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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 60
"'If Christ (says he [7]) be God, and Christ be born of the blessed Mary, how is not the Virgin mother of God?' I hide none of their objections: for the lover of the truth takes and objects to himself all that comes of the falsehood;" and then he endeavours to apply the solution, using some such conceptions as these. " For the babe (he says) is formed in the womb, but so long as it have not yet been formed, it hath no soul, but being formed at length, it has a soul made it of God. As then the woman bears the body, God ensouls it, and the woman is not called mother of soul, because she bare a man endowed with soul, but rather mother of man, so (he says) the blessed Virgin too, even though she have borne a man, the Word of God passing forth along with him" (for this word did he use) "not therefore is she mother of God."
§4. Is therefore (tell me) that blamed by you which is said by us? does it seem right to you without understanding to find fault with what is so rightly and purely said, and do you not rather attach the blame of not being able to think aright to your own understanding? For they to whom the truth is repugnant, to them will belong (and too readily) the receptivity of what is not so, and the rebuke of those who are wont to speak most excellently, will not be without its harm, yea rather will be even a manifest demonstration of the having declined unto falsehood and of choosing to honour what it would be more right to hate, in that one has missed of right reason. But no man, having conceived of things so base. . . [8], he said that himself was the lover of the truth, and that we had contrived the lie; albeit one may see on the contrary that ours is right and true. For the advocate of the lie and fraud endeavours to fasten the blame of his falsehood on the champions of the truth, haply driven to forgetfulness of the Prophet who says, Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness.
But I will endeavour to shew by the example adduced by him that he does not even clearly know what he is saying. For flesh confessedly is born of flesh, and the Artificer of all performs the ensouling in the mode and way that He knows. Yet is the woman who bears, albeit she is the source of the flesh only, believed to bear the whole man, made up (I mean) of soul and body, although she contribute nothing of her own to the being of the soul. Yet when one says man, one signifies surely the soul united to the body. As therefore the woman, albeit she bear the body alone, is said to bear him that is made up of soul and body, and this no wise damages the account of the soul, as though it found in flesh the origin of its being; so will you conceive as to the blessed Virgin too: for even though she be mother of the holy Flesh, she hath nevertheless borne God the Word out of God truly united thereto [9], and though any call her Mother of God, he will not be defining a more recent beginning of God the Word nor that the flesh hath been made the commencement of His Being: but will understand rather the mode of the economy and wondering at it will say, O Lord, I have heard Thy hearing and was afraid, I considered Thy works and was astonished.
Bat our all-wise and prudent expounder, having pondered the force of the example says, "Thus the holy Virgin, too, even though she hath borne man, God the Word passing along with him, yet not therefore is she Mother of God: for not from the blessed Virgin was the Dignity of the Word, but He was God by Nature."
What therefore is the meaning of, that the Word passed forth along with the flesh, he alone knows, but I marvel much at his subtil refinement. For the word of truth sets forth that the Word of God has been Personally united to the Flesh; and he keeps affirming the passing forth along with, meaning I know not what. Next, when our [10] discussion was all about nature and Personal Union, and aimed at enquiring not what the Word out of God is in respect to Dignity, but whether He has been made Man economically, making His own the flesh born of a woman: he removing the question to quite other matters says, "Not from the holy Virgin was the Dignity of the Word, but He was God by Nature:" albeit how are not Dignity and Nature two entirely different things? But our discourse hereupon does not need overmuch skill: we must therefore see what comes next. For he fortifies yet another outpost against what has been said by us, as he thinks invincible and competent to shew with all force that the Birth out of woman of Emmanuel is empty talk of ours: he says again thus,
7. [l] i. e. Nestorius is citing S. Cyril himself in his letter to the monks ; see Epp. p. 3 d, and S. Cyril's reply just below, is that blamed by you which has been said by us ?
8. [m] The Roman Editors of the Concilia, who first published this treatise in 1608, conjectured that οὐδεὶς, no one, might be a slip for οὐδὲν, nothing, translating, But with no thought of how base these things are. Perhaps some words have slipped out.
9. [o] See S. Ath. against Arians, iii. § 29 p. 410. O.T. note e. where this passage is translated. S.Cyril in his 16th Paschal homily, about this same time (A.D. 430) says, "Yet He was (as I said) God in the manhood too, allowing to the nature that is ours to advance through its own laws, yet along therewith preserving the genuineness of the Godhead: for thus and no otherwise will both the bairn (τὸ τεχθὲν) be conceived of as by Nature God, and the Virgin which bare will be said to be mother, not of flesh and blood simply, like the mothers with us, but of the Lord and of God Who hath hidden Himself under our likeness." . . . "For as the Precious and all-holy Flesh which was forth of the holy Virgin hath become the own of the Word who is forth of God the Father, so too all things beseeming the flesh save only sin: but chiefly and before all else will birth of a woman beseem the flesh. Hence the Godhead by Itself if it be conceived of apart from flesh will be 'without mother' and that full rightly: but when the mystery Christ-ward is brought forward, the truth as to this will be other and subtil exceedingly. For we shall deem, if we choose to think aright and go the most unerring way, that the Virgin bare not bare (γυμνὸν) Godhead but rather the Word from forth of God the Father, Incarnate and United to flesh, she who was taken to aid in bearing after the flesh Him who was united to flesh. Emmanuel therefore is God: and mother of God will she too be called who bare after the flesh God who for our sakes appeared in flesh." t. v. ii. pp. 227. 228.
10. [p] i. e. S. Cyril's Letter to the Monks, above-cited, which Nestorius was in part contradicting in the sermon to which the extract belongs.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=60
