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Translated by P.E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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31 Pages
Page 4
5. In what way the Word of God is said to have been emptied.
God the Word full by nature and in every way Perfect, and distributing out of His own Fullness His own goods to the creature, we say was emptied: in no wise wronged in His own Proper Nature, nor changed so as to become otherwise, nor made in ought inferior, for inconvertible and unchangeable is Himself also even as He Who begat Him, and never may He be capable of passion. But when He was made Flesh, i.e. Man, He made (as He said, I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh) the poverty of human nature His own; first, in that He was once made man, albeit He remained God; next in that He took the form of a servant, Who is in His own Nature free, as Son, and while He is Himself the Lord of glory He is said to receive glory: Himself Life, He is said to be quickened: and receives power over all, Himself King of all and with God, and Ho was obedient to the Father, suffered the Cross and so on. But these things befit the measure of the human nature, yet He makes them His own with flesh and fulfils the economy, remaining what He was.
The Divine Paul writes, Though there be gods many and lords many in heaven and in earth, yet to us One God the Father of Whom all things and we of Him, and One Lord Jesus Christ through Whom all things and we through Him. Yea and the very wise John said of God the Word, that All things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made, and the blessed Gabriel declared the Gospel to the Holy Virgin saying, Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and, bear a Son, and shalt call His Name Jesus. Since then the Divine Paul declares that all things were made through Jesus Christ, and the Divine Evangelist confirms the force of the sentence and preaches that He was God the Maker of all things, speaking truly, and the Angel's voice too points out that Jesus Christ was truly born of the Holy Virgin: yet we do not say that Jesus Christ was mere man [8], nor do we conceive of God the Word apart from His human nature but, we say that He was made One out of both, as God made Man, the Same begotten Divinely out of the Father as Word, and humanly out of woman as Man: not as though called to a second beginning of being then when He is said to have been born after the flesh: but begotten indeed before all ages, yet when the time came wherein He must fulfil the economy, born also of a woman after the flesh. Therefore, albeit others are called by like name christs, yet is there One Jesus Christ through Whom are all things, not that a man was made Maker of all things, but that God the Word, through Whom all things were made, like as we took part of flesh and blood, and was called Man, yet lost not what He was; for so, so made in flesh is He rightly understood to be Maker of all.
8. [h] The words, yet we do not say that Jesus Christ was mere man, are wanting in the Latin, apparently from omission by homoeoteleuton, but the Syriac has supplied them.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/incarnation-only-begotten.asp?pg=4
