There was much controversy on the subject of prayers for the dead in Cyril's time, and the objections which he notices were brought into prominence by Ærius, and rebuked by Epiphanius [242] .
From the commemoration of the departed Cyril passes at once to the Lord's Prayer [243] , omitting the Preface which is found in the Liturgies of S. James and S. Mark. In the Clementine Liturgy, contrary to general use, the Lord's Prayer is not said at all. Cyril adds an exposition of each petition, and gives an unusual explanation of epiousios, for which see the footnote: he also explains tou ponerou as referring to "the wicked one," following in this the Embolismus of S. James, "deliver us from the wicked one and from his works."
"After this the Bishop says, Holy things for holy men [244] ." Chrysostom explains this as being both an invitation to the Faithful in general to communicate, and a warning to the unholy to withdraw. "The Bishop, with loud voice and awe-inspiring cry, raising high his arm like a herald, and standing on high in sight of all, above that awful silence cries aloud, inviting some and repelling others, and doing this not with his hand, but with his tongue more clearly than with the hand.....For when he says, Holy things for the holy, he means this: Whosoever is not holy, let him not draw near [245] ."
In regard to the doctrinal significance of the formula, Dr. Waterland's remarks should be consulted [246] .
The response of the people to the "Sancta Sanctis" is given by Cyril [247] in accordance with the Liturgy of S. James and the Clementine: "One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ:" but he does not mention the "Gloria in excelsis" nor the "Hosanna," both of which follow here in the Clementine.
"After this," says Cyril, "ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the Communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good [248] . This agrees with the Clementine rubric: "Let the 33rd Psalm be sung while all the rest are partaking." In the Liturgy of S. James, while the Bishop is breaking the Bread and dipping in the Wine, the "Agnus Dei" and several Psalms were sung: but of these there is no mention in the Clementine Liturgy or in Cyril.
On Cyril's directions for receiving the Bread and the Cup with due reverence, see the footnotes on the passages [249] .
His final injunction to remain for the prayer and thanksgiving is taken from that in the Clementine Liturgy: "Having partaken of the precious Body and the precious Blood of Christ, let us give thanks to Him who hath counted us worthy to partake of His holy Mysteries." The thanksgiving, benediction, concluding prayers, and dismissal, vary much in the different Liturgies.
[219] Mystag. v. § 2.
[220] Dict. Chr. Ant. "Lavabo."
[221] Apost. Const. viii. c. 11.
[222] Apost. Const. viii. c. 11. Compare Justin M. Apolog. I. c. 65.
[223] Mystag. v. § 4.
[224] § 5.
[225] § 6.
[226] Apost. Const. viii. c. 12. See the Eucharistic Preface of the Liturgy of S. James in note 4 on Mystag. v. § 6.
[227] In Epist. II. ad Cor. Homil. xviii. § 3.
[228] Mystag. iv. § 1.
[229] Ib. § 6: see also § 7.
[230] Capp. ix., x.
[231] Apol. I. cc. 65-67.
[232] Frag. xxxviii.
[233] Liturgies, p. 382.
[234] Mystag. v. i. § 7; iii. § 3; v. § 7.
[235] Mystag. v. § 8: tauten prospheromen ten thusian.
[236] Hammond, Liturgy of S. James, p. 43.
[237] Ib. p. 115.
[238] Ib. p. 18.
[239] Hammond, Liturgy of S. James, p. 44.
[240] § 9.
[241] § 10.
[242] Hæres. lxxv. § 7. Cf. Bingh. Ant. XV. c. 3, § 16; Dict Chr. Biog. "Aerius."
[243] Mystag. V. § 11.
[244] Ib. § 19.
[245] Hom. xvii. in Hebr. These Homilies were edited after Chrysostom's death.
[246] A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, c. x.
[247] § 19.
[248] § 20.
[249] §§ 21, 22.
Chapter VI.--Effects of Baptism and of Chrism.
§ 1. Baptism. When we try to ascertain the exact relation between Baptism and the Unction or Chrism which immediately followed, we find that Cyril's teaching on the subject has been understood in very different senses. By some he is thought to regard the Unction as being merely an accessory rite of the one great Sacrament of Baptism; to others he seems to draw a clear distinction between them, assigning to each its proper grace and efficacy.
The former view is stated by the Oxford editor, Milles, in his note on the words: "And in like manner to you also, after you had come up from the pool of the sacred waters, there was given an unction, a figure (antitupon ) of that with which Christ was anointed; and that is the Holy Ghost [250] ." "It is evident," says Milles, "from his words here, that the Chrism of which Cyril treats in this Lecture is not to be referred to the Unction which is administered by the Romanists in Confirmation. For every one sees that by Unction in this passage a ceremony of Baptism is indicated. The ancients employed two Unctions in Baptism, the first before the immersion in the water, of which he spoke in the preceding Lecture; the second immediately upon ascending from the water, of which he speaks in this Lecture."
This opinion is elaborately discussed by the Benedictine editor, Touttée, Dissertatio iii. c. 7, who argues that the Unction described by Cyril is a Sacrament distinct from Baptism, that it has for its proper grace the gift of the Holy Spirit, and further that this gift is not conferred in Baptism. Of these assertions the first and second appear to represent Cyril's view correctly: the last is an exaggeration and a mistake, the tendency of which is to identify the Chrism of the Eastern Church with that which is used in Confirmation by the Roman Church, and to exalt the rite of Confirmation as a proper Sacrament distinct from Baptism, and even superior to it. A view differing in some respects from both of these has been recently put forward by a learned and devout writer of our own Church, who has fully discussed the teaching of Cyril and other Eastern Fathers, and gives the result of his investigation in the following "Summary [251] :" "For very many centuries the Christians of the East have never been forced to define to themselves at all clearly the position of a person baptized but unconfirmed. Their mode of administering Confirmation (Chrism?) by the hands of the baptizing Presbyter--though among the Greeks and some others with chrism prepared by the Bishop--relieves them from the necessity which weighs upon us Westerns, of teaching Christian children what their status is between the two rites. Confirmation (Chrism?) is for them, far more than it has been for a long while in the West, a factor in Baptism. Only a more or less conscious desire not to fall behind Western teachers in honouring the perfecting Unction can have led their later authorities to treat that Unction as a sacrament numerically distinct from Baptism. To all the early doctors of the East the two things are one, and Baptism culminates in the Unction. The tendency among Oriental Christians was, not to attribute to Baptism in our modern sense the gift of the Holy Ghost, but rather to consider Baptism by itself as a bare rite, benefiting the body alone, and dependent for its spiritual efficacy upon other actions, after and before. Not that this tendency has its full way. The Greek Fathers may be said certainly on the whole to trace the forgiveness of sins, the preparatory cleansing, to the baptismal Laver; the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the ordinary purposes of Christian living, they trace, like S. Chrysostom, to that act which comes " immediately after Baptism, and before the Mysteries."
When we come to inquire how far these several theories agree with the teaching of Cyril himself, we must in the outset put aside altogether the name Confirmation: for as applied to the Unction used in the Eastern Church it is only confusing and misleading. In the early ages of the Church Confirmation was not known even by name. In the Latin Church "neither Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, nor any of the Latin Fathers, makes mention of Confirmation in this sense. Nor have the Greeks any word to answer to this Latin term [252] ." So far, therefore, Milles appears to be perfectly right in refusing to connect the Chrism of which Cyril treats with the Unction used in Confirmation by the Roman Church.
We may add that in Cyril's account of Chrism it is wholly unconnected with Confirmation, both in its symbolic reference and in its outward form. Chrism, he says, is the antitype of the Unction of Christ by the Holy Ghost at His Baptism: Confirmation is universally admitted to have been a following of the Apostles in their laying on of hands. But in that Apostolic rite there was no unction, and in Chrism there was no such laying on of hands.
In several passages Cyril clearly distinguishes the outward form of Baptism from the spiritual grace.
"If thy body be here, but not thy mind, it profiteth thee nothing. Even Simon Magus once came to the Laver: he was baptized, but was not enlightened; and though he dipped his body in water, he enlightened not his heart with the Spirit: his body went down and came up, but his soul was not buried with Christ, nor raised with Him [253] ."
It is impossible here to regard "the Spirit" as referring to the grace of Unction: for (1) Baptism was not accompanied by Unction in the time of the Apostles, and (2) we should thus make a false antithesis between the outward part of the one rite ("he dipped his body in water"), and the inward part of the other. Here, therefore, Cyril attributes enlightenment of the heart by the Spirit to Baptism apart from Unction, and at the same time lays stress upon the difference between the worthy and unworthy recipient of the outward form.
The importance of this difference is further enforced throughout the next two sections, and at the close of § 4 the distinction between the outward sign and inward grace of Baptism, strictly so called, is again asserted, "though the water will receive thee, the Spirit will not accept thee."
"Some might suppose," it is said, "from these words that Cyril thought of water and the Spirit as the sign and the thing signified in Baptism respectively, and a passage in a later Lecture upon the subject of the Sacrament (of Baptism) at first confirms that impression [254] ."
To suppose that Cyril had any other thought in the former passage, seems to me impossible for any ordinary reader, and the later passage, not only at first, but more fully the longer it is considered, confirms that impression beyond all doubt. The whole quotation, including Cat. iii. §§ 3, 4, is too long to repeat here, but may be read in its proper place. It will be sufficient to give the passages which are of chief importance in the question before us, according to Canon Mason's translation.
Cat. iii. § 3. "Do not attend to the laver as mere water, but to the spiritual grace given along with the water"..."the mere water, receiving the invocation of the Holy Ghost, and of Christ, and of the Father, acquires a power of sanctity. For since man is a two-fold being composed of soul and body, the cleansing element also is two-fold, the incorporeal for the incorporeal, the bodily for the body. And the water cleanses the body, but the Spirit seals the soul, in order that having our hearts sprinkled by the Spirit, and our bodies washed with pure water, we may draw nigh to God. When, therefore, you are about to go down into the water do not pay attention to the mere nature of the water, but expect salvation by the operation of the Holy Ghost. For without both it is impossible for thee to be perfected."
No words could state more clearly the distinction between the outward sign and the inward grace of Baptism, and the absolute necessity for both. There is no possible reference to Unction, but "the operation of the Holy Ghost" in cleansing and sealing the soul is unmistakably connected with Baptism as "the grace given with the water" (meta tou hudatos), and below, as "the seal by water" (ten di' hudatos sphragida), the latter phrase shewing that Baptism by water is the signum efficax of the grace in question.
Cyril then quotes our Lord's words, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, and explains them thus: "On the one hand he who is being baptized (baptizomenos) with the water, but has not had the Spirit vouchsafed to him (kataxiotheis), has not the grace in perfection: on the other hand, even if a man be distinguished for virtue in his deeds, but does not receive the seal bestowed by means of water (ten di' hudatos sphragida), he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Canon Mason, whose translation I have followed, finds here a reference both to Baptism and to Unction as "the first baptismal act and the second," and in support of this interpretation gives a second and more emphatic version: "He who is in course of being baptized with the water, but has not yet had the Spirit vouchsafed to him, has not the grace in perfection." This introduction of the word "yet," in order to represent a distinction between two separate acts, is not justified either by the reading of the older editions (oude to hudati baptizomenos me kataxiotheis de tou Pneumatos), nor by that of Codices Monac. Roe, Casaub. adopted by Reischl (oute ho bebaptismenos k.t.l.), nor by the Benedictine text (oute ho baptizomenos k.t.l.). The obvious meaning of the passage, with either reading, is that "the man who in Baptism did not receive the Holy Spirit, has not the grace (of Baptism) complete." The Benedictine Editor in his elaborate argument for regarding Chrism as a distinct sacrament [255] ", does not even refer to this passage.