Open sample · Liturgical & Catechetical
Mystagogical Catechesis I
On the renunciation of Satan. Delivered at Jerusalem during the bright week, possibly 350 or possibly later.
Editorial introduction
The five short discourses known collectively as the Mystagogical Catecheses have for nearly a century been the subject of an attribution debate that has not been resolved and is unlikely to be. The manuscript tradition assigns them sometimes to Cyril of Jerusalem, sometimes to his successor John II, and sometimes — as in several important codices — to both names jointly. The internal evidence is genuinely indeterminate. We have given our editorial position, which is mildly in favour of Cyril, in the full introduction in the members' library; this open sample carries only the text and a brief note on the question.
The Catecheses are addressed to the newly baptised — those who, during the night of Easter, have undergone the initiatory mysteries of which the catechumens, prior to baptism, are forbidden to receive instruction. The five discourses cover, in turn: the rite of renunciation in the outer chamber of the baptistry (Catechesis I), the rite of immersion and the conferring of the Spirit (II), the chrismation (III), the eucharist as the body and blood of Christ (IV), and the structure of the eucharistic anaphora and the daily prayer (V). The first catechesis, given here, treats only the renunciation and the affirmation that precede the actual baptism.
The translation of Edwin Gifford (NPNF, second series, vol. vii, 1894) has long been the standard English version. It is reverent and serviceable, but in places it suppresses the rhetorical immediacy of the original, which is the immediacy of a bishop speaking to his own people about an event that took place in their lives just hours ago. We have tried to recover that immediacy. The Greek of the Catecheses is not literary in the elevated sense; it is liturgically formed but conversational, with sentences sometimes left incomplete in the manner of preached oratory. We have not tidied these sentences.
Catechesis I
For a long time now, true and beloved sons of the Church, I have been desirous to discourse to you about these spiritual and heavenly mysteries; yet, knowing that seeing is far more persuasive than hearing, I have postponed it until the present, that, having taken hold of you in the very act of beholding what I am to describe, I might better lead you by the hand into the brighter and more fragrant meadow of this paradise before us. Especially now that you have been made fit to receive the more divine mysteries — having been counted worthy of divine and life-giving baptism. It remains, then, to set before you a banquet of the more perfect instructions, that you may now understand what has been wrought in you in that hour.
First, then, you entered into the outer chamber of the baptistry, and there standing toward the West you heard the voice, and were commanded to stretch forth your hand and to renounce Satan as one who was present. You ought to know that this figure is found in ancient story. For when Pharaoh, that most stern and cruel tyrant, oppressed the noble and free-born people of the Hebrews, God sent Moses to deliver them out of the bondage of slavery. The doorposts were anointed with the blood of a lamb, that the destroyer might pass over those houses which carried the sign of that blood; and the people of the Hebrews were marvellously freed. The enemy, when he saw them depart, went after them, but, seeing the sea miraculously parting before them, was nevertheless following them; he was overtaken by the waters and at last drowned in the Red Sea.
Pass now from the old to the new, from the figure to the truth. There Moses was sent by God to Egypt; here Christ is sent from the Father into the world. There Moses was to lead an oppressed people out of Egypt; here Christ is to deliver mankind, oppressed under the tyranny of sin. The blood of the lamb there averted the destroyer; the blood of the Lamb without spot here delivers from punishment. The tyrant pursued the ancient people as far as the sea; this insolent enemy, the devil, follows you to the very waters of salvation. The one is sunk in the sea; this one is destroyed in the saving water.
Nevertheless you were commanded to say, stretching out your hand and addressing him as if present, "I renounce thee, Satan." Permit me to explain to you why you stood toward the West, for it is necessary. The West is the region of sensible darkness, and Satan, who is darkness, has his dominion in the region of darkness. Looking, therefore, in symbol toward the West, you renounced him whose realm and rule lie there. What did each of you stand and say? "I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy works, and all thy pomp, and all thy worship."
And now I should like to tell you the meaning of each of these words. "I renounce thee, Satan" — that is, every act of his and every motion which is contrary to God. "And all his works" — that is, every sin. As works of darkness are sins, so renouncing his works means avoiding sin. "And all his pomp" — that is, the madness of theatres and horse-races, the hunting, and other such empty things from which the holy man begs deliverance, saying to God, "turn away mine eyes that they behold not vanity". "And all his worship" — meaning prayers in the temples of idols, the lights and the libations there set forth, all the sacrifices and feasts of demons, even those which look like food, the meats and the wine consecrated by their pourings.
A short note on the attribution question
The question whether the Mystagogical Catecheses are Cyril's or his successor John's has been debated since the publication of Touttée's edition in 1720. The principal arguments for John are that several manuscripts attribute them to him, that the doctrine of the eucharistic epiclesis presupposed in Catechesis V is more developed than in the genuinely Cyrillian Catecheses, and that certain phrases of Catechesis IV anticipate later christological formulations. The principal arguments for Cyril are that the early manuscript tradition, and the witness of authors of the late fourth and early fifth centuries, treat the Catecheses as Cyril's; that the doctrinal developments need not be later than Cyril's last years; and that no positive argument has been brought forward to displace the older attribution that does not depend on prior assumptions about what Cyril could have written. We incline, with present hesitation, to Cyril. Our reasoning is set out at greater length in the full introduction.