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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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8 Pages
Page 4
Therefore you have the confession of the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, from which also our faith is True. But if (as our opponents say) the Word united thereto, put off His Flesh, changing it into His own Nature, the change of the Flesh and the confession of our saving Faith will (it seems) come to an end together, and with it surely cease the justification too that is through it, we are yet in our sins, the filth of our old offences is still not cast away.
If He have ceased from being as we, i.e. man, together with being also above us Divinely, the foundation of our salvation has been shaken, we unawares returned (it seems) to have to be again lorded over by death and sins. For as when the nethermost foundations of house (it may be) or wall have been shaken, the superincumbent parts too will surely subside with them: thus if the Economy with flesh of the Only-Begotten be not firm, our condition surely has tottered with it and grown weak at last; and how, we will say. For if they say that the Flesh of the Word have been changed into the Nature of the Godhead, there is every need to conceive that He has otherwise departed from His will to be son of man: then how does the all-wise Paul say, For there is one God, One Mediator too of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus Who gave Himself a ransom for us? For He mediates as being the Same, God alike and Man, reconciling us to God the Father through Himself and in Him and conjoining as it were unto union things by their own nature parted unto generic difference by a boundless parting, yet in Christ did they come together unto an union without confusion and that cannot be plucked asunder: for He has been connected Divinely with the Father, and He was connected with us too humanly. Thus is the Man Christ Jesus conceived to be and is our Mediator. But if the Flesh has been really (as he says) cast away by Him, He is gone surely away from mediating between us and His own Father: how therefore do we yet approach Him? who any longer brings us or mediates? For the Divine Paul said that the Mediator is Man: we remember Christ also Himself saying, No man cometh to the Father except through Me. Idle talk therefore and words full of distraction are the inventions of the Synousiasts.
The Son of man when He cometh shall He find Faith on the earth [6]? For come let us ask our opponents what sort of faith the Son of man when He comes down out of Heaven would find in them who are on the earth, or how He would have us minded regarding Him: that He has left willing to be son of man, or that He has remained in the likeness usward? though how can one doubt that if it were displeasing to Him to be conceived of as being yet as we are, how were it meet to say, The Son of man when He comes shall He find Faith on the earth, and not rather The Word of God bare and without flesh when He comes, will He find of such sort the faith concerning Him among them on the earth? But since He clearly and manifestly calls Himself Son of man even at the time of His arrival from Heaven, it is I suppose clear that not having changed His Flesh into ought else but rather having it glorified, incorruptible and spotless and adorned with light unapproachable [will He come]: for He will come down out of Heaven, not in His former low estate (whence should He?) but in the glory of His Father with the Holy Angels.
6. [f] See this text commented on by S. Cyril at the end of his Treatise de recta fide to the Princesses Arcadia and Marina, and again near the close of his Treatise on the same subject, to the Empresses, § 42, p. 178 d e.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-synousiasts.asp?pg=4
