Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VII/S. Cyril/Introduction/Special Preparation for Baptism

Chapter III.&#8212;Special Preparation for Baptism.

&#167; 1.&#160; Penitence.&#160; The candidate for Baptism, having been duly admitted and registered, was required not only to be diligent in attending the course of Catechetical instruction, but also to enter at once upon a course of strict devotion and penitential discipline.&#160; &#8220;Those who are coming to Baptism,&#8221; says Tertullian, &#8220;must be constantly engaged in prayers, fastings, kneelings, and watchings, together with confession of all past faults .&#8221;

On these subjects Cyril&#8217;s teaching is earnest, wise, and sympathetic:&#160; he seeks to lead to repentance by gentle persuasion, and pleads for self-discipline as needful for the good of the soul .&#160; One whole Lecture is devoted to the necessity of thorough repentance for all past sins, and forgiveness of all offences :&#160; another to the sure efficacy of repentance for the remission of sins.

&#167; 2.&#160; Confession.&#160; &#8125;&#917;&#958;&#959;&#956;&#959;&#955;&#8057;&#947;&#951;&#963;&#953;&#962;.&#160; Great stress is laid by Cyril on the necessity not only of sincere inward repentance, but also of open confession.&#160; The words &#7952;&#958;&#959;&#956;&#959;&#955;&#959;&#947;&#949;&#8150;&#963;&#952;&#945;&#953;, &#7952;&#958;&#959;&#956;&#959;&#955;&#8057;&#947;&#951;&#963;&#953;&#962; have a twofold meaning and a wide application.

(1.)&#160; In the Septuagint they occur very frequently, especially in the Psalms, in the sense of &#8220;giving thanks or praise&#8221; (Heb. &#1492;&#1491;&#1493;&#1468;&#1492;), a meaning which is also found in the New Testament .&#160; Perhaps the earliest instance in an Ecclesiastical writer is in Hermas, Mandat. X. iii. 2:&#160; &#7952;&#958;&#959;&#956;&#959;&#955;&#959;&#947;&#959;&#8059;&#956;&#949;&#957;&#959;&#962; &#964;&#8183; &#952;&#949;&#8183;.&#160; I have not found any instance of this meaning in Cyril.

S. Chrysostom, commenting on the words, &#8220;I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord ,&#8221; says, &#8220;There are two kinds of exomologesis; for it is either a condemnation of our own sins or a giving of thanks to God.&#8221;&#160; The link between these two ideas is seen in Joshua&#8217;s exhortation to Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the, the God of Israel, and make confession unto Him.&#160; R.V. Margin.&#160; Or, give praise.

(2.)&#160; In the sense of &#8220;confessing&#8221; sins, the Verb is not uncommon in the N.T., and in the early Fathers .&#160; Tertullian adopts the Greek word, and calls exomologesis &#8220;the handmaid of repentance ,&#8221; adding that it will extinguish the fire of Gehenna in the heart, being a second remedy for sin, after Baptism.

Again, speaking of the outward act of repentance, he says:&#160; &#8220;This act, which is more usually expressed and commonly spoken of under a Greek name, is &#7952;&#958;&#959;&#956;&#959;&#955;&#8057;&#947;&#951;&#963;&#953;&#962;, whereby we confess our sins to the Lord, not indeed as if He were ignorant of them, but inasmuch as by confession satisfaction is appointed, and of confession repentance is born, and God appeared by repentance.&#160; Accordingly exomologesis is a discipline for man&#8217;s prostration and humiliation, enjoining a demeanour calculated to move mercy.&#160; With regard also to the very dress and food, it commands (the penitent) to lie in sackcloth and ashes&#8230;to know no food and drink but such as is plain,&#8212;to feed prayers on fastings, to groan, to weep and roar (mugire) unto the Lord God; to roll before the feet of the presbyters, and kneel to God&#8217;s dear ones, to enjoin on all the brethren embassies of intercession on his behalf.&#160; All this exomologesis does, that it may enhance repentance , &amp;c.&#8221;

In this highly rhetorical description of the ecclesiastical discipline so dear to Tertullian there are many features of extreme severity to which Cyril makes no allusion; yet he frequently and very earnestly insists on the necessity and the efficacy of confession.&#160; &#8220;The present is the season of confession:&#160; confess what thou hast done in word or in deed, by night or by day; confess in an acceptable time, and in the day of salvation receive the heavenly treasure &#8221;&#160; &#8220;Tell the Physician thine ailment:&#160; say thou also, like David, I said, I will confess me my sin unto the  ; and the same shall be done in thy case, which he says forthwith, and Thou forgavest the wickedness of my heart .&#8221;&#160; &#8220; Seest thou the humility of the king? &#160;Seest thou his confession?.&#8230;The deed was quickly done, and straightway the Prophet appeared as accuser, and the offender confessed his fault; and because he candidly confessed, he received a most speedy cure .&#8221;

&#8220;Ezekias prevailed to the cancelling of God&#8217;s decree, and cannot Jesus grant remission of sins?&#160; Turn and bewail thyself, shut thy door, and pray to be forgiven, pray that He may remove from thee the burning flames.&#160; For confession has power to quench even fire, power to tame even lions .&#8221;

The confession to which Cyril attaches so high a value, whether made in the privacy of solitude, or openly before the Ministers of the Church and the Congregation, is a confession to God, and not to man.&#160; &#8220;Having therefore, brethren, many examples of those who have sinned and repented and been saved, do ye also heartily make confession unto the Lord .&#8221;&#160; Elsewhere he expressly disclaims the necessity of private confession to man:&#160; &#8220;Not that thou shouldest shew thy conscience to me, for thou art not to be judged of man&#8217;s judgment; but that thou shew the sincerity of thy faith to God, who trieth the reins and hearts, and knoweth the thoughts of men .&#8221;&#160; He also limits the season of confession and repentance to this present life:&#160; &#8220;Therefore the just shall then offer praise; but they who have died in sins have no further season for confession .&#8221;

&#167; 3.&#160; Exorcism.&#160; One of the earliest ceremonies, after the registration of names, was Exorcism, which seems to have been often repeated during the Candidate&#8217;s course of preparation.&#160; &#8220;Receive with earnestness the exorcisms:&#160; whether thou be breathed upon or exorcised, the act is to thee salvation .&#8221;

The power of casting out devils, promised by our Lord, and exercised by Apostles , and by Philip the Deacon and Evangelist, was long regarded in the early Church as a direct gift still bestowed by the Holy Ghost, apart from any human ordinance.&#160; Justin Martyr, Tertullian , Origen , all speak of exorcism as being practised by laymen, even by soldiers, and women, by means of prayer and invocation of the name of Jesus.&#160; Accordingly &#8220;an Exorcist is not ordained, for it is a gift of the spontaneous benevolence and grace of God through Christ by visitation of the Holy Ghost.&#160; For he who has received the gift of healing is declared by revelation from God, the grace which is in him being manifest to all .&#8221;&#160; When the extraordinary gift was found to have been withdrawn, exorcists are mentioned among the inferior officers of the Church, after readers and subdeacons .&#160; From an early period certain set formul&#230;, such as the Divine names, &#8220;The God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob,&#8221; &#8220;The God of Israel,&#8221; &#8220;The God who drowned the king of Egypt and the Egyptians in the Red Sea,&#8221; were frequently invoked against demons and certain wicked persons.

Accordingly, when an exorcist was ordained the Bishop was directed to give him the book in which the exorcisms were written, with the words, &#8220;Receive thou these, and commit them to memory, and have thou power to lay hands upon the Energumens, whether they be baptized or only Catechumens .&#8221;&#160; Though this Canon speaks only of exorcising Energumens, or such persons as were supposed to be possessed by evil spirits, we must remember that the power of such spirits was believed to extend to the whole world outside the Christian Church.&#160; Thus all converts from Paganism and Judaism, and even the children of Christian parents were exorcised before being baptized.&#160; The practice was closely connected with the doctrine of original sin, as we see in many passages of S. Augustine, and is declared by him to be very ancient and universal .&#160; In expounding the Creed to candidates for Baptism, he says:&#160; &#8220;Therefore, as you have seen this day, and as you know, even little children are breathed on and exorcised, that the hostile power of the devil may be driven out of them, which deceived one man in order that he might get possession of all men .&#8221;

We find accordingly that Cyril enforces the duty of attending the Exorcisms on all the candidates alike, and from his use of the Plural (Exorcisms) we see that the ceremony was often repeated for each person.&#160; Thus in the Clementine Homilies Peter is represented as saying, &#8220;Whoever of you wish to be baptized, begin from to-morrow to fast, and each day have hands laid upon you ,&#8221; the imposition of hands being one of the ceremonies used in exorcism .&#160; From expressions in the Introductory Lecture, &#8220;When ye have come in before the hour of the exorcisms ,&#8221; and again, &#8220;when your exorcism has been done, until the others who are to be exorcised have come ,&#8221; it seems that before each Catechizing the candidates were all exorcised, one by one, and that the earlier, after returning from their own exorcism, had to wait for those who came later.&#160; The catechizing was thus frequently delayed till late in the day, and Cyril often complains of the shortness of the time left at his disposal.

At Antioch, the Catechizing preceded the Exorcism, as we learn from S. Chrysostom:&#160; &#8220;After you have heard our instruction, they take off your sandals, and unclothe you, and send you on naked and barefoot, with your tunic only, to the utterances of the Exorcists .&#8221;&#160; Cyril says nothing of this unclothing, but mentions another ceremony as practised at Jerusalem:&#160; &#8220;Thy face has been veiled, that thy mind may henceforward be free, lest the eye by roving make the heart rove also.&#160; But when thine eyes are veiled, thine ears are not hindered from receiving the means of salvation .&#8221;&#160; The veil may also have been a symbol of the slavery and darkness of sin, as S. Augustine regards the removal of the veil on the octave of Easter as symbolising the spiritual liberty of the baptized .&#160; Of this meaning Cyril makes no express mention.

In the Greek Euchologion, as quoted by Kleopas, the act of the Exorcist is thus described:&#160; &#8220;And the Priest breathes upon his mouth, his forehead, and his breast, saying, Drive forth from him every evil and unclean spirit, hidden and lurking in his heart, the spirit of error, the spirit of wickedness , &amp;c.&#8221;

Besides such invocations of the names of God, as we have mentioned above, the Exorcist used set forms of prayer &#8220;collected out of the Holy Scriptures.&#8221;&#160; Their effect, as described by Cyril, is to &#8220;set the soul, as it were, on fire,&#8221; and scare the evil spirit away; and his meaning may be illustrated by a passage of Tertullian, who says :&#160; &#8220;All the authority and power we have over them is from naming the name of Christ, and recalling to their memory the woes with which God threatens them at the hands of Christ as Judge.&#8230;So at our touch and breathing, overwhelmed by the thought of those judgment-fires, they leave the bodies they have entered, at our command, unwilling and distressed, and before your very eyes put to an open shame.&#8221;

The Exorcisms were performed in the Church; where also the Lectures were delivered, Catechumens of the lower order being excluded, &#8220;and the doors looking towards the city closed, while those which looked towards the Holy Sepulchre, from which the ruins of the ancient Temple, Golgotha, and the old city could be seen, were left open .&#8221;