Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem
The Devil in the Word, the Demons in the Image
Cyril, lacking in ecclesiastical autonomy, crafts a demonology and anti-ritualizing weaponry for baptized Christians to experience the true Jerusalem and enable them to aid others in the same. Through pre-baptismal exorcisms, baptism, as well as cultivation of memory, he manufactures what I term “Apocalyptic Seers,” capable of seeing through demonic mist to the living events of Christ’s Passion. This stands in particular protest to Constantine’s Holy Sepulcher and its focus on the tomb and resurrection. Cyril develops a view of Jerusalemite exorcism, which pulls the human body and mind into conceptualizations of sacred time and vision. To that end, his descriptions of exorcism revolve informally around general understandings of Stoic optics interwoven subtly with biblical categories of sacred history. In this way, he develops Jerusalemite exorcism and baptism that visually liberate one’s sight from a demonically compromised present age so that it may travel back to the ontological event of the Passion re-imprinted upon the soul.
Keywords: eschatology, Jerusalem, Constantine, Holy Sepulcher, cross, Crucifixion, Cyril of Jerusalem, demon, exorcism
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