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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 31 Pages
Page 2
Yet doth somehow this man thrusting away these things as impossible and uncomely, dare to make no small accusal against the glory and excellence of our Saviour, and allotting to Him our measure and nought else, says that He has been glorified by the Holy Ghost, not using as His own Power, that through Him to work signs, but gaining from without and introduced, the power of achieving ought miraculous, that He may appear as we the recipient of a gift haply of healing, and be bound to say with blessed Paul, By the Grace of God I am what I am. For to whom being and being able to achieve ought is imported and from without, these will with reason utter such word as this.
For he desiring (as he thinks) to prove the Holy Trinity equal in operation unto all things, says again thus;
"God the Word was made Flesh and tabernacled in us. The Father co-seated with Himself the manhood which was assumed: for (it saith) The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My Right Hand; the Spirit descending consummated the glory of that which was assumed, for when (He saith) the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall glorify Me. Desirest thou also another operation of the Trinity in respect of these very things? The Son indwelt in the body, the Father commended Him when baptized, the Spirit fashioned him in the Virgin." Then again he says of the holy Apostles, "The Son chose them out, for I (He says) chose you forth; the Father sanctified, for (He says) Father, sanctify them in Thy Truth, the Spirit rendered them orators."
§1. That his whole discourse has been framed both unwisely and unhappily, is full easy to shew. And in this too he wanders, and how, I will say. For One indeed is the Nature of the Godhead, but the Father exists in His Proper mode [1 ] and the Son too and likewise the Spirit: yet are all things wrought by the Father and through the Son in the Spirit, and when the Father is (so to say) moved to ought, yet does the Son surely work in the Spirit; and though the Son or the Spirit be said to fulfil ought, this is full surely of the Father: and through the whole Holy and Consubstantial Trinity runs the Operation alike and Will unto everything.
On this subject we say thus. But view again how clearly and evidently, although he says that the Word out of God has been made Flesh, he mis-coins the force of the ideas, and bears it far away from rightness, representing the Incarnation as an operation of His: for he adds forthwith, "wilt thou another operation of the Trinity besides these?" as though he had already shewn the first operation of God the Word, His being made Flesh according to the Scriptures. And what is the other after the first operation, he shews as he supposes. He says, "The Son indwelt in the body:" a God-clad man therefore is Christ. Next the Word of God the Father is shewn operating this alone for man: so that even though the blessed Evangelist say, The Word was made Flesh and tabernacled in us, [2] it indicates nothing else to us but just this alone, that the Word being God dwelt in a man just as in ourselves too. For we are temples of the living God, and herein know we that He is in us because He gave us of His Spirit. But thou wilt not (I suppose) say this, shuddering at the blasphemy, but wilt confess with us, that the Word of God has been made Man (and this is the Incarnation): and wilt agree that He hath remained God, and kept the Beauty of His proper Nature, even though He have the name, Sow of Man, and have been made so of a truth. What then didst thou learn, and say that the Father co-seated with Himself the manhood that was assumed, and not rather that there sitteth on the Throne of His proper Godhead, in the Good-Pleasure of God the Father, the Word That sprang from Him, when made Man too: in order that His Human Nature be not conceived and spoken of by us as something other than He, albeit the union that is of truth[ ]shews us that He is One and that His Flesh is not alien from Him?
1. [b] "Thus is there One God, the Holy-Trinity by sameness of Nature speeding unto one Godhead, even though in the giving of Names and conceived of in Proper Existence only, It fitly admit the number Three." Thes. cap. 32 pp. 311 fin. 312. " He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall tell it unto you; for being the Spirit of Truth He will enlighten them in whom He is, and will lead them unto the apprehension of the Truth. And this we say, not as severing into diversity and making wholly separate, either the Father from the Son, or the Son from the Father, nor yet the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, but (since One Godhead truly is, and is thus preached as viewed in the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity), defining the Acts belonging to Each and which seem to be attributed to Them severally, to be the Will and Operation of the Whole Godhead. For the Divine and Unsevered Nature will work through Itself, in no divided way, so far as pertains to the one count of Godhead, although Each hath Personal Existence : for the Father is What He is, and the Son likewise, and the Holy Ghost." On S. John vi. 45 p. 402 O. T. add in S. Johannem p. 784 a. S. Cyril further speaks of the Incarnation as the act of the Whole Holy Trinity. "But He says that He was Incarnate by the Father, although Solomon says, Wisdom builded her an house: and the blessed Gabriel attributeth the creation of the Divine Body to the Operation of the Spirit, when he was speaking with the holy Virgin (for The Holy Ghost, he says, shall come upon thee, and the Power of the most Highest shall overshadow thee) that thou mayest again understand, that the Godhead being by Nature One, conceived of both in the Father and the Son and in the Holy Ghost, not severally will Each in-work as to ought of things that are, but whatever is said to be done by One, this is wholly the work of the whole Divine Nature." Ib. on vi. 57 pp. 424, 425 O. T.
2. [c] The Word was made flesh and tabernacled in (or among) us. The Easterns in their great dread of Apollinarianism, suspected S. Cyril of pressing S. John's earlier words (σὰρξ ἐγένετο) to mean, was turned into flesh (see p. 44 note e): Nestorius on his side would seem to have rested his, 'the Divine Nature not enduring change into flesh but inhabitation in man' (pp. 28, 30) in part on the words, tabernacled in us. S. Cyril gives two most carefully-weighed expositions of the verse at pp. 4, 5 and 35.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius-2.asp?pg=2
