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Translated by P. E. Pusey
44 Pages
Page 24
And the Divine Disciples too, seeing Him once traversing [36][ ]the expanse of the sea, were astonished at the miracle and confessed the Faith, saying, Truly Thou art the Son of God. Yet if he is bastard and falsely-called and has from adoption that he is son, let them accuse the disciples of falsehood, and that when they sware it. For they have added Truly, affirming that He is the Son of God the Father.
B. You speak most excellently.
A. How too has the Son of man His own angels [37][], and shines forth in the glory of His Father? for He says, The Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father [38][] with His angels, and again. And the Son of Man will send His Angels. And if they disbelieve yet, even seeing Him crowned in God-befitting glory and dignities so splendid and supreme, they shall hear Him say, If ye believe Me not believe My works, and again, If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not [ 39.] For the beholding in a man the excellency of the unspeakable glory, supplied not as Another's nor in the light of a favour, but His very own: how will it not persuade us that He was God in likeness as we and truly Son of God Who is over all?
B. He affirmed (he says) that His were the angels, and He was made the worker of these signs, the Word indwelling Him and having imparted to Him His own glory and operation: for it is written, Jesus of Nazareth how God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and power, Who went about doing good and healing all that are oppressed by the devil. Anointed therefore both with power and with the Spirit, was He a wonder-worker [40].
A. Then, since the Word being God, both Holy and having Essentially and by Nature All-Might, will never need either power from another or an imparted holiness: who now is He Who has been anointed with power and the Holy Ghost?
B. They will perhaps say, The man who is assumed by connection.
A. He therefore is Jesus Christ by himself and separately, of Whom too the all-wise Paul says, Yet to us One God the Father from Whom all things and we from Him and One Lord Jesus Christ through Whom all things and we through Him. How then (tell me) are all things through a man? why is he ranked as Son with the Father and that immediately, no one intervening? and wherever shall we put the Only-Begotten when we have brought into His place the man; and that (as he says) inwrought by Him and honoured because of Him?
Has not their argument outstepped what is reasonable, is it not borne beyond bound, and as having utterly missed of the truth, will it not reasonably incur laughter?
B. The Word of God (he says) has been called man in some such way as this: as the man who was assumed by Him was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, but is called a Nazarene because he dwelt at Nazareth [41], so too God the Word is called man because He dwelt in man.
36. [y] See Schol. § 36, and the Treatise de Recta fide to the Emperor Theodosius, p.28e.
37. [z] "Lo again He says that the spirits above are His angels, albeit He is called son of man." de recta fide to the Princesses, p. 82 c. "We believe that He is both Very God and hath been made son of man economically for our sakes while remaining God, and is One Lord Jesus Christ." de Recta fide to the Empresses, fin. p. 180 b.
38. [a] The words, For He says----of His Father, are added from the Syriac translation of this treatise. They may have been omitted by the one Greek MS. which has preserved as this treatise and by Euthymius, from the eye of the copyist wandering from one, in the glory of His Father, to the other.
39. [b] I have followed in this the Syriac translation, it being very much S. Cyril's habit to cite first one verse, and then a verse or two a little preceding it; the Greek MS. here adds, but if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe My works. But it looks like only an attempt to make the citation seem neater.
40. [c] See Theodoret's objection to chapter 9, where he quotes the same text, in S. Cyril's Def. xii. capp. p. 227 d.
41. [d] Severus of Antioch, who lived about 70 years after S. Cyril's death, quoting from S. Cyril's books against Diodore and Theodore, gives this passage (S. Cyril cites Theodorus Archbishop of Mopsuestia), ,,But, says he, for as, although He was of Bethlehem, He was called a Nazarene on account of His living and His bringing up there; so too a man because He dwelt in man:,, and S. Cyril replies to these things thus, "Madness therefore and childishness and worthy of old women is the word: for not as from a city one is called a citizen or of the place, so on account of indwelling a man is the Word Who is God called man."
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=24