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Translated by R. Payne Smith
St Cyril of Alexandria Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 16
But perchance some one may object to this; "that He Who was now born was still a child, and wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger: how then did the powers above praise Him as God?" Against such our argument stands firm. Understand, O man, the depth of the mystery! God was in visible form like unto us: the Lord of all in the likeness of a slave, albeit the glory of lordship is inseparable from Him. Understand that the Only-begotten was made flesh; that He endured to be born of a woman for our sakes, to put away the curse pronounced upon the first woman: for to her it was said, "In pains shalt thou bring forth children:" for it was as bringing forth unto death, that they endured the sting of death [8]. But because a woman has brought forth in the flesh the Immanuel, Who is Life, the power of the curse is loosed, and along with death have ceased also the pains that earthly mothers had to endure in bringing forth.
Wouldst thou learn also another reason of the matter? Remember what the very wise Paul has written of Him. "For as to the powerlessness of the law, wherein it was weak through the flesh, God having sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and because of sin, has condemned [9] the sin in His flesh, that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit [10]." What then is the meaning of his saying that the Son was sent "in the likeness of sinful flesh?" It is this. The law of sin lies hidden in our fleshly members, together with the shameful stirring of the natural lusts: but when the Word of God became flesh, that is man, and assumed our likeness, His flesh was holy and perfectly pure; so that He was indeed in the likeness of our flesh, but not according to its standard. For He was entirely free from the stains and emotions natural to our bodies [11], and from that inclination which leads us to what is not lawful.
When therefore thou seest the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes, stay not thy thought solely upon His birth in the flesh, but mount up to the contemplation of His godlike glory: elevate thy mind aloft: ascend to heaven: so wilt thou behold Him in the highest exaltation, possessed of transcendent glory; thou wilt see Him "set upon a throne high and lifted up;" thou wilt hear the Seraphim extolling Him in hymns, and saying that heaven and earth are full of His glory. Yea! even upon earth this has come to pass: for the glory of God shone upon the shepherds, and there was a multitude of the heavenly armies telling Christ's glory. And this it was which was proclaimed of old by the voice of Moses, "Rejoice, ye heavens, with Him, and let all the sons [12] of God worship Him." For very many holy prophets had been born from time to time, but never had any one of them been glorified by the voice of angels: for they were men, and according to the same measure as ourselves, the true servants of God, and bearers of His words. But not so was Christ: for He is God and Lord, and the Sender of the holy prophets, and, as the Psalmist says, "Who in the clouds shall be compared unto the Lord, and who shall be likened unto the Lord among the sons of God?" For the appellation of sonship is bestowed by Him as of grace upon us who lie under the yoke, and are by nature slaves: but Christ is the true Son [13], that is, He is the Son of God the Father by nature, even when He had become flesh: for He continued, as I have said, to be that which He had ever been, though He took upon Him that which He had not been.
8.[h] Mai more correctly perhaps reads τῆς ἀνίας κέντρον.
9.[i] The Peschito has also this reading, though manifestly wrong.
10.[k] The passage which follows occurs also in MS. 12, 154, with no variae lectiones: as does also the subsequent explanation of Is. viii. 3.
11.[l] The Syriac translator has here misinterpreted S. Cyril, who does not say that our Lord was free from the emotions natural to bodies, but κινήματος καὶ ῥοπῆς τῆς ἡμᾶς ἀποφερούσης ἐφ̕ ἁ μὴ θέμις, that is, from that corruption of our nature which suggests sin to us, and inclines us to seek it. (James i. 14.) S. Cyril's main argument here is used by him with great force in his treatise De Incarnat. Dom. c. xi., wherein he shews, that our Lord took the flesh holy and perfectly pure, "to convict sin of injustice, and to destroy the power of death. For as long as sin sentenced only the guilty to death, no interference with it was possible, seeing that it had justice on its side. But when it subjected to the same punishment Him Who was innocent, and guiltless, and worthy of crowns of honour and hymns of praise, being convicted of injustice, it was by necessary consequence stripped of its power."
12.[m] This reading is supported by several MSS., two Scholia, and S. Augustine; but is rejected by St. Paul, Heb. i. 6.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/cyril-alexandria/luke-commentary.asp?pg=16
