^ 171. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, 043
bitter injustice, tliey had been guilty of a trifling tumult; lie put some to death, and drove out the rest, and exposed their property to the excited multitude.
These invasions of the province of the secuLar power brought him into quarrel and continual contest with Orestes, the imperial governor of Alexandria, He summoned five hundred monks from the ISTitrian mountains for his guard, who publicly Insnlted the governor. One of them, by tlie name of Amnion, wounded him with a stone, and was thereupon killed by Orestes. But C}Til caused the monk to be buried in state in a church as a holy martyr to religion, and surnamed him Thaumasios, the Admirable; yet he found himself compelled by the universal disgust of cultivated people to let this act be gradually forgotten,
Cyril is also frequently charged with the instigation of the murder of the renowned Hypatia, a friend of Orestes. But :u this cruel tragedy he probably had only the indirect part of exciting the passions of the Christian populace which led to it, and of giving them the sanction of his high office/
From his uncle he had learned a strong aversion to Chrysostom, and at the notorious Synodus ad Quercum near Chalcedon, A. D. 403, he voted for his deposition. He therefore obstinately resisted the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, when, shortly after the death of Chrysostom, they felt constrained to repeal his unjust condemnation ; and he was not
' Comp. above, § 6, p. 67, and Tillemont, torn. xiv. 274-"76. The learned, but superstitious and credulous Roman Catholic hagiographer, Alban Butler (Lives of the Saints, sub Jan. 28), considers Cyril innocent, and appeals to the silence of Orestes and Socrates. But Socrates, H. E. 1. vii. c. 15, expressly says of this revolting murder: ToCtu ou fxiKphv jxSinov KvpiWcf, koi ry roiiv 'AXe^avSpewv (KKX7](T[a etpydffoTo, and iidds that nothing can be so contrary to the spirit of Christianity as the permission of murders and similar acts of violence. Walch, Schrockh, Gibbon, and Milman incline to hold Cyril responsible for the murder of Hypatia, which was perpetrated imder the direction of a reader of his church, by the name of Peter. But the evidence is not sufficient. J. C. Robertson (History of the Christian Church, i. p. 401) more cautiously says: "That Cyril had any share in this atrocity appears to be an unsupported calumny ; but the perpetrators were mostly officers of his church, and had umiuestionably drawn encouragement from his earlier proceedings ; and his charactci deservedly suffered in consequence." Similarly W. Bright (A History of the Church from 313 to 451, p. 275): "Had there been no onslaught or the syua gogues, there would doubtless have been no murder of Hypatia."
94-1 THraD TEEIOD. A.D. 311-590.
even ashamed to compare tliat holy man to the traitor Judas. Yet lie afterwards yielded, at least in appearance, to the urgent remonstrances of Isidore of Pehisium and others, and admitted the name of Chrysostoiri into the di})tychs' of hig church (419), and so brouglit the Roman see again into communication with Alexandria,
From the year 428 to his deatli in 444 his life was inter* woven with the Christological controversies. He was the most zealous and the most influential champion of the anti-Nestorian orthodoxy at the third ecumenical council, and scrupled at no measures to annihilate his antagonist. Besides the weapons of theological learning and acumen, he allowed himself also the use of wilful misrepresentation, artifice, violence, instigation of people and monks at Constantinople, and repeated bribery of imperial officers, even of the emperor's sister Pulcheria. By his bribes he loaded the church property at Alexandria with debt, though he left considerable wealth even to his kindred, and adjured his successor, the worthless Dioscurus, with the most solemn religious ceremonies, not to disturb his heirs."
His subsequent exertions for the restoration of peace cannot M'ipe these stains from his character; for he was forced to those exertions by the power of the opposition. His successor Dioscurus, however (after 444), made him somewhat respectable by inheriting all his passions without his theological ability, and by setting them in motion for the destruction of the peace.
Cyril furnishes a striking proof that orthodoxy and piety are two quite different things, and that zeal for pure doctrine may coexist with an unchristian spirit. In personal character
' That is, the Sltrrvxa vexpoof, or two-leaved tablets, with the list of names of distinguished martyrs and bishops, and other persons of merit, of whom mention was to be made in tlie prayers of the ehurcli. The Greek church lias retained the use of diptychs to this day.
- Dioscurus, however, did not keep his word, but extorted from tlie heirs of Cyril immense sums of money, and reduced tliem to extreme want. So one of Cyril's relatives complained to the council at Clialcedon against Dioscurus (Acta Cone. Chalc. Act. iii. in Hardouin, torn. ii. 406). A verification of the proverb: lU gotten, ill gone.