Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on John is an indispensable resource for understanding how Cyril read the Bible. Modern studies of Cyril often pass over this aspect of his thought because he is primarily known for his Christology. The Commentary on John, however, provides a window to his thought processes as he grapples with the Scriptures on any number of issues. This commentary, perhaps more than any of Cyril’s other exegetical works, puts on full display the chief feature of Cyril’s brilliance: a breathtaking mastery of the contents of the Bible.
Our knowledge of Cyril’s early life is sparse and comes to us from writers who lived two centuries or more after Cyril. The church historian Socrates was a contemporary of Cyril, but he describes only Cyril’s later career. For his early life, we must turn to John of Nikiu, a seventh-century Coptic bishop and historian, who reports that Cyril was born to Christian parents in northern Egypt, in the town of Mahallê,1 probably near or identical with the village of Mehallet el-Kobra.2 The date of Cyril’s birth is uncertain, but John McGuckin posits 378 as an approximation.3
Cyril became the attendant of his uncle Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, and was ordained lector in the church of Alexandria. Theophilus also took charge of Cyril’s education. The History of the Patriarchs, composed by Severus, the tenth-century bishop of El-Ashmunien, reports that Theophilus sent Cyril to a monastery on the mount of Nitria in the desert of Saint Macarius for five years.4 There, Severus relates, he engaged in intense study of the Scriptures, aided by a photographic memory.5 He is said to have read through most of the New Testament during most nights of his study.6 The result of all this is that he memorized the entirety of the Scriptures.7
Because these claims about Cyril’s abilities are first recorded some five centuries after Cyril’s life, one may reasonably suspect that they contain an element of exaggeration.8 However, the Commentary on John displays a facility with the text of Scripture that is consonant with Severus’s estimation of Cyril’s powers. Cyril is able to matrix together passage after passage throughout Scripture on the basis of the fact that they contain the same word or phrase. For example, in his comment on John 5:35, in which Jesus refers to John the Baptist as “a burning and shining lamp,” Cyril calls the reader’s attention to other passages throughout the Scriptures that refer to lamps, with special reference to burning and shining.9 Patristic exegetes often drew connections between passages on the basis of a shared word or phrase,10 but Cyril’s facility at this suggests that he may have had large sections of the Scriptures memorized.
When Theophilus died, Cyril succeeded him as patriarch in 412. Cyril’s early episcopal career was stormy, to say the least, characterized by clashes with both the Jewish and pagan communities in Alexandria. These clashes culminated in the infamous murder of Hypatia, a renowned pagan philosopher. She was killed by a Christian mob, with which Cyril’s involvement was unclear.11 His later episcopal career was devoted largely to the Nestorian controversy. Nestorius described Christ in such a way as to give the impression that there were two acting subjects in Christ: a divine subject and a human one. Cyril, by contrast, strongly asserted the unity of Christ and insisted that anything that happens to Christ happens to the Word, not just to his human nature. Thus, for Cyril it was important to confess that Mary is the mother of God (theotokos), not just the mother of the man Jesus. Cyril continued his support of this unitive Christology until his death in 444.
Cyril wrote the Commentary on John sometime fairly early in his episcopacy, before the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy. There is no mention in the commentary of Nestorius or of the particular slogans of the Nestorian controversy, such as theotokos. Though Cyril does occasionally attack Antiochene Christology in general, the position he opposes is not unique to Nestorius. Indeed, as J. Mahé has pointed out, Athanasius attacks a similar christological position in his letter to Epictetus.12 When Cyril does name an opponent, he names Eunomius, not Nestorius. For these reasons, we can establish a terminus ante quem for the commentary of 428, the year when the Nestorian controversy broke out.13
A terminus a quo is somewhat more difficult to establish. The Commentary on John is an anti-Arian work, probably written about the same time as Cyril’s two other anti-Arian works: the Thesaurus and the Dialogue on the Trinity. More specifically, the Commentary on John was the last of these three works since he refers to both of them in the commentary.14 Cyril’s Paschal Letters are helpful in pinpointing when Arianism became a live concern for him. His early paschal letters address issues of the Christian life, and Cyril’s main opponents are the pagans and the Jews. In the letter of 424, however, Cyril becomes preoccupied with Arianism.15 If we assume that the anti-Arian writings were composed about this time, this gives us a terminus a quo of about 425 for the Commentary on John. The scholarly consensus, on this basis, dates the composition of the Commentary on John somewhere between 425 and 428.16
Little attention has been paid to the question of the intended reader of Cyril’s Commentary on John. Cyril himself says that he is engaging in “doctrinal explanation” (δογματικωτέραν ἐξήγησιν),17 and he clearly employs the Gospel of John to refute the arguments of the Arians, Jews and pagans. Cyril does not expect, however, that his opponents will read his commentary. Instead, his goal is to equip his readers to respond to the arguments of the opponents.
The main opposing argument is the Arian contention that the Son is not fully God. The Arians claim that the Son is like the Father but not of the same substance as the Father. Eunomius, who is the only opponent whom Cyril mentions by name in the commentary, takes that position one step further and claims that the Son is completely unlike the Father. In response to this view, Cyril tirelessly shows the reader from every conceivable angle how to prove that the Son is, in fact, God by nature.
Likewise, Cyril’s polemics against the Jews are directed primarily against their refusal to believe that Jesus is God by nature. In fact, Cyril often elides the Arian and the Jewish views of Christ, represented by the Pharisees in John’s Gospel, suggesting that they amount to the same thing. This does not mean, however, that the Jews in Cyril’s commentary are merely idealized constructs for the sake of argument. There was a real Jewish community in Alexandria18 with which Cyril often found himself in conflict. Cyril’s incessant repetition of the charge that the Jews are unlearned and senseless is one of the most troubling features of the commentary. It seems to stem from Cyril’s conviction that the Old Testament witness to the divinity of Christ is so clear that anyone who does not recognize it must be guilty of stupidity or malice.
Cyril does not spend nearly as much time in the commentary opposing the pagans as he does opposing the Arians and the Jews. However, the one pagan error that he consistently feels the need to correct is the idea that human life, including that of Jesus, is controlled by fate. When John states that Jesus’ “hour had not yet come” (Jn 7:30), Cyril worries that the reader might infer that Jesus’ death on the cross was decreed by fate, so Cyril takes pains to refute that interpretation.19 He also wants to make sure that his readers do not imagine that fate renders good works meaningless for humans in general. In opposition to such a view, he stresses human free will.20
But who, exactly, needs to be able to negotiate the complexities of all these arguments? There is a good deal of evidence in the commentary that Cyril assumes that his readers are charged with teaching the faith, especially to catechumens. Sometimes Cyril rebuts the arguments of his opponents directly, arguments which he considers to arise from the opponents’ evil will or madness. At other times, however, Cyril addresses questions that come from those who have a “devotion to learning,” questions which are prompted by difficulties in the text of John itself. In those cases, Cyril anticipates that the questions will be posed by the catechumens and that his readers must be able to answer those questions. For example, when Cyril discusses the statement that Jesus’ “hour had not yet come,” his particular concern is that “some of those being initiated into the mysteries (μυσταγωγουμένων)” might erroneously suppose that Jesus is under the control of fate.21 Cyril’s rebuttal of this view, then, is addressed not to the pagans or to the catechumens but to those charged with teaching the catechumens.
Cyril also draws lessons about pedagogy from the text of John, often portraying Jesus as a master catechist. For instance, Cyril presents Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus and the woman at the well as models for how to teach the faith to catechumens.22 The main pedagogical principles that Cyril wants to impress on his readers are that teachers in the church should be tireless in their attention to detail as well as their efforts in teaching and that they should start at a level appropriate to their students and gradually lead them to the full truth.
One may infer from these concerns that Cyril wishes to raise the level of catechesis in Alexandria. Indeed, in a few places, Cyril makes explicit reference to a lax state of catechesis in his day. He complains that catechumens are being baptized before they understand that Jesus is actually God23 and that catechumens are too quickly being ordained into the priesthood.24 Cyril does not say how widespread these deficiencies are, but his constant attention to issues of pedagogy suggests that he envisions his readers to be engaged in the task of catechesis and that his goal in the commentary is to help them accomplish that task more effectively. To that end, he teaches the reader how to respond to the (in his view dishonest) arguments of the Arians, Jews and pagans, as well as how to respond to honest questions posed by devoted students eager to learn the truth.
Cyril divides the commentary into twelve books, and the books are further divided into chapters. At the beginning of each book, Cyril provides a list of chapters for that particular book, identified by headings that describe the doctrinal content of each chapter. The modern reader may be tempted to interpret these lists as a table of contents, as if Cyril were trying to superimpose some kind of doctrinal outline on the text of John’s Gospel. It would be closer to the mark, however, to understand them as an index of topics.
The chapter headings would serve as a poor table of contents because they do not always provide a comprehensive summary of the material in each chapter. For example, the thesis for book 4, chapter 4 reads, “The holy tabernacle, which led the people through the desert, was a type of Christ, and so was the ark that was in it and the lamp and the altars, both the altar of incense and the altar of burnt offering. These signified Christ himself.” Indeed, the bulk of chapter 4 consists of an excursus about the significance of the tabernacle and its furnishings. However, chapter 4 concludes with a discussion of Jesus’ statement in John 6:70, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” This topic, however, is not included in the chapter heading.
Furthermore, Cyril states explicitly how he intends the reader to use these chapter headings. In the preface to the commentary, he informs the readers, “The list of the chapters below will show the subjects that the discourse covers. I have added numbers to it so that the readers will very quickly be able to find what they are looking for.”25 Thus, Cyril designs the commentary to be used as a reference work. This design makes sense if, in fact, the commentary is intended to aid catechists. When a catechumen has a question about whether souls existed before their embodiment, for example, or how Jesus can be God if he learns something from the Father, the catechist can consult the chapter headings and quickly locate where that topic is discussed in the commentary.
Finally, understanding the chapter headings as an index of doctrinal topics makes sense out of an otherwise odd feature of the commentary: the later books have far fewer chapter divisions than the earlier ones. Book 1, for example, consists of a preface and ten chapters, while Book 9 contains a preface and only one chapter. This is despite the fact that both books are roughly the same length. This can be explained, I believe, by the fact that most of the excurses and doctrinal discussions occur in the first half of the commentary. The second half is a running commentary on the text of John, so it requires far fewer entries in Cyril’s index of doctrinal topics. It would seem that by the time he gets to the second half of the commentary, Cyril runs out of new issues to discuss. The second half of the commentary is still a rich resource for displaying Cyril’s handling of the biblical text, and it covers such key events as the crucifixion and resurrection, but in general it does not contain as much explicit doctrinal discussion as the first half does.
Cyril’s literary style is complex and wordy. His sentences are lengthy, full of interlocking clauses, and his vocabulary can be unusual, even idiosyncratic. I have tried to preserve some of the structure of Cyril’s long sentences, but there is no way to replicate the floweriness in English without making the text incomprehensible to the modern reader. For example, Cyril wants to say that the death of Christ overturned the devil’s hopes. Instead of using the word hopes (ἐλπίδες), however, he uses the more expansive and abstract phrase “the things in the hopes” (τὰ ἐν ἐλπίσι).26 I have rendered this phrase “hopes,” since “the things in the hopes” of the devil would make no sense to the English reader. Another example of stylistic artifice occurs when Cyril says that the person with a pure heart will follow Christ and ascend to the spiritual mountain “at the time of the kingdom of heaven.” In this case, the meaning of the words is straightforward, but the triple-nested structure is not: κατὰ τὸν τῆς τῶν οὐρανῶν βασιλείας καιρόν.27 Cyril has so constructed the sentence that the definite article occurs three times in a row, each in a different case!
Stylistic characteristics such as these are distasteful to the modern reader. What Robert Wilken says of Cyril’s Contra Iulianum could also be said of the Commentary on John: Cyril’s style is “prolix and turgid, an unhappy synergy of grandiloquence and affectation.”28 For Cyril, however, the affectation presumably conveyed a sense of erudition and prestige. By the end of the fourth century, Christianity enjoyed secure status as the religion of the empire. Along with this new status came a writing style that no longer reproduced the spoken Greek of the day, as the New Testament did, but one that imitated the glories of the past, drawing heavily on Attic forms.29
Before leaving the issue of style, there is one feature of the present translation that deserves some comment: inclusive language. I have tried to use inclusive language where it seemed possible to do so. This is not to suggest that Cyril thought of men and women as equals30 but to produce a translation that conforms to the standards of English prose.31
The current translation is based on the critical edition of Cyril’s Commentary on John prepared by P. E. Pusey in 1872, as part of the Oxford Movement’s impetus to foster a return to patristic sources. Pusey’s critical edition is in turn based on three main manuscripts ranging from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries which, together, comprise books 1-6 and 9-12.32
Books 7 and 8 of the commentary have been lost, except for fragments that have been preserved in various catenas on the Gospel of John. Pusey has compiled these fragments in his critical edition. Twenty-one additional fragments have been discovered since Pusey’s time and edited by Joseph Reuss,33 and those also have been included in this translation with footnotes indicating that they come from Reuss. For the convenience of readers who wish to consult the critical editions, I have placed the page references to those editions in bold roman type within brackets. For appearance’s sake, the publisher has often included them at the end of the previous page rather than at the beginning of the new page. Readers should be able to sort out which volume is in mind by the context.
Patristic exegesis frequently seems arbitrary or even bizarre to modern readers. One reason for this is that modern readers and exegetes understand the meaning of the text to correspond to the original intentions of the human author. The exegetical task, from a modern perspective, is to discover this original intent by examining the text in light of the surrounding verses and in light of the historical circumstances of the author.
Patristic exegetes, by contrast, see their ultimate goal as interpreting a given text in light of the overall sweep of God’s plan of salvation. Although they do give attention to surrounding verses and sometimes even to the historical circumstances of a text’s composition,34 they see these matters as preliminary steps in the interpretive process. The goal, however, is to explain how a given text fits into the oikonomia35 of salvation. Since patristic authors hold that the Scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit, they are confident that the Scriptures convey not only truths contained in the surface meaning of the texts but also truths concerning God’s plan of salvation. Exegesis is “spiritual” when its objects are spiritual, that is, not accessible to sense perception, such as forgiveness and salvation.36
In this description of patristic exegesis, I have intentionally avoided drawing a contrast between Antioch and Alexandria or between typology and allegory. In the twentieth century, histories of theology commonly intoned that Antiochene exegetes were more concerned with the literal meaning of the text and practiced typology (an exegetical method that is supposedly respectful of the historical context) while Alexandrian exegetes were more interested in spiritualizing the text by practicing allegory (an exegetical method that is supposedly dismissive of the historical context). However, the view that Antioch and Alexandria represent a sharp dichotomy between two exegetical methods that are fundamentally opposed to each other has largely been discredited.37 When one reads the commentaries produced by both sides (rather than just the polemical literature) one finds that both sides give attention to the literal meaning of the text and that both are ultimately concerned to find the mystery of Christ in the Old Testament.38
Cyril’s Commentary on John is an excellent example of this phenomenon. While Cyril is certainly capable of exegetical moves that strike modern readers as fanciful, most scholars have judged Cyril’s exegesis to be relatively sober and innocent of the excessive allegory that is supposed to characterize Alexandrian exegesis, so much so that one important study of Cyril’s exegesis notes that he has exegetical tendencies “commonly thought to be peculiar to Antioch.”39 One wonders, however, whether the fact that the patriarch of Alexandria practices “Antiochene” exegesis may indicate that the sharp contrast between Antioch and Alexandria is problematic to begin with.
Fundamentally, what is driving Cyril’s exegesis is not a particular method but the conviction that the Scriptures are about the economy of salvation carried out by Christ and the commitment to use the Gospel of John to help catechists teach this faith to their catechumens. When Cyril makes connections between passages based on a shared word or phrase, or when he finds a small detail in the Gospel narrative to reveal a larger truth about the economy of salvation, he is acting consistently with this view of the purpose of Scripture.
So far I have tried to describe Cyril’s approach to exegesis in general terms, but there is one specific feature of the exegetical task that deserves a brief discussion: Cyril’s way of referring to texts. Bibles in Cyril’s day did not have chapter and verse divisions. They were, however, divided into sections (κεφάλαια) that corresponded to units of sense.40 English Bibles do something analogous to this when they divide the text into sections and provide headings like “The Wedding at Cana” or “I Am the Bread of Life.”
Occasionally, Cyril refers to the section divisions in his Bible, as when he compares the sections dealing with the Samaritan woman at the well, the royal official and the healing at Bethesda on the sabbath. He comments that they all show the Gentiles responding better to Jesus than the Jews do, and he notes that this conclusion flows from “the well-ordered placement of these sections (κεφαλαίων) next to each other.”41 Usually, however, he introduces a quote by identifying the speaker: “Christ says” or “the Evangelist says.”
In many cases, he introduces a quote by saying that it says “somewhere” (που) and then goes on to provide the quote.42 Rarely does Cyril name the book of the Bible from which he is drawing the quotation. The use of the vague term “somewhere” does not, however, indicate that Cyril is unable to remember the source of the quotation. It is merely a citation formula that is equivalent to something like “the Bible says.”
This fact becomes clear when one surveys the many occurrences of this formula. First, the quotes that Cyril provides are almost always verbatim; they are not paraphrases. This suggests that he is not treating the quotations casually. Indeed, it would be incredible to suppose that he could recall the verbatim quotes but could almost never remember the source of the quotes. Second, in a discussion of false prophecies, Cyril refers to a pair of passages from Jeremiah. He introduces the first quote by saying, “The Lord of all says most clearly somewhere (που) about them,”43 and then cites Jeremiah 23:21. Then he adds a quotation from Jeremiah 14:14, introducing it with the words, “And again in Jeremiah.”44 This second introductory phrase reveals that he knows that both quotes are from Jeremiah, even though he introduced the first one with “somewhere.” “Somewhere,” therefore, should be taken as a formulaic way to cite a text rather than an indication of a lapse of memory. In fact, Cyril may have derived this formula from the New Testament itself.45
Cyril’s Commentary on John is not the kind of text one can readily absorb by reading passively. If the reader does not bring questions to the text, reading Cyril will likely be a frustrating experience. Therefore, I offer the following list of suggestions to help the reader who may be new to patristic literature gain entrance into Cyril’s world of thought.
Modern readers may not always feel at home with the exegetical moves that Cyril makes, but they will be drawn deeper into the biblical text and be led to consider the story of Christ in fresh and unexpected ways.
Fairbairn, Donald. Grace and Christology in the Early Church. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Farag, Lois M. St. Cyril of Alexandria, a New Testament Exegete: His Commentary on the Gospel of John. Gorgias Dissertations 29. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007.
Keating, Daniel A. The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Kerrigan, Alexander. St. Cyril of Alexandria: Interpreter of the Old Testament. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1952.
Koen, Lars. The Saving Passion: Incarnational and Soteriological Thought in Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1991.
O’Keefe, John J., and R. R. Reno. Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Weinandy, Thomas G., and Daniel A. Keating, eds. The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation. London: T&T Clark, 2003.
Wilken, Robert L. Judaism and the Early Christian Mind: A Study of Cyril of Alexandria’s Exegesis and Theology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971.