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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 16
B. But if we say that the Nature of the Son is One, even though He be conceived of as Incarnate, all need is there to confess that confusion and commixture take place [21], the nature of man being lost as it were within Him. For what is the nature of man unto the excellency of Godhead?
A. In highest degree, my friend, is he an idle talker[ ]who says that confusion and commixture have place, if one Nature of the Son Incarnate and made man, is confessed by us: for one will not be able to make proof thereof by needful and true deductions. But if they set their own. will as a law to us, they devised a counsel which they cannot establish, for we must give heed, not to them but to the God-inspired Scripture: if they think that needs, on account of the nature of man being nothing compared to the Divine Excellency, must it be lost and consumed as they say, we again will say, Ye do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God: for it were not impossible for God Who loves man to make Himself endurable to the measures of the manhood. And this He foresignified to us darkly, when initiating Moses and limning the mode of the Incarnation as yet in types, for He came in likeness of fire on the bush in the wilderness, and the fire kept playing on the shrub yet was it not consumed. And Moses marvelled at the sight. Yet how is not a tree a thing that has no alliance with fire? and how is the readily consumed wood patient of the onslaught of flame? But this matter was (as I said) a type of a mystery, which exhibited endurable to the measures of the human nature, the Divine Nature of the Word [22], at His Will, for to Him is nothing impossible.
B. Know well that they will not choose so to think.
A. Their speech will be caught setting forth to us most undoubtedly two sons and two christs.
B. Not two: they say that the Son by Nature, the Word from forth God the Father is One; he that is assumed is a man by nature son of David [23], but is son of God by reason of his having been assumed by God the Word, and that by reason of God the Word dwelling in him hath ho come to this dignity and hath by grace the sonship.
A. Then wherever will they go as regards mind and understanding who thus think? or how do they say 'not a pair of sons,' when they are severing one from another man and God, if (according to them) the One has the sonship by Nature and truly, the other „ by grace and came „to this dignity, God the Word indwelling him?„ Hath he then ought greater than we? for He indwelleth in us too. And the most holy Paul confirms us in this, saying, For this cause bend I my knees to the Father from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would give you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through His Spirit that Christ may dwell in your hearts: for He is in us through the Spirit wherein we cry Abba Father. Hence our position is in no wise inferior, if we have been vouchsafed the equal by God the Father (for by grace WE too are sons and gods): we have been surely brought unto this supernatural and marvellous dignity as having the Only-Begotten Word of God in-dwelling.
But profane and distraught altogether is it that they should say that JESUS has been vouchsafed the sonship and has won the glory thereof as a matter of favour.
B. Would you say how?
21. [e] The fear felt by the Easterns that One Nature Incarnate must necessarily involve the [Apollinarian] mixture, being stated in full here and also by Succensus in his hypomnesticon, S. Cyril replies carefully both here and in his second letter to Succensus, see further on. In his first Letter to Succensus, he says, " There is therefore One Son, One Lord Jesus Christ, both before the Incarnation and after the Incarnation: for not One Son was the Word out of God the Father, another again he who is forth of the holy Virgin, but Himself Who was before the ages is believed to have been born according to the flesh too of a woman, not as though His Godhead took a beginning of being, or was called unto beginning of existence through the holy Virgin; but rather that (as I said) being Word before the ages He is said to have been born of her because of the flesh (διὰ τὴν σάρκα as the better MSS). For His is His flesh, just as of each one of us his body is his own. But since some wreath around us Apolinarius' opinions and say, If ye say that the Word out of God the Father is One Son by an union exact and mingled (καθ' ἕνωσιν ἀκριβῆ καὶ συγκεκραμένην) haply ye are pleased to fancy and say that a confusion or commixture or commingling of the Word with His body has had place or a change of the body into the Nature of Godhead: therefore we repelling very earnestly the accusal say that the Word out of God the Father incomprehensibly and unutterably united to Himself a body ensouled with reasonable soul and proceeded man of a woman, made as we not by change of nature but rather by Economic Good-Pleasure (for He desired to be made man, not losing the being God by Nature): yet even though He came down in our condition and bare the bondman's form, even thus He hath remained in the Excellencies of the Godhead and in Natural Lordship." Epp. 136 c d e 137 a. And in his second Letter to the same Succensus, putting down first the objection which Succensus had sent him, ,, If there is one Incarnate Nature of the Word, needs must one say that there is commingling and commixture, the human nature minished as it were and being lost (ὑποκλεπτομένης) in Him:,, S. Cyril replies, "They who pervert right things know not that there is in truth One Incarnate Nature of the Word. For if He Who is by Nature and truly, He Who was ineffably Begotten, be One Son, and then by assumption of flesh, not without soul but ensouled with reasonable soul, proceeded man of a woman, He will not therefore be severed into two persons and sons, but hath remained One yet not without flesh nor without body, but having the body as His own by Union which may not be plucked asunder. And he who says this, full surely he indicates no commingling, no confusion nor ought of the kind, nor will this as of necessity ensue, whence should it? For even though the Only-Begotten &c" as above p. 41, note e. Epp. 142 e 143 a.
22. [g] " For as the fire was made endurable to the bush, so to our nature too the Excellency of the Godhead." Pasch. hom. 16 p. 231 c.
23. [h] See the fragments of S. Cyril's two Books against Theodore of Mopsuestia, to be given below.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=16
