Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor

I think I am going to start something new. I am going to start to put a little something about each of the saints that are featured in the daily readings for the Roman Cathoilc Chruch according to the Criterion. This is a newspaper for my archdiocies (Indianapolis). So our first saint that we will be looking at will be Cyril of Alexandria.

Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor
This information comes from Catholic Encyclopedia.

found on the 9th of June, and (together with St. Athanasius) on the 18th of January.

He was from an alexandrain family and the nephew to Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria. For a period of time he was a monk; however, in October 15th of 412 he was named successor to his uncle as the "Synod of the Oak".

During his time he had a great deal of power that made others jelous. He also drove out the Jewish people who had been massacuring the Christians. He was also able to get 500 monks from Nitria to help defend the patriarch. During these years there were many such riots and battles. Cyril was able to honor martyers and he attempted to keep the peace the best he could.

It also seems, due to a lack of communication with Rome, he was a qersecutor of St. Chrysostom and refused to insert his name in the diptychs of his Church untill he later yielded.

He also took a stand against Antiochene Nestorius who became patriarch of Constantinople. It seems he had some heretical teachings; however, the Pope did not take sides of eather when Nestorius wrote to him. It seems the Pope did have a great deal of respect for Cyril due to him being the first prelate of the East and inheritor of the Athanasius and Pter traditions...

As a Theologian:
The principal fame of St. Cyril rests upon his defence of Catholic doctrine against Nestorius. He wished, against Apollinarius, to teach that Christ was a perfect man, and he took the denial of a human personality in Our Lord to imply an Apollinarian incompleteness in His Human Nature. The union of the human and the Divine natures was therefore to Nestorius an unspeakably close junction, but not a union in one hypostasis. St. Cyril taught the personal, or hypostatic, union in the plainest terms; and when his writings are surveyed as a whole, it becomes certain that he always held the true view, that the one Christ has two perfect and distinct natures, Divine and human. But he would not admit two physeis in Christ, because he took physis to imply not merely a nature but a subsistent (i.e. personal) nature. His opponents misrepresented him as teaching that the Divine person suffered, in His human nature; and he was constantly accused of Apollinarianism. On the other hand, after his death Monophysitism was founded upon a misinterpretation of his teaching. Especially unfortunate was the formula "one nature incarnate of God the Word" (mia physis tou Theou Logou sesarkomene), which he took from a treatise on the Incarnation which he believed to be by his great predecessor St. Athanasius. By this phrase he intended simply to emphasize against Nestorius the unity of Christ's Person; but the words in fact expressed equally the single Nature taught by Eutyches and by his own successor Diascurus. He brings out admirably the necessity of the full doctrine of the humanity to God, to explain the scheme of the redemption of man. He argues that the flesh of Christ is truly the flesh of God, in that it is life-giving in the Holy Eucharist. In the richness and depth of his philosophical and devotional treatment of the Incarnation we recognize the disciple of Athanasius. But the precision of his language, and perhaps of his thought also, is very far behind that which St. Leo developed a few years after Cyril's death.

His writings
The exegetical works of St. Cyril are very numerous. The seventeen books "On Adoration in Spirit and in Truth" are an exposition of the typical and spiritual nature of the Old Law. The Glaphyra or "brilliant", Commentaries on Pentateuch are of the same nature. Long explanations of Isaias and of the minor Prophets give a mystical interpretation after the Alexandrian manner. Only fragments are extant of other works on the Old Testament, as well as of expositions of Matthew, Luke, and some of the Epistles, but of that of St. Luke much is preserved in a Syriac version. Of St. Cyril's sermons and letters the most interesting are those which concern the Nestorian controversy. Of a great apologetic work in the twenty books against Julian the Apostate ten books remain. Among his theological treatises we have two large works and one small one on the Holy Trinity, and a number of treatises and tracts belonging to the Nestorian controversy.

The first collected edition of St. Cyril's works was by J. Aubert, 7 vols., Paris, 1638; several earlier editions of some portions in Latin only are enumerated by Fabricius. Cardinal Mai added more material in the second and third volumes of his "Bibliotheca nova Patrum", II-III, 1852; this is incorporated, together with much matter from the Catenæ published by Ghislerius (1633), Corderius, Possinus, and Cranor (1838), in Migne's reprint of Aubert's edition (P.G. LXVIII-LXVII, Paris, 1864). Better editions of single works include P. E. Pusey, "Cyrilli Alex. Epistolae tres oecumenicae, libri V c. Nestorium, XII capitum explanatio, XII capitum defensio utraque scholia de Incarnatione Unigeniti" (Oxford, 1875); "De recta fide ad principissas de recta fide ad Augustas, quad unus Christus, dialogus apologeticus ad Imp." (Oxford, 1877); "Cyrilli Alex. in XII Prophetas" (Oxford, 1868, 2 vols.); "In divi Joannis Evangelium" (Oxford, 1872, 3 vols., including the fragments on the Epistles). "Three Epistles, with revised text and English translation" (Oxford, 1872); translations in the Oxford "Library of the Fathers"; "Commentary on St. John", I (1874), II (1885); Five tomes against Nestorius" (1881); R. Payne Smith, "S. Cyrilli Alex. Comm. in Lucae evang. quae supersunt Syriace e manuscripts apud Mus. Brit." (Oxford, 1858); the same translated into English (Oxford, 1859, 2 vols.); W. Wright, "Fragments of the Homilies of Cyril of Alex. on St. Luke, edited from a Nitrian manuscript" (London, 1874); J. H. Bernard, "On Some Fragments of an Uncial manuscript of St. Cyril of Alex. Written on Papyrus" (Trans. of R. Irish Acad., XXIX, 18, Dublin, 1892); "Cyrilli Alex. librorum c. Julianum fragmenta syriaca:, ed. E. Nestle etc. in "Scriptorum grecorum, qui Christianam impugnaverunt religionem", fasc. III (Leipzig, 1880). Fragments of the "Liber Thesaurorum" in Pitra, "Analecta sacra et class.", I (Paris, 1888).

(for the full background please read the artical)