CYRIL, SArsT, bishop of Alexandria, was one of the most energetic but least amiable of the church fathers. The date of his birth is not known. He was educated by the fanatical monks of Nitria, with whom he lived for five years, and who probably inspired him with that fiery, intolerant, and Ignorant zeal which characterized him through life. Subsequently, he went to Alexandria, where he became a presbyter, and on the death of his uncle, Theophilus, 412 A.D., obtained the episcopal see. The Alexandrian Jews, who were numerous and wealthy, were the first to feel the fierceness of his religious hate. Some Christian blood having been shed by them in a city tumult, C. put himself at the head of a rabble of zealots, attacked the Jewish quarter of Alex andria, destroyed the houses, and banished the inhabitants. Orestes, the prefect of Egypt, havinr. drawn up an accusation against C., was attacked in the streets by 500 monks, who lead come up from the deserts of Nitria, at the call of their old companion, eager for the work of destruction. One of these monks having fallen in the skirmish, his corpse was carried in procession to the high church of Alexandria, where C. delivered
a sanguinary discourse, gave the dead monk the name of Thaumasius, and pronounced him a martyr and a saint. But perhaps the most barbarous deed with which j this perse cutor of heretics and heathens had to do, was the murder of the heathen maiden Hypatia (q. v.), the daughter of the mathematician Theon. Theodoret gravely accuses him of instigating the Alexandrian populace to this horrid act. But the most important historic event in his career was his controversy with Nestorius (q. v.). All the worst features of his disposition appeared in this broil. Even the gentle Neander overflows with pious wrath, and pursues C. through 60 pages of his Church Ilistory with the fiercest epithets. In the midst of unquietndes, which he himself had largely occasioned, he died 444 A.o. C.'s numerous writings consist of commentaries, treatises, homilies, epistles, etc. The best edition was published by Aubert (7 vols., Paris, 1638). See Neauder's Hirchenge satiate, transl. by Bohn, vol. iv. pp. 133-196.