Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/624

 620 CYRIL AND METHODIUS CYRUS dora received a deputation from the Khazars, who held the Crimea and neighboring coun- tries, and asked for missionaries to instruct them in the Christian religion. Cyril was chosen by the empress for this mission. He spent some time in the Crimea, to acquire fa- miliarity with the Slavic tongue, succeeded in bringing to the Christian faith the khan of the Khazars, and returned to Constantinople, leav- ing several priests to continue the good work. Radislas, prince of the Moravians, having heard of the success of Cyril among the Khazars, also sent to Theodora asking for missionaries. This time she sent both the brothers, providing them with all that was necessary for their journey. This missionary enterprise also em- braced Bulgaria, Serbia, and Pannonia. They brought with them a translation of the Gospels into Slavic (old or church Slavic), and, it is said, the relics of St. Clement (Clemens Romanus), discovered in the Crimea. The Moravians re- ceived the missionaries with great joy, and the work of instruction went on rapidly, Cyril having adapted the Greek and Roman alphabets to the Slavic idioms. As the beginning of Christian- ity in Moravia had been due to priests sent from Germany, the metropolitan of Salzburg and his suffragans took offence at the success of the Greeks, and at the use of the vulgar tongue in the celebration of mass. They complained to the pope, and Nicholas I. summoned the brothers to answer these charges. On their arrival in Rome Adrian II., who had mean- while succeeded Nicholas, received the mis- sionaries with great favor, heard their story, approved all they had done, and raised them both to the episcopal dignity, appointing Methodius metropolitan of Moravia, but as- signing no particular see to Cyril. In the win- ter of 868 Cyril, when about to return to the field of his labors, sickened and died in one of the monasteries of Rome. Methodius was doomed on his return to witness a sad change. Radislas in 870 was defeated by Louis of Ger- many, and shut up in a monastery after having had his eyes put out. Swatopluk, who took his place, showed himself at first a tyrant and an enemy of Christianity. Methodius, finding expostulation unavailing, excommunicated the prince, and was expelled from Moravia. Swa- topluk repented some time afterward, sent to the exiled archbishop soliciting his return, and promised to repair the evils he had caused. Methodius was again accused at Rome by a synodal letter signed by the archbishop of Salz- burg and his suffragans, and John VIII. wrote to Swatopluk asking that Methodius should once more proceed to Rome. This second journey, in 880, procured him only a still more honorable reception from the pope, a renewed approbation of his conduct in the establishment of the Slavic liturgy, nnd a confirmation of his prerogatives as metropolitan. Duke Borzivoy of Bohemia, having come to visit Swatopluk, his suzerain, was treated with indignity be- cause he was not a Christian. The kind words of Methodius soothed him, and his instructions soon enlightened him. He embraced Chris- tianity, converted his wife, and engaged Metho- dius to assist in converting his people. This change did not happen without civil war in which the Christians were finally victo- rious, and Borzivoy was left free to carry out his intentions peacefully. The churches of St. Peter and St. Paul and of Our Lady in Prague are said to have been founded by him. Methodius is supposed to have made a third pilgrimage to Rome, and died there. The 1000th anniversary of the foundation of the Slavic churches was celebrated in 1864 both in Bohemia and Moravia. An edition of Cy- ril's version of the Scriptures was printed at Ostrog in 1581, under the auspices of the pala- tine of Volhynia; it is in the so-called Cyrillic character. There is also a Glossarium Cyrilli in the work entitled Veins Lexicon Grceco-La- tinum, cum Notis Vulcanii (fol., Leyden, 1600). Among the biographers of these saints are Stredowski, who has a life of Cyril and Me- thodius in his Sacra Moravia Historia (4to, Sulzbach, 1710), and Philaret, bishop of Riga (German translation, 1847). See for particu- lars Rohrbacher's " Church History," vol. viii., and Wattenbach, Beitrage zur GescJiichte der christlichen Kirche in Mdhren und JBohmen (Vienna, 1849). C1RUS, a river of Asia. See KUR. CYRUS. I. The Elder, the Koresh of the He- brew Scriptures (supposed to be from the Per- sian Tcohr, the sun), the founder of the Persian empire, reigned from about 558 to 529 B. C. He was grandson of Astyages, king of Media. Most of the particulars of his life are differently re- lated in the histories of Ctesias and Herodotus, and in the Cyropsedia of Xenophon. But as Ctesias is in general untrustworthy, and as Xenophon seems to have written his book, a kind of philosophical romance, without much regard for history, the story of Herodotus, in spite of its legendary character, has been gen- erally adopted by modern historians down to Grote. According to this narrative, Cyrus was the son of Cambyses, a Persian noble, and of Mandane, the daughter of Astyages. This king commanded him to be put to death immediately after his birth, in consequence of dreams which were explained by the magi as presages of the future royal greatness of the child. Saved by the humanity of Harpagus, an officer of the court, and of a herdsman, who was to expose him to death in the wilderness, he was brought up by the latter as his son in a secluded moun- tain region, where he soon became the leader of his playfellows, who chose him as their king. Having in this capacity ordered the son of a distinguished Median to be scourged for diso- bedience, he was brought before Astyages, to whom his bold answers and his features soon betrayed his origin. The herdsman was par- doned, Harpagus cruelly punished in the per- son of his son, and Cyrus, whom the magi de- clared to have already attained the threatening