Cyril of Scythopolis. — One of the finest Greek hagiographers, best known for the care he took in documenting and precisely establishing chronology by every means at his disposal. Born in Scythopolis, anciently Bethsan, today Bejsán, in Samaria, around 524. His pious parents often gave hospitality to passing monks. In 530 the most illustrious of these guests, St Sabas, declared the young Cyril his disciple, and from that moment his vocation was determined. In 543 Cyril received the monastic tonsure, went to Jerusalem, where he attended the dedication of the New Church of St Mary, and then visited John the Hesychast at the Great Monastery. Despite the advice given him by this experienced man, the young Cyril did not enter the cenobium of St Euthymius, but, driven by that ardent desire for solitude which animates all Eastern monasticism, he took up the life of an anchorite in the monastery of Calamon (of the reeds) on the banks of the Jordan. But an illness struck him as a punishment for his presumption. He recovered his health by setting out for St Euthymius in July 544. It was the period of the original disputes in Palestine. When the heterodox monks were driven from the New Monastery, Cyril was among the orthodox religious designated to go and repopulate it (21 July 555). Two years later he moved to the monastery of St Sabas. The common opinion that he died as early as 558 rests only on an argumentum e silentio of very slender substance.
For earlier editions of Cyril’s works, see S. Vailhé, s. V. in DTHC, III, 11, col. 2581. Irene Hausherr