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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 7
B. I understand what you say.
A. And besides who is he to be understood to be who in like manner with us hath partaken of blood and flesh, as though other than we by nature? for one will not say that that it pertains to a man to partake of human nature: for what one is by nature how can one be conceived of as taking [6] as though it were something else than what he is? does not my argument seem very reasonable?
B. Quite so.
A. Consider in another way too that it is both unhallowed and discordant to attempt to take away from God the Word His Birth of woman according to the flesh: for how will His Body quicken except it be His Who is Life? how does the Blood of Jesus cleanse us from all sin, if it is that of a common man and one who is under sin? how did God the Father send His Son, made of a woman, made under the law? how condemned He sin in the flesh? for it pertains not to a common man and who has with us his nature despotized by sin to condemn sin. But since it has BEEN MADE the body of Him Who knows not transgression, therefore with reason did it shake off the despotism of sin and is rich in the Property of the Word which is Ineffably and in mode unutterable united with it, and is holy and life-giving and replete with God-befitting operation. And as in Christ our first-fruits, we too are trans-elemented into being superior to both decay and sin. And it is true that according to the voice of blessed Paul, As we hare the image of the earthy we shall hear the image too of the heavenly, i.e. of Christ. Christ is called an heavenly man, not as though He brought down to us His flesh from above and from Heaven [7], but because the Word being God hath come down from Heaven, and entering our likeness, that is, undergoing birth after the flesh from out a woman, hath remained what He was, i. e. above and out of Heaven and above all as God even with flesh. For thus somewhere says the Divine John of Him, He that cometh from above is above all. For He hath remained Lord of all even when economically made in bondman's form, and truly marvellous therefore is the mystery of Christ. And verily God the Father said somewhere to the Jews by one of the Prophets, See ye despisers and perish and marvel because I am working a work in your days, a work which ye shall not believe if one should detail it to you. For the mystery of Christ is in peril of being disbelieved by reason of the intensity of its marvellousness: GOD was in human nature, and in our estate He that is over all creation; the Invisible, visible by reason of flesh; He that is out of Heaven and from above in likeness of things earthy; the Impalpable subject to touch; He that is in His own Nature Free in bondman's form; He Who blesseth the creation WAS MADE subject to curse, among the transgressors All-Righteousness, and in guise of death Life. For the Body which tasted death, was not another man's but His who is by Nature Son. Have you ought to find fault with in these things as not right or rightly said by us?
B. By no means.
6. [g] "For that which is honoured by a relation (σχέσει) which does not belong to it by nature, admits full surely into itself a glory which is foreign to it. And since a thing will never partake of itself but will undergo this from relation with another, there is all need to say that that which partakes is of other nature than that which is partaken of." Dial. 7. p. 643 d: see too above p. 16, below p. 254 note m.
7. [h] See above p. 101 and in Scholia, § 36 above pp. 226, 227 and note n.; see also more at length in S. Cyril's Ecumenical Epistle to John Archbishop of Antioch, translated in 3 Epistles of S. Cyril (Parker 1872) pp. 72, 73.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=7
