CYRIL, SAINT (3 , made bishop of Alexandria c. 412. He had hardly entered upon his office when he closed and plundered the churches of the Novatians, and drove the Jews in thousands from the city. The prefect of Egypt, Orestes, who en deavoured to withstand his furious zeal, was denounced, and the illustrious Hypatia, his friend and the advocate of Neo-Platonism, was murdered in one of the frequent riots. Cyril's antagonism to the Antiochene school is shown in his opposition to Chrysostom, whose name he for some time refused to allow into the lists of martyrs and bishops mentioned in the prayers of his church, and to the apologist, Theodoret. The story of his opposition to Nes torius at the council of Ephesus in 431 is told elsewhere (see NESTORIUS) . He himself incurred the charge of heresy from the oriental bishops. Satisfied, however, with the deprivation and exile of his opponent, he retu:ned to Alexandria in triumph as the great champion of the faith. Cyril is important for the his tory of Christology. He taught the personal or hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ, but tended to allow that after the union the Word, which replaces the rational soul, forms but one nature with the body, hence he inclined to Monophysitism. In his Trinitarian expositions, he does expressly affirm the procession of the Holy Ghost ex Filio. He introduces an allegorical interpreta tion of the Bible and appeals often to the Fathers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The collected edition by J. Aubert (Paris, 1638) Bibliography.—The collected edition by J. Aubert (Paris, 1638) was reprinted in Migne, Patr. Graec, vols. 68-77 ; Eng. trans. in the Oxford Library of the Fathers. See also A. Largent's Etudes d'hist. eccles.; St Cyrille d'Alexandrie et le concile dEphese (1892) ; H. Rehrmann, Die Christologie des hl. C. von Alexandrien (Hildesheim, 1902) ; A. Harnack, Hist. of Dogma, vol. 4; J. Tixeront, Hist. of Dogma, vol. 3; Brightman, The Age of the Fathers, vol. 2 (19o3) ; E. Weigl, Die Heilslehre des hl. C. von Alexandrien (1905) .