Against Julian 1 part 1/6

Address of the blessed Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, to the most pious and Christ-loving emperor Theodosius

Worthy of all report, excellent, and beyond every word are the achievements of your holy reign, and that incomparable devotion to piety which, descending upon you from above as a kind of inheritance, you have kept unconquered by the arrows of envy, through your felicity in all things most excellent — an inheritance that is yours from your father, and further still from your grandfather, as is clearly seen in these very things.

And it lies before me to apply to you yourselves the words of our Savior:

"A city set upon a hill cannot be hidden;"

for that which is raised on high is always, in a sense, attended by conspicuousness.

What indeed could be equal in weight to your Serenity? Nothing at all;

for the glory of your scepters has advanced to its very utmost portion, illumining the whole world with the brightness of good order, and gladdening heaven — that is, the powers above, the rational powers in heaven — with gentleness and with piety toward Christ.

For you are so admired in both respects that, possessing in them a virtue evenly matched, you have surpassed every manner of praise.

From others, then, O Christ-loving emperor Theodosius, come to you as votive offerings victories, and crowns, and words of thanksgiving, and all those things by which the might of emperors might not unfittingly be honored.

Prologue. But it was fitting that from us also, who have been allotted the divine priestly ministry, books well composed on behalf of the glory of God should be brought forward as offerings;

for it is ever dear to you, and habitual, and truly much desired, to build it up, and to regard as most abominable, and to number among the bitterest enemies, those who in any way at all commit outrage against it, while deeming worthy of all honor those who choose to think and to speak the things that are for the glory of God.

And this too, I would say, is an advantage befitting holiness, and most especially fitting for your celebrated highness.

"Have I not hated those who hate you, O Lord, and pined away because of your enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred; they became enemies to me."

And this saying is exceedingly fitting;

for just as it is a clear proof of one's goodwill toward you to set oneself in opposition to loving those who, through I know not what excessive stupidity, have chosen not to love [you], so too the genuineness of one's love for Christ would be manifested by vigorously resisting those who have slandered what is his, all but crying out and saying that word found in the God-inspired Scripture:

It is necessary to say what kind of dedication of my discourse to you this is.

Prologue. And grant me your pardon, since I have chosen to speak not against a mere king, but on behalf of the glory of Christ, the great king who together with his own Father rules over all things, to whom alone it would be fitting to say:

"For he himself is the Lord of glory, both in heaven and on earth."

...good for those who shall read it: for those whose hearts are easily led astray and most readily swept away toward what is unfitting, it is a most needful help; while for those who already stand firm in the faith, it is a kind of staff able to sustain them, so that they may be the more solidly grounded and may hold unshaken the tradition of the orthodox faith.

Who then is he who has fought against the glory of Christ? Very many indeed, at various times, have been driven to this through the perversity of the devil; but most of all, Julian, who once shone in the pride of imperial rule, having failed to recognize Christ as the giver of his kingship and of his very power to rule.

For before the time of his reign he was numbered among the believers, and had even been deemed worthy of holy baptism itself, and had also been trained in the sacred books.

Prologue. But I know not how it was that certain defiled and superstitious men, having become his acquaintances, let loose upon him arguments urging apostasy; then, taking Satan as their ally-in-arms for this purpose, they conveyed him over into the customs of the Greeks and rendered a worshiper of unclean demons the very man who had been reared in holy churches and monasteries;

"for evil companionships corrupt good morals," as the all-wise Paul says.

I say that those who wish to have a firm mind, and who guard the tradition of the orthodox faith as a kind of pearl, must give no entry into their minds, nor any room for boldness, to those who wish to be superstitious;

"With the holy you will be holy, and with the innocent man you will be innocent, and with the elect you will be elect, and with the crooked you will show yourself perverse."

Having then a naturally gifted tongue, the most excellent Julian sharpened it against Christ, the Savior of us all;

and indeed he composed three books against the holy Gospels and against the pious religion of the Christians, and through them he shakes many, and has done no small wrong.

Those who are light-minded and easily swayed fall readily into his snares and become sweet prey for the demons;

and even those who stand firm in the faith are sometimes, in a way, thrown into confusion;

for they suppose that he knows the sacred and divine Scriptures, since from them he heaps up in his own arguments a very great number of testimonies, although he does not know what he is saying.

Prologue. Since, then, a very great number of the superstitious, encountering those who think as Christ [teaches], heap reproach upon them up and down, putting forward that man's writings against us, claiming that their vehemence is unassailable, and that none of our teachers has ever been able either to refute or to overturn his arguments — since many have urged me to this task, I too, taking courage, now say to God:

"Go, and I will open your mouth" — I gave myself over to the task of humbling the Greek brow that is lifted up against the glory of Christ, and of defending, so far as I am able, those who have been deceived, and of showing that he who has accused Christ the Savior of us all is both mistaken and ignorant of the divine Scriptures.

And I have dedicated the discourse composed for this purpose to your Christ-loving and most pious highness, whom may God ever keep in unshaken good cheer, prevailing greatly over enemies, and holding all beneath your feet, and handing down your holy reign to your children's children, with Christ's assent — through whom and with whom, to God and Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen.

Book One. The wise and sagacious, and those skilled in the sacred doctrines, marvel at the beauty of truth, and in every discourse make it their aim to be able to understand a parable and a dark saying, the sayings of the wise and their riddles.

For thus, thus, by fixing upon the God-inspired Scriptures a precise and well-articulated understanding, they fill their own souls with divine light, and having taken up the enviable boast of a right and most lawful manner of life, they would also become the source of the highest benefit to others.

"Son, if you become wise for yourself, you will be wise also for your neighbor."

But those who are perverse in heart and maimed in understanding, and wholly without share in the divine light, rise up against the doctrines of piety, and speak with excessive boldness of mouth, and exalt themselves against the ineffable glory, and, uttering blasphemous words, speak wickedness on high, according to what is sung in the Psalms:

And I think they suffer this ailment from excessive stupor and from the ignorance inherent in them — or rather, if the truth must be told, from the plotting of that evil and mischief-originating dragon, I mean Satan.

And the divinely-inspired Paul confirms us in this very point, having written:

"But even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, in whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should not shine upon them."

That, then, he who is reckoned to be the god of this age, the thief of the highest glory, has darkened their heart, is not unclear;

for they have gone astray, admittedly, and set over human life gods beyond counting, demons and the souls of heroes, as they themselves say and have resolved to believe.

But there would be, on their account, the tear of those who think rightly, had they for the most part chosen to keep silent about the things over which one might well be ashamed;

but as it is, their undertaking has advanced so far in impiety that they seek to instill in others also the disease of so shameful a superstition.

For like serpents lurking at the crossroads, they leap bitterly upon those who pass by there, injecting the venom of destruction into those who are easily led astray;

and of them it might well be said, and most fittingly:

"Serpents, brood of vipers, how can you speak good things, being evil?" Nor would the Lord miss the truth in saying:

"The good man brings forth good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings forth evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart"; and:

"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."

And I say this having read the books of Julian, who made an unbearable denunciation of our pious religion, saying that we have gone astray and have senselessly departed from the straight and blameless way, and travel as it were over rocks, and offer, in a wholly unacceptable manner, worship to the God over all — a worship that agrees neither with the laws given through the all-wise Moses, nor indeed with the superstitions of the Greeks, that is, their customs and manners, but have devised, as it were, a new life midway between both, erring in respect of each.

But I would say that we have indeed been freed from the folly of the Greeks, and that a great wall of reasoning separates the affairs of the Christians from their trumpery;

"for there is no fellowship of light with darkness, nor any portion for a believer with an unbeliever."

And that we are not at variance with the books of Moses, nor have we practiced a manner of life set in opposition to his ordinances, I shall try to establish with full assurance as best I am able, when the fitting occasion exercises our argument on these points.

Yet for the present I think it necessary to say this:

...that those who come after can know the affairs of those who were first, but by no means can those who came before know the affairs of those who came last;

Therefore, since the sons of the Greeks pride themselves greatly on their own teachers, and suppose that they can strike us with awe by naming certain Anaximanders and Empedocleses, Protagorases and Platos, and add to these also the others who have been the inventors of their unholy doctrines and, so to speak, the fountains of ignorance — come, let us say that one might observe them raised up against one another, as it were, in their differing opinions, and bringing forward, for each thing that exists, explanations that do not agree with one another.

Let us then, in addition to this, demonstrate that Moses obtained seniority in point of time, and introduced a right and most unerring doctrine concerning the ineffable substance, highest above all, and gave an excellent account of the making of the world, and was a lawgiver of no small admiration in matters of piety and righteousness; whereas those among them called wise men were in fact the latest and the most recent, and had stolen his teachings and woven them into their own writings — even though they were not entirely successful in doing so soundly, so as thereby to seize a dignified reputation and to seem to say something of the truth.

Now then, some [of them] arose after Moses, while others flourished at the same time as the holy prophets who came after him;

and those among them who chose to follow their opinions have been deemed worthy of a better verdict than the rest, even though the account they render of the doctrine concerning God is not wholly free from falsehood.

That, then, the divinely-inspired Moses was, as I say, the oldest with respect to the time of his origin, while the others came after him and are the most recent, we shall establish clearly by searching through the books of those who have accurately recorded chronology.

And I say that it is necessary for those who are about to read this not to grow quickly weary over the reading and the catalogue of names, or the enumeration of dates, but rather to thirst intensely for the full information on each point, which is good and profitable.

Accordingly, Noah, a man among those most beloved of God, was the tenth from the first man, that is, from Adam;

to him the God of all things gave command, since the flood was about to come and everything upon the earth was about to be utterly destroyed, to construct an ark, and, together with his dearest kin and their wives and all manner of kinds of cattle, birds, and creeping things, to enter into it and to sail through in it;

and when this had been carried through to its completion, the whole human race and the other animals were destroyed, but he, together with his whole household, was preserved.

And when the waters had subsided, the ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat, that is, of Armenia, and he, having again planted his foot upon the earth, offered sacrifices of thanksgiving.

The God-inspired Scripture is indeed sufficient credit for belief;

but since certain of the superstitious say that what is found among us consists of idle myths, having in them nowhere either plausibility or truth, I shall of necessity mention also the historians found among them — I mean Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus.

For they themselves have given an account of these matters in their own writings, even if not altogether faultlessly, but rather in a strange manner, inasmuch as they were also without a share in the doctrines of piety.

And Alexander speaks as follows:

"And when Otiartes died, his son Xisouthros reigned for eighteen sari."

In his time, they say, the great flood occurred;

Then he says that Xisuthros was saved, Kronos having foretold to him beforehand what was to happen, and that it was fitting for him to build an ark and to sail in it together with birds, reptiles, and cattle.

Abydenus, at any rate, gives a clearer account, speaking as follows:

After him others reigned, and also Xisuthros;

the next thing was to hide it in the city of the Sun among the Sipparenes

Xisuthros, having accomplished these things, sailed straightway to Armenia, and at once what came from God overtook him.

On the third day, when the rain had ceased, he released some of the birds, making trial whether they might anywhere see land emerging from the water;

but they, a boundless sea awaiting them, and being at a loss where they might settle, were carried back to Xisuthros, and after them other birds likewise;

but when he had success with the third birds — for indeed they came back with their feet full of mud — the gods removed him from among men.

And the ship remained in Armenia, and pieces of its wood supplied the local inhabitants with charms against poison.

They call Noah Xisuthros, perhaps according to the speech of the Assyrians; and in this too they have again missed the truth, saying that Kronos gave him his oracles, instead of the God who is over all — and this is nothing to wonder at;

for they have not come to share in the divine light, nor indeed have they beheld with the eyes of the mind the awesome beauty of truth.

Noah, then, having come forth from the ark, offered sacrifice, and there he lodged together with his dearest ones.

And he had three sons born to him, and from these very many others in turn, and they became a second beginning of those upon the earth; at first they dwelt together, and only in the land toward the sunrise, but after this they were scattered everywhere, when the God who is over all divided them into a multiplicity of tongues;

for he was indignant at the building of the tower.

And that those whom we have just now named also called this history to mind, we shall know no less from what they have written.

For Alexander speaks as follows:

And the Sibyl says that, while all men were of one speech, some of them built an exceedingly great tower, so that they might ascend into heaven, but that God, having blown winds upon the tower, overturned it and gave to each a language of his own;

wherefore indeed the city was called Babylon.

In this land, they say, the first who rose up, having become puffed up by their strength and stature, and indeed deeming themselves far superior to the gods, raised a towering fortress, where Babylon now stands;

and that it was already near to heaven, and that the winds, coming to the aid of the gods, overturned the structure upon them;

and that its ruins are called Babylon, and that those who until then were of one language received from the gods a manifold, babbling speech.

Now when those of Noah's blood had been scattered, and time in turn had run its course, the first of the Assyrians said to have reigned in splendor is Ninus, son of Arbelus, after whom the city of Nineveh is also named, whose walls Semiramis, who lived together with Ninus as his wife, built on a magnificent scale.

While Ninus, then, was governing the kingdom of the Assyrians, and Europs that of the Sicyonians, they say that the blessed Abraham came to be — a man of great understanding and wide learning, and one who was eager to make the knowledge of the truth, and of who is the demiurge and lord of all things, one of the matters most earnestly pursued.

For he was casting off, and setting at the furthest remove from himself, the opinions of the Assyrians — those, I mean, that belong to the error of polytheism.

And since he supposed that the knowledge of the truth would suffice him for every prosperity, he was received by God;

"Go out from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land which I shall show you."

In what manner he then lived out his life, and how many descended from him, I shall pass over for the present, since the occasion necessarily turns our discourse to other matters.

But passing over those in between, on account of the multitude of the histories and the names, I shall come swiftly to the hierophant Moses himself.

For when the four hundred and twenty-fifth year had passed after the divine Abraham, Moses was born in Egypt, those of Abraham's blood having by then sojourned there.

he made human learning a preliminary exercise for the more divine things.

Having thus brought the chronology down from Abraham to Moses, let us here begin again another reckoning of years, setting the birth of Moses at the head of the numbers that follow.

In the 7th year of Moses, they say Prometheus and Epimetheus came to be, and Atlas, the brother of Prometheus, and also Argus the all-seeing.

In the 35th year of Moses, Cecrops, surnamed the two-natured, first reigned at Athens;

and at that same time there were also Linus the Theban and Amphion, the musicians.

In the 195th year after Moses, they say occurred the rape of Kore, sung of among the Greeks, by Aidoneus, who was king of the Molossians;

this man is said to have reared an enormous dog, Cerberus, which he set loose upon Pirithous and Theseus when they came to carry off his own wife;

then they say that, when Pirithous had perished, Heracles happened to be present and rescued Theseus;

wherefore they also fable that he escaped from Hades.

In the 355th year after Moses, Priam reigns after Laomedon.

In the 410th year after Moses, Ilium was sacked, while Essebon governed the affairs of the Hebrews, Agamemnon those of the Argives, Uaphres those of the Egyptians, and Tautanus those of the Assyrians.

There are reckoned, then, from the birth of Moses until the capture of Ilium, 410 years.

And observe with me again those who follow in succession:

for I shall speak in cursory fashion, not lingering over those who arose in the intervening time, but anchoring my discourse rather on the necessary persons.

In the 65th year after the capture of Ilium, the priest Eli died, according to what is written in the First Book of Kingdoms (1 Samuel);

and the foreigners carried the ark off into their own land, while the blessed Samuel was prophesying, and Saul had by then already been anointed as king.

In the 165th year after the capture of Ilium, they say Homer and Hesiod came to be, while Labotas reigned over the Lacedaemonians, Laosthenes over the Assyrians, Alba Silvius over the Latins, and Agelaus over the Corinthians.

In the 365th year after the capture of Ilium, Lycurgus legislated for the Lacedaemonians, while Agemon was king of the Corinthians, and Proca Silvius of the Latins,

while Azarias, also called Ozias, governed the affairs of the Hebrews, and Arbaces those of the Medes, and Proca Silvius those of the Latins.

There are reckoned, then, from the capture of Ilium to the first Olympiad, 405 years; and from the birth of Moses to that same first Olympiad, 815 years.

In the first Olympiad, Arctinus, the epic poet of Miletus, is said to have lived, and Remus and Romulus came to be, while Jotham was king of Judea, and Pekah of Israel.

In the 9th Olympiad, they say the epic poet Eumelus came to be, and the Erythraean Sibyl.

In the 17th Olympiad, they say there came to be a Sibyl whom they also named Herophile.

In the 23rd Olympiad, they say Archilochus came to be, while Manasseh governed the realm of the Jews.

In the 29th Olympiad, they say Hipponax and Simonides became known, and the musician Aristoxenus.

In the 35th Olympiad, Thales, son of Examyas, of Miletus, is said to have become the first natural philosopher, and they say his life extended to the 58th Olympiad.

In the 36th Olympiad, the divine Jeremiah was prophesying in Judea, and also Zephaniah.

In the 42nd Olympiad, Alcmaeon, and Pittacus of Mytilene, one of the Seven Sages, and besides these also the poet Stesichorus became known.

In the 50th Olympiad, the Seven Sages became known, and Anaximander of Miletus, a natural philosopher.

In the 56th Olympiad, while Cyrus governed the realm of the Persians, Haggai and Zechariah were prophesying, and Simonides and Chilon, being among the Seven Sages, were already known.

In the 58th Olympiad, the poet Theognis became known.

In the 59th Olympiad, Ibycus the lyric poet, and Pherecydes the historiographer, and Phocylides and Xenophanes, poets of tragedies, came to be.

In the 62nd Olympiad, Pythagoras is said to have come to be.

In the 88th Olympiad, they say the comic poet Aristophanes came to be, and Eupolis and Plato.

In the 103rd Olympiad, they say Aristotle was a hearer of Plato, being then quite young in age.

In the 112th Olympiad, they say that Alexandria near Egypt was founded, in the seventh year of the reign of Alexander;

and at that same time the philosophers Anaximenes and Epicurus came to be.

In the 124th Olympiad, while Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, was king of Egypt, they say that Sarapis came to Alexandria from Sinope, and that he was the same as Pluto;

wherefore also a temple was built for the statue, which the Egyptians call in their native tongue Rhacotis, meaning by this nothing other than Pluto;

for this reason too they made the temple a neighbor to the tombs.

But the account concerning him is disputed among the Greeks:

for some do not think him to be Pluto, but rather Osiris, while others think him to be Apis,

having come to agreement upon the name Osirapis, so that Osiris and Apis might be understood as one and the same,

And of both of these a death and a burial are reported:

But long usage, having dropped the syllable OSI, caused the image to be called Sarapis.

But this Ptolemy, who was among the most devoted to letters, sent one of his associates to Judea, writing to Eleazar, who was then priest according to the laws, that all the books of Moses and of the holy prophets should be sent to him, since he was exceedingly eager to learn them, and that those able to translate them into the Greek tongue should be sent along with them.

In the hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad, while Augustus Caesar was ruling over the Romans, our Lord Jesus Christ was born according to the flesh.

From the exact record, then, of dates and indeed of genealogies, how is it not evident to all that the divinely-inspired Moses was the eldest of all the wise men among the Greeks, while they are recent and, as it were, newly-appeared? For it is by long stretches of time later than the beginning of the register of the Olympiads that they came to be.

From this, I think, it is easier to observe, and true to say, that they have not been entirely without a share in the doctrines of Moses, nor indeed unacquainted with the god-given and unadulterated wisdom present in him; yet they sometimes murmur against the truth, entangling falsehood with it, as it were mixing mud into a most fragrant perfume.

For what wise and estimable branch of learning is not present in the Mosaic writings? Or how could one not admire his works? For those who have precisely mastered the elaborate subtleties of the Greeks say that philosophy is divided into theoretical science and practical science, and that if anyone should prove skilled in both, they say that such a one brings philosophy to a good conclusion.

Consider, then, consider Moses as being such a one:

for he speaks of divine things as no other does, concerning the highest of all essence and its incomparable glory and its supremacy over all things, and he declares the one and only God to be the maker of the coming-to-be of all things and their Lord.

And for those for whom the good in speech and the pursuit of a good life is a matter of earnest care, he is seen laying down as law all the best and most excellent things, and those things by which they might be most especially held in reverence.

Yes indeed, the writings of Moses are older than those of the wise men among the Greeks:

yet it is not, however, true to say that they could be wholly convicted of having stolen away, or appropriated for themselves, the wisdom present in him.

Therefore, whether the argument we have set forth has much probability, let those who love to listen judge for themselves.

The historians among them, roaming, so to speak, over the whole earth, always wished to learn something, so that they might seem to know many things:

for indeed they made it an ornament of their own writing to pass over none of the things that had happened in silence.

How then would such men, accustomed as they were to profitable learning, have neglected to learn thoroughly such venerable histories, and the exact explanation of doctrines and laws of the most venerable antiquity? And yet Pythagoras of Samos and Thales of Miletus, having spent no small time in Egypt, and having gathered together the things from there, and having amassed the store of learning which they are said to have possessed, returned to their native land.

And indeed Plato himself, the son of Ariston, says in the Timaeus that Solon of Athens came to the land of the Egyptians, and inquired of one of the false prophets there, that is, of the priests, who said:

'O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children; there is no old Greek, but all of you are young in soul.'

'For you have among yourselves no ancient tradition, nor any learning grown grey with time:'

'but it has escaped your notice, because for many generations your people have died voiceless, without letters.'

But, I think, through these words too one might discern that the things of the Christians are venerable with antiquity:

...having conveyed it to them from Phoenicia—except that the writings of Moses had already been written:

But Solon, the discoverer of the laws at Athens, and indeed Plato himself too, having been in Egypt in order to seem to know something more than all others, have surely, I suppose, admired the very works of Moses as well.

And that Moses was very well known to the historians of the Greeks can be seen from the very things which they have written.

For Polemon, in the first book of his Greek Histories, made mention of him, and so did Ptolemy of Mendes, and indeed Hellanicus and Philochorus, Castor too, and others besides these.

For after the ancient condition of life in Egypt, which is said in myth to have occurred under gods and heroes, they say that the man who first persuaded the masses to make use of written laws — a man great in soul and most extraordinary in life among those commemorated by the Jews — was Moses, who was called god.