Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria (412-444), is best known as a protagonist in the christological controversy of the second quarter of the fifth century. Readers may be surprised therefore to find such polemic absent from this early work on the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament. Another possibly unexpected feature of this Alexandrian commentary is its focus on historical exegesis, which reveals Cyril’s serious interest in the fortunes of the people of Israel and Judah in the centuries preceding and following the exile. Unlike his predecessor Didymus the Blind, Cyril abjures an approach that dismisses the historicity of the text (as in his opening defense of Hosea’s marriage), and he proceeds to other levels of interpretation, moral and spiritual, only after a preliminary examination of the historical.

Indebted to the diverse approaches of Didymus, Jerome, and Theodore, Cyril appears in this work as a balanced commentator, eclectic in his attitude and tolerant of alternative views. Although he displays an occasional uncertainty in his grasp of historical and geographical details, as well as an inclination to verbosity, Cyril has conspicuously influenced the exegesis of his younger contemporary Theodoret of Cyrus, and has made a vital contribution to the development of biblical interpretation in the church.

+Robert C. Hill, a founder and honorary fellow of the Australian Catholic University’s Centre for Early Christian Studies, was a distinguished biblical scholar best known for his prodigious talent as a translator of Patristic biblical commentaries on the Old Testament. Nearly 30 volumes of his translations have been published, many of them in the Fathers of the Church series. In recognition of this work in 2003 he was awarded the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice by Pope John Paul II. Most recently, Hill translated the first two volumes in the new Library of Early Christianity Series, Theodoret of Cyrus’s Questions on the Octateuch.