Description

Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop of the Holy City in the middle of the fourth century, delivered eighteen catechetical lectures during Lent to his candidates for baptism at Easter; actually, there were nineteen including the preliminary instruction, or Procatechesis. An earlier volume of the Fathers of the Church series contains the preliminary material and the first twelve lectures. The present volume contains Catechetical Lectures 13-18 and Cyril's five Mystagogical Catecheses, which, delivered during the week after Easter, describe and explain the rites of Baptism, Chrismation, and Eucharist, all of which Cyril's newly baptized adult listeners have just experienced. In addition, this volume includes Cyril's only extant sermon (on the paralytic of John 5) and a letter to the newly crowned Emperor Constantius, in which Cyril interprets the apparition of a shining cross in the sky over Jerusalem.