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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 3
A. But who is this new-seen dragon and what his triflings against the doctrines of the Truth tell to me who ask.
B. The new-seen dragon, this crooked one and who has his tongue drunk with venom, who all-but bids farewell to the tradition of the initiators of the world, yea rather to all the God-inspired Scripture, and who innovates what seems good to him and says that the holy Virgin is not Mother of God, but mother of Christ and mother of man, bringing in moreover other things discordant and senseless, upon the right and sincere doctrines of the Catholic Church.
A. You say (I ween) Nestorius, for I understand, but I do not know, my friend, the actual state of his words: how does he say that the holy Virgin is not Mother of God?
B. She bare not (he says) God: for the Word was before her too, yea rather before every age and time, Co-eternal with God the Father.
A. They will therefore manifestly deny this too, that Emmanuel is God, and to no purpose as it seems, does the Evangelist interpret the name saying, Which is interpreted, With us is God, for thus did God the Father clearly affirm through the voice of the Prophet that He was to be called Who has been born of the holy Virgin after the flesh, as God Incarnate.
B. Yet it appears to them to be not so, but they would say that with us is God or the Word out of God, in the way of succouring us: for He hath saved all under heaven through him who was born of woman.
A. And was He not (tell me) with Moses too freeing Israel from the land of the Egyptians and the tyranny there, in a strong hand and a high arm, as it is written? shall we not find Him after this also saying clearly to Joshua, And as I was with Moses so will I be with thee too?
B. True.
A. Why then was none of these called Emmanuel, but the name befitted Him alone Who was wondrously born after the flesh of a woman in the last times of the world?
B. How then shall we deem that God has been born of a woman? that the Word partook of Being, in her and from forth her?
A. Away with so frigid ill-advice! For these are the words of one who wanders, and of a mind diseased with a turning aside to what it ought not, to think that the Ineffable Being of the Only-Begotten has become fruit of flesh: He was as God Co-Eternal with the Father Who begat Him and Ineffably begotten of Him by Nature. But to those who would know clearly how and in what manner He appeared in likeness to us and became man, the Divine Evangelist John will make it known, saying, And the Word was made flesh and tabernacled in us (and we saw His glory, (the glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.
B. Yet if the Word has become (they say) flesh, no longer hath It remained Word but hath left being what It was.
A. Verily this is jugglery and humbug and the inventions of a mind beside itself and nought else. For they (it appears) are supposing that the word Was made indicates as of unavoidable necessity, turning and change.
B. Yes (they say), and they moreover confirm their affirmation, taking proofs out of the God-inspired Scripture itself. For it has been somewhere said (he says) of Lot's wife that she WAS MADE a pillar of salt, and besides of Moses' Rod that he cast it on the ground and it WAS MADE a serpent. For in these cases a change of nature took place.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=3
