St Cyril of Alexandria Commentary on John (First Part)

Translated by P. E. Pusey

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This Part: 128 Pages

Page 52

To this we say, that the Divine having clad the Only-Begotten with God-befitting dignity says that He is ever and unceasingly in the world, as Life by Nature, as Light by Essence, fulfilling the creation as God, not circumscript by place, not meted by intervals, not comprehended by quantity, neither compassed at all by ought, nor needing to pass from one place to another, but in all He dwells, none He forsakes: yet he asserted that He came in the world (although present therein) by the Incarnation. For He shewed Himself upon earth and conversed with men with flesh, making His Presence in the world more manifest thereby, and He Who was aforetime comprehended by idea, seen at length by the very eyes of the body also, implanted in us a grosser so to speak perception of the knowledge of God, made known by wonders and mighty deeds. And the Psalmist entreats that the Word of God may be sent to us to enlighten the world, in no other way as seems to me, but in this. But I think that the studious should consider this again, that keener is the mind than all speech, sharper the motion of the understanding than the tongue. Hence as far as pertains to the delicacy of the mind and its subtil motion, we behold the varied beauty of the Divine Nature: but we utter the things respecting it in more human wise and in the speech that belongs to us, the tongue not being able to stretch forth unto the measure of the truth. Wherefore Paul too, the steward of the Mysteries of the Saviour, used to ask of God utterance to open his mouth. Nought then will the poverty of our language hurt the Natural Dignities of the Only-Begotten, but what belongs to Him will be conceived of after a Divine sort, but will be uttered as matter of necessity in more human wise, both by Him for our sakes and by the Saints of Him according to the measure of our nature.

It were then, it seems, not amiss to be content with what has been already said in explanation of the words before us. Yet since I deem that the pen that ministers to the Divine doctrines should be above sloth, come let us bringing forward the lection again examine more exactly how the words coming into the world predicated of man, as is fit, should be understood. For the light was in the world, as the Evangelist also himself testified to us, and we have maintained that it was not the Light that cometh into the world but rather the man who is being lighted. Some therefore say, belching forth of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord, as it is "written, that the souls of men were pre-existent in Heaven before the fashioning of their bodies, passing long time in un-embodied bliss, and enjoying more purely the true Good. But when the sate of better things came into them and, declining at length to the worser, they sank to strange thoughts and desires, the Creator justly displeased sends them forth into the world, and entangled them with bodies of earth compelling them to be burdened therewith, and having shut them as it were in some cave of strange pleasures, decreed to instruct them by the very trial itself, how bitter it is to be carried away to the worser, and to make no account of what is good. And in proof of this most ridiculous fable of theirs, they wrest first of all this that is now before us: He was the Very Light Which lighteth every man coming into the world, and, besides, certain other things of the Divine Scripture, such as, Before I was afflicted I went astray, and moreover not ashamed of such foolish prating say, Lo the soul says that before its humiliation, that is, its embodiment, it transgressed and that therefore it was justly afflicted, brought in bondage to death and corruption, even as Paul too stileth the body saying O wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me from, the body of this death? But if the soul, he says, goeth astray before it was afflicted, it also cometh into the world, as having that is a previous being (for how could it sin at at all if it existed not yet?); and cometh into the world, setting out that is from some quarter. Such things as these they stringing against the doctrines of the Church and heaping up the trash of their empty expositions in the ears of the of the faithful will rightly hear, Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! For visions in truth, and auguries by birds and prophecies of their own heart they setting against the words spoken by the Spirit, do not perceive to how great absurdity their device will run; as the Psalmist says unto God, Thou, Thou art to be feared: and who may stand in Thy Sight when once Thou art angry?  

But that it is most exceedingly absurd to suppose that the soul pre-exists, and to think that for elder transgressions it was sent down into bodies of earth, we shall endeavour to prove according to our ability by the subjoined considerations, knowing what is written, Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

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