LIFE OF S. CYRIL.

The splendid banquets, the lavish distribution of money and clothes to the naked and destitute, the offerings of imperial magnificence, the "intellectual feast" of the many Bishops' discourses, and, not least, his own "various public orations pronounced in honour of this solemnity." Among the clergy taking part in this gorgeous ceremony, the newly ordained deacon of the Church of Jerusalem would naturally have his place. It was a scene that could not fail to leave a deep impression on his mind and influence his attitude towards the contending parties in the great controversy by which the Church was at this time distracted. He knew that Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria, a leading defender of the divinity of Christ against Arianism. had just been deposed; he had seen Arius The founder of Arianism, which denied the full divinity of the Son. triumphantly restored to communion in that august assembly of bishops "from every province," with his own Bishop Maximus, and Eusebius of Cæsarea, the Metropolitan The bishop presiding over a province, at their head. It is much to the praise of his wisdom and steadfastness that he was not misled by the notable triumph of the Arians to join their faction or adopt their tenets.

In September 346, Athanasius, returning from his second exile at Trèves, passed through Jerusalem. The aged Bishop Maximus, who had been induced to acquiesce in the condemnation of Athanasius at Tyre and in the solemn recognition of Arius at Jerusalem, had afterwards refused to join the Eusebians at Antioch in 341 for the purpose of confirming the sentence passed at Tyre, and now gave a cordial welcome to Athanasius, who thus describes his reception:

"As I passed through Syria, I met with the Bishops of Palestine, who, when they had called a Council at Jerusalem, received me cordially, and themselves also sent me on my way in peace, and addressed the following letter to the Church and the Bishops."

The letter congratulating the Egyptian bishops and the clergy and people of Alexandria on the restoration of their bishop is signed first by Maximus, who seems to have acted without reference to the Metropolitan Acacius, successor of Eusebius as Bishop of Cæsarea and a leader of the Arians, a bitter enemy of Athanasius. Though Cyril in his writings never mentions Athanasius or Arius by name, we can hardly doubt that, as Touttée suggests, he must at this time have had an opportunity of learning the true character of the questions in dispute between the parties of the great heresiarch The leader of a heresy and his greater adversary.

We have already learned from Jerome that Cyril was admitted to the priesthood by Maximus. There is no evidence of the exact date of his ordination, but we may safely assume that he was a priest of some years' standing when the important duty of preparing the candidates for baptism was entrusted to him in or about the year 348. There appears to be no authority for the statement (Dict. Chr. Antiq. "Catechumens," p. 319 a) that "the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem were delivered by him partly as a deacon, partly as a presbyter."

At the very time of delivering the lectures, Cyril was also in the habit of preaching to the general congregation on the Lord's Day, when the candidates for baptism were especially required to be present. In the Church of Jerusalem, it was still the custom for sermons to be preached by several presbyters in succession, the bishop preaching last. From Cyril's Homily on the Paralytic (§ 20) we learn that he preached immediately before the bishop, and so must have held a distinguished position among the priests. This is also implied in the fact that within three or four years after delivering his Catechetical Lectures to the candidates for baptism, he was chosen to succeed Maximus in the See of Jerusalem.

The date of his consecration is approximately determined by his own letter to Constantius concerning the appearance of a luminous cross in the sky at Jerusalem. The letter was written on the 7th of May, 351, and is described by Cyril as the first-fruit of his episcopate. He must therefore have been consecrated in 350, or early in 351.