Cyril of Scythopolis

Cyril of Scythopolis (Greek: Κύριλλος ὁ Σκυθοπολίτης, romanized: Kyrillos ho Skythopolitēs; c. 525 – c. 559), also known as Cyrillus Scythopolitanus, was a Christian monk, priest and Greek-language hagiographer or historian of monastic life in Palestine in the early years of Christianity (6th century CE).

Life[]

Cyril was born in Scythopolis, in the province of Palaestina Secunda, sometime around 525.^[1] His father John, a lawyer, supervised his early religious education.^[1] Shortly after 532 he became an anagnostes (lector), and became a monk in 543.^[1] Very soon thereafter he went to Jerusalem and spent some months at a hermit community (lavra) near the Jordan River, before entering the monastery of Euthymius the Great at Jericho in 544.^[1] He remained there until 555, when he was one of the orthodox monks sent to replace those expelled for Origenism at the . Two years later he moved to the , where he died sometime in 557/558 or soon after.^[1][2]

Cyril was influenced by Saint Sabas the Sanctified, whom he had met when he was still in a young age; in later years, when he was in Jerusalem, he also met Saint John the Silent, bishop of Colonia in Cappadocia.^[1]

Works[]

Cyril is known for a number of hagiographies of seven Palestinian monks: Sabas the Sanctified, Euthymius the Great, John the Silent, Cyriacus the Anchorite, Theodosius the Cenobiarch, , and Abramius.^[1][2][3] This ambitious undertaking was "fostered both by local patriotism and a firm belief in the relationship between holiness and the desert".^[1] As the historical information included in these works is both precise and accurate, Cyril is a valuable historical source for the period, on topics ranging from political affairs to ecclesiastical events and biographical details.^[1] Cyril is particularly valuable on the study of the Arab tribes of the region, notably the Ghassanids and their rivals, the Lakhmids.^[4]

References[]

Sources[]

• Baldwin, Barry; Talbot, Alice-Mary (1991). "Cyril of Skythopolis". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 573. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
• Karl Suso Frank (1991). "Kyrillos von Skythopolis". Lexikon des Mittelalters, V: Hiera-Mittel bis Lukanien (in German). Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler. col. 1600. ISBN 3-7608-8905-0.

• Shahîd, Irfan (1995). Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century. Volume 1, Part 1: Political and Military History. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. ISBN 978-0-88402-214-5.

External links[]

• The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, Eduard Schwartz (ed.), Leipzig, 1939; Greek text and German commentary at the Internet Archive