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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 87
ยง11. And who again will be conceived of as he whom (as he supposes) he confesses he venerates and pretends to honour with likeness to God, save surely him whom he but now mentioned to us, calling him an advocate or co-worker of the Divine sway? whom he foolishly said ought to be co-worshipped with the Godhead, as son other and severally than the Word of God: he says that he has also been exalted by God the Father, that he moreover received the Name which is above every name, that to him should both every knee how, of heavenly and earthly and neath the earth and every tongue confess Lord Jesus Christ.
If therefore the Father hath placed Him, being God by Nature, on high even before the here-mentioned exaltation: on investigating the mode of the intervening abasement, we shall find some wise Economy in regard to which dishonoured meanwhile, He had become again in the exaltation wherein He ever was, exaltation essentially inexisting and verily Proper to Him. If this be not so (as he deems and says) but He made some other than the Word of God, the man connected with Him, an object of worship by heaven and earth and those lower yet:----He hath engodded a man like us: no longer will He meetly blame us as though we desired to engod him that is not God, whereas one must fasten on God the Father Himself the charge of the transgression hereto pertaining. He that is studious for learning sees therefore in what direction his words burst forth, and the inventions of his untempered miscounsel at what a word they terminate. For WE say that the Son being by Nature God, i. e., the Word out of God the Father, descended unto voluntary emptying, ascended again with the flesh too unto the God-befitting Dignity of His inherent Excellence: for He is worshipped with flesh too, as being an object of worship even before it, for He was even yet by Nature God, both before the emptying and when He is said to endure the emptiness, made as we. But this man disdaining so august and spotless doctrines connecteth a man with God by mere outward accident, and is not ashamed to co-worship him as in equality of dignity and as one with another, and maintains (he says) that he received as somewhat unwonted and strange and as a matter of favour that to him every knee should bow, and besides that every tongue should confess Lord Jesus Christ. And shouldst thou say that he was made God by Nature, he hath blasphemed openly saying that the Nature of the Godhead is generate; and if not by Nature but he receive the dignity of gift and from outside and by mere title, how is he not openly saying that we worship him who is not by Nature God? And together with us (it is like) the gravity of the spirits above too is in error. And the Father Himself is the beginning and plea to us of these things. How then will He yet find fault with them who have chosen to worship the creature rather than Himself? and why does He indict and punish those that have erred, if the error have been by the will of Himself, in exhibiting to us as an object of worship him who is not by Nature God?
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-nestorius.asp?pg=87
