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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 8
A. Consider I pray this too in addition.
B. What do you mean?
A. Christ somewhere said to them who would take away the resurrection of the dead, Read ye not that He which made man at the beginning made them male and female, the Divine Paul too writes, Marriage is honourable in all and the bed pure. Then how did the Only-begotten Word of God, minding to enter the likeness to us-ward, not permit the laws of human nature to prevail, for the subsistence or birth of His own flesh: for not from marriage-bed and wedlock did He endure to take it but from a Virgin august and unwedded, with child of the Spirit, the Power of God over-shadowing her, as it is written. Since God therefore dishonoured not marriage yea rather honoured it with blessing, why did the Word being God make a Virgin with child of the Spirit the mother of His flesh?
B. I cannot tell.
A. Yet how is not the reason hereof clear to all who consider this? the Son came (as I said) or was made man, translementing our estate as in Himself first unto a holy and admirable and truly marvellous birth and life: and Himself first became born of the Holy Ghost, I mean as to the flesh, in order that, the grace passing through as by a path unto ourselves too, we having not from blood nor from the will of the flesh nor from the will of man but from God through the Spirit our souls' new birth and spiritual conformation unto the SON Who is by Nature and truly, might call God Father and might thus abide undecaying, as possessing no longer the first father, Adam, in whom we decayed. And verily Christ said, at one time, And call no one your father on the earth, for one is your Father which is in Heaven, at another, for that He therefore descended in our estate in order that He might bring us to His own God-befitting dignity, I am going to My Father and your Father and My God and your God. For His Father by Nature [8] is He Who is in Heaven, our God; but since He that is SON by Nature and truly has BEEN MADE as we, He says that He has had Him as His God, after the manner that is which beseems the emptying, and has given His own Father to us too; for it is written, But as many as received Him He gave them authority to BE MADE children of God, them which believe on His Name. But if we in our unlearning take away from being MADE in birth as we the Word from out God the Father, Him who in all things hath the preeminence, as the most wise Paul saith; after whom shall WE any more formed, be called begotten of God through the Spirit? whom shall we take as a first-fruit for us in this, or who at all will bring the Dignity unto us?
B. They too will say, I suppose, The Incarnate Word.
A. How will this be true, except He have BEEN MADE flesh, i. e. man, making the human body His own by a union which may not be plucked asunder, in order that it may be conceived of as His and not anyone's else? for thus will He send unto us too the grace of the sonship and we too shall be born of the Spirit, in that in Him first the nature of man attained this. And the Divine Paul appears to me, thinking over with himself something of this sort, to have said full rightly, For as we bare the image of the earthy we shall bear the image too of the heavenly: and he said that the first man was from out of earth, earthy, the second from out of Heaven. But as the earthy such (he says) are the earthy ones too, and as the Heavenly One such the Heavenly ones also. For we are earthy, in that there stole in upon us as from the earthy one, Adam, the curse, decay, through which the law of sin too entered in, which is in the members of our flesh: but we have been MADE heavenly, receiving this in Christ. For He being God by Nature and out of God and from above, hath come down in our estate, in an unwonted and strange way, MADE offspring of the Spirit according to the flesh, in order that WE too as He might remain holy and undecaying, the grace descending upon us as from out a second beginning and root, i. e., Him.
8. [i] "He gives to the nature of man what is His, permitting it to call God Father: Himself taketh the properties of the human nature calling the Father His God. Yet neither do WE deny our bondage that is by nature when we call God Father nor will the SON lose His Natural Dignity by likening Himself to us for our good." Thes. cap. 15 p 160 e. "Commixing therefore in a way and commingling us in Himself and Himself again in us, Himself descends into what is ours, catches us up into what is His.
Thus, we are men by nature, He hastening down for His love's sake into what is beside Nature was made man: God's bondmen by nature we as things made, He too is called bondman, borne unto whatis beside Nature when He was made man. Yea and on the other hand, He GOD by Essence, we too gods mounting up unto what is beside nature for grace's sake (for we are men): He SON by Nature, we too sons by adoption called unto brotherhood with Him." Thes cap. 32 p. 330 fin.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/christ-one.asp?pg=8
