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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 15
B. Therefore (they say) consubstantial with the Word was His body, for thus and no otherwise will He be deemed One Only Son.
A. Yet how is not this now raving and clear proof of a mind wandering? for how can one behold in sameness of essence things so far removed one from another in respect of their nature? for one thing is Godhead, and another manhood. For of what do we say that the Union was made? for a person will not say that the things united are one in number, but either (it may be) two or more.
B. We must therefore sever (they say) the things named.
A. We must not sever (as I said) into a several diversity, in regard I mean to their being away from each other and apart, but must rather bring them together into an indissoluble union. For the Word has been made flesh, as John saith.
B. Have they therefore been confused and both become one nature?
A. But who will be thus distraught and unlearned as to suppose that either the Divine Nature of the Word has been turned into what it was not, or that the flesh went over by way of change into the Nature of the Word Himself (for it is impossible)? but we say that One is the SON and One His Nature even though He be conceived of as having assumed flesh with a rational soul. For His (as I said) hath the human nature been made, and He is conceived of by us none otherwise than thus, God alike and man.
B. There will then be not two natures, of God and of man?
A. Godhead and manhood are one thing and another, according to the mode [of being] existing in each, yet in Christ have they come together, in unwonted wise and passing understanding, unto union, without confusion and turning [18]. But wholly incomprehensible is the mode of the Union.
B. And how out of two things, Godhead and manhood, will One Christ be conceived of?
A. In no other wise (I suppose) than that whereby the things brought together one to another unto a union indissoluble and above comprehension will be One.
B. As for example?
A. Do we not say that a man like us is One and his nature one, although he has not simpleness [of nature] but is compounded out of two, I mean soul and body?
B. We do.
A. Does anybody, taking anew the flesh apart by itself, and sundering from it the soul that was united to it, divide a single person into two and not thereby destroy the right description of him?
B. Yet the all-wise Paul writes, For even though our outward man perish yet is the inward renewed each day.
A. You said right: for he knew, he knew well from whence he is one, and makes the distinction [between the two] one to be grasped in idea only: he calls the soul, the inward man, and the flesh, the outward. For I call to mind the holy Scriptures which sometimes signify to us the whole living thing from a portion, as when God says [19], I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh, and Moses says to them of Israel, In seventy five souls did thy fathers go down into Egypt. And we shall find that this has been done in regard to Emmanuel Himself: for after the Union, I mean that with the flesh, if any call Him Only-Begotten and God from forth of God, he will be conceiving of Him as not apart from flesh or manhood, and if he say that He is man, he will not be excluding Him from being God and Lord [20].
18. [b] τροπῆς : comp. S. James i. 17.
19. [c] Compare Schol. § 27, above p. 214: also fragment 8 of Homilies (sub calce Comm. in S. Joan. iii. 464), Resp. 7 to Tiberius and his fellows (ubi supra, iii. 589) and elsewhere.
20. [d] So Expl. cap. 3 p. 149 e, cap. 4 p. 150 e, def. cap. 8 adv. Epp. orient. 179 b, schol. § 16 fin., § 36, above pp. 206, 230: also pp. 167, 168.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=15
