St Cyril of Alexandria On the incarnation of the Only-Begotten

Translated by P.E. Pusey

St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print

31 Pages

Page 18

25. Another.

It is written of Christ, But when He was at Jerusalem in the feast day many believed in His Name, when they saw the signs which He was doing, but Jesus Himself trusted not Himself to them, because He knew all men and because He needed not that any one should bear witness of a man, for Himself knew what was in man. If He were a God-clad man, how were not the many deceived who at Jerusalem believed on His Name? or how doth He Alone know the things which are in man when none else knoweth them [25]? for God is said to have fashioned our hearts one by one. Or why doth He Alone forgive sins? for He saith, That the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins. Why is He Alone apart from others the Co-sessor of God the Father? why do the Angels worship Him Alone, and did He teach us to deem of the Father as our common Father which is in Heaven, but ascribeth Him in special manner to Himself?

But perchance you will say that words of this sort are to be attributed to the indwelling Word. Ought He not therefore, according to the measure beseeming Prophets, Himself too to have said, Thus saith the Lord [26]? But when He would ordain the things that are above the Law, taking to Himself authority befitting a Legislator, He used to say, I say to you.

How says He that He is free and not indebted [27] to God? It is because He is Son in truth. And if He were a God-clad man, would He be also free by Nature? For God Alone is free and unbound: for He Alone exacts as it were tribute from all, and receives from all as from debtors due observance. And if Christ is the end of the Law and the Prophets, yet is a God-clad man, might one not say that the end of the prophetic preachings has brought upon us the charge of man-worship?

Again, the Law set forth, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve. By which teaching it led us unto Christ, as unto a knowledge more excellent than they had who were in the shadow: shall we therefore, making light of worshipping God, worship a man who has God indwelling? for where were it best that God be conceived to be? in heaven or in a man? in Seraphim or in earthly body?

If therefore He were God-clad man, how partook He like as we in flesh and blood? For if because He indwelt him, this were enough for Him that He should partake of ours like as we, and if His so participating is the being made man: He indwelt in many saints too: He was therefore not once but full often made man. Why therefore is He said once in the end of the world to have appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself? how do the Divine Scriptures preach to us one Coming of the Word?

26. If [28] He were a God-clad man, He too (it seems) was made the Temple of God, and how is Christ in us also? as a Temple in temples? or rather as God in the temples through the Spirit? If He were a God-clad man, why is His Body alone Life-giving? for such should have been the bodies of others also, wherein indwelt Almighty God.

And the Divine Paul also wrote somewhere, He that despised Moses' Law died without any mercy at the hands of two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath deemed polluted the Blood of the Covenant? Yet Divine was the Law, and the Commandments spoken through Angels: how then will he be thought worthy of sorer punishment who hath deemed polluted the Blood of Christ? or how is the faith Christ-ward better than the worship after the Law? But (as we have already said) Christ is not as other saints, a God-clad man, but rather God in truth and He possesses glory higher than all the world, because, being the Word of God by Nature, God was made flesh or perfect man; for we believe that the Body which was united to Him is ensouled and endowed with reason, and wholly true is the union.

25. [z] See S. Cyril's commentary on this verse, on S. John, pp. 165 fin., 166 O.T., and above, p 56.

26. [a] see above, p. 57 and note x. 

27. [b] obnoxium = ἔνοχον. The syriac translation has, owes the tribute-money: see above p. 53 note t.

28. [c] The syriac supplies the fresh section-number 26 here; the Latin gives no break.

Previous Page / First / Next Page of St Cyril -

St Cyril of Alexandria Home Page / Works ||| More Church Fathers

Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons

Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/incarnation-only-begotten.asp?pg=18