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Translated by P. E. Pusey
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 23
No argument, O most excellent, will ever constrain us to think that we ought to believe and call the Father Word, or even to believe that He could be so, because He is Consubstantial with the Word. For in no wise will things that are of the same essence admit of a mutual interchange, and receive a sort of mixture, as from one into the other, so that the things named could be reduced from many into one, or from duality into unity. For not because our forefather Adam was consubstantial with the son born of him, will father therefore advance unto son, son again mount up into father; but being one with him as far as regards the unity of essential quality, he will retain what is his own: and he who is of any father will be conceived of as a son, and again the begetter of any will clearly be father. But if ye imagine that ye are constructing a clever argument hereupon, and that consubstantiality will surely constrain consubstantial to be one with consubstantial, and will suffer no distinction to prevail, so that each should exist by itself and in whatever it is, what was it persuaded the Judge of all not to punish the father for the son, nor to demand of the son satisfaction for the father? For the soul, says he, that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. But since the sentence of Him Who judges righteously does not bring down the father, albeit consubstantial with the son, into the position of sonship, nor yet does it bring up the son into the condition of fatherhood, but knoweth each individually, not this progressing into that, nor that stepping into this; it is I suppose evident, that no argument will constrain God the Father, because He is Consubstantial with the Word, to change into being the Word. For He abideth wholly in Himself, that is Father, even though He Who is begotten of Him be conceived to be and be Word and therefore Son, that things Divine may not appear in worse state than ours are.
Another in equal guise with the objection, by the method of reductio ad absurdum.
The Son, as having no difference from His Father, but being His most exact Likeness and the express Image of His Person, is found saying to His disciples, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. But if He being thus, is Consubstantial with the Father, and things consubstantial admit of utter confusion with one another, there will be nothing it seems to hinder the Son from being conceived of as Father, in that He is Consubstantial with the Father, and capable of passing over into this, nought hindering it, if consubstantiality suffice unto this kind of change or transposition. Let the Son then be conceived of as Father, and let Him say, as now being so, to the real Father, From the womb before the Day-star begat I Thee; and let Him assume to Himself every word in short that belongs to the Father. When this at length has taken place, every thing is now thrown into confusion, and That Which ever so existeth, I mean the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity will be reduced to Unity, if That which rightly and separately belongs to Each vanishes on account of the Con-substantiality, and the sameness of nature overthrows the distinction of Persons. But this is absurd. Hence the Father will not be the Word, because Consubstantial with the Word, but will abide unchanged, being What He is, even though He have Co-nature or Consubstantiality with His Own Word. And their objection has been proved to be nought.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/john-commentary.asp?pg=23
