Julian's Contra Galilaeos, written in the winter nights of 362/363, elicited a forceful response by Cyril of Alexandria some seventy years later. The Alexandrian bishop probably composed his apology, the Contra Iulianum, between 416 and 428 (vol. i, p. cxv) in twenty books, of which only the first ten have survived – although there are seventy-eight Greek and Syriac fragments in the current edition that derive from books eleven to nineteen, along with thirty-two groups of Syriac fragments from the first ten books. The German and French editions are a monumental achievement for which superlatives are hard to find. Wolfram Kinzig began an interdisciplinary initiative in 1992 (pp. v–vii) for the production of an editio maior that would serve as a basis for translations into modern languages. In 2001 Marie-Odile Boulnois and colleagues began a translation of books iii–x of the Contra Iulianum for Sources chrétiennes based on the forthcoming editio maior. Until now scholars interested in Cyril's apology had to rely on the editio princeps of Jean Aubert, published in 1638 and lightly revised by Ezechiel Spanheim in 1696, which was the basis for that published by Jacques Paul Migne in 1859 (PG lxxvi). The new editions and French translation, the scholarly apparatus which includes a wealth of explanatory notes, intertextual and bibliographical references, the extensive introductions and the forthcoming commented German translation will bring fundamental change to this field of research.
The first Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller volume comprises an extensive introduction by Kinzig and Riedweg (pp. xi–clxxxvi), an exhaustive bibliography (pp. clxxxvii–ccxxix), table of sigla (pp. ccxxxi–ccxxxiii) and 407 pages of Greek text (Contra Iulianum i–v). The second volume comprises the Greek text of Contra Iulianum vi–x (pp. 411–746), seventy-eight Greek and Syriac (in German translation) fragments of Contra Iulianum xi–xix (pp. 749–818), the Syriac fragments (pp. 821–95 [with translation of those from Contra Iulianum i–xi], a concordance of the Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller and Neumann editions of the fragments (pp. 897–9), indices of references in the Contra Iulianum to the Bible and other authors (pp. 903–24), a Greek index of persons and places (pp. 925–37), and corrigenda (pp. 939–47). The Sources chrétiennes volume includes a comprehensive introduction to books iii–v by Boulnois (pp. 11–125), some remarks on the edition and translation (pp. 127–32), a selective bibliography (pp. 133–50), the Greek text (Riedweg), the French translation of books iii–v by Bouffartigue, Boulnois and Castan (pp. 152–565) along with an apparatus by Boulnois that includes intertextual references and extensive explanatory notes, a set of longer complementary notes (pp. 567–82), indices (pp. 583–601) of biblical texts and other sources in the Contra Iulianum, and indices (pp. 603–54) of texts referred to in the introduction, text and notes. The table of contents (pp. 655–63) is particularly useful because it analyses the arguments of books iii–v in the form of an outline of admirable logical clarity.
The 186-page introduction by Riedweg and Kinzig begins with Riedweg's review (pp. i–lxiii) of the textual history of the Contra Iulianum, both the indirect and the direct tradition. Between Cyril's completion of his work and the oldest manuscript (F, end of the twelfth or the first half of the thirteenth century), the fate of the apology is quite vague. It is probable that Cyril sent copies to Theodosius ii, John of Antioch and each of the five patriarchates in the form of four codices that each contained a pentad of the Contra Iulianum (pp. cvi–cviii [Kinzig]). Books xi–xx were still available in twelfth century ce, but had disappeared at the latest by the time of Bessarion (1403/6–72) (p. xviii). Riedweg provides codicological information for fourteen manuscripts of the Contra Iulianum that date from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, the important Latin translation of Oecolampadius (κ) in 1528 that is based on a lost manuscript (pp. xxv–l), and eleven manuscripts that contain various excerpts (Z1–11, pp. l–lvii). He concludes with a number of persuasive hypotheses about the interrelationships of the manuscripts and a stemma that he admits is a necessary reduction of what may have been a ‘much wilder’ tradition (pp. lvii–lxiii). I will not attempt to summarise the stemma here, but it will become apparent to the careful reader that the editio maior is based on a solid foundation.
Kinzig describes the former editions and translations of the Contra Iulianum and Contra Galilaeos (pp. lxiv–lxxxi), beginning with Nicolas Bourbon's partial edition (c. 1619) of the Contra Iulianum. Riedweg (pp. lxxxii–iv) then explains the three apparatus (codices that witness to the text; sources, testimonies and parallels; and apparatus criticus), which together represent an immense amount of research by the sixteen scholars whose names are listed on the title page. Next Riedweg (pp. lxxxv–cviii) examines the Contra Galilaeos. In Cyril's Prosphonēma to Theodosius, he argues that many ‘fickle and easily led astray individuals have easily fallen into his [Julian's] views and have become the sweet prey of demons’. Julian's ability to quote many Scriptures has also troubled those who are firmer in the faith, and pagans brag about his ‘incomparable oratorical power’ (ἀπρόσβλητον … τὴν δείνωσιν) and the fact that no Christian has been able to refute him (Prosphonēma 4–5). Riedweg discusses the date, occasion, scope, intended audience and transmission of the treatise that originally comprised three volumes. He then makes a detailed analysis in outline of the fragments of the Contra Galilaeos that are included in the Contra Iulianum. His argument that the objections against the Old Testament derive from the first book of the Contra Galilaeos seems persuasive, since there is evidence that the objections against the Gospels derive from the second book – and the loss of most of those fragments is due to the loss of the third and fourth pentads of the Contra Iulianum (books xi–xx). He notes that possibly the third book comprised objections against the rest of the New Testament, although the evidence is slight (pp. lcccv–cvii). Kinzig (pp. cix–clxxv) reviews the date, scope, structure and intended audience of the Contra Iulianum along with Cyril's educational background. He refers (pp. cx–cxi) to Cyril's concern with Hellenism, half converted Christians and the relationship between Hellenism and Christianity in Festal letters written between 414 and 421 (1, 4–6, 9) and 424–6 (12–14), a theme that recedes in the letters of 427 to 430 (15–18). A neglected story in the history of the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria (pp. cxii–cxiv) may indicate the occasion for the Contra Iulianum along with the bad reputation that Cyril himself was developing due to the lynching of Hypatia (whatever his role) and the violent expulsion of the Jews from Alexandria. Cyril was probably concerned with the flourishing of Hellenism in his city and the numbers of Christians who synthesised Hellenism and the faith (pp. cxlvii–clvii), and the patriarch stands at the other end of the spectrum from Synesius who pleaded for tolerance between Christianity and Hellenism. Kinzig's review in outline of Cyril's response to all of Julian's arguments (pp. cxxi–clxvii) gives the reader a global view of the treatise. Despite Cyril's vehement denunciations (p. cliii) of Greek paideia (rhetoric, science and the arts), he knew Greek rhetoric and had a wide-ranging knowledge of Greek philosophy, including works by Porphyry and Alexander of Aphrodisias (pp. clvii–clxxv). Kinzig approves of Lionel Wickham's remark about Cyril's style: ‘it has all the studied ugliness of the Albert Memorial or Second Empire furniture’ (p. clvii). Riedweg's analysis of Cyril's language and style (pp. clxxv–clxxxvi) provides examples of poetic words that Cyril revived, his many neologisms, word combinations only Cyril used, atticisms and so forth. His foreword (p. v) includes a masterpiece of understatement: the research group produced a rough translation of Cyril's ‘alles andere als leicht zu erschließenden Textes’ (anything but easily comprehensible text). No one before or after ever wrote Greek like Cyril (p. clxxxv), thankfully.
Kinzig and Brüggeman (volume ii) briefly (p. v) discuss the manuscript basis for their edition, already examined at length in the introduction to the first volume. There are two main traditions (α and β) for the text of books vi–x, but one of them (α) can only be reconstructed from Oecolampadius’ Latin translation (κ) and some of the marginal glosses in the other manuscripts. Their introduction to the Greek fragments (pp. 749–59) includes remarks about earlier collections, a textual history of the sources (especially the Sacra Parallela ascribed to John Damascene), and the grounds for the inclusion (and exclusion) of fragments. Four important new fragments of the Contra Galilaeos are included (§ 45, 72–4). Kaufhold's introduction and tables for the Syriac fragments establish a firmer textual basis than that of Nestle in the 1880 edition. In addition to Nestle's twenty-seven fragments, Kaufhold edits and translates twenty-eight others. His translations are as literal as possible.
Boulnois's introduction and annotations to the text are the fruit of almost twenty-five years of research. Her monograph (145: Le Paradoxe trinitaire chez Cyrille d'Alexandrie: herméneutique, analyses philosophiques et argumentation théologique, Turnhout 1994) on the Trinity in Cyril earned the Prix de l'Association des Études Grecques in 1995. Her introduction provides the reader with detailed and essential help for understanding the arguments of Julian and Cyril's responses in books iii to v. In her discussion of the structure and argumentation (pp. 11–41), she notes that Julian in Contra Galilaeos fragment 3 (Contra Iulianum 2.9) mentions the following: the origin and manner of the original conception of God; comparisons of the Hellenic and Hebrew doctrines about the divinity; the question why Christians abandoned Hellenic doctrines about the divine for Jewish ones; and a question why the Christians abandoned the Jewish teachings. Books iii–v concern theology, vi–vii are about the gifts provided by the gods, and viii–x concern the abandonment of Judaism in the areas of theology and cult (pp. 11–12). In book iii Julian challenges Christians because of the mythology in Genesis ii–iii (Eve was no ‘help’; a talking serpent; a jealous God who refused the knowledge of good). Julian asserts that the Hebrew God is national and not supreme. In book iv Julian argues that the ‘ethnarchic’ gods explain the diversity of the nations, ridicules the story of Babel and argues for the superiority of the Hellenic conception of the supreme being. In book v he maintains that the Decalog is in no way admirable. He ridicules the Phineas episode (God's wrath versus the moderation of the Greek legislators), and argues for the superiority of the gifts received by the Greeks (science etc.). Cyril responds that the Bible is true and not mythical (pp. 43–68). The narrative of Eve is superior to that of Pandora (p. 56), for example. ‘Heaven’ in the Babel narrative just means ‘high’ (pp. 24–5), and the paucity of human language explains the anthropomorphisms in Scripture (pp. 64–8). Her discussion (pp. 70–103) of the supreme God and the ‘near creator’ (δημιουργὸς προσεχής) in Julian and Cyril is remarkable for its clarity. Cyril used the Neo-Platonic triad and his own Trinitarian theology against Julian's thesis that the Hebrews’ God was only the ‘proximate demiurge’. She examines Cyril's sources (pp. 107–25) including Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius and such. The translation of Cyril's sometimes nearly impenetrable Greek is refreshingly clear, and it along with Boulnois's annotations will make the Contra Iulianum available to a much wider audience.
The edition is superb. One topic not covered in either introduction is the text of the Scriptures used by Julian and Cyril. A Syriac fragment (§ 28) clearly indicates that Julian was using a manuscript with the short ending of Mark (i.e. xvi.8), and Cyril apparently knew of a similar manuscript since he does not object (cf. this reviewer's article in TC: A Journal of Biblical Text Criticism (2015), http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v20/). In this regard, I wish Kaufhold had elected to publish a text from Išōʿdad of Merw (reference in 779 app. crit., 827) that attributes a similar objection against the resurrection narratives to Porphyry and Julian. A closely related objection appears in Theodore bar Koni and is attributed to Julian (references in this reviewer's article listed in Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, Neue Folge 21, 13). With regard to Romans iii.29 (quoted by Julian in 3.46) the editors sensibly adopt μόνον (β group and κ), but V (tradition α) has μόνων (with New Testament witnesses B, 945, 1730c, and Cl). It may well be possible that the scribes of the Contra Iulianum smoothed out the textual tradition. Many of the issues raised by Julian and Cyril are still of contemporary relevance: myth and Scripture; science and faith; and competing monotheisms. Based on the new edition, Matthew R. Crawford and Aaron P. Johnson are producing an English translation with support from the Australian Research Council.
