he held a lofty rank in the virtue of righteousness, did not ignore His superiority; he confessed the Master, he yielded the winning place to the glory of Christ." For he said clearly: "This is he of whom I said: After me comes a man, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to loose." Although, therefore, many saints have had the Word of God within themselves, it was spoken of no one among them that, "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," nor shall we find that the heavenly powers danced for the sake of any of them. For at the birth of whom, tell me, did the multitude of the heavenly host sing hymns of thanksgiving on our behalf? Only of Emmanuel did they say: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men." Therefore, since God had dwelt in many holy men, as I have said, once in the end of ages the Word of God is said to have arrived; once He was made man; and concerning this one the prophet says: "Behold, the virgin shall have in her womb and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel." One He is, and the only one, who redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; one Son did the Father give for us; one Son laid down His own life for us; B one was crucified and rose again, trampling down the power of death. Therefore, we acknowledge the Word of God to be in the flesh in very truth, that is, united to the flesh, and we do not say that Emmanuel is a God-bearing man; but we confess that He who is by nature God, having assumed the form of a servant, has also become the Son of Man, and that He is the same person, both God and man together. C
XXI.
From the Prosphonetic Discourse of St. Cyril to the Alexandrians on the Faith
1. I do not admit the "concretion" [or mixture]; for it is alien to the apostolic faith and the right tradition of God. For concretion brings about the destruction of the natures. But the ineffable union, acknowledged by those who think rightly, preserves both natures unconfused, and constitutes out of both the one visible Christ, being the same God and man; I say not two Christs, but one, united, not concreted. For if the two natures are coagulated into one mixture, since they are diverse substances, neither remains intact, but both, being confused, perish. Nor, however, do they suffer separation or division after they have been joined. D Certainly, the two human substances separated and departed at the time of death; for the soul descended to the underworld with the divinity from the body; the body, separated from the soul, was placed in a new tomb, according to the truthful words of Christ saying: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The temple was therefore destroyed at the time of the three-day burial, by His own will; and He raised it up again, and the divinity was united to him in an ineffable and hidden manner, not being concreted with him,
or emptied of flesh, but preserving within Himself the inconfused property of the differing natures. For the natures were certainly not blended. Then he brings forward the testimony of Saint Athanasius, namely this: “Two differing natures preserved in one Christ, the Son of God, and neither confused, nor perishing, nor divided.” And after other matters: “For He was made like us in all things, apart from sin; the divine nature not being changed, nor concreted with human nature, but united to it not through conversion, nor through blending, nor through mixing, nor through confusion, nor through alteration, nor through transformation, or through destruction, or through being stripped of flesh, but through an ineffable and indescribable union.”
B 2. From the same sermon. Blending indeed effects the destruction of the natures; but the ineffable union, which is confessed by those who think rightly, preserves both natures inconfusedly.
3. From the same sermon. Two natures of differing substance preserved in one Christ, the Son of God, and not confused, nor perishing, nor divided.
4. From the same sermon. For if the two natures had coalesced into one, being of differing substance, neither would have remained intact, but both would have perished because of the confusion.
C 5. From the same sermon. And the temple was dissolved at the time of the three-day burial, by His own will; and then He raised it up again: and He was united to the temple by an arcane and ineffable manner, yet not concreted with it, nor turned into flesh; but He preserved in Himself the inconfused property of the differing substances.
Of Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, from the sermon on the faith, whose beginning is this proem.
I do not accept a blending. For it is alien to the apostolic faith and the right tradition of God. For blending works the extermination of natures. But the ineffable union, which the wise rightly confess, preserves both natures inconfusedly. — From the same. For if natures are blended into one, through a mixing they are of mutually differing substances. And at the end he says thus: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” And the temple was indeed alone at the time of the three-day burial, by His own will, and He raised it up again, D and was united to it by an ineffable manner after the three days, not blended in it. Nor was He made outside the flesh, but preserving in Himself the inconfused property of the two natures, which are substance differing from one another. For those two natures, that is, the ineffable divine nature and the inconfused human, are not in any way mixed or blended; but they are united in an inexplicable and ineffable manner, which transcends all reason.
Of the same. Did He perhaps cease from His own deity, even if He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant for our sake, losing the form of divinity, so that according to you He might be prepared as a man for deifying? Far be it. But preparing for Himself an animate temple, and made perfect in the womb of the holy Virgin, and clothed in it, and united to it by an ineffable manner, in both those same natures, not blended, He proceeded forth appearing as man, but to be understood as God Jesus Christ.
From the Homily of Saint Cyril to the Alexandrians
A The Virgin bore for us Emmanuel, consubstantial with the Father according to His divinity, but consubstantial with us according to His humanity: impassible in His divinity, passible in His humanity. For even if God the Word appropriates the passions of His own body and refers them to Himself, He nevertheless remains the same within the bounds of His impassibility. And if you hear Him say: "I gave my back to the scourges, and my cheeks to the buffetings, and I did not turn away my face from the shame of spitting," B do not suppose that He underwent anything in His own nature; rather, understand that He made the scourges of His own body His own. For to whom the body belongs, to him those things which are specific to the body are rightly attributed, apart from sin alone. Therefore, since God the Word became man, He remained divinely impassible, but by necessarily appropriating the affections of His own flesh, He is said to have suffered according to the flesh, even though He is untouchable by suffering insofar as He is understood to be God. For they do not perceive that the impassible is preserved in Him insofar as He is God, yet that suffering for our sake is attributed to Him according to the flesh, insofar as He, being God by nature, became flesh, that is, a perfect man. For who was He who said to the Father and God in heaven: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me; burnt offerings and those for sin you did not seek. Then I said: Behold, I come to do, O God, thy will"? For He who was without a body as God C says that a body has been prepared for Him, so that by offering this for our sake, He might heal us all by His own stripes, according to the word of the prophet.
Notice
It pleases us to append a sample of the genuine homilies of Saint Cyril, from an ancient Vatican codex, containing a sermon inscribed to Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria; yet this sermon is worthy neither of the style, nor much less of the gravity of thoughts, of that great Cyril. After the exordium, which we shall recite, there follows a long lamentation, often using the very words of the prophets, regarding the evils of Jerusalem, whose people were abducted into the Babylonian captivity on a most arduous journey on foot, along with the three royal boys and Daniel. Thereafter, the deeds, duties, and discourses of these youths among the Assyrians are narrated, as well as the harmless power of the flame to which they were subjected. And though these, besides the knowledge of the true God, had also predicted the future advent of the Savior before the impious king, they are said to have been beheaded, together with Daniel: whose bodies the Hebrew people, having piously placed them in caskets, later carried back with them on their return to the city of Jerusalem: where at length, at the death of Christ the Lord, they are said to have returned to life with the other dead, of whom mention is made in the Gospels, and to have passed into paradise. (These things are said in part also in the Menaion of the Greeks on December 17th.) There follows the conclusion of the sermon, which we shall likewise append. And although in it Cyril himself is said to attribute this sermon to himself, we nevertheless judge it without any hesitation to be rejected from that ancient and great Cyril. Moreover, because in the eleventh century there existed a Jacobite Archbishop of Alexandria named Cyril, if anyone wishes to think of him, we shall not object; indeed, we shall readily agree that this younger Cyril is the author of the sermon; especially because in the title the words "holy" and D of our Father are missing.
CYRIL ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, SERMON ON THE DEATH OF THE HOLY THREE CHILDREN AND OF THE ALL-WISE DANIEL
A The time is at hand, dearly beloved, to offer a commemoration of glorious martyrs. For this commemoration, which takes place for the sake of obtaining the salvation of our souls, imitates the panegyric of the heavenly hosts. All you, therefore, who have knowledge of God, stretch forth your ears here today, so that you may be worthily accounted worthy of the reward of the martyrs just mentioned. For it is right to praise and admire these men, who—before they had seen the incarnation of Christ, the death of the Immortal One, or the resurrection from the dead, and before his advent in the flesh—had already become his confessors and martyrs. For the holy Trinity took thought for these, according to the prophecy read just a little while ago, namely, for the royal youths of the same race as the king: Ananias, Azarias, and Misael. B I wish to narrate to the Church of God their manner of life, their cooperative wisdom, their shared struggle, and their end—how, indeed, these noble branches, these youths, I say, were bravely perfected, etc.
*The oration proceeds, filling another fourteen substantial blocks of text; toward the end of which Cyril reveals his name and dignity, just as he does in the title before the beginning.*
C This construction of the good testament, I, Cyril, the least, bishop of the city of the Alexandrians, have added to the testament composed by Daniel. For I have written down the common life and manner of living of the holy and blameless youths, as well as their perfection in Christ. May it come to pass, by the grace of Christ and the intercession of the victor-martyrs whom we have just commemorated, that the Church of Christ may flourish and grow, and abound in the fruit of righteousness; so that fathers and mothers, bringing forth from themselves such offshoots with chastity and piety, may see their adolescents and virgins strive for such a way of life and grow together in the same virtue. The holy youths were perfected on the seventeenth day of the month of December.