Lecture 4
The Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem
Social media are the subject of many debates. There are even documentaries created to slander social media. I am neutral. I am neither for or against. I warn you that you can use them for great evil. But I also encourage you to use them for great good. Social media are functional. As it is written.
For two school years, and now starting the third, I have been teaching the students of a parish in the Greater Washington D.C. Metro area online on Zoom. I got this role from a combination of who I know, and my intentional social media poasting. The first year, I taught them the prayer of faith / Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and the so-called Non-Pauline epistles. The second year, and this year, I taught them the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. One of the best introductory texts for new adult and young Christians, and an informal catechism for our Orthodox Christian Church.
In year one, we spent ten months meticulously going through the first three lectures. This year, I am aiming to spend no more than a month to a month and a half on each lecture, so that we can get through much more. Varied instruction helps students get both the clouds and the dirt, the big-picture and the nitty-gritty details.
The following are my notes on a selection of points from Lecture 4:
Point 7
Believe also in the Son of God, One and Only, our Lord Jesus Christ: God of God begotten: Life of Life begotten: Light of Light begotten: like in all things to Him that begat Him: who began not His existence in time, but was before all ages eternally and incomprehensibly begotten of the Father: who is God’s Wisdom and Power, and Righteousness personally subsisting: who before all ages is set down at the right hand of the Father. Not that He received the throne on God’s right hand, as some have thought, by reason of His patient suffering merely, being after His suffering crowned as it were by God; but all the time He has been in being, which is from an everlasting generation, He has the Kingly prerogative, sitting together with the Father, being God, and Wisdom, and Power, as has been shown; together with the Father reigning, and by reason of the Father being the Craftsman of all things: wanting nothing to the dignity of the Godhead, and knowing His Father, even as He is known by His Father,—and, to speak briefly, remember what is written in the Gospel, none knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any the Father, except the Son.
We see the language of tselote haymanot (the prayer of faith) in the description of Jesus as the superlative version of the gods, life itself, and light itself. We should remember to refer to him in this manner in our prayers. I recall a rather outwardly conservative deacon and preacher I worked with once being upset at a Pentecostal Ethiopian Lady who shouted at us in passing, “Jesus is Lord!” He retorted quickly and hilariously, “He is not just Lord, he is the Lord of Lords!” He was satisfied. And so was I.
Many religions in the world, especially Eastern ones with the exception of the Unitarians in America, make a giant categorical error about the deity. They say god is the universe; what the Bible refers to as the heavens and the earth and the fullness thereof. God is distinct from the universe. He is the artificer and craftsman and shokunin of all things. He precedes all things. Visible and invisible.
Jesus wasn't just the fastest or strongest competitor in an earthly competition like the Olympics, or Dragon Ball’s “Number One Under Heaven Martial Arts Gathering”. He is the Godman. He was meant to die, be resurrected on the third day, and ascend the throne to sit at the right hand of his father.
point 8
And neither do you separate the Son from the Father, nor by confusing them together believe that the Son is the Father. But believe that of One God is One Only-begotten Son, who was before all ages, God the Word: the Word, not uttered externally and dispersed abroad in the air, nor like to words impersonal, but the Word, the Son, the Maker of all who have the Word, the Word who hears the Father and Himself speak. And of these things we will speak more at large in due season, if God permit: for we do not forget our purpose, that at present we are but introducing the Faith after the manner of a summary.
There are parts of the Ethiopian eucharistic liturgy that change from week to week and season to season, but we always proclaim: inze selestu ahadu (being three, he is one). The Holy Trinity is a deep subject. The Holy Trinity is one of our dogmatic Five Pillars of Mystery, and can take years to study. You can write an M.A. Thesis or Phd. Dissertation on the subject. Or you can gently be introduced, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem desires, to the idea that there is one God, one divinity, one will, and there are three distinct persons. Further study is merited. And some weak-willed have left the faith over this matter, for religions they find to be more ‘simple’ like Islam (Sunni being akin to lowchurch Protestants and Shia being akin to highchurch Protestants). But for now, just know that they may do different things, but the goal is always the same.
point 9
And believe that He, the one-of-a-kind Son of God, for ours sins came down from heaven to the earth, having taken a manhood of like feelings with us, and being born of the Holy Virgin and the Holy Ghost, not in appearance or imagination, but in truth: nor did He pass through the Virgin as through a channel; but truly took flesh of her, and of her was truly nourished with milk, and truly ate as we do, and truly drank as we do: for if the Incarnation was a phantom, salvation likewise is a phantom. Christ was twofold, Man in what was seen, God in what was not seen: eating truly as Man like us, (for He had like feelings of the flesh with us,) but feeding with five loaves the five thousand as God: dying as Man truly, but as God raising him who had been four days dead: sleeping in the ship truly as Man, and walking on the waters as God.
In the past couple of decades there have been super unnecessary controversies over the role of the Holy Virgin Mary (whom my hometown of El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Los Angeles is named for), and the intercession of Jesus Christ. Putting Facebook fights amongst well-known clergy aside, the most dastardly and devastating parts of these controversies have been manipulations of the Amharic translation of the biblical texts themselves. Namely, the version published during the aughts, in which erroneous words and phrases were entered knowingly into Romans and 1 John, and cowardly fixed in the footnotes.
It is of the utmost and superlative importance to stress the humanity of the Holy Virgin Mary, without whom Jesus would have no humanity, and thus our humanity would not have made it to the highest heavens, and thus we would not be saved. Do not play around with the Incarnation, or his being made flesh. Leave medieval Latin scholasticism in the dustbin of history. And do not build your Orthodox Christian theology on the foundation of protesting the protestors (Protestants).
point 10
He was crucified for our sins truly: should you be disposed to deny it, the very place which all can see refutes you, even this blessed Golgotha, in which, on account of Him who was crucified on it, we are now assembled: and further, the whole world is filled with the portions of the wood of the Cross. But he was crucified, not for sins of His, but that we might be freed from our own sins. And though He was despised of men and beaten as a man, yet He was acknowledged by the creature as God; for the sun, beholding his Lord outraged, hid his light in trembling, not enduring the sight.
The hauntingly beautiful hymns of holy week in our tradition sing of the Sun going black and the Moon bleeding, at the sight of their creator hanging on a tree. The Psalms teach us that all that have breath should praise yahweh, and here we see that even the creation without breath praise yahweh.
I cannot speak emphatically about the whereabouts of other portions of the holy and life-giving cross, but we are said to host gimade mesqelu at the gishen maryam parish in béte amhara (welo), the northeast section of today’s amhara region of Ethiopia.
The cross and the Golgotha (the place of the skull; Calvary) hymn of the Copts on Good Friday teach the teaching of functionality well. The cross, in the hands of the Roman Empire, was a tool of death and inspiration of fear of death. The cross, in the hands of Jesus and his disciples, is a tool of life and inspiration of hope of life. Totally topsy-turvy. Likewise, the descendants of Pharaoh and his goons, transformed the melody used to bury Pharaoh into a hymn that buries Christ. In Scripture, Pharaoh is a stand-in for Satan, as I was a stand-in for Chromeo’s David Macklovitch. This cannot be overstated.
point 11
He was laid truly as man in a tomb of rock, but the rocks burst asunder through fear because of Him. He descended to the regions beneath the earth, that from thence also He might redeem the just. For would you, I pray, that the living should enjoy His grace, and that, being most of them unholy; and that those who from Adam had been imprisoned long while, should not now obtain deliverance? The prophet Isaiah heralded with a loud voice so many things concerning Him: and would you not that the King should descend and rescue His herald? David was there, and Samuel, and all the Prophets, and John (the Baptizer) himself, who said by his messenger, are you He that should come, or do we look for another? Would you not that He should descend and rescue such as these?”
“The regions beneath the earth,” I like this turn-of-phrase. I also like sheol and hades and the place of the dead. I do not like Hell. The Harrowing of Hell, boooooooo. The Harrowing of Hades, yaaaaaaay. Hell is not open for business yet, and won’t be, this side of judgment day. Pass the message along. Especially, to preachers and teachers and choirs serving English language speakers and hearers.
What do 1 Peter 3:19, and Genesis 6, and the Book of Enoch have to do with one another? This is not a rhetorical question. Answer me.
In Shook Ones’ chorus, hiphop duo Mobb Deep famously said, “ain't no such things as halfway crooks.” This matches St. John’s Revelation, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” God is not just the god of the living! God forbid. He is not a halfway god. He is a god of totality. He is the God of the living and the dead. The quick and the dead. Everyone.
Would it have been just to rescue only those living at the time of the crucifixion onwards? Surely not.
point 12
But He who descended to the regions beneath the earth, again ascended thence, and Jesus who was buried, rose again truly on the third day. And should the Jews ever harass you, meet them quickly by asking thus: Did Jonah after three days come forth from the whale, and has not Christ then after three days risen from the earth? Was the dead man raised who touched the bones of Eliseus, and shall not the Maker of men much more easily be raised by the power of the Father? He rose then truly; and being risen, He was again seen by His disciples. An the Twelve disciples were witnesses of His resurrection; not witnessing with flattering words, but striving for the truth of the resurrection even to tortures and deaths. Further, at the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established, according to the Scriptures; but twelve bear witness to Christ’s resurrection, and you disbelieve yet concerning the resurrection?
A shocking amount of clergy, I repeat clergy, in the Anglican communion (~85 million laity), do not profess faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is not point to Christianity without the resurrection. Might as well be a Nietzschean.
In an undergraduate course on the New Testament, with apologetics in mind, I was taught that the willingness of the apostles to not only say they were eyewitnesses to the risen Christ, but to suffer and eventually be put to death one-by-one whilst traveling to the ends of the earth, is strong evidence in favor of the resurrection as a historical event. A tiny Judaic sect became the dominant religion on the planet. I will push forward the idea that this is not an accident, and speaks volumes. Peter was crucified upside down. John was banished to the island Patmos. Paul was put to the sword, because Roman citizens could not be crucified.
Would you suffer for a ruse? Would you die for a lie?
point 13
And Jesus having finished His race of patience, and having redeemed men from their sins, ascended again into the heavens, a cloud receiving Him: and Angels stood by as He went up, and Apostles gazed. But if any doubt what he hears, let him believe the power of what he now sees. All kings when they die, have their power extinguished with their life: but Christ after being crucified, is worshipped by the whole world. We proclaim the Crucified, and the devils tremble; yet many others have in course of time been crucified, but when has the invocation of any one of these scared away the devils?
Posthumous glory is common amongst uncommon artists (i.e. Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Anne Frank, Jane Austen, Zora Neale Hurston etc.), but a reversal of fortunes the likes of Jesus’ apparently humiliating crucifixion outside the walls of Jerusalem to world wide adoration and worship, has never before been seen, and never will be seen again.