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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 23
§3. How then, say, didst thou fearing the appellation of weakness and bearing it away from Him, albeit the plan of the economy will it not, say that He hungers visibly, i. e., humanly, yet Divinely supplies food to the hungry? dost thou not say that it is a form of weakness to be in need of food and to be said to hunger as we? but against them who desire to be fault-finders, full strong will the mode of the economy array itself. We must therefore, either bearing Him away from all things that are said humanly and in mean wise, put such passions about a mere man, or considering that He being God has been made as we, confess that He is impassible in respect of the Nature of the Godhead, but say besides that He endured the weakness in our behalf, according to the human nature and after the flesh, I mean. Since, tell me who ask thee again, The Divine-uttering Paul says that He has been crucified out of weakness; but dost thou bear away this thing from God the Word, saying (I suppose) that it is small and ignoble and not worthy of Him? Other therefore than He is he that was crucified, Whom also our Divine instructor calls Lord of glory, saying, For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Hath He, then yet remained Lord of Glory Who put it aside and endured this ignoble and mean suffering? If therefore He hath remained so, neither hath He any loss through being weak. How then fearedst thou to say that the Word of God came to be in this case economically? But if He truly fell from being any longer Lord of glory, and any one affirm that it is so, he will incur the charge of the most utter blasphemy and that with reason: for to Him boweth every knee and every tongue shall confess Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. For over all that is under Heaven extendeth the glory of Christ Who suffered for us in the flesh, as we have full often said. When therefore thou nearest the Spirit-clad saying, He was crucified out of weakness but He liveth of the Power of God, understand it piously: for he says that He hath suffered humanly, albeit He hath a nature utterly beyond passion. And so having, He bare with the weak flesh and having suffered death humanly, He lived again Divinely, Himself quickening His own Temple, as the Might of the Father.
And verily when the time was now at hand in which He must endure the Cross for us, He went away and prayed saying, Father if it he possihle, let this cup pass from Me, but added hereto at the close of His Prayer, Nevertheless not as I will but as THOU. But since He albeit Word and God all-Powerful, has once been held to be in weakness like we, He giving the cause of this most economically, says, The spirit indeed is willing, the flesh weak. Consider therefore how He though Himself letting go nought, nor yet suffering weakness in His own Nature, permitted His Flesh to go after its own laws, and this thing is said to be His, because His Body is His own. Hence the being weak according to the Flesh proved to us that He was Man, the not enduring death and scaring away decay from His own Body that He is God Who knows not to be weak: for He is the Life and Might of the Father. For that the weakness herein unwonted and unwilled by Him [4], He made voluntary in the good-pleasure of God the Father, to save all under Heaven, Himself will teach saying, For I have come down from Heaven, not to do Mine own Will but the Will of Him That sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing but should raise it up at the last day.
4. [m] See also S. Cyril's commentary on these verses of S. John, book 4 beg. pp 383 sqq. O.T.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius-2.asp?pg=23
