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Excerpts from books II and III, Translated by P. E. Pusey.
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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17 Pages
Page 16
And after a little,
THEODORE.
"Manifoldly and in many modes of old spake God to the fathers in the Prophets, in these last days He spake to us in His Son. For through the Son He spake to us: and it is clear that he is speaking of the man [11] who was assumed. For to which of the Angels ever said He, My Son THOU art, I to day begat thee? None, he says, hath He made partaker of the Son's dignity. For in this that He said, I begat Thee, He gave as it were through it a participation of sonship, yet this which has been said is openly shewn to have nothing at all to do with God the Word."
S. CYRIL.
Verily in his discourses too which he made to them who were to be baptized, the same Theodore again said, "But this testimony we found not out of our ownselves, but were taught it out of the Divine Scripture, seeing that blessed Paul thus saith, Forth of whom is Christ after the flesh Who is God over all, not that He is forth of the Jews and according to the flesh Who is God over all, but he used the one term to point out the human nature, which he knew was of the stock of Israel, the other to shew the Divine Nature which he knew was over all and king of all [12]."
Hear ye deaf and see ye blind, cried aloud one of the saints to them of the blood of Israel: but I think, and deservedly, that this belongs to them who have not, or who will not understand aright the mystery of Christ. For the god of this world hath blinded the understandings of the unbelievers, and they, not having the Divine and intellectual light in heart and mind, have deservedly gone astray. But if some who are somehow or other holden in like diseases, have been enlightened, yea rather even co-numbered with the Doctors, what else will one cry to them than this which has been said by God through one of the holy Prophets, For ye are become a snare of a watchtower in your visitation and as nets spread out in a prop [13] which the hunters have pierced through? For they who ought to be of the greatest profit to those under them, they have been a snare and a net and a stumbling block and pitfall of hades. And thus I say marvelling exceedingly and unable to see whereunto tends the opponent's aim. For he confessed in plain terms that God the Father spake to us through the Son, yet says that that Son is the man who was assumed, who has no share with God the Word in regard to what was said. How therefore is not the slander against the blessed Paul, yea rather the accusal of the Truth itself manifest to all? for not thus did the Apostle who has the Holy Ghost understand it. But the opponent is again turning aside right doctrine to his own pleasure.
11. [l] These few first words are cited by Leontius of Byzantium, Book 3 against the Nestorians and Eutychians, with the title, the same from the same [twelfth book on the Incarnation]. Gall. xii. 694.
12. [m] In the fourth collation of the Council, are seven citations of Theodore from his book to them that are to be baptized, viz, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42 (t. vi. 55 Col.), but none of these are identical with the one here quoted by S. Cyril.
13. [n] statumine. I do not know how the Latin translator got this word, nor what meaning he attached to it. The Hebrew has Tabor, which the LXX. here translate ἰταβύριον, and so S. Cyril quotes the verse elsewhere: but he knew its meaning, for in his commentary on the words, he says that it is a very conspicuous mountain in Galilee.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-theodore-mopsuestia.asp?pg=16
