Cultivating True Sight at the Center of the World

Cyril of Jerusalem and the Lenten Catechumenate

Bibliographic Data

ID3202182
AuthorsDayna S Kalleres (National Postdoctoral Association, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume74
Issue3
Pages431-459
Publication date2005-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueChurch History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0009640700110777
OpenAlexW2049878327
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited20

In 351 c.e., Cyril of Jerusalem prepared catechumens for baptism at what he identified as the very center of the world. From Golgotha Christ once stretched his hands to embrace the ends of the earth, and Cyril's catechumens would soon receive a distinctive baptism predicated on their proximity to Golgotha first and Christ's tomb second. For this bishop location was truly everything, in his own words: "For others only hear but we both see and handle." Cyril's Lenten Catechumenate consisted of an eight-week course of prebaptismal preparation culminating in an Easter baptism. Within this institution Cyril offered a privileged course of Christian inculcation and a singular notion of the "Christian Soldier." Through a highly visual exegesis of the crucifixion and resurrection, Cyril transformed baptizands into witnesses to these two events, a status obligating them to defend the actuality of these moments and, in so doing, promote Cyril's particular conceptualization of Jerusalem as Holy Land

Art · Baptism · Center (category theory) · Literature · Sight · Theology · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Philosophy

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