|
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 65
Come now therefore, noble sir, where (tell me) have they put of the Son, Incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary [[18]]? but this he can by no means shew. But consider this. They say that the Word out of God, the Only-Begotten, He That is from forth the Essence of the Father, He through Whom are all things, the Very Light, was both incarnate and made man, suffered and rose, and too, that He will in season come again the Judge.
But in order that submitting to accurate scrutiny his words also, we may see what is the amount of the unlearning that is in them, he affirms in plain terms that they say that the Word out of God was both incarnate and made man, and he crowns them with his vote unto their truth as saying what was convenient. Do they therefore (tell me) in saying that He was both Incarnate and made Man mean ought else than that He was begotten after the flesh? for this would be (and alone) the mode of incarnation to one who has his existence both external to flesh and in his proper nature; for no one would say (I suppose) that flesh has been made flesh nor will any one be made what he was [already]. But if one should conceive a certain economic change to have been made regarding him unto somewhat else which he was not, the expression will then have great fitness. Hence if they say that the Only-Begotten has been Incarnate, and this would be wrought (I suppose) through fleshly generation and in no other way, how have they not plainly said that the Word being God has been begotten after the flesh?
But (he says) the Birth is not named in plain terms. Yes, but the nature of the thing knows (as I already said) no other way of being incarnate. So that, although it be not in plain terms said in matters of this kind, we will not for this, forsaking the only way recognized by nature, go off to another. For it is written in the Book of Genesis, And to Seth there was made a son, and he called his name Enos. Shall we then, because the Scripture has put, was made, not admit the mode of birth? how would not this be unlearned? for the very nature of the thing will all but compel us even against our will to confess the idea of birth. How then on hearing of the Incarnation does he not forthwith admit the idea of Birth? and when the being made man has been plainly mentioned, how did he not straightway understand, that being made man would befit not a man, lest he should seem to be made that he already was, but the Word originating from God? But where being made man is believed to truly take place, there is full surely the birth whereby he may be seen to be made man.
But not thus does it seem to you is the saying to be conceived of, that the Word of God was both Incarnate and was made Man; for you said again, endeavouring to oppose the idea of every one else, that the being made man, means, not the change into flesh of the Divine Nature [19], but its indwelling in man. He says then that the conversion into flesh of the Divine Nature is both impossible and that it in no wise befalls it (and very rightly, for we will approve him who herein has chosen to speak aright; for I say that It is stable and that It will not be transformed into ought else than what It is believed to be): but that his discourse hath missed of the fitting and true, in that he maintained that the being made Man is the indwelling in man, I shall essay to shew. For if he says that this matter is true of Emmanuel singly and alone, let him teach the reason why (for I cannot learn it), or no one will tolerate him as a definer and layer down of the law in respect of those things as to which he is pleased to speak inconsiderately. But perchance the force of the things defined does not extend unto one [alone], there will then be no blame, even though it extend unto all. Hence not once for all but many times over shall we find that God has been made man, and not only the Word out of God the Father, but I will add both the Father Himself and besides, the Holy Ghost. For He said through one of the holy Prophets of them that have been justified in faith, I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be My people. And Christ Himself also said, And if any man hear Me, we will come I and My Father and make Our abode with him and lodge in him [20]. The most wise Paul too hath somewhere written, And Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of the things which were to be spoken of, but Christ as a Son over Bis own house whose house are WE; and moreover of the Holy Ghost too, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Hence if when the God of all is said to dwell in any, if this be the being made man or the incarnation, let it be said in respect of each one also of those who were made partakers of the Divine Nature and have moreover had Him indwelling them, that he has both been made man and besides was incarnate. This now being so and admitted as true, the Word out of God the Father might even be said to have been most often made flesh, yea and He indwelleth even now in many of those who fear Him.
Yea (he says) for it is written of God the Word, that He tabernacled in us; the Divine-uttering Paul too said of Christ the Saviour of us all, that in Him hath dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
18. [a] The Creed that S. Cyril (here as elsewhere) recites above is the Nicene Creed, as actually put forth by that Council: Nestorius, being Archbishop of Constantinople, had (not unnaturally) been quoting from that of Constantinople, which is the Nicene Creed in the form in which it was afterwards put forth by the Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381), and in which it is familiar to us. See the two in Rev. Dr. Heurtley's De Fide et symbolo, pp. 5 and 17 ed. 18G9. and translated in parallel columns with the variations marked in my Father's, The Councils of the Church to the close of the second general Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, 1857 pp. 312 sqq. For the very slow steps by which the Creed of Constantinople became well-known beyond the more immediate neighbourhood of Constantinople itself see "On the clause, And the Son, in regard &c." pp. 37 sqq; for the beginnings of its Liturgical use, in Spain, pp. 49, 65; in France p. 66; Germany, Rome p. 66; the East, note 2 pp. 184, 185. Even John Archbishop of Antioch in his Letter to S. Proclus written a few years after this treatise of S. Cyril, inserts the Creed of Nicea, Synodicon cap. 196. Conc. iv. 452 Col. Diogenes bishop of Cyzicus, in the Council of Chalcedon, said, "The holy fathers who were afterwards, explained the, was Incarnate, which the holy fathers in Nicea said, by 'From forth the Holy Ghost and Mary the Virgin.'" The Egyptians and the most pious Bishops with them called out, No one admits addition (Conc. Chalc. Act 1.1. iv. 913 ed. Col. quoted On the &c. p. 40.): probably with a keen recollection of what their great Archbishop had here said, objecting to Nestorius as adding them: for the Council was holden in 451, only 7 years after he had departed to his rest.
On the antiquity of these words though not in the actual Nicene Creed, see my Father's note P to Tertullian in the Library of the Fathers, pp. 503, 504.
19. [b] Theodoret, having lived amid the same school of thought as Nestorius, shares with him the dread of the Divine Nature being imagined to be changed into flesh. In his objection to S. Cyril's first chapter (see above p. 24 note q) Theodoret says, "It is plain then from what has been said that the form of God was not turned into servant's form but remaining what it was, took servant's form.....having moulded Himself a Temple in the Virgin's womb, He was co-with that which was moulded and conceived and formed and borne: wherefore we style that holy Virgin too, Mother of God, not as having borne God by Nature but man united to God Who moulded him(p. 204 c d e)." In his Letter to the Monks of the province he says, "For in his first chapter he casts out the economy that was wrought for our sakes, teaching that God the Word hath not taken human nature but was Himself changed into flesh," Ep. 151 p. 1292; Migne, t. 83. col. 1417. In his letter to the Monks of Constantinople written in his later years (Tillemont Art. xi. fin. thinks about 451) he says that SS.Basil, Gregory, Amphilochius, Pope Damasus, Ambrose, Cyprian, Athanasius, Alexander his teacher, Meletius, Flavian, lights of the East, Ephraim the lyre of the Spirit; John [Chrysostom], Atticus, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin, Hippolytus, and (he then Bishop of Rome, the most holy Leo, all taught that "One Son is the Only-Begotten Son of God and God before the ages Begotten ineffably from out the Father, and that after the Incarnation He is called both Son of man and man, not turned hereinto but assuming what is ours." Ep. 145 p. 1253. Further on in the same Epistle Theodoret speaks also of the Manhood remaining: he says that whereas our Lord raised other bodies free from all blemish, "in His own He left the tokens of sufferings that He might through the sufferings convict of erring those who deny the assumption of His Body, and through the print of the nails might teach them who imagined that the Body had been changed into another nature, that it had remained in its proper form." ib p. 1254.
20. [c] This addition occurs in the same words on S. John i. 13 p. 107 O.T. (cf. an allusion on S.John xiv. 24) and in Scholia, § 18.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=65
