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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 44
B. But I suppose that they would say to this, that it had been clearly said by Him, Verily verily I say to you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in you. WE therefore understand (they say) that the honoured body and blood are not those of God the Word but of the son of man which has been connected with Him.
A. Then wherever will they put the mighty Mystery of piety? for destroyed is the emptying of God the Word, Who was in the Form and Equality of the Father and chose for our sakes to take bondman's form and be made in likeness of us, and to partake blood and flesh, and to make the economy of the Incarnation His largess to all under Heaven. For through it have been saved, the Father summing up all things in Him [77], both the things in Heaven and the things on earth, as it is written. If therefore they say that not He is the Only-Begotten, Who says in God-befitting way and human wise alike, And the bread which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world, but that some son of man other than He conceived of apart by himself hath saved us, it is not the Lord Himself, as it is written, but one from among ourselves: and the things which are subject to decay are quickened henceforth, not through God Who is mighty to quicken, but by one of them who are subject to decay, who received along with us life of favour: but if it is true that the Word has been made flesh according to the Scriptures and appeared on earth and conversed with men, having bondman's form as His own, He will be called also son of man; and if some feel ashamed at this, they will be caught placing themselves under charge of unlearning. For in no other way was it possible that flesh should become life-giving, albeit of its own nature subjected to the need of decaying, except it have become the Proper flesh of the Word Which quickeneth all things; for thus it inworks what is His, replete with His Life-giving Power. And no marvel. For if it is true that fire having intercourse with matter, renders it warm, though not warm of its own nature (for it puts into it full richly the operation of its inherent power): how does not rather the Word being God put His own Life-giving Power and Operation into His Proper flesh, united to it and making it His own, without confusion, without turning and in mode as Himself knoweth?
B. It is therefore necessary to confess that it hath entirely become (none other intervening) the Proper Body of the Word that is forth of the Father, though ensouled with reasonable soul.
A . Most certainly, if we define aright the unerring word of the faith and are lovers of the doctrines of the truth and track the faith of the holy Fathers, not borne aside from the right way nor letting go the King's path-way, carried off by the vain-speakings of some unto a debased mind, but rather built up on the very Foundation, i. e. Christ: for other foundation can no man lay than is laid, as the in truth wise master-builder and Priest of His Mysteries has written.
We believe therefore that One is the Son of God the Father and conceived of in One Person, our LORD JESUS CHRIST, begotten forth of God the Father Divinely as Word before every age and time: in the last times of the age the Same made according to the flesh from forth a woman: and to Him we allot both the God-befitting and the human, and His we say was the birth after the flesh and the suffering upon the cross, for that He made His own the whole that belonged to His Proper flesh [78], yet hath remained Impassible in the Nature of the Godhead. For thus to Him boweth every knee and every tongue shall confess that Jesus [ ]Christ is Lord unto the glory of God the Father, Amen.
77. [a] see S. Iren. 1.10. 1; 6. 20. 2, and 21.1, pp. 33,497. O.T.
78. [b] To note g on page 303 maybe added another striking passage from S. Athanasius taken from his celebrated Letter to Epictetus, Bishop of Corinth, the same Letter which John Archbishop of Antioch and his Bishops set so much store by. With it may be compared S. Cyril's kindred expression in his Scholia § 13 fin. above p. 202, " the suffering is said to be His, because His too is that which suffered and He was in the suffering Body, He unknowing to suffer." S. Athanasius says, "And it was marvellous that He it was Who suffered and did not suffer, suffered for that His own Body suffered and He was in it while suffering, suffered not because the Word being God by Nature is Impassible. And He, the Unembodied, was in the suffering Body; the Body had within it the Impassible Word Which annulleth the weaknesses of His Body. And this He did and it happened thus, in order that Himself receiving ours and offering them in sacrifice might annul them, and clothing us now with what is His might cause the Apostle to say, This decaying must put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality. S. Ath. to Epictetus, § 6 t. i. 906."
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=44
