Letter to Constantius

1To Constantius Augustus, the emperor most God-loving and most pious, Cyril, bishop in Jerusalem, greetings in the Lord. These first fruits of letters I send from Jerusalem to your God-loving majesty—fitting for you to receive and for me to offer. They are not filled with flattering words, but they announce heavenly visions. They do not contain clever rhetorical persuasions of speech, but they bear witness to the truth of the holy Gospels' predictions through the outcome of events.

Others, for their part, often crown your honored head with what they have, bringing crowns inlaid with gold and adorned with brilliant stones. But we do not crown you with things from the earth—for gifts from the earth have the earth as their end. Rather, we eagerly bring to the knowledge of your piety a divine working of heavenly things accomplished in Jerusalem during the times of your God-loving reign. Not so that you might now pass from ignorance into knowledge of God—for you are already teaching others through your piety—but so that what you already knew you might also have confirmed, and so that, having received the ancestral inheritance of the kingdom, you might learn that you have been honored with greater heavenly crowns from God, and might now render fitting thanksgiving to God the King of all, and might be filled with greater courage against your enemies, understanding in deed that your reign is loved by God through the wonders He works in your time.

For in the time of Constantine, your father, most God-loving and of blessed memory, the saving wood of the cross was found in Jerusalem, when divine grace granted to the one who nobly sought piety the finding of the hidden holy places.

2But in your time, most pious master king, you surpass your ancestors' piety with still greater reverence toward the divine, and the wonders come no longer from earth but from the heavens. The trophy of victory over death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the only Son of God—I mean the blessed cross—was seen in Jerusalem, flashing with gleams of light. For during these holy days of holy Pentecost, on the Nones of May, around the third hour, a huge cross made of light appeared in the sky, stretched above holy Golgotha as far as the holy Mount of Olives. It did not appear to one and a second only, but was shown most clearly to the whole multitude of the city. Nor did it pass quickly by as one might suppose in a fleeting vision, but for many hours it was seen with the eyes above the earth, and its flashing gleams surpassed the rays of the sun—for the sun would have been overcome and hidden by them, had the cross not offered beams stronger than the sun to those who saw it. So the whole multitude of the city at once ran together into the holy church, seized with fear of the heavenly vision together with joy—young and old, men and women, people of every age, even young women shut up in their rooms, locals and strangers, Christians and pagans visiting from elsewhere alike. With one accord, as from a single mouth, they all sang hymns to Christ Jesus our Lord, the only Son of God, the wonderworker, having learned by deed and experience that the most pious teaching of Christians rests not in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration

3of spirit and power—not merely proclaimed by human beings, but witnessed from heaven by God. Since we, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, received this marvel with our own eyes, we have rendered and will render fitting worship with thanksgiving to God the King of all and to the only Son of God, and we have made and will make earnest prayers for your God-loving might in the holy places. It was necessary not to hand these heavenly visions over to silence, but to announce them as good news to your inspired piety at once, and so I have hastened to do through this letter. My purpose is that, building upon the good foundation of the faith already present in you the knowledge of what God has recently shown, you may take up a more secure hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that, taking courage and filled as usual with all boldness, since you have God himself as your ally, you may carry forward the trophy of the cross most readily, with the boast of boasts, bearing the sign shown in heaven—the very sign whose shape heaven displayed to human beings and boasted of all the more. This wonder, most God-loving emperor, has now been accomplished in accordance with the testimonies of the prophets and the voices of Christ laid down in the holy Gospels, and it will be accomplished again in greater measure. For in the Gospel according to Matthew, the Savior, granting to his blessed apostles knowledge of things to come and conversing with those after them through them, declared most clearly in advance: “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven” (Matthew 24:30).

4Take up that divine book of the Gospel into your hands as you habitually do, and you will find written there the predictive testimonies laid down about this. I urge you, my lord, to give these your closer and more frequent attention, because of the rest of what is written there in sequence—the things proclaimed beforehand by our Savior—which demand much reverent observation, so that you may suffer no harm from any opposing activity.

These first fruits of my words, most God-loving emperor, I offer to you. These are the first voices I utter from Jerusalem, to you who with us are the truest and most pious worshipper of Christ, the only Son of God and our Savior, who accomplished the saving dispensation in Jerusalem according to the divine Scriptures, who trampled death here, who wiped away human sins with his own precious blood, and who granted life and incorruption and spiritual heavenly grace to all who believe.

May the King of all God himself, the provider of every goodness, guard you by his power and grace, adorned with ever more brilliant and greater achievements of piety, increasing your royal offspring, and preserve your whole household through many peaceful cycles of years, as the boast of Christians and for the whole world.

May the God of all things grant you to us, Augustus, most God-loving emperor, strengthened and adorned with every virtue, showing your accustomed benevolence toward the holy churches and the Roman commonwealth, and glorying in ever greater prizes of piety, through many peaceful cycles of years, with your whole household.