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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 17
A. Certainly. For first (as I said) He will be thus conceived of as separately another son and christ and lord from Him Who is so truly and by Nature: besides this, another impossibility is brought in and which not unreasonably militates against right reasoning.
B. What is that?
A. The all-wise John says of Christ, He came unto His own and His own received Him not, but as many as received Him He gave them authority to become God's children. Will then he who has the sonship of grace and has it as an adventitious dignity that he won the being what he is; will such an one bestow freely on others also what he has with difficulty grown rich in? does not this appear to you incongruous?
B. Very.
A. That which accrues not by nature but has been introduced from without, will it not be to be lost, as far as possibility goes?
B. How should it be otherwise?
A. Hence it will be a possible contingency that the son should some time be able to fall from his sonship: for what is not based on laws of nature is not free from a suspicion of being lost.
B. It is so.
A. In another way too one may see that their dogma is both uncomely and of a truth replete with the supremest ill-counsel: for if it is true that that which is by adoption and grace is ever in the likeness of that which is by nature and in truth, how are WE sons by adoption, having reference[ ]to Him Who is truly Son if He too along with us is among them who are so by grace? how too in the Gospel-parables is He sent as Son after the servants [had been sent]? whom when the guardians of the vineyard saw they said, This man is the heir, come let us kill Him.
He therefore Who hath appeared in flesh and Who made trial of the crooked ways of the Jews is SON in truth and Free, as born of the Nature that is Free and is not among those who are under the yoke, in that He is conceived of as God, even though He hath been made, as we who are under the yoke, son of bondage, He the SON (as I said) by Nature and truly, Who is beyond the yoke and above the creation: after Whom WE too who are sons by adoption and grace have been formed.
B. We do not say (say they) that the man is Son of God, lest we should speak of two sons by Nature. For as the Word Who came down from Heaven is not by nature son of David, thus neither is he who is forth of the seed of David, Son of God by Nature [24].
A. They will therefore sever into two sons, and both of them will be proved to be falsely so called, and I think one may say that the mystery of Christ is idle trickery if it is thus as our opponents foolishly say. Where then is the Union and in regard to what do they say that it has been wrought? or haply this that the Word was made flesh is found to be untrue and to have been superfluously brought in, if the Word from forth God the Father have not been called son of David by reason of His being made from forth his seed after the flesh. But I think that they ought to hear from us too what was said by Christ Himself to the chiefs of the Jews, What think ye of Christ? whose son is He? and should they say, David's, they will hear from us, How therefore does David in spirit call Him. Lord saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My Right Hand until I put Thine enemies the footstool of Thy Feet? if therefore David in spirit [25] call Him Lord, how is He his Son? does he who is not by Nature and truly Son (as our opponents say) co-sit with God, and is he co-Throned (tell me) with Him Who ruleth all things? albeit, as saith the all-wise Paul, to no one of the angels hath the Father at any time said, My Son art THOU, nor yet, Sit on My Right Hand. How then is he who is forth of a woman in supremest dignity and on the seat of the Godhead and beyond all Rule and Lordship, Thrones and Authority and every name that is named?
And note how the Lord saying, If therefore David in spirit call Him Lord how is He his Son, induces those who would be searchers of the truth, to hold that the Word when in participation of flesh and blood hath remained even thus One Son: witnessed to that He is God from God-befitting Excellency and Lordship, while His being called also Son of David signifieth full well that He is Man.
24. [i] Compare the fragments of Theodore as cited before the fifth general council, at the end of this volume.
25. [k] The syriac translation of this treatise has also the words in spirit here.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=17
