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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 115 Pages
Page 104
And marvel not if He hath apportioned to His own Nature the being before Abraham, but consider rather that albeit He had taken a body of the holy Virgin, He said to Nicodemus, If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things? and no man hath ascended up into heaven but He That came down from Heaven, the Son of Man, albeit He was called son of man too, born of a woman after the flesh. Will He then be false in saying that there hath come down from Heaven the son of man, i. e., Himself? Not so, for He is Himself the Truth. How then will the son of man be rightly conceived of as from above? because the Word being God and out of the Essence That is above all, is said to have come down and to have taken the servant's form. Therefore He converseth with us, not as any longer bare Word, but man as we, and as already conceived of as One with the Flesh united to Him. And as by reason of what beseemeth the emptiness, He maketh His own all that belongs to His own Flesh, albeit by Nature unembodied; so Himself being from above and out of Heaven, He allotteth again the coming from above to Himself even when He hath been made Man, even though He hath been born according to the flesh with us of a woman. The properties therefore of the human nature have become the very own of the Word, those again of the Word Himself, the very own of the human nature: for thus is conceived of One Christ and Son and Lord.
But since this innovator has added that "like to His brethren in all things is He Who assumed brotherhood of human soul and flesh, not He Who saith, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," come now let us again consider as we can what it is which he here saith. For that the Son is the Image and Impress of God the Father, he too hath confessed: who again "He is Who of human soul and body assumed brotherhood," i. e., with us, let him come forward and teach; for no one would say that a man like us, such as (for example) Barnabas or Paul or any other of those who are reckoned among men, would be said to take brotherhood of human soul and body, as though he were ought else than this, and so took it, but he is so rather in being what he is. Not one therefore who is man could be conceived as taking the being what he is, as though it were other than he: but it will beseem rather the Word which sprang forth of God, having no rank among us in regard to the count of His own Nature, to take "brotherhood of human soul and body" with us. And the word of the truth contends on our side and the tradition of the undefiled Faith. It holds then that God the Word in the Form of God the Father has been made our Brother in all things, taking "brotherhood of human soul and body," and will not speak falsely in saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. For if any among us had fallen into such unlearning in his ideas as to suppose that God the Father Himself Which is in Heaven must needs come down, even to the having likeness with us (I mean bodily); he might well have feared lest that when Christ says, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, he might be imagining that He too out of Whom He is, was in form as we, and in fashion of body. But since when He was made man, He preserved the being God, and holdeth the Beauty of His own Nature untarnished, I would no wise shrink from saying that He possesseth likeness with us, in respect of His being man as we, Who is of soul and body, albeit God by Nature and Impress of the Person of Him Who hath begotten Him. One therefore and the Same is He, like to His brethren after the flesh, yet shewing in His own Nature Him too Who begat Him, in regard I say to His being God.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=104
