[2368] Ps. cxix. 37.
[2369] mimon, the name either of a species of low comedy, "consisting more of gestures and mimicry than of spoken dialogue," or of the persons who acted in them. Cyril's description of the coarse and indecent character of the mimes is more than justified by the impartial testimony of Ovid, Trist. ii. 497: "Quid si scripsissem mimos obscoena jocantes, Qui semper vetiti crimen amoris habent; In quibus assidue cultus procedit adulter, Verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro. Nubilis hos virgo, matronaque, virque, puerque Spectat, et e magna parte Senatus adest. Nec satis incestis temerari vocibus aures; Assuescunt oculi multa pudenda pati." A theatre is mentioned as one of the buildings erected by Hadrian in his new City Aelia Capitolina built on the site of Jerusalem; and that theatrical performances were continued in the time of Cyril we know from the accusation that in a time of famine he had sold one of the Church vestments, which was afterwards used upon the stage.
[2370] Lactantius, Epitome, § 63: "Histrionici etiam impudici gestus, quibus infames foeminas imitantur, libidines, quæ saltando exprimunt, docent."
[2371] kunegesiais, the so-called "venationes" of the Circus in which the "bestiarii" fought with wild beasts.
[2372] The "bestiarii" were feasted in public on the day before their encounter with the beasts. See Tertull. Apologet. § 42: "I do not recline in public at the feast of Bacchus, after the manner of the beast-fighters at their last banquet." Ib. § 9: "Those also who dine on the flesh of wild beasts from the arena, who have keen appetites for bear and stag." These latter, however, were chiefly the poor, to whom flesh was a rarity: Apuleius Metam. iv. 14, quoted by Oehler.
[2373] psuchas ektrachelizon, an allusion to the risk of a broken neck in the chariot-race. Tertull. de Spectaculis, § 9: "Equestrianism was formerly practised in a simple way on horseback, and certainly its ordinary use was innocent: but when it was dragged into the games, it passed from a gift of God into the service of demons." The presiding deity of the chariot-race was Poseidon (Hom. Il. xxiii, 307; Pind. Ol. i. 63; Pyth. vi. 50; Soph. OEdip. Col. 712), and both this and the other shows of the Circus, and of the theatre, were connected with the worship of the gods of Greece and Rome, and therefore forbidden as idolatrous: "What high religious rites, what sacrifices precede, intervene, and follow, how many guilds, how many priesthoods, how many services are set astir" (Tert. de Spect. § 7).
[2374] paneguresi. The Panegyris was strictly a religious festival, but was commonly accompanied by a great fair or market, in which were sold not only such things as the worshippers might need for their offerings, e.g. frankincense, but also the flesh of the animals which had been sacrificed. Cf. Dictionary of Greek and Rom. Antiq. "Panegyris." Tertull. Apolog. § 42: "We do not go to your spectacles: yet the articles that are sold there, if I need them, I shall obtain more readily at their proper places. We certainly buy no frankincense."
[2375] Compare St. Paul's argument against meats offered to idols, 1 Cor. x. 14-21: and on Cyril's Eucharistic doctrine, see notes on Cat. xxii.
[2376] The form of renunciation before Baptism is given in the Apostolic Constitutions, VII. 41: "I renounce Satan, and his works, and his pomps, and his services, and his angels, and his inventions, and all things that are under him." Cf. Tertull. De Spectaculis, § 4: "When on entering the water, we make profession of the Christian faith in the words of its rule, we bear public testimony that we have renounced the devil, his pomp, and his angels."
[2377] Herod. ii. 62: "At Sais, when the assembly takes place for the sacrifices (to Minerva, or Neith), there is one night on which the inhabitants all burn a multitude of lights in the open air round their houses....These burn the whole night, and give to the festival the name of the Feast of Lamps (Luchnokaie)."
[2378] Fountains and rivers had each its own deity or nymph, to whom sacrifices were offered, and incense burned.
[2379] es touto diebesan. These words are omitted in many mss., and regarded by the Benedictine Editor as a spurious addition made to complete the construction. The words e toiauta at the end of the sentence are better omitted, as in several good mss.
[2380] Cat. iv. 37; Apost. Const. vi.: "Be not a diviner, for that leads to idolatry....Thou shalt not use enchantments or purgations for thy child. Thou shalt not be a soothsayer nor a diviner by great or little birds. Nor shalt thou learn wicked arts; for all these things has the Law forbidden." Deut. xviii. 10, 11.
[2381] Apost. Const. vii. 41: "And after his renunciation let him in his association (suntassomenos) say, I associate myself with Christ."
[2382] peirathese (Cod. Mon. 1) is a better reading than peirasthese. Cf. Plat. Laches, 188 E: ton ergon epeirathen.
[2383] Phil. iii. 13. On the pillar of salt, see Wisd. x. 7: "Of whose wickedness even to this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony,...and a standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul." Joseph. Ant. I. xi. 4: "Moreover I have seen it, for it remains even unto this day." Bp. Lightfoot, Clem. Rom. Ep. ad Cor. xi. remarks that the region abounds in pillars of salt, and "Mediæval and even modern travellers have delighted to identify one or other of these with Lot's wife."
[2384] Dan. ii. 35, 45.
[2385] Is. xxviii. 15.
[2386] Cf. S. Ambros. De Mysteriis, c. ii. 7: "Ad orientem converteris; qui enim renunciat diabolo ad Christum convertitur:" "Where he plainly intimates....that turning to the East was a symbol of their aversion from Satan and conversion unto Christ, that is, from darkness to light, from serving idols, to serve Him, who is the Sun of Righteousness and Fountain of Light" (Bingh. Ant. xi. vii. 7).
[2387] Cf. Didaché, vii. 1; Justin M. Apolog. I. c. 61 A; Swainson, Creeds, c. iii. on the short Baptismal Professions. "The writings of S. Cyprian distinctly tell us, that in his day the form of interrogation at Baptism was fixed and definite. He speaks of the "usitata et legitima verba interrogationis,"--and we know as distinctly that the interrogation included the words, "Dost thou believe in God the Father, in His Son Christ, in the Holy Spirit? Dost thou believe in remission of sins and eternal life through the Church?"
[2388] 1 Pet. v. 9.
[2389] Is. xxv. 8; Rev. vii. 17.
[2390] paneguriseis
[2391] Is. lxi. 10.
[2392] These words seem to imply that the Lectures on the Eucharist were to be delivered in the Holy Sepulchre, though the Mysteries themselves may be called metaphorically "the Holy of Holies."
Lecture XX.
(On the Mysteries. II.)
Of Baptism.
Romans vi. 3-14
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? &c.....for ye are not under the Law, but under grace.
1. These daily introductions into the Mysteries [2393] , and new instructions, which are the announcements of new truths, are profitable to us; and most of all to you, who have been renewed from an old state to a new. Therefore, I shall necessarily lay before you the sequel of yesterday's Lecture, that ye may learn of what those things, which were done by you in the inner chamber [2394] , were symbolical.
2. As soon, then, as ye entered, ye put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds [2395] . Having stripped yourselves, ye were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, and by His nakedness put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree [2396] . For since the adverse powers made their lair in your members, ye may no longer wear that old garment; I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which waxeth corrupt in the lusts of deceit [2397] . May the soul which has once put him off, never again put him on, but say with the Spouse of Christ in the Song of Songs, I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on [2398] ? O wondrous thing! ye were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed [2399] ; for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed.
3. Then, when ye were stripped, ye were anointed with exorcised oil [2400] , from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. For ye were cut off from the wild olive-tree [2401] , and grafted into the good one, and were made to share the fatness of the true olive-tree. The exorcised oil therefore was a symbol of the participation of the fatness of Christ, being a charm to drive away every trace of hostile influence. For as the breathing of the saints, and the invocation of the Name of God, like fiercest flame, scorch and drive out evil spirits [2402] , so also this exorcised oil receives such virtue by the invocation of God and by prayer, as not only to burn and cleanse away the traces of sins, but also to chase away all the invisible powers of the evil one.
4. After these things, ye were led to the holy pool [2403] of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulchre which is before our eyes. And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and ye made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again; here also hinting by a symbol at the three days burial of Christ [2404] . For as our Saviour passed three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, so you also in your first ascent out of the water, represented the first day of Christ in the earth, and by your descent, the night; for as he who is in the night, no longer sees, but he who is in the day, remains in the light, so in the descent, as in the night, ye saw nothing, but in ascending again ye were as in the day. And at the self-same moment ye were both dying and being born; and that Water of salvation was at once your grave and your mother. And what Solomon spoke of others will suit you also; for he said, in that case, There is a time to bear and a time to die [2405] ; but to you, in the reverse order, there was a time to die and a time to be born; and one and the same time effected both of these, and your birth went hand in hand with your death.
5. O strange and inconceivable thing! we did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really crucified and raised again; but our imitation was in a figure, and our salvation in reality. Christ was actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose again; and all these things He has freely bestowed upon us, that we, sharing His sufferings by imitation, might gain salvation in reality. O surpassing loving-kindness! Christ received nails in His undefiled hands and feet, and suffered anguish; while on me without pain or toil by the fellowship of His suffering He freely bestows salvation.
6. Let no one then suppose that Baptism is merely the grace of remission of sins, or further, that of adoption; as John's was a baptism [2406] conferring only remission of sins: whereas we know full well, that as it purges our sins, and ministers [2407] to us the gift of the Holy Ghost, so also it is the counterpart [2408] of the sufferings of Christ. For this cause Paul just now cried aloud and said, Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into His death [2409] . These words he spoke to some who were disposed to think that Baptism ministers to us the remission of sins, and adoption, but has not further the fellowship also, by representation, of Christ's true sufferings.
7. In order therefore that we might learn, that whatsoever things Christ endured, for us and for our salvation [2410] He suffered them in reality and not in appearance, and that we also are made partakers of His sufferings, Paul cried with all exactness of truth, For if we have been planted together with the likeness of His death, we shall be also with the likeness of His resurrection. Well has he said, planted together [2411] . For since the true Vine was planted in this place, we also by partaking in the Baptism of death have been planted together with Him. And fix thy mind with much attention on the words of the Apostle. He said not, "For if we have been planted together with His death," but, with the likeness of His death. For in Christ's case there was death in reality, for His soul was really separated from His body, and real burial, for His holy body was wrapt in pure linen; and everything happened really to Him; but in your case there was only a likeness of death and sufferings, whereas of salvation there was not a likeness but a reality.