should not believe even their teacher without scriptural proof.
61. 4.18The human being is soul and body, both made by God; the soul is free, immortal, and rational, and sin cannot be blamed on the stars.
62. 4.19The soul is sinless before it comes into the world; people sin by choice, as Scripture’s appeals to the will show.
63. 4.20Souls of men and women are alike and sin by choice, not by nature; the body is God’s skillful work and the soul’s instrument, to be kept pure as a temple of the Spirit.
64. 4.21Ascetics and virgins should guard their chastity, but must not despise married people; marriage is honorable when used lawfully.
65. 4.22Lawful marriage observes times for prayer, comes to church clean, and seeks children rather than mere pleasure.
66. 4.23Those married once must not despise those who remarry, since a second marriage is permitted to the weak; all sexual sin is to be banished, and the body kept pure.
67. 4.24Cyril turns to food, over which many stumble; some eat idol offerings indifferently.
68. 4.25Others fast but condemn those who eat.
69. 4.26Christians fast from wine and meat for a spiritual reward, not because these are evil; those who eat from bodily weakness must not be condemned.
70. 4.27Fasting should be abstinence from good things for the sake of better ones.
71. 4.28Following the apostolic decree, Christians must abstain from idol offerings, blood, and strangled meat, and eat with reverence.
72. 4.29Clothing should be plain and serve need, not vanity.
73. 4.30The resurrection of the body is credible: God who made us from nothing, and who renews wheat and trees each year, can raise the dead.
74. 4.31All will rise in eternal bodies, the righteous to glory and sinners to torment; baptism’s repentance removes the burden of sin.
75. 4.33The one God of both Testaments; the catechumens are to read only the twenty-two acknowledged books of the Old Testament, which were translated, Cyril says, miraculously by seventy-two translators.
76. 4.34Cyril lists the twenty-two books of the Old Testament.
77. 4.35Cyril lists the New Testament books: four Gospels, Acts, seven catholic letters, and fourteen letters of Paul; other writings are not to be read.
78. 4.37Closing warnings: flee the devil’s works, divination, magic, licentiousness, greed, pagan shows, amulets, Samaritan and Jewish observances, and heretics; guard the soul by fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and Scripture.
79. 5.2Each candidate must be faithful in conscience before God; the faithful man, content with little, is richer than the rich.
80. 5.3Even ordinary life (marriage, farming, seafaring) rests on faith; Scripture teaches that without faith no one can please God, and faith is the shield against the devil.
81. 5.5Abraham, justified by faith, believed God’s promise of a son and offered Isaac, trusting that God could raise the dead.
82. 5.6Abraham is father of all believers through the likeness of faith; baptism is the spiritual circumcision of the heart.
83. 5.7Peter walked on the water while he believed and sank when he doubted; restored by Christ, he walked back to the boat.
84. 5.8The paralytic was healed through the faith of those who carried him.
85. 5.9Lazarus was raised through his sisters’ faith; even those of little faith may pray for faith, which is partly ours and mostly God’s gift.
86. 5.10The first kind of faith is doctrinal assent, which saves; what the righteous gained over years Christ gives at once, as to the penitent robber.
87. 5.11The second kind of faith is the Spirit’s gift that works wonders; small as a mustard seed, it accomplishes great things.
88. 5.12The Creed, handed on by the Church and gathered from all Scripture, is to be memorized, kept secret from catechumens, and never exchanged for another teaching.
89. 5.13The Creed is a deposit to be kept spotless until Christ’s appearing; the edition then prints the Creed of Jerusalem as reconstructed from the lectures.
90. 6.1Father and Son share one glory, so that glorifying one honors the other.
91. 6.2Human speech cannot express God; to confess our ignorance about him is great knowledge, and even the whole Church cannot praise him worthily.
92. 6.3Abraham called himself earth and ashes; if the vast heavens cannot praise God worthily, how much less can humans.
93. 6.4If we cannot measure the earth, count the stars, or number the raindrops on one house, we cannot comprehend their maker.
94. 6.5Though God cannot be comprehended, we may still praise him as far as we are able.
95. 6.6Angels see God only as far as they can; only the Son and the Spirit know the Father fully, so no human need be ashamed to confess ignorance.
96. 6.7It is enough to know that God is one, eternal, unchanging, and perfect in every respect; images of God with wings or seven eyes misread Scripture; God is beyond comprehension.
97. 6.8Though God is so great, people worship carved stones, animals, onions, and gods of wine, grain, and fire in his place.
98. 6.11The Greek gods are shown to be no gods by their adulteries and deaths; the Son came down to heal this error and make the Father known.
99. 6.12Some so-called Christians teach two godheads, good and evil; but a godhead that is not good is no godhead.
100. 6.13Cyril refutes the doctrine of two unbegotten principles: they cannot coexist, and a good God who cannot or will not prevent evil is no God.
101. 6.14Cyril exposes these absurdities so that his hearers may recognize and avoid heresy.
102. 6.16Simon Magus, the first heretic, claimed to be Father, Son, and Spirit, and was brought down by the prayer of Peter and Paul; after him came Cerinthus, Menander, Carpocrates, the Ebionites, and Marcion, who cut the Old Testament testimonies out of the New.
103. 6.17Basilides and Valentinus followed; Valentinus’s thirty Aeons, derived from Jesus’s age at baptism, show the absurdity of his system.
104. 6.18Valentinus degrades Christ, the Wisdom of God, into a fallen female Aeon; Cyril then turns to Manes, who gathered other men’s errors into one heresy.
105. 6.19The Manichaean heresy began with Scythianus of Alexandria, author of four books; he died of disease in Judea.
106. 6.20Terebinthus, renamed Buddas, fled to Persia, was refuted by the priests of Mithras, and died in a fall while calling on demons.
107. 6.21The widow adopted the slave Cubricus, who inherited the books and took the name Manes, a name that in Greek suggests madness.
108. 6.22Manes claimed to be the Paraclete, promised to heal the Persian king’s son by prayer, and caused his death by dismissing the physicians.
109. 6.23Manes’s blasphemy, pretense, lies, and flight from prison caused the deaths of the child and his jailers.
110. 6.24Archelaus refuted Manes in public debate; Manes fled, was caught and flayed by the Persian king. Cyril warns against the Manichaeans’ Gospel of Thomas, their teaching on food, their curses on the Creator, and their rites.
111. 6.25The Manichaean myth of rain is absurd; the Church, with its order, purity, marriage, and virginity, is the opposite. Former Manichaeans may be saved if they renounce the error from the heart.
112. 7.1Having taught the one God and refuted the heretics, Cyril turns to the article “one God the Father”: God is Father of the Only-begotten.
113. 7.2Unlike the Jews, Christians confess the one God as Father of Christ, as the Psalms foretold; faith in the Father prepares for faith in the Son.
114. 7.3“Father” implies “Son”; the Creed names God as Father before heaven and earth so that the Son is not thought to rank below creation.
115. 7.4God is Father of many by extension but of the Son by nature, eternally, and without passion or change.
116. 7.5The perfect Father begot a perfect Son and is glorified together with him.
117. 7.6The Father of Christ is the Creator and the God of Israel’s temple, as Christ’s own words show.
118. 7.7Christ distinguishes “my Father” (by nature) from “your Father” (by adoption); believers call God Father by grace.
119. 7.8Moses and Isaiah show that people call God Father by grace and adoption, not by nature.
120. 7.9Scripture calls people “father” for teaching or care, as Paul, Job, and Joseph; God is father of men in this sense, but Father of Christ by nature.
121. 7.10God is Father of men in time, but of Christ before all time.
122. 7.11God the Father is unsearchable; only the Son, with the Spirit, sees him fully.
123. 7.12People forsake the heavenly Father for idols and even the devil; sonship to God is by free choice and faith, and must be shown in works.
124. 7.13Good works glorify the Father, who cares for our needs.
125. 7.14Honoring the heavenly Father includes honoring earthly parents, as the commandment requires.
126. 7.15Children must obey their parents, except where parents oppose God; despising parents is condemned.
127. 7.16Honoring parents is the first virtue of Christian piety; parents’ blessings and God’s kingdom follow.
128. 8.1God is called Almighty against pagans, Jews and heretics who limit his rule, for his providence reaches from heaven to Hades.
129. 8.2The Almighty is the one who rules and has authority over all things, which heretics do not acknowledge.
130. 8.3Against those who divide rule over soul and body between two gods, Christ teaches that one God can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.
131. 8.4God rules all things, even the devil, but bears with evil and turns it, as with Joseph's brothers, into an occasion for the salvation and crowning of the faithful.
132. 8.5All creation serves God, who patiently bears with sinners until judgment; wealth is not the devil's but God's gift, which used well can even open the kingdom of heaven.
133. 8.7Against heretics who condemn possessions and bodies, Cyril argues that wealth is God's gift, the devil being at most a temporary steward of it.
134. 8.8Cyril closes by urging worship of the one Almighty God, the Father of Jesus Christ, whom heretics blaspheme under his Old Testament names.
135. 9.1God cannot be seen with bodily eyes: even the prophets fell down at the mere likeness of his glory or at the sight of an angel.
136. 9.2God's power is perceived by analogy from the greatness of his works, but his nature cannot be grasped; even the cherubim on which he sits are beyond us.
137. 9.3If we cannot grasp Ezekiel's description of the cherubim and the throne, still less can we comprehend the invisible God who sits upon it; we can only praise him for his works.
138. 9.4The Creed confesses the Father as Maker of heaven and earth, against heretics who speak evil of the Creator of the world.
139. 9.5The firmament, made from water yet holding the fiery heavenly bodies, shows the Creator's wisdom, as the fire within the hail of Egypt did.
140. 9.6The sun and the orderly succession of days and nights proclaim that there is no God but the Creator who appointed their courses.
141. 9.7Darkness and night are good gifts of the one Creator, and the stars, clouds, rain, snow and the fruits of the earth all display his wisdom.
142. 9.8The variety of plants, sea creatures, birds and beasts produced from one earth and one water by one command shows the Creator, and the ant and the bee teach diligence.
143. 9.9Even if we do not know the use of every creature, the varied powers of animals and the structure of our own bodies reveal a wise Creator; the members are not the cause of sin.
144. 9.10The growth and workings of the human body reveal the wise Creator, to whom Cyril urges his hearers to bow in worship.
145. 10.1Whoever denies the Son, the door and revealer of the Father, is shut out from knowing the Father and incurs his anger.
146. 10.2Worship of God must include the Son, whom the Father acknowledged at the baptism and the Psalms announced, against the Jewish appeal to God's oneness.
147. 10.3The Creed says “one” Lord so that Christ's many titles (door, way, sheep, shepherd, lion, stone) are not divided among many sons.
148. 10.4Each of Christ's titles is explained, and the Creed's “one Lord” guards against heretics who divide Christ, Jesus and the Door into different beings.
149. 10.5Christ adapts himself to each person's need while remaining unchanged, and is Lord by nature as Maker of all; Genesis shows him at work with the Father in creation and at Sodom.
150. 10.6The Lord who appeared to Moses showed himself only as far as Moses could bear.
151. 10.7The one who appeared to Moses was Christ, who later took a human face so that we could see him and live; in Exodus the Lord calls on the name of the Lord, revealing Father and Son.
152. 10.8Psalm 110 shows the Lord speaking to the Lord, his Son.
153. 10.9The Son is Lord of all, not by seizing lordship but by receiving it from the Father, who gave it freely.
154. 10.10The Son born in Bethlehem is Lord of all, served by the angels at his birth, flight into Egypt and resurrection, as the day's reading from 1 Corinthians 8 says.
155. 10.11Moses gave the names Jesus and Christ to Joshua and Aaron as types of the coming Jesus Christ, king and high priest; Joshua's deeds prefigure Christ's.
156. 10.12The name Jesus, Saviour, was veiled by the prophets but given openly by the angel, and his having a people before birth shows he existed before he was born.
157. 10.13The name Jesus means Saviour in Hebrew and suggests Healer in Greek, for he heals souls and bodies.
158. 10.14Jesus heals body and soul; he is also the Christ, an eternal high priest after the order of Melchizedek, confirmed by the Father's oath.
159. 10.15David and the prophets knew the Christ, and even demons and a Samaritan woman confessed him, while the chief priests did not.
160. 10.16Christ shares his own name with believers; the new name “Christian,” foretold by Isaiah, has spread over the whole world.
161. 10.17Paul, the former persecutor who became a preacher of Christ within days, is a witness beyond suspicion.
162. 10.18The Spirit gave Paul, the former persecutor, the most letters, and countless witnesses, from the Father and the Virgin to the holy places of Jerusalem and the martyrs, testify to Christ; believers must honour the name they bear.
163. 11.1Christ is not one of the many anointed figures of the Old Testament but the true Christ, priest from the Father, as the Creed's next clause shows.
164. 11.2Christ is Son of God by nature and only-begotten, without brothers, named Son by the Father himself.
165. 11.3Peter's confession, revealed by the Father, shows that Christ is Son of God by nature; he is firstborn and Son in a sense unlike Israel or others called sons.
166. 11.4Unlike those who were given the name of sons, the Son was begotten eternally, like the Father in all things: light from light, God from God.
167. 11.5Christ is son of David in time according to the flesh, but Son of God eternally and spiritually, in a begetting no one can describe.
168. 11.6Scripture calls Christ the only-begotten Son, Son by nature, whose spiritual begetting involves no time, change or growth toward perfection.
169. 11.8The Father's begetting of the Son, unlike Abraham's of Isaac, involves no ignorance or deliberation in time: the Father always has the Son.
170. 11.9Christ is Son by nature, not as disciples are begotten by teachers or as the baptized become sons by adoption; the Father's voice at the baptism declares an existing sonship.
171. 11.10The Son is not like a spoken word that vanishes but a living, subsisting Word, eternally begotten, who creates, descends, ascends and reigns.
172. 11.11No creature, neither earth, sun, heavens nor the highest angels, knows how the Father begot the Son.
173. 11.12Those who cannot explain the angels should not pry into the Son's begetting, which even Scripture does not describe; it is enough to confess one unbegotten Father and one Son eternally begotten, true God.
174. 11.13Baruch and Psalm 45 testify that Christ, who became man, is God, anointed by God the Father.
175. 11.14Isaiah and Christ's own sayings show that Father and Son are one in Godhead, kingdom, will and work, without being confused with each other.
176. 11.15The Son, not the Father, became man and suffered; Christians must avoid both the Arian denial of the Son's eternity and the Sabellian confusion of Son and Father.
177. 11.16The Son must not be reckoned a creature; the one Father is worshipped through the one Son.
178. 11.17The Son sits at the Father's right hand eternally, not as a reward received after the passion.
179. 11.18The Son is like the Father in all things, so that whoever sees him sees the Father; the Father lost nothing in begetting him, and the Son lacks nothing.
180. 11.19God is Father of the Son by nature and of creatures by adoption; believers must believe that God has a Son without prying into how he was begotten.
181. 11.20The Son did not begin at Bethlehem: Micah and Christ's own words show that he exists eternally, the Father being his timeless source.
182. 11.21All things, visible and invisible, were made through the Son, against heretics who teach other creators, identify Christ with the sun, or ascribe the world to angels.
183. 11.22As a king's son builds the city his father plans, the Son made all things at the Father's assent, so that both rule over creation.
184. 11.23The Father made all things through the Son not from weakness but so that the Son might reign over his own works; the one who descended to Hades is the one who formed man from clay.
185. 11.24Christ is Maker of the visible and invisible world and even of the ages, as John, Colossians and Hebrews teach.
186. 12.1Christ must be confessed as both God and man, for salvation depends on both; the King and Physician took humanity to heal us.
187. 12.2Cyril challenges the Jews: if Isaiah's prophecy of a virgin-born Emmanuel is true, why reject its fulfilment in Jesus?
188. 12.3The Church confesses God the Word truly made man of the Virgin and the Spirit, against heretics who deny the virgin birth, the reality of the incarnation, or the divinity of Christ.
189. 12.4The eternal Word took flesh recently for our sake; Cyril undertakes to answer the objections to the incarnation and the virgin birth.
190. 12.5Everything must be proved from the prophets; the cause of Christ's coming lies in Genesis, where man, God's image, was cast out of paradise by the devil's envy.
191. 12.6Sin spread from Cain through the flood and Sodom to Israel's idolatry and immorality, and the prophets could not heal it.
192. 12.7The prophets lamented Israel's corruption: violence, adultery, child sacrifice and divination.
193. 12.8Humanity's wound was beyond human cure, and the prophets begged God to come down and save.
194. 12.9God answered the prophets by sending his Son as physician, as Malachi, Isaiah and Zechariah foretold; rejected by his own, he gathers the nations.
195. 12.10Christ gives the nations the sign of the cross as a royal seal on the forehead; his descent from heaven was hidden from men.
196. 12.11Solomon, David and Zechariah foretold the quiet coming of the King, his entry into Jerusalem on a colt, and his standing on the Mount of Olives.
197. 12.12Isaiah foretold Christ's healing miracles and his submission to judgment by the elders of the people.
198. 12.13God became man because we could not bear to see him as he is: even his voice at Sinai terrified Israel and Moses.
199. 12.14Daniel could not bear even an angel until it took human likeness; so the Lord took our nature, so that we might be taught without being destroyed.
200. 12.15Christ became man to sanctify baptism, to bring life through a virgin as death came through Eve, to overthrow idolatry, and to defeat the devil with his own weapon: the flesh became the bait that made death give up its prey.
201. 12.16God's appearing to Abraham, Jacob, Moses and Elijah shows the Jews that the incarnation is nothing strange.
202. 12.17Jacob's prophecy to Judah fixes the time of Christ's coming: when Jewish rule ceased; and the colt bound to the vine points to Zechariah's King.
203. 12.18Psalm 2's rod of iron is Rome, and Daniel's stone cut without hands is the everlasting kingdom set up in the days of those kingdoms.
204. 12.19Daniel's seventy weeks, reckoned in Olympiads, fix the time of Christ's coming under Herod; Micah, the Psalms and Habakkuk name the place, Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem.
205. 12.20Against the Jewish objection that Isaiah wrote “young woman,” not “virgin,” Cyril argues that even on their reading the truth holds.
206. 12.21Scripture uses “young woman” of virgins, as in the law on the betrothed girl and in the account of Abishag.
207. 12.22Isaiah's sign cannot refer to Hezekiah, who by the chronology of Kings was already born before the prophecy; it speaks of a future virgin birth.
208. 12.23The Psalms' oath to David points to Christ, whose Davidic descent and kingdom the crowds, the blind men, Gabriel and Paul confirm.
209. 12.24Isaiah's child born to us reigns on David's throne in a kingdom without bounds; so the Virgin was of David's line.
210. 12.25The teacher of purity fittingly came from a virgin, as Psalm 22 hints in “who drew me out of the womb.”
211. 12.26The Creator, who fashions every child in the womb, was not ashamed to take flesh; nothing in the body as God made it is defiled.
212. 12.27Greeks who believe myths of men born from stones, Athena from Zeus' head and Dionysus from his thigh cannot call the virgin birth impossible.
213. 12.28To the Jews: if Sarah bore in old age, Moses' hand and rod were changed, and Aaron's dry rod blossomed, God can also give a virgin a child.
214. 12.29As Eve came from Adam without a mother, Christ came from Mary without a father, repaying the debt of womankind.
215. 12.30Adam's creation from dust is a greater wonder than a virgin birth; Scripture calls Mary Joseph's wife only as his betrothed, against those who make Joseph Christ's father.
216. 12.31Mary herself wondered at the virgin birth, but the Spirit, Gabriel, the manger, the shepherds, the angels, and Symeon and Anna all bear witness to it.
217. 12.33Christ's own words prove his real humanity; virgins and monks alike may glory in the chastity of the Virgin-born Lord.
218. 12.34Cyril urges all ages to the angelic life of chastity, rejecting the adornments that entice to pleasure.
219. 12.35The lecture ends with God's promise to dwell among the chaste.
220. 13.1The cross is the Church's greatest boast, for unlike Christ's single miracles it brought light, freedom and redemption to the whole world.
221. 13.2Because the one who died was the Son of God, his death redeemed the whole world; the sign of the cross puts demons to flight, and prophets and Pilate bear witness to his sinlessness.
222. 13.3The penitent robber bears witness that Jesus was innocent.
223. 13.4Christ's crucifixion was real, not a semblance, and Cyril confesses it without shame because the resurrection followed.
224. 13.5Christ was crucified though sinless, and went to his passion willingly, regarding the cross as his glory.
225. 13.6Christ chose his passion freely and joyfully, as God made man winning the prize of endurance.
226. 13.7The Jews' unbelief was foretold; Cyril promises scriptural testimonies for every detail of the passion and begins with the betrayal of Judas, foretold in the Psalms.
227. 13.8The end of the quotation of Psalm 59 on the arrest of Jesus.
228. 13.9Zechariah foretold the exact price of the betrayal and its return to the house of the Lord.
229. 13.10Zechariah's “foundry” and the Gospel's “potter's field” agree, for potters also have foundries for their clay.
230. 13.11Isaiah foretold the binding of the righteous one; Christ, who freed Lazarus and Peter, let himself be bound and judged by the elders.
231. 13.12Christ endured blows and spitting, as Isaiah foretold, to strengthen his disciples for martyrdom by his example.
232. 13.13Every detail of Christ's passion has its testimony in the prophets, though time does not allow all to be cited.
233. 13.14Hosea's prophecy of one bound and sent as a present to a king was fulfilled when Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, and the two were reconciled.
234. 13.15The people Christ had redeemed and healed cried out for his crucifixion, as Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold.
235. 13.16Christ's silence before Pilate was foretold in the Psalms.
236. 13.17The soldiers' mockery unknowingly proclaimed Christ king, and the crown of thorns signified the release from sin's sentence.
237. 13.18The crown of thorns and the cursing of the fig tree undo the curse of Adam, who was sentenced to thorns and covered himself with fig leaves.
238. 13.19The garden, the tree and the evening of the passion answer to paradise lost; Jeremiah and Moses foretold the wood of the cross and the Life that hung on it.
239. 13.20The bronze serpent, Noah's ark, Moses' rod and the wood that sweetened the waters of Marah all prefigure the saving cross.
240. 13.21The blood and water from Christ's side answer to Moses' first sign, signify judgment and salvation, and point to the two baptisms, of water and of martyrdom.
241. 13.22On Golgotha itself the hearers should never tire of the cross, but defend it, make its sign, and confess it as the angels did.
242. 13.23The candidates must hold to the cross in persecution as in peace; the name Golgotha, “Place of a Skull,” points to Christ, the head of all things, who suffered there.
243. 13.24Zechariah's day that is “neither day nor night,” with cold and light at evening, was fulfilled in the darkness and cold of the crucifixion.
244. 13.25Amos foretold the darkness at noon during the Passover feast, and the Psalms foretold the soldiers dividing Christ's garments and casting lots for his tunic.
245. 13.27Isaiah's figure in red garments foretold the scarlet cloak put on Christ before Pilate.
246. 13.28Christ stretched out his hands on Golgotha, the centre of the earth, so that sin might die with his crucified humanity and we might rise.
247. 13.29Israel, the vine Christ had planted, gave him vinegar and gall as Isaiah and the Psalms foretold; therefore prophecy passed from Israel to the Church.
248. 13.30Of the two robbers numbered with Christ, one blasphemed to the end, while the other repented and asked to be remembered in his kingdom.
249. 13.31Christ swiftly pardoned the repentant robber and opened paradise to him; on the cross he fulfilled the mystery as high priest, tore the veil, and reconciled sinners to God, keeping both God's sentence and his love.
250. 13.32The eclipse, the split rocks and the opened tombs answer to Christ, who bore our sins as Isaiah foretold and died and rose according to the Scriptures.
251. 13.33Isaiah and Lamentations foretold the rock-hewn tomb and the stone at its door, where the chief cornerstone lay for a short time.
252. 13.34Believers should make the sign of the cross in all things, answer Jews, pagans and Docetists, and build their faith on the cross, which a host of witnesses would confirm against any who deny it.
253. 13.35Creation, the soldiers, the women, the holy places of Jerusalem, the angels and the apostles all bear witness to the crucifixion and the resurrection.
254. 13.36The cross that has gathered believers from all nations and still heals and drives out demons will appear again before Christ at his return.
255. 14.1Cyril invites the candidates, saddened by the account of the cross, to rejoice at the resurrection of Christ, victor over death.
256. 14.2Since Paul appeals to the Scriptures, Cyril will show that they foretold the season, place and circumstances of the resurrection.
257. 14.3After recalling the prophecies of the burial, Cyril shows from Psalms 12, 16 and 30 that Christ's soul was not left in Hades and that he rose in the morning.
258. 14.4The Song's enclosed garden and sealed fountain foretold the garden tomb sealed by the Jews, and Christ, the fountain of life.
259. 14.5Zephaniah told the disciples to expect the resurrection at dawn and named its place, the Martyrium (“Testimony”) built over Golgotha.
260. 14.7Zephaniah's gift of tongues and offerings from Ethiopia were fulfilled at Pentecost and in the Ethiopian eunuch, confirming the resurrection.
261. 14.8Psalm 88 shows that Christ died willingly and rose in the morning; the Song of Songs foretold the shelter before the rock tomb, near the outer wall of Jerusalem.
262. 14.10The resurrection took place in spring, at Passover and near the equinox, the season of creation, so that humanity was restored at the season in which it fell.
263. 14.11Christ, the true vine planted in the garden, undid Adam's curse; the Song foretold his burial spices and his eating with the disciples after the resurrection.
264. 14.12The women's search for the risen Christ, and Mary's meeting with him, were foretold in the Song of Songs.
265. 14.13The risen Christ met the women, whose love was stronger than death; their joy mixed with fear fulfilled Psalm 2.
266. 14.14Though the chief priests bribed the guards, the women saw the risen Christ; the emperors have now adorned the church of the Resurrection, and the world has believed.
267. 14.15If the Jews accept the written accounts of Elijah and Elisha raising the dead, they should accept the resurrection, attested by Hebrew apostles and Jerusalem's Hebrew bishops.
268. 14.16If a dead man rose at the touch of Elisha's bones, Christ's resurrection, which raised many and conquered the world, is no less credible.
269. 14.17Jonah, three days in the sea monster, is the sign of Christ's three days in the earth; if God preserved Jonah alive, he could raise his own Son.
270. 14.19When Christ descended into Hades, death fled, and the prophets and righteous ran to him and were redeemed.
271. 14.20Jonah's prayer from the belly of the sea monster foretold Christ's descent into Hades, his burial in the rock, and the lie about the stolen body.
272. 14.21Against the Manichaean claim that the resurrection was only apparent, Paul's testimony and the list of witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15, including James, Jerusalem's first bishop, establish it.
273. 14.22Many witnesses attest the resurrection: the full moon, the tomb and its stone, the angels, the apostles, the women, the bribed soldiers, and Constantine's church on the site.
274. 14.23Tabitha, the miraculous catch, Peter's restoration and the Mount of Olives all bear witness to the risen and ascended Christ.
275. 14.24The ascension had been expounded in the Sunday sermon on the day's readings; Cyril recalls the psalms and prophets cited there.
276. 14.25Habakkuk, Enoch and Elijah were carried up, but Christ ascended by his own power, and gave his disciples the Spirit to impart to others.
277. 14.26Christ's servants surpass the prophets: Paul was caught up to the third heaven and Peter holds the keys of the kingdom.
278. 14.27The Son did not begin to sit at the Father's right hand after the ascension: he has shared the throne eternally, as Isaiah's vision shows.
279. 14.28Psalm 110, confirmed by Christ and cited by Peter at Pentecost, speaks of the Son's sitting at the Father's right hand.
280. 14.29The Gospels, Peter and Paul all testify that Christ sits at the right hand of God.
281. 14.30Christ has always held the throne at the Father's right hand; Cyril prays that the candidates may hold fast, be written in the book of life, and be presented by the present Christ to the Father.
282. 15.1Christ has two comings: the first in humility to suffer, the second in glory to judge those who judged him.
283. 15.2Malachi and Paul speak of Christ's two comings; at the second this world will be renewed, though no one may know the time, and Christ himself warned the apostles against deceivers.
284. 15.5The first sign of the end, false christs, has already been fulfilled in part by Simon Magus and Menander.
285. 15.6Wars, such as the Persian war over Mesopotamia, and famines and earthquakes are signs already being fulfilled.
286. 15.7The Church's own sign of the end is division and hatred among bishops, clergy and laity, which Christ foretold.
287. 15.8The gospel has already been preached almost everywhere, as Christ said would happen before the end.
288. 15.9Division among Christians prepares for the Antichrist; the apostasy Paul foretold is already present in the heresies that confuse Father and Son or make the Son a creature.
289. 15.10The true Christ will come not from the earth but openly from heaven, like lightning, with his angels.
290. 15.11As the devil prepared pagan myths to discredit the virgin birth, so he will raise up the Antichrist, a sorcerer claiming to be Christ, to forestall the second coming.
291. 15.12The Antichrist will arise at the end of the Roman empire after ten kings, rule by deceit and cruelty for three and a half years, and be destroyed by Christ at his coming.
292. 15.13Daniel's fourth beast is the Roman empire, and its eleventh horn the Antichrist, as the Church's interpreters teach.
293. 15.14Satan will work in person through the Antichrist, deceiving the crowds with false miracles.
294. 15.15The Antichrist will seat himself in the ruined Jewish temple, claiming to rebuild it as David's heir, and will persecute the saints.
295. 15.16Christ allows the weak to flee the Antichrist while the strong may stand; Daniel limits his reign to three and a half years.
296. 15.17The martyrs under the Antichrist will be the greatest of all, for they will fight Satan in person; God permits the persecution in order to crown them.
297. 15.18Cyril urges the candidates to remember and pass on the signs of the Antichrist, for he fears the wars, schisms and hatreds of his own day.
298. 15.19At Christ's coming the dead in Christ will rise and the living faithful will be caught up to meet him.
299. 15.20Cyril reads the closing poem of Ecclesiastes as a prophecy of the darkening of the heavens, Christ's coming, and the resurrection of the body.
300. 15.21At his coming Christ will appear in fire and glory to judge, preceded by the luminous sign of the cross, and his angels will gather the elect.
301. 15.23The Judge shows no partiality to rich or poor; every good deed, including faithful marriage and chastity, and every sin committed after baptism is recorded.
302. 15.24All humanity, with the countless angels, will stand before the Father, Son and Spirit at the judgment, where each will be convicted by his own conscience.
303. 15.25As a shepherd knows sheep from goats by their coats, Christ will judge by the deeds that clothe each person; the baptized must keep their robe unstained.
304. 15.26The way to the kingdom is the works of mercy of Matthew 25 and faithful stewardship of every gift.
305. 15.27Against the recent Galatian heresy that Christ's kingdom will end and the Word be resolved into the Father, Gabriel and Daniel proclaim his everlasting kingdom.
306. 15.28Daniel's stone and the Psalms, as Paul interprets them, show that the Son's reign is endless; the heretics misread 1 Corinthians 15:25.
307. 15.29The subjection of the Son in 1 Corinthians 15:28 cannot mean his dissolution, for then the creatures would outlast their Creator.
308. 15.30The Son's subjection to the Father is the free obedience of a loving Son, not the forced submission of a slave.
309. 15.31“Until” does not mark an end: death did not stop reigning after Moses, as Romans 5:14 shows.
310. 15.32Paul's other uses of “until” show that the word does not imply an end; Christ's kingdom has no end, as he had no beginning.
311. 15.33Cyril concludes: worship Christ as the everlasting King, flee the Antichrist, and keep the faith by good works to inherit the kingdom.
312. 16.1Speaking about the Holy Spirit requires grace and great care, since Christ said that a word against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
313. 16.2Cyril will say about the Spirit only what the Scriptures, which the Spirit himself spoke, have revealed.
314. 16.3There is one Holy Spirit, the same in the Old and New Covenants, honoured with the Father and the Son and named with them in baptism.
315. 16.4Father, Son and Spirit are confessed as one God without division or confusion; the Spirit who came at Pentecost in Jerusalem's upper church shares the glory of the Crucified.
316. 16.5Cyril will describe heretical errors about the Spirit only to warn against them.
317. 16.6Cyril lists heretics who blasphemed the Spirit (Simon, the Gnostics, the Valentinians, Mani, and those who divide the Spirit of the two covenants) and warns the candidates to avoid them.
318. 16.7Marcion cut the Old Testament testimonies out of the New, and the Gnostics blasphemed the Spirit.
319. 16.8Montanus, who called himself the Holy Spirit and his village Pepuza Jerusalem, is accused by Cyril of gross immorality and ritual murder.
320. 16.9Mani's claim to be the promised Paraclete is refuted by the apostles' reception of the Spirit at Pentecost, two centuries before him.
321. 16.10Simon Magus was condemned for trying to buy the power of the Spirit; how much worse is Mani's claim to be the Spirit. Christians must keep enmity with the serpent.
322. 16.11Turning to Scripture, Cyril explains Christ's sayings about living water as referring to the Holy Spirit.
323. 16.12The Spirit is called water because, like rain, he is one yet works in many ways in different people; but “spirit” in Scripture can also mean angels, the soul, wind, virtue or demons.
324. 16.13Scripture calls angels, wind and Christ's teaching “spirit,” but the Holy Spirit is a living person who himself speaks.
325. 16.14The Spirit speaks, calls and sends, as Acts and Ezekiel show; he is the Church's sanctifier and teacher, whose teaching is Christ's own.
326. 16.15Scripture qualifies the word “spirit” when it means sin, wind or demons; a demon's coming is violent and destructive, quite unlike the Holy Spirit's.
327. 16.16The Holy Spirit comes gently to save, heal and enlighten, giving the soul a vision of heavenly things as he did to the prophets.
328. 16.17Peter knew the deceit of Ananias and Sapphira, and Elisha knew Gehazi's greed, by the Spirit's revelation.
329. 16.18Isaiah, enlightened by the Spirit, foresaw the present desolation of Zion, now turned into cucumber fields.
330. 16.19The end of section 18.
331. 16.20The Spirit inspires virginity, poverty and victory over demons, and as Paraclete strengthens martyrs with the vision of paradise.
332. 16.21Martyrs bear witness by the power of the Spirit, as Christ promised.
333. 16.22The Spirit works in every believer, from the congregation present to all the churches of the world, giving each his gift.
334. 16.23The Spirit rules, teaches and sanctifies all the angelic orders; no creature is his equal, for he searches the depths of God.
335. 16.24The Spirit who spoke in the prophets seals souls in baptism; the Father gives all to the Son, who shares it with the Spirit.
336. 16.25The gifts of Father, Son and Spirit are one; the Spirit who came on the seventy elders and on the absent Eldad and Medad shows that the gift is his, not Moses'.
337. 16.26Moses' wish that all the Lord's people were prophets pointed to Pentecost; the Spirit given by the laying on of hands in Moses' day and by Peter will come on the candidates too.
338. 16.27The Spirit was given to the patriarchs, Joseph, Moses, Job and the builders of the tabernacle.
339. 16.28The judges, Samuel, David, the prophets of Chronicles, Ezra, Elijah and Elisha, and the writing prophets all testify to the Holy Spirit.
340. 16.29Haggai and Zechariah also speak of the Spirit.
341. 16.30Isaiah and Ezekiel speak often of the Spirit; the Spirit gave the young Daniel wisdom to rescue Susanna and to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
342. 16.31Daniel interpreted by the Spirit a dream he had not seen.
343. 16.32Cyril ends the testimonies from the Old Testament and promises those of the New in the next lecture.
344. 17.1Cyril resumes his teaching on the Holy Spirit from the New Testament, relying only on Scripture.
345. 17.2The lectures on the Holy Spirit are divided, but the Spirit is one, and faith in him is undivided.
346. 17.3The one Spirit, called by many names, lives, subsists, works, and sanctifies all rational creatures.
347. 17.4The many names of the Spirit do not make many spirits; he is the Spirit of the Son and of Christ.
348. 17.5The Spirit has many names but is one, living and subsistent, the same in both Testaments; he came upon the Virgin Mary.
349. 17.6Gabriel announced the virgin birth but left its working to the Holy Spirit.
350. 17.7The Spirit worked in Elizabeth, Zechariah, and Simeon.
351. 17.8John baptized the Lord, on whom the Spirit descended as a dove, a figure of the pure church.
352. 17.9Noah's dove, returning at evening with an olive leaf, prefigures the Spirit descending on Christ, the true Noah.
353. 17.10Cyril gathers the Savior's own sayings about the Holy Spirit from the Gospels.
354. 17.12Christ breathed the Spirit on the apostles after the resurrection, promising a fuller clothing with power at Pentecost.
355. 17.13At Pentecost, in Jerusalem itself, the Paraclete came down, the guardian and guide of the church.
356. 17.14The apostles were wholly baptized by the Spirit, who penetrates the soul as fire penetrates iron.
357. 17.15The sound of wind and the tongues of fire at Pentecost signified the Spirit's saving fire, which the candidates are about to receive.
358. 17.16At Pentecost the Spirit taught the apostles at once languages that scholars learn with difficulty over years.
359. 17.17Pentecost reverses Babel: the confusion of tongues becomes a union of minds; the Spirit's nature is beyond explanation.
360. 17.18The "new wine" of Pentecost is the grace of the New Testament from the same Spirit who worked in the prophets, now given in fullness.
361. 17.19Peter explains the apostles' "drunkenness" as the sober drunkenness of the Spirit foretold by Joel, poured out at the third hour by the crucified Christ.
362. 17.20Cyril apologizes for the length of the lecture and turns to a few further testimonies from Acts and the Epistles.
363. 17.21In the Spirit's power Peter's preaching won thousands, the lame man was healed, and the church shared its goods; Ananias and Sapphira were punished.
364. 17.22Through the apostles the Spirit worked many signs, healings, and conversions in Jerusalem.
365. 17.23The imprisoned apostles testified boldly; the Spirit also worked in the seven deacons, above all Stephen, who saw the Son of Man in glory.
366. 17.24Stephen saw the glory of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
367. 17.25In the Spirit's power Philip worked in Samaria, where Peter and John imparted the Spirit, and baptized the Ethiopian eunuch.
368. 17.26The Spirit filled Paul at his calling, healed his blindness, and made the persecutor a herald of the gospel from Jerusalem to Spain.
369. 17.27In the Spirit's power Peter healed Aeneas, raised Tabitha, learned in a vision to call no one unclean, and saw the Spirit given to Cornelius and the Gentiles.
370. 17.28At Antioch the disciples were first called Christians, and the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Paul, showing that the Spirit is living and personal.
371. 17.29The Spirit freed the church from the law's ceremonial burdens through the apostolic decree of Acts 15, which the apostles ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
372. 17.30Cyril cannot recount all the Spirit's works through Paul, from Cyprus to Ephesus, where even his handkerchiefs healed and magicians burned their books.
373. 17.31Cyril passes over Troas and Miletus and traces the Spirit's power in Paul at Jerusalem, Caesarea, Malta, and Rome.
374. 17.32Paul's letters show that he and the other apostles were full of the Holy Spirit.
375. 17.33Paul's letters show the Spirit as living and personal; the order of the creed's articles excludes Sabellius' error even though "spirit" is said of Father, Son, and Spirit alike.
376. 17.35Candidates must come to baptism sincerely, looking not to the minister but to the Holy Spirit, who gives a seal the demons fear.
377. 17.37The Paraclete guards the faithful and gives gifts to those who do not grieve him; Cyril prays that the Spirit be sent on the candidates as at Pentecost.
378. 18.1Hope of the resurrection is the root of good works and of bodily purity; it is denied by Greeks, Samaritans, and heretics alike.
379. 18.2Greeks and Samaritans object that a body rotted, eaten, or burned and scattered cannot be gathered again.
380. 18.3Distance is nothing to God, who holds the earth in his hand; if a man can sort mixed seeds in his hand, God can gather and restore bodies.
381. 18.4Justice requires a judgment after this life, since many evildoers die unpunished; like a president of games, God awards the crowns at the end.
382. 18.5Even unbelievers' punishment of grave-robbers shows an unbroken awareness of the resurrection.
383. 18.6Trees, harvests, transplanted shoots, and sown seed all come back to life; how much more will man, for whose sake they exist.
384. 18.7The yearly revival of trees in spring, and of drowned insects and hibernating dormice, are images of the resurrection.
385. 18.8The phoenix, said to rise from its own decay every five hundred years, is offered to the Greeks as a sign of the resurrection.
386. 18.9The daily wonder of human generation from weak and shapeless matter shows that God can raise the fallen body.
387. 18.10The waxing of the moon and its recovery after an eclipse are proofs of the resurrection for those who do not accept Scripture.
388. 18.11Against the Samaritans, who accept only the Law, Cyril argues from "I am the God of Abraham" and from Abraham's words on the judge of all the earth.
389. 18.12From the Law itself: if Moses' rod became a serpent, Aaron's rod budded, Lot's wife became salt, and Moses' hand was changed, God can raise bodies.
390. 18.13Genesis, which the Samaritans accept, shows God forming man from dust and all creatures from nothing; he can therefore raise man.
391. 18.14Texts that seem to deny the resurrection mean that the ungodly rise to condemnation and that repentance is possible only in this life.
392. 18.15Job's words on the tree that blossoms again, read as a question, and texts of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel teach the resurrection.
393. 18.16Scripture records many raisings of the dead, culminating in Christ's; even Elisha's dead body raised a corpse.
394. 18.17Elisha's bones raised a dead man to show that a power remains in the bodies of the saints, as Paul's handkerchiefs healed the sick.
395. 18.18The apostles raised the dead, and Paul teaches that this very body will rise, transformed and incorruptible; glow-worms show that God can make the righteous shine.
396. 18.19All will rise with eternal bodies, the righteous to live with angels and sinners to endure eternal fire, because the body shared in every deed.
397. 18.20Since we will give account for what is done in the body, we must keep it pure; baptism heals past wounds, but we must guard against future sins.
398. 18.21Cyril closes the proof of the resurrection and bids the candidates recite and remember the creed word for word.
399. 18.22Cyril recalls the creed's last articles and turns to "one holy catholic church".
400. 18.23The church is called catholic because it is worldwide, teaches the whole truth, includes every kind of person, heals every sin, and has every virtue and gift.
401. 18.24The name "Church" (ekklēsia) means the assembly God calls out and gathers, as in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the Psalms.
402. 18.25The first assembly, in Judea, was cast off, and Christ built a second, worldwide Church from the Gentiles, as the Psalms and Malachi foretold.
403. 18.27Because heretical gatherings also call themselves churches, the creed specifies "one holy catholic Church", the bride of Christ and mother of all believers.
404. 18.28In the catholic Church God appointed apostles, prophets, and the other gifts.
405. 18.29The Church has every gift and virtue; once persecuted, she is now honored by kings and her power is unbounded; in her we inherit eternal life.
406. 18.30Eternal life comes from the Father through the Son in the Spirit; Cyril closes the Lenten lectures and announces the lectures on the mysteries to be given in Easter week.
407. 18.31Cyril bids the candidates rejoice, for their redemption is near.
408. 18.32Isaiah's prophecies of the new Jerusalem and of Zion's children are applied to the candidates about to be baptized.
409. 18.33Cyril closes the Lenten lectures with Isaiah's promises and Paul's blessings on those saved through the washing of regeneration, and a prayer for the candidates.
410. 19.1Now that the newly baptized have experienced the mysteries, the lecturer will explain the meaning of what was done at their baptism.
411. 19.2The renunciation of Satan in the vestibule of the baptistery is foreshadowed by Israel's deliverance from Pharaoh.
412. 19.3Moses and the lamb's blood are types of Christ and his blood; as Pharaoh drowned in the sea, the devil vanishes in the waters of baptism.
413. 19.4Facing west, the region of darkness, the candidate renounced Satan, whose power Christ destroyed by sharing our flesh and blood.
414. 19.5The candidate renounced all Satan's works, that is, every sin, and his "pomp": the theater, horse races, and wild-beast shows.
415. 19.7Foods offered at idol festivals belong to the devil's pomp: as the invocation makes the eucharistic bread and wine Christ's body and blood, so the invocation of demons defiles these foods.
416. 19.8The devil's "worship" is idolatry, divination, and magic; those who return to them after baptism are like Lot's wife, while the faithful flee to Christ.
417. 19.9Renouncing Satan reopens paradise; turning to the east, the candidates professed faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and in one baptism of repentance.
418. 19.10The devil prowls, but in baptism God has wiped away every tear; the baptized have put off the old man and put on Christ.
419. 19.11The rites so far took place in the outer hall; the following lectures will explain those performed within.
420. 20.1The removal of the tunic before baptism signified putting off the old man and imitated Christ stripped naked on the cross and Adam's innocent nakedness.
421. 20.2Adam was naked in paradise and not ashamed.
422. 20.3The anointing with exorcised oil before baptism signified grafting into Christ, the good olive tree, and drove away the powers of evil.
423. 20.4The triple immersion after the profession of faith imitated Christ's three days in the tomb; the font was both grave and mother.
424. 20.5The baptized die and rise with Christ in image, but receive salvation in reality, because Christ really suffered, died, and rose.
425. 20.6Baptism not only forgives sins and gives adoption but is the antitype of Christ's sufferings: we share his death in likeness, while his death and burial were real.
426. 20.8The lecturer asks the newly baptized to remember what they have been taught and to walk in newness of life.
427. 21.1The baptized are called "christs" (anointed ones) because the chrism they received after baptism is the antitype of the Holy Spirit with whom Christ was anointed at the Jordan.
428. 21.2Christ was anointed by the Father with the Holy Spirit, the oil of gladness; the baptized are anointed with ointment as his fellows.
429. 21.3After the invocation the chrism, like the eucharistic bread, is no longer ordinary: the body is anointed with the visible ointment, the soul sanctified by the Spirit.
430. 21.4The chrism is applied to forehead, ears, nostrils, and breast, each with its meaning, arming the baptized against the devil as Christ was armed after his baptism.
431. 21.5The anointed are rightly called Christians; the chrism was prefigured in the anointing of Aaron and Solomon, but is now given in truth by the Holy Spirit.
432. 21.7The chrism, foretold by Isaiah, must be kept unspotted by good works.
433. 22.1Christ's words "This is my body" and "This is my blood", read from Paul, leave no room for doubt.
434. 22.2He who changed water into wine at Cana can change wine into his blood.
435. 22.3In the figure of bread and wine the body and blood of Christ are given, so that the communicants become one body and blood with him and partakers of the divine nature.
436. 22.4The hearers of John 6 took Christ's words carnally and were offended.
437. 22.5The showbread of the Old Testament has given way to the bread of heaven; though the senses suggest otherwise, faith holds that the bread and wine are Christ's body and blood.
438. 22.7Psalm 23's table, anointing, and cup are read as the Eucharist and the chrism, opposed to the demons' table.
439. 22.8Ecclesiastes' bread, wine, oil, and white garments are read as the Eucharist, the chrism, and the spiritual purity of the baptized.
440. 22.9What appears to be bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ; partaking of it strengthens the heart and makes the soul's face shine.
441. 23.1Having explained baptism, chrism, and communion, the lecturer turns to the rest of the liturgy.
442. 23.2The washing of the celebrants' hands signifies purity from sin.
443. 23.3The kiss of peace signifies reconciliation and the putting away of grudges.
444. 23.4"Lift up your hearts": at the Eucharist the heart must be with God, not on earthly cares.
445. 23.5"Let us give thanks": thanks are owed for calling, reconciliation, and adoption, which God gave beyond what was right.
446. 23.6The thanksgiving recalls all creation and the angelic orders and joins the seraphim's "Holy, holy, holy".
447. 23.7In the invocation (epiclesis) the Holy Spirit is asked to make the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ.
448. 23.8Over the eucharistic sacrifice the church prays for peace, rulers, soldiers, the sick, and all in need.
449. 23.9The liturgy commemorates the saints, asking their intercession, and prays for the departed faithful.
450. 23.10An illustration of a king moved by a crown offered for exiles defends praying for the departed, for whom Christ sacrificed is offered.
451. 23.11The Lord's Prayer follows; God's love lets sinners call him Father, and those who bear the heavenly image are themselves "heavens".
452. 23.12God's name is holy by nature; the petition asks that it be hallowed in us.
453. 23.13Only a soul cleansed from the reign of sin can pray "Your kingdom come" with boldness.
454. 23.14The petition asks that God's will be done in us as it is among the angels.
455. 23.15The "epiousios" bread of the Lord's Prayer is the holy bread that nourishes the substance of the soul.
456. 23.16Since our sins against God are great and others' against us small, we must forgive in order to be forgiven.
457. 23.17"Lead us not into temptation" means not being overwhelmed by temptation, as Judas was and Peter was not.
458. 23.18The evil one is the devil; the "Amen" seals the Lord's Prayer.
459. 23.19"Holy things for the holy": the gifts are holy through the Spirit, the communicants by participation; Christ alone is holy by nature.
460. 23.20At the communion chant "Taste and see" the communicants are to judge by faith, not by taste.
461. 23.21The lecturer describes how to receive the body of Christ in the hand with reverence, losing not a crumb.
462. 23.22The communicant receives the cup with reverence and gives thanks; the lecturer urges the newly baptized to hold fast the traditions and not cut themselves off from communion.