Commenting on the theology of Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures 20:
CHRIST’S
SUFFERING, A FORM OF FELLOWSHIP (ΚΟΙΝΩΝΊΑ): ΜΊΜΗΣΙΣ, ΕἸΚΌΝΙ, ἈΛΉΘΕΙΑ, ὉΜΟΊΩΜΑ
In his catechetical lectures,
Cyril talks of the experience of all who share the sufferings of Christ as a
form of fellowship:
O strange and inconceivable
thing! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really
crucified and raised again; but while our imitation was in a figure (ἐν εἰκόνι ἡ
μίμησις), our salvation is in reality. Christ was indeed crucified and indeed
buried, and actually rose again. He has freely bestowed upon us all these
things, so that we, by imitation, communicating in his sufferings, might truly
gain salvation. O surpassing loving-kindness! Christ suffered anguish and
received nails in His undefiled hands and feet. While he freely bestows
salvation on me without pain or toil by the fellowship of His pain. (καὶ ἀπονητὶ
χαρίζεται διὰ τῆς κοινωνίας τὴν σωτηρίαν).
Baptism is certainly seen as an
antitype of the Passion of Christ in Cyril (τοῦ Χριστοῦ παθημάτων ἀντίτυπον) in
the previous paragraphs of this catechesis. He advances a doctrine of baptism
as conformity to the Passion and death of Christ, then ultimately to his
suffering. Cyril uses the term ‘similitude’ (μίμησις) and ‘participation’
(κοινωνία) in reference to Christ’s Passion. In this sense, blood- baptism or
martyrdom is participation (κοινωνία) to the sufferings of Christ through
similitude (μίμησις). Paul, quoted by Cyril in this catechesis, confirms it in
Rom. 6.5, ‘For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.’ Cyril understands
that this death implies the imitation of Christ’s sufferings and, much more, a
form of fellowship with him. Paradoxically, if, on the one hand, there is the
imitation of the sufferings, on the other, there is also the reality of
salvation. In effect, baptism is both a figure of the Passion and of the
resurrection. In fact, the development and enrichment given to this concept are
worthy of notice. When Cyril explains it, he clearly states that the imitation
is effected in an image (ἐν εἰκόνι) while salvation in reality (ἐν ἀλήθεια).
While sharing by imitation in Christ’s sufferings, one might truly obtain
salvation; by communion in/with his sufferings, Christ imparts the grace of
salvation.
Cyril continues, in the following
paragraphs (6–7), by saying that baptism constitutes the fellowship by the
representation of Christ’s true sufferings (ἔτι δὲ καὶ τῶν ἀληθινῶν τοῦ Χριστοῦ
παθημάτων ἐν μιμήσει ἔχον τὴν κοινωνίαν). He says that we may learn that all
the pain Christ suffered, he endured it for our salvation in reality, and not
in appearance, and that we are partakers in His sufferings. In fact, everything
‘happened really to Him; but in your case, there was only a likeness (ὁμοίωμα)
of death and sufferings, whereas of salvation there was not a likeness but a
reality’.
Following this concept, water
baptism symbolizes the suffering of Christ (τοῦ Χριστοῦ παθημάτων ἀντίτυπον),
as well as blood-baptism, and unites in a κοινωνία by imitation of the real
sufferings of Christ. What the believers live in a figurative way through
baptism, mirroring what Christ truly lived is in a certain sense a ‘likeness’ (ὁμοίωμα)
of Christ’s suffering. This is here presented as in comparison and contrast
with the reality (ἀλήθεια) of what Christ suffered. This particular form of
typological language is open to a sacramental realism constituted by the use of
μίμησις, εἰκόνι, ἀλήθεια, ὁμοίωμα, to describe the symbiotic experience of
Christ and his people in suffering as a form of κοινωνία. This concept acquires
a more articulated nature in the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea. (Stefano
Salemi, “The Suffering of Christ: Suffering of People,” in T&T Clark
Handbook of The Early Church, ed. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli; John Anthony
McGuckin; Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski [London: T&T Clark, 2022], 669-70)
