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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 36
Therefore even though He be said to have suffered in the flesh, freedom from suffering even thus is kept to Him [60] in that He is conceived of as God. Therefore the Divine Peter too says that Christ once for our sins died for us, the Righteous for the unrighteous, in order that He might bring us to God, put to death in the flesh, quickened in the Spirit. For why, might one I suppose say, did the Spirit-clad say not simply or indefinitely that He suffered, but added, in the flesh? for he knew, he knew that of God was he speaking. Therefore he hath allotted to Him impassibility in that He is conceived of as God, most skilfully adding, in the flesh, in respect to which suffering exists.
B. Yet they say that it savours of the marvellous and inclines much to the incredible, that we should have to say that the Same both suffers and does not suffer [61]. For either surely He hath as God not suffered or if He is said to have suffered, how will He be God? hence he who suffered will be said to be only he which is from forth the seed of David.
A. Yet how will it not be a most manifest proof of a feeble understanding, to choose so to say and to think? for God the Father hath given for us, not a common man, taken aside to be in the rank of a mediator, and having a made-up glory of sonship and honoured with an accidental connection, but, made in likeness with us for our sakes, Him Who is above the whole creation, the Word Which beamed forth of His Essence, in order that He might be seen an equivalent for the life of all. It is (I deem) of all things most absurd, when the Only-Begotten has been made flesh according to the Scriptures (as I said) and disdained not the Economy, to find fault as it were with Him as though He had militated against His own glory and had chosen to suffer in the flesh apart from what was fit. Yet, good sir, the matter was salvation to the whole world: and since He for this cause willed to suffer Who is beyond the power of suffering because He is God by Nature, He put about Him flesh recipient of suffering and made it His own, that His too might the suffering be called, because it was no one's else's but His own Body [62][ ]which hath suffered. Hence, for that the mode of the Economy gives Him without blame, both to be pleased to suffer in the flesh, and in the Godhead not to suffer (for He was God alike and Man in the Same) the opponents speak idly, and most unwisely debasing the force of the mystery haply deem that they have made a contention [63][ ]replete with praise. For His being at all pleased to suffer in the flesh seemed to attach some blame to Him, yet it was glorious in another way: for the Resurrection has testified that He is superior to death and decay, being Life and Lifegiving as God, for He hath raised His own Temple. Therefore the Divine Paul says, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to every one that believeth, and again, For the word of the cross is to them that perish folly, to us who are saved it is the Power of God, to them that are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ God's Power and God's wisdom: and indeed the Son too when about to ascend unto the saving Passion says, Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in Him, and God will glorify Him in Himself and will straightway glorify Him. For He lived again, having spoiled Hades and this not after a long while but as it were straightway and on the very heels of the Passion.
60. [f] See Schol. § 30, above p. 228, and § 37, patiebatur impassibiliter, He suffered without suffering, above p. 232: and Theodoret's Letter to the Monks of Constantinople, "that which is passible hath suffered and the impassible (τὸ ἀπαθὲς) hath remained impassible. For God the Word was made man, not in order that He should make passible the Impassible Nature, but in order that through suffering He might bestow on the passible nature freedom from suffering;' Ep. 145 p. 1250 fin.
61. [g] See last note. S.Cyril in his Treatise de recta fide to the Empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia, § 26 fin., p. 103 d e, says, " Hence is Christ neither bare man nor fleshless Word; but united to our human nature, unsufferingly He will suffer (πάθοι ὰν ἀπαθῶς) what belongs to the human nature in His own flesh."
" Hence it is He Who suffered and did not suffer; in His Divine Nature Unsuffering, without change or turning, in His flesh suffering, as Peter says." S. Ath. against Apollinarius, lib. i. 11, t. i.931b. "For it was God Who was set at nought, of God's flesh and soul was the suffering and the death and the resurrection." lib. ii. 16, t. i. 953 a. See too next note and below p. 316.
62. [h] "For not of any other man, but His, is the Body, wherefore Himself too has been accounted (for Christ is One) mingled (κεκερασμένος) as it were out of human nature and God the Word, not from having been turned into what He was not but from assuming the Temple from forth the Virgin." Thes. cap. 20 p. 197 a. " Christ died for our sakes and for us. As therefore when His Body died Himself is said to suffer this, albeit He is immortal in His Nature, so since His Body is created, Himself is said to have been created albeit Uncreate in Essence. For the Flesh being His and not another's, He makes all His own (i0diopoiei=tai) what befalls it." Ib. cap. 15 p. 107 b. These belong to an earlier period of S. Cyril's Archiepiscopate written while he could still follow the example of earlier Fathers in the expression mingled as it were. S. Cyril says much the same in cap. 24 p. 232 d given above p. 192 note i: cap. 28 p. 252 c.
In his 7th Paschal homily (A.D. 420), after saying, " Hence as also our all-famous Father and Bishop Athanasius, the unswerving rule of the orthodox Faith, said in his own writings, 'Of two things unlike in nature hath a concurrence taken place, to wit of Godhead and Manhood: for Christ is one out of Both,'" S. Cyril proceeds, "And unspeakable and utterly incomprehensible was the mode of the mingling." Pasch. Hom. pp 302 fin., 103. And further on, " They worship, not parting off Him Alone That indwelt from the screen of His flesh, but One Ineffably mingled out of Both" etc. p. 104 d.
S. Cyril speaks of " as it were mingling the properties of the natures," in his Treatise de Inc. Unigeniti, p. 708 a (as above p. 144 note s), where he means that on account of the entirety of the Union, what belongs to the Godhead may be said of the manhood; e. g. he is speaking there on the words, For the bread of God is He which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world, and says, " albeit how is it not true that the flesh hath not come down out of heaven, but was of a Virgin according to the Scriptures? And the Word is not eaten; but in countless expressions He is seen gathering both into One and mingling as it were one with another the properties of the natures;" he goes on to quote the words, He that came down from heaven (S. John iii.. 13), and, If ye shall see the son of man ascending up where He was before (ib. vi. 62), although the human nature came not down from Heaven, nor was it there before. Towards the end of the treatise (p. 712 init.), S. Cyril speaks of S. John, "all-but gathering the natures and bringing into a concurrence [μισγάγκειαν, properly, the meeting of mountain-glens, henceforth to become one glen] the force of the properties befitting each." Of the mingling to express His intimate union with us, see above p. 250 note i.
63. [k] contention. I have ventured to translate from the Syriac, the Edition has Union, the sense of which is less clear.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=36
