|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
|
This Part: 115 Pages
Page 101
He has therefore brothers like to Himself and bearing the image of His Divine Nature, in regard of holiness; for thus is Christ formed in us, the Holy Ghost as it were transelementing us from things human unto those that are His own. Therefore to us too said the blessed Paul, But YE are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Therefore the Son transfers not ought at all of things that have been made into the Nature of His own Godhead (for that were impossible): but there is impressed on those who have been made partakers of His Divine Nature through their partaking of the Holy Ghost the spiritual Likeness with Him, and the Beauty of the Ineffable Godhead flashes upon the souls of the saints. Why then dost thou assigning the mere and alone likeness of the flesh, not blush, disregarding the Divine and Spiritual forming, yea rather taking it utterly away? Yet the Lord of all and Only-Begotten God lowered Himself unto emptiness for our sakes, that He might bestow on us the Dignity of brother-hood with Him and the Beauty worthy of all love, of His Innate Nobility: and this man, bereaving us of all that is most lovely, says that a mere man hath become our brother and shews that sure (as he supposes) is his account hereof, adding "Mark too what is straightway joined on to these, That He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things God-ward, for in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted. Therefore a merciful High Priest is He That suffered: passible is the Temple, not the quickening God of him which hath suffered." Therefore that by choosing thus to think and moreover daring to say it too, he severs again into distinct hypostases and into two Persons, the Word from forth God the Father and him whom himself has just introduced to us as a God-bearing man, if so be that one and apart by himself is he that suffered, and another he that quickeneth, I suppose that no one whatever will doubt.
But in another way also is he beside himself, having quaffed wine from forth the vine of Sodom, and drunk with error and haply not even knowing what he saith: for where hath the Word out of God the Father been called (I shudder at saying it) the God of Christ? for there is One Lord Jesus Christ, and one faith in Him, not as though in two distinct persons, but as through one Baptism into One Son and God and Lord, the Word out of God the Father even when He became Man. For not because He became as we, will He lose the being God (how should He?) nor yet because He is God by Nature, doth He hold the likeness to us inadmissible nor will He reject the being man; but as He hath remained in human nature God, so being both in the Nature and Pre-eminence of the Godhead, none the less is He Man. Both therefore in the Same, and One God and Man is Emmanuel.
But this good man rejecting the mode of the Economy as uncomely, removeth from God the Word the human, that He may at last be clearly seen to have in no way aided our condition. For he says that not He became an High Priest both Merciful and Faithful, but allots this rather to him that suffered as being other than He. Yet how should he not, if he had desired to be a wise initiator, have made an exact muster of the expressions and ideas that are in the God-inspired Scripture and considered that this is a thing which is both truly God-befitting and not apart from what befits and beseems the emptying: and how we will say as briefly as we can.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=101
