|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
|
This Part: 128 Pages
Page 10
Consubstantial is the Son with the Father and the Father with the Son, wherefore They arrive at an unchangeable Likeness, so that the Father is seen in the Son, the Son in the Father, and Each flashes forth in the Other, even as the Saviour Himself says, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, and again, I in the Father and the Father in Me. But even though He be in the Father, and have again the Father in Him, Himself full well, as has been already said, perfectly exact unto the Form of Him Who begat Him, and depicting again in Himself without any shortcome, the Father whence He is:----not therefore will He be deprived of His separate existence, nor will the Father lose His own special Being; but neither will the surpassing Likeness and Resemblance work any confusion of Persons, so that the Father Who begat and the Son Who is Begotten of Him should be considered as one in number. But sameness of Nature will be confessed of Both, yet the Individual Existence of Each will surely follow, so that both the Father should be conceived of as indeed Father, and the Son as Son. For thus, the Holy Ghost being numbered with them and counted as God, the Holy and Adorable Trinity will have Its Proper Fullness.
Another. If the Son Himself is Father too, what place has the distinction of names? For if He begat not at all, why is He called Father? How Son, if He were not begotten of the Father? For the Names ask as of necessity such an idea regarding them. But since the Divine Scriptures preach that the Son was Begotten, and the truth is so, He has therefore an existence by Himself. The Father too is again by Himself, if indeed that which is begotten is plainly one thing from another as regards that which begets.
Another. The blessed Paul writing his letter to the Philippians says of the Son, Who being in the Form of God, thought it not robbery to be Equal with God. Who then is He Who would not that His being Equal with God should be thought robbery? For must one not needs say, that One is He Who is in the Form of God, Another again He Whose Form it was? But this is clear and confessed by all. Therefore not one and the same in number are Father and Son, but of distinct Being and beheld in One Another, according to sameness of Essence, even if They be One of One, to wit the Son of the Father.
Another. I and My Father are One, said the Saviour, as knowing, that is, that Himself has a separate existence and the Father too. But if the truth of the fact be not so, why did He not, keeping what belongs to oneness, say, I and My Father am One? But since He explains what He means by the plural number, clearly He overthrows the surmise of those who think otherwise. For we are will not be with sense taken of one.
Another. At the fashioning of man the voice of God is introduced saying, Let Us make man in Our Image, after Our likeness. If then the amplitude, if I may so call it, of the Holy Trinity is contracted into a One in number, and they impiously take away from the Father and the Son Their separate Existence: who is he who says, and to whom, Let us make man in Our Image? For He ought forsooth to say, if it be as they in their silly nonsense say, Let us make man in my image, after my likeness. But now the writer of the Book, not saying this indeed, but allotting the creation to the plural number and adding Our image, well-nigh with clear and mighty voice proclaims the enumeration of the Holy Trinity to be above One.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary.asp?pg=10
