Cyril of Alexandria

Having become like us, even though he remained what he was, he will not repudiate what belongs to us, but instead accepts what is human along with the limitations that belong to the human condition, for the sake of the dispensation of the incarnation, without thereby compromising in any way his glory or his nature.  For even in this state, he is God and Lord of all.

A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today, edited by James R. Payton, Jr

Cyril’s Christology was foundational in the Council of Ephesus and against Nestorius.  Much of this post will focus on his writing on this topic.

The Son

… “the Word of God became flesh.”  It is so that we might see side by side the wound together with the remedy, the patient together with the physician…  He does not say that the Word “came into” flesh; he says that he “became” flesh in order to exclude any idea of a relative indwelling, as in the case of the prophets or the other saints.

This is worth dwelling on.  It may be foundational to Cyril’s Christology of one nature – the Christology that led several Churches to ultimately reject Chalcedon.

We deny that the flesh of the Word became the Godhead, but we do say that it became divine in virtue of its being his own.

The same subject who before the incarnation was Son and God and Word of the Father became after it a man like us endowed with flesh.

… the Word, being God, made the body born from a woman his own body without undergoing change or alteration in any way…

The Word was unchanging, yet it became flesh.  Somehow, in this condition, the Word remained what it always was and always would be.

He who was above all creation was in our human condition….

He [the Son of God] took what was ours to be his very own so that we might have all that was his.

I still don’t see how anything of salvation works without Christ being both God and man.

The Word becoming flesh is the undoing and the abolition of all that fell upon human nature as our curse and punishment.

There was no other way to shake off the gloomy dominion of death, only by the Incarnation of the Only Begotten.

There is something here that speaks to our inheritance of a sinful nature.  I am becoming aware of the reality that the Eastern Orthodox understand this differently than does the West (influenced by Augustine), yet in these statements from Cyril I find some means of commonality on this issue.

Godhead is one thing, and manhood is another thing, considered in the perspective of the respective and intrinsic beings, but in the case of Christ they came together in a mysterious and incomprehensible union without confusion or change.  The manner of this union is beyond conception.

The Word was united with its own flesh in a transcendent manner that is beyond human understanding….

You have heard this too many times from me, however given the spilt it caused in the early Church after Chalcedon, why could the precise nature of this union “beyond conception” and “beyond human understanding” not have been left to mystery?

We have learned to hold these things from the holy apostles and evangelists and all the God-inspired Scripture, and by the true confession of the blessed Fathers.

The Eucharist

I know the following is on a point of real division in the broader Church.  I offer no comment, but merely want to present Cyril’s statements.

Let us approach the divine and heavenly grace, and go up to the holy partaking of Christ [in the Eucharist].  For that is precisely the way in which we shall overcome the deceits of the devil, and “having become partakers of the divine nature” [2 Peter 1:4]. shall ascend to life and incorruption.

Those who do not receive Jesus through the sacrament will continue to remain utterly bereft of any share in the life of holiness and blessedness and without any taste of it whatsoever.

It [the Eucharist] will certainly transform those who partake of it and endow them with its own proper good – that is, eternal life.  Do not be astonished at this, or ask yourself in a Jewish manner about the “how.”

…he who eats the holy flesh of Christ has eternal life, for the flesh contains the Word who is by nature life.

Man

We have become fellow heirs to the evils experienced by our first parent.

We had become accursed through Adam’s transgression and had fallen into the trap of death, abandoned by God.  Yet all things were made new in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) and our condition was restored to what it was in the beginning.

Here again, we see something regarding our fallen nature, the nature inherited from Adam.  Again, understood differently, I believe, in the East and in the West.  Yet, there must be something held in common if these statements from Cyril remain in agreement with Eastern Orthodox teaching.

It belongs to us to honor what transcends the human mind with an unquestioning faith.

Like, for example, the nature of Christ and the Trinity.

Other

Is not silence better than ignorant speech?

This was written against Nestorius.

Biographies / Sources

Cyril (376 – 444) served as bishop of Alexandria.  He was the chief opponent of the heresy of Nestorius, who espoused a duality within Christ.  Against this, Cyril urged the oneness of the incarnate Son as necessary for salvation.  His teaching was endorsed at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Cyril’s Christology played the key role in the rejection of Chalcedon by several churches, including the Coptic and Armenian.  These churches saw too much of Nestorius in the Tome of Leo, and their concern was bolstered by the fact that the Nestorians took strength from Chalcedon and the Tome.