Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop, Confessor & Doctor
Saint Cyril was born at or near the
city of Jerusalem, about the year 315. He was ordained a priest by
Saint Maximus, who gave him the important charge of instructing and
preparing the candidates for Baptism. This office he held for several
years, and today we still have one series of his instructions, given
in the year 347 or 348. They are of singular interest as being the
earliest record of the systematic teaching of the Church on the Creed
and Sacraments, and as having been given in the church built by
Constantine on Mount Calvary. They are solid, simple, profound,
precise, and saturated with Holy Scripture, and, as a witness and
exposition of the Catholic faith, invaluable.
On the death of Saint Maximus, Cyril
was chosen Bishop of Jerusalem. At the beginning of his episcopate a
cross was seen in the sky, reaching from Mount Calvary to Mount
Olivet, and so bright that it shone at noonday. Saint Cyril gave an
account of it to the emperor, and the faithful regarded it as a
presage of victory over the Arian heretics.
While Saint Cyril was Bishop of
Jerusalem, the apostate emperor Julian resolved to defy the words of
Our Lord (Luke 21:6) by rebuilding the ancient temple of
Jerusalem. He employed the power and resources of a Roman emperor;
the Jews thronged enthusiastically to him and gave munificently. But
Cyril was unmoved. The word of God abides, he said; one stone shall
not be laid on another. When the attempt was made, a pagan writer
tells us that horrible flames came forth from the earth, rendering
the place inaccessible to the scorched and frightened workmen. The
attempt was made again and again, and then abandoned in despair. Soon
after, the emperor perished miserably in a war against the Persians,
and the Church had rest.
Like the other great bishops of his
time, Cyril was persecuted, and was driven twice from his see; but on
the death of the Arian emperor Valens, he returned to Jerusalem. He
was present at the Second General Council of Constantinople, and died
in peace A.D. 386, after a troubled episcopate of thirty-five years.
Little Pictorial Lives of the
Saints, a compilation based on Butler's Lives of the
Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers:
New York, 1894).
