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Translated by P.E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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31 Pages
Page 3
By the force of the ideas [5] whereby we are bound to speak of One Son of God, Christ and Emmanuel and Jesus are the Same, and this name too from the fact, for He shall save (it says) His people from their sins. For just as the name Emmanuel meant, that the Word of God through His Birth of a woman was made with us; and Christ again, that made Man. He is said to be anointed as we in human wise; so too Jesus, that He saved us His people, which specially proves Him to be truly God and by Nature Lord of all. For the creature is not said to belong to a mere man [6], but rather it will befit to say that all things are the Only-Begotten's even though He was made Man.
Some one haply will say, Yet the people of Israel were called Moses'.
To this we will say, The people was called God's and that was true; but because they passed into revolt, and made a calf in the desert, they were dishonoured of God, He vouchsafed not any more to call them His people, but made them over to a man. Not so we, for we are Jesus' own, in that He is God and all things created through Him. For so saith David, For He hath made us and not we ourselves, we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His Hand. And Himself again says of us, My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me, and again, And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring and there shall be one fold, one Shepherd. And He bade too the blessed Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? feed My lambs.
The Word out of God the Father was called Man, albeit by Nature God, in that He partook of blood and flesh like we. For thus was He seen of those on the earth, and not letting go what He was, but assuming human nature like us, perfect as regards itself; yet in human nature too hath He remained God and Lord of all, by Nature and in truth Begotten of God the Father. And this the most wise Paul most clearly shews us, for he says, The first man is of the earth earthy, the second Man the Lord [7] out of Heaven. Albeit the holy Virgin hath borne the Temple united to the Word, yet is Emmanuel said to be (and rightly) out of heaven, for from above and out of the Essence of God the Father was His Word begotten. Yet He descended unto us when He was made Man; yet thus too is He from above. And John testified, saying of Him, He that cometh from above is above all, and Christ Himself saith to the people of the Jews, Ye are from beneath, I am from above, and again, I am not of this world, albeit He was as Man .[ ]called part of the world; yet therewith also was He above: the world as God. For we remember that He plainly says, And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He That came down from Heaven, the Son of man. But we say that the Son of Man came down from Heaven by an economic union, the Word allotting to His own Flesh the endowments of His glory and God-befitting Excellency.
5. [e] intentionum = θεωρημάτων.
6. [f] "He is therefore God who has the angels His own." de recta fide to the Princesses p. 82 a.
7. [g] I have retained the words, the Lord, on the authority of John of Caesarea (who has preserved us the Greek in his Apology for the Council of Chalcedon; of this John nothing else seems to be known, his Defence exists in Rome in a syriac translation as mentioned by Card. Mai, Nova Bibl. Patr. ii. 415, and anonymously in Greek in ms, both at Venice and at Cairo), and of the syriac translation of these scholia. In the ecumenic Epistle to John, Archbishop of Antioch, the syriac translation has the words. On the other hand in S. Cyril's Apology for his 11th chapter against the Eastern Bishops, p. 194 c, the principal mss., the syriac translation (the manuscript of which is as old as the century after S. Cyril) and Mercator all omit the words, as does Mercator here. In the two citations of these words in the Quod Unus Christus (to be given below), the syriac version likewise omits the words. See also below, p. 226.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/incarnation-only-begotten.asp?pg=3
