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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 5
for S. Cyril cites Theodore who was Archbishop of Mopsuestia, in what he wrote against him who wickedly cried out thus [12],
Theodore. "But yea (he says), for as albeit He was of Bethlehem, He was called a Nazarene because of His abidance and growing up there: so [is He called] man [13][ ]too, because He sojourned in man."
and S. Cyril against these things says thus
Silly and childish and old womanish is the speech, for not as from a city one is called citizen or countryman, so by reason of dwelling in a man, is the Word being God called man.
as also Theodore Archbishop of Mopsuestia who in his craft had done this, the wise Cyril blaming, in his book against him thus wrote,
CYRIL. But he thinks that he has said something clever, for he affirms that it is right that the body should be honoured, i. e. the man, for he (I suppose) blushes to call it by the appellation of Son, and to call the Word by that of Body. The Union therefore consists in titles, and an assemblage of mere names: but in truth the Mystery is utterly repudiated.
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The [14] same Cyril against Theodore.
12. [m] This and the next are from Severus against the Catholic John, Bishop of Caesarea.
13. [n] The following passage from S. Athanasius against Apollinarius will illustrate what suggested to Theodore, in opposing Apollinarians, to err thus sorrowfully. S. Athanasius says, "Tell me therefore how ye say that God was made of Nazareth? is it as declaring a beginning of generation of the Godhead, like Paul of Samosata, or denying the generation in the flesh, like Marcion and the rest of the heretics? not walking after the Gospel standard but chusing to speak out of your own? for therefore do ye say that God has been born of a Virgin and not God and man after the Gospel standard: lest, confessing the birth of the flesh ye should say it was a natural birth, speaking truth, but ye say that God was born, and that He exhibited His own flesh in semblance. For God does not shew forth the beginning of His Generation from Nazareth; but God the Word Who existed before the ages, appeared man out of Nazareth, born of Mary the Virgin and of the Holy Ghost [compare 'Man of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin,' in S. Augustine on S. John hom. 111 fin. p. 998 O.T.], in Bethlehem of Judaea of the seed of David and Abraham and Adam, as it is written; taking all from a Virgin whatever from the beginning God moulded and made without sin unto the subsistence of man." S. Ath. against Apoll. ii. 5. t. i. 943 c d.
14. [o] This piece is supplied in a latin translation by Card. Mai: see Migne ix. 1451. n. 24.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/against-theodore-mopsuestia.asp?pg=5
