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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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44 Pages
Page 14
B. They will say perhaps that not of this kind was the taking, but just as taking bondman's form is conceived of by us.
A. Hence that which is taken will with reason be conceived of as the own of the Taker by an inseverable Union; so that Jesus is both God and Son, One and Only, of Very God, as being Word from forth of God the Father, begotten Divinely before every age and time, and in the last times of the world, the same after the flesh forth of a woman: for not any one's else, but His has the bondman's form been made.
B. How do you mean?
A. Will (tell me) that which is by nature bond be said not incongruously to take bondman's form, or that which is truly free and is Essentially above the measures of bondage?
B. The free I suppose: for how will it be made what it was by nature?
A. Consider then that the Only-Begotten Word of God albeit made as we and having entered on the measures of bondage according to the human nature, hath witnessed to Himself freedom by Nature, saying in His joint-contribution [16] of the didrachma, Surely free are the sons. He receives therefore bondman's form, making His own the results of the emptying [17] and not spurning the likeness to usward: for it were not possible otherwise to honour the bond unless that which befitteth the bond had been made His that it might be made illustrious by the glory that is from Him: for that which excelleth ever hath the pre-eminence and the shame from our bondage was wiped out by us. For He Who is above us has been made as we and the Free by Nature was in the measure of the servants. Hence the dignity hath passed unto us too: for WE too have been called sons of God and inscribed as our Father Him Who is properly His Father; for our human things have been made His also.
Therefore in saying that He took bondman's form, is the whole mystery of the Economy with flesh. But if confessing One Son and Lord, the Word from forth of God the Father, they say that a man, him who is forth of the seed of David has been simply connected with Him, a partaker of His Sonship and of His glory, time is it that we in friendly grief over them who choose thus to think should say, Who will give to my head water and to my eyes a fountain of tears, and I will weep this people day and night? for they are turned aside to a reprobate mind, denying the Lord Who bought them. For a pair of sons unequal in nature is proclaimed to us, and the bond is crowned with God-befitting glory, and some supposititious son is glorified with equal excellencies with the by Nature and truly Son, albeit God says plainly, My glory I will not give to another: for how is he not other and apart from the by Nature and truly Son, who has been honoured with mere and sole connection and taken as an assistant and vouchsafed sonship even as we ourselves are, and has partaken of glory from another and attained thereto by gift and grace?
B. We must not therefore sever Emmanuel into man severally and into God the Word.
A. By no means: I affirm that we must say that He is God Incarnate, and that He is in the Same both One and Other. For neither hath He, made man, ceased from being God, nor doth He hold the Economy unacceptable, despising the measure of the emptying.
16. [z] συνεισφορᾷ, as the contribution in which He ordered that S. Peter's share ' should be paid along with His own. This is a very favourite passage of S. Cyril, he has commented on it in his commentary on S. John iv. 22, p. 189 c (p. 217 O.T.) xiv. 11 p.791 a b; in his treatise on the right faith to the Princesses Arcadia and Marina p. 82 c d: on Isaiah p. 661 e, in his twelfth paschal homily p. 181 e, in Hom. 88 on S. Luke and at the close of a fragment of a Homily That Christ is One (published at the end of commentaries on S. John iii. p. 458): see too Glaph. 328 a b.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=14
