S. Cyril replies, "Seeing that, on the Evangelist saying, The Word was made flesh, they say that they are afraid lest, the word was made retaining its proper meaning, some change be conceived of as taking place regarding the Divine Nature of the Word; I applaud their fear, but marvel that drawing aside the word and its true and necessary meaning, they say that the Word was so made flesh, as He may be said to be made curse and sin. How ought they not, being men of sense, to have seen, that the blessed Evangelist having put, Was made, removes all suspicion of any change, by subjoining immediately, And tabernacled in us?
"In another way too it is absurd to venture to say, that the Word was so made flesh, as He is said to have been made curse and sin (for He has not been made curse's very self, nor yet sin), but being Righteous He was reckoned among the transgressors, in order to bring sin to nought: and He Who blesseth the creation has been called a curse, in order to undo our curse and rid from sentence them that believe on Him. Hence He has not been made of a truth curse and sin but has been called so, to bring to nought curse and sin.
"Hence if He have thus been made flesh, He hath brought to nought the flesh, just as He hath curse and sin, and hath neither been made man nor been in truth incarnate: but in mere semblance is the mystery and in bare names is the plan of the Incarnation seen." p. 159 c d and 161 d e 162 a.
4. See S. Athanasius against the Arians iii. § 30-35 pp. 442-450 O.T.
5. Elsewhere S. Cyril says, "For Christ was made for us sin, as it is written. And surely not guilty of sin (for we are not wont so to wander in mind) seeing that He had no knowledge of transgression, being God by Nature and beaming forth of God the Father. But because He has been made a sacrifice for sin (for Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us), therefore do we say that He was made sin also." Glaph. 349 c. And in commenting upon Hosea iv. 8, They eat the sin of My people, S. Cyril says, "A kid therefore of the goats was wont to be sacrificed for sin, wherefore the sacrifice itself was also called sin ." in xii Proph. 71 b. But the two explanations of being made sin may be but two aspects of what the Holy Ghost tells us in tnese words.
S. Athanasius says, "For as by receiving our infirmities, He is said to be infirm Himself, though not Himself infirm, for He is the Power of God: and He became sin for us and a curse, though not having sinned Himself but because He Himself bare our sins and our curse, so &c." Agst Arians. ii. 55 fin. p. 359 O.T. Similarly S. Cyril, " As therefore He is said to have been infirm though not infirm (for He is the Power of God), because He bare our infirmities, and the Divine Scripture says that He has been made a curse, not meaning that He has been actually transmade into a curse, but that He bare the curse for us, and again He is said to have been made sin, not as forgetful of His own Nature nor passing into sin Who knew it not, but because He took on Him our sins, as it is written, in His body on the Tree, so" &c. Thes. cap. 15 p. 162 e, see also cap. 32 p. 276 e.
6. "For that which is honoured by a relation ( σχέσει ) which does not belong to it by nature, admits full surely into itself a glory which is foreign to it. And since a thing will never partake of itself but will undergo this from relation with another, there is all need to say that that which partakes is of other nature than that which is partaken of." Dial. 7. p. 643 d: see too above p. 16, below p. 254 note m.
7. See above p. 101 and in Scholia, § 36 above pp. 226, 227 and note n.; see also more at length in S. Cyril's Ecumenical Epistle to John Archbishop of Antioch, translated in 3 Epistles of S. Cyril (Parker 1872) pp. 72, 73.
8. "He gives to the nature of man what is His, permitting it to call God Father: Himself taketh the properties of the human nature calling the Father His God. Yet neither do WE deny our bondage that is by nature when we call God Father nor will the SON lose His Natural Dignity by likening Himself to us for our good." Thes. cap. 15 p 160 e. "Commixing therefore in a way and commingling us in Himself and Himself again in us, Himself descends into what is ours, catches us up into what is His.
Thus, we are men by nature, He hastening down for His love's sake into what is beside Nature was made man: God's bondmen by nature we as things made, He too is called bondman, borne unto whatis beside Nature when He was made man. Yea and on the other hand, He GOD by Essence, we too gods mounting up unto what is beside nature for grace's sake (for we are men): He SON by Nature, we too sons by adoption called unto brotherhood with Him." Thes cap. 32 p. 330 fin.
9. "We say therefore that the whole Word which is out of God has been co-united to the whole manhood of ours: for He would not have deemed of no account, that which is best in us, i. e. the soul, bestowing on the flesh alone the Toils of His Coming." de recta fide to the Emperor Theodosius p. 18 d and (as a Dialogue) with slight modifications in the Ad Herm. Book 7, 692 b. Similarly Theodoret in his great letter to the monks of Constantinople, after saying, " the Only-Begotten Son of God taking both body and soul...." adds, "For if the body only of Adam sinned, it would have needed that this alone should reap the cure; but since the soul not only sinned with it but also before it (for thought first limns the sin, then works it through the body), it were right, I suppose, that it too obtain healing" (Ep. 145 p. 1250 init.). See also S. Irenaeus, "Thus the Lord having redeemed us with His own Blood and given His Soul for our souls and His own Flesh for our flesh" (Book v. 1. 1. p. 450 O.T.).
10. παρὰ τοὺς μετέχοντας αὐτοῦ . S. Cyril had in earlier life said, "Blessed David sings and says to the SON, Therefore God Thy God anointed Thee with the oil of gl adness above them that are participant of Thee ( παρὰ τοὺς μετόχους σου ). If therefore that which partakes is other than that which is partaken (for one must be conceived of in other), and the creature partakes of the SON, He will be other than the creature which partakes of Him: hence neither is He generate. But if the Son be not other than the creature, be not severed from it by Nature, what need of participation? or how can any partake of what itself is?" Thes. cap. 1 fin. p. 14.
11. Theodoret in his Letter to the Monks of Constantinople (the same that is quoted ahove p. 252 note k and p. 33 note b) written in the later years of his life after the Eutychian troubles had commenced and so after A. D. 448 uses words very similar: If, as they accuse me, I proclaim two sons, which do I praise, which leave unworshipped? (Ep. 145, p. 1247): see also p. 1310 fin.
12. The two MSS D and F of S. Paul's Epistles with some few others add this gloss, the Scripture, of which Origen too and Theodoret are quoted as preserving a trace. There seems little doubt that S. Cyril had it in this treatise as the Syriac translation of the treatise also gives it. Dr. Tischendorf cites S. Cyril as reading the word in-his commentary on Isaiah p. 839 init.: S. Cyril quotes this passage twice in his treatise de Recta fide to Arcadia and Marina, pp. 104 c, 118 e, as far as we know, without the gloss.
13. Each of these three instances is put forward also in the Scholia § 37, above pp. 234, 235: compare also the famous Pasch. hom. 16 for A.D. 429 (the same as is cited by the Eastern Bishops against S. Cyril's Chapters as tome 1) pp. 231, 232.
14. see above, p. 79 note d.
15. see above, p. 41 note c.
16. συνεισφορᾷ , as the contribution in which He ordered that S. Peter's share ' should be paid along with His own. This is a very favourite passage of S. Cyril, he has commented on it in his commentary on S. John iv. 22, p. 189 c (p. 217 O.T.) xiv. 11 p.791 a b; in his treatise on the right faith to the Princesses Arcadia and Marina p. 82 c d: on Isaiah p. 661 e, in his twelfth paschal homily p. 181 e, in Hom. 88 on S. Luke and at the close of a fragment of a Homily That Christ is One (published at the end of commentaries on S. John iii. p. 458): see too Glaph. 328 a b.
17. but emptied Himself, Phil. ii. 7.
18. τροπῆς : comp. S. James i. 17.
19. Compare Schol. § 27, above p. 214: also fragment 8 of Homilies (sub calce Comm. in S. Joan. iii. 464), Resp. 7 to Tiberius and his fellows (ubi supra, iii. 589) and elsewhere.
20. So Expl. cap. 3 p. 149 e, cap. 4 p. 150 e, def. cap. 8 adv. Epp. orient. 179 b, schol. § 16 fin., § 36, above pp. 206, 230: also pp. 167, 168.
21. The fear felt by the Easterns that One Nature Incarnate must necessarily involve the [Apollinarian] mixture, being stated in full here and also by Succensus in his hypomnesticon, S. Cyril replies carefully both here and in his second letter to Succensus, see further on. In his first Letter to Succensus, he says, " There is therefore One Son, One Lord Jesus Christ, both before the Incarnation and after the Incarnation: for not One Son was the Word out of God the Father, another again he who is forth of the holy Virgin, but Himself Who was before the ages is believed to have been born according to the flesh too of a woman, not as though His Godhead took a beginning of being, or was called unto beginning of existence through the holy Virgin; but rather that (as I said) being Word before the ages He is said to have been born of her because of the flesh ( διὰ τὴν σάρκα as the better MSS). For His is His flesh, just as of each one of us his body is his own. But since some wreath around us Apolinarius' opinions and say, If ye say that the Word out of God the Father is One Son by an union exact and mingled ( καθ' ἕνωσιν ἀκριβῆ καὶ συγκεκραμένην ) haply ye are pleased to fancy and say that a confusion or commixture or commingling of the Word with His body has had place or a change of the body into the Nature of Godhead: therefore we repelling very earnestly the accusal say that the Word out of God the Father incomprehensibly and unutterably united to Himself a body ensouled with reasonable soul and proceeded man of a woman, made as we not by change of nature but rather by Economic Good-Pleasure (for He desired to be made man, not losing the being God by Nature): yet even though He came down in our condition and bare the bondman's form, even thus He hath remained in the Excellencies of the Godhead and in Natural Lordship." Epp. 136 c d e 137 a. And in his second Letter to the same Succensus, putting down first the objection which Succensus had sent him, ,, If there is one Incarnate Nature of the Word, needs must one say that there is commingling and commixture, the human nature minished as it were and being lost ( ὑποκλεπτομένης ) in Him:,, S. Cyril replies, "They who pervert right things know not that there is in truth One Incarnate Nature of the Word. For if He Who is by Nature and truly, He Who was ineffably Begotten, be One Son, and then by assumption of flesh, not without soul but ensouled with reasonable soul, proceeded man of a woman, He will not therefore be severed into two persons and sons, but hath remained One yet not without flesh nor without body, but having the body as His own by Union which may not be plucked asunder. And he who says this, full surely he indicates no commingling, no confusion nor ought of the kind, nor will this as of necessity ensue, whence should it? For even though the Only-Begotten &c" as above p. 41, note e. Epp. 142 e 143 a.
22. " For as the fire was made endurable to the bush, so to our nature too the Excellency of the Godhead." Pasch. hom. 16 p. 231 c.
23. See the fragments of S. Cyril's two Books against Theodore of Mopsuestia, to be given below.