St Cyril of Alexandria Against Nestorius (Part 2 of 2)

Translated by P. E. Pusey

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This Part: 31 Pages

Page 15

"Why [14], as we were just now hearing, when both are according to thee mingled, does our Lord, delivering to the disciples the force of the Mystery, thus say, He took bread and gave thanks and gave to His disciples saying, Take, eat all of you for this is My Body. Why said He not, This is My Godhead Which is being broken for you? and again giving the cup of the Mysteries, He said not, This is My Godhead Which is being poured forth for you, but This is My Blood which is being shed for you for the remission of sins."

§7. That it is therefore an exceeding folly to want to oppose oneself to those who are not at all, and to no purpose to march forth, taking for contradiction that which no one (I suppose) cared either to think or say, how is it not manifest to all? for if one chose to contend that the ox is not by nature an horse, nor yet man an horse, whereas no one would even endure to think or say this;----how would he not be laughed at and besides a vain talker, beating the air and fighting against things uncertain and devising for himself sweat and toil against what was not there? For I say that something confessed ought first to be laid down, in order that then in duo order ours may be ranged against it.

But let us come to this: for if there be any who should dare to say the Word out of God had been transformed into the nature of the body, one might very reasonably object to him, that He on giving His Body did not rather say, Take eat this is My Godhead which is being broken for you, and, this is not My Blood but rather My Godhead which is being poured forth for you. But since the Word being God made His own the Body born of a woman, without undergoing any alteration or turning, how must not He who saith no untruth say, Take eat this is My Body? for being Life as God, He rendered it Life and Life-giving.

Having therefore opened your eyes but a little to the Truth, you will I suppose charge, yourself against yourself, your superfluity of language, on all sides stuttering and unlearnedly arraying against the Doctrines of piety this thy counterfeit and joyless discourse.

14. [x] This passage occurs in Mercator, in the middle of a long piece which he gives with the heading, Also in the sixth quire of the same on Judas, against the heretics (p. 110 Bal.). The portion preceding this is given below,p.171. The extract concludes, "Sever the nature but connect the union : confess Christ Son of God, yet a two-fold son, man and God, in order that the suffering may be allotted to the human nature, the undoing of the suffering which was wrought on the man who suffered, may belong to the Godhead alone."

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