3. The Trinity of the Godhead, already revealed in the Old Testament, was revealed by Christ in the New. The revelation of God as the Father is a revelation of the Trinity, for the Fatherland presupposes sonship, and the Father is the Father of the Son. The name of the Father is the name of the hypostasis, and indicates the relation of the First Person to the Second and to the Third. The Father is also called the Beginning and the Source, for he is the root and source of the Godhead, and the name of the source here means only "being from what." The concepts of time and change are not at all applicable to the Divine life, and therefore all hypostatic properties and relations must be thought of as eternal and immutable. There is no gap between the Divinity and the Patronymic of the First Hypostasis, and the eternity of the Fatherland means the eternity of the ineffable Divine birth, i.e. the eternity of Sonship. From the eternal Father is born the eternal Son. He does not "come into being," nor "arises," but eternally "was" and abides in the Father as in the source, always exists in Him as His Word, Wisdom, Power, Mark, Reflection and Image... With these last definitions, the apostolic and beloved definitions of St. Athanasius, St. Cyril attaches special importance, — they especially clearly express the perfect consubstantiality and equality of honor of the Father and the Son. As an image, a reflection and a "mark", the Hypostasis of the Father, the Son is inseparable from Him whose reflection He is, but Himself is in Him and has the Father in Himself, according to the perfect identity of nature and attributes – "He Himself is in the Father naturally"... Without a perfect identity of properties, there would be no accuracy in representation and drawing. The Son is in the Father and from the Father, not from outside or in the course of time receiving His being, but being in essence and shining from it, as from the sun proceeds its brilliance. Birth is an act of nature (τής φύσεως), and not an act of the will, and this is the difference between birth and creation. The Son dwells "in the bosom of the Father," as "rooted in him by the immutable identity of essence," as "existing and always coexisting" in the Father and with the Father, ώς ένυάρχων. Therefore, the Father is contemplated and "manifested" in the Son as in a kind of mirror, as in His "essential and natural image", as in the image of His essence. The Son is called the Mark precisely because the Mark is co-natural and inseparable from the essence to which it is the Mark. "Consubstantial" thus signifies, for St. Cyril, not only generic similarity and community of properties, but also the perfect and indivisible unity of life. The concepts of "birth" and "inscription" complement and explain each other. The mark indicates a perfect similarity of properties, and birth indicates the origin "from essence" and "natural co-existence" with the Father. In the "consubstantial" or "natural unity" the self-hypostasis of the Persons is not erased: in the unity of essence, the Father and the Son each exist "in his own person" (έν ίδίω πρоσώπω) and in a special existence (ίδιαστάτως), but without separation and dissection, — at once and separately and united. In St. Cyril there is no complete uniformity in Trinitarian terminology, and through the later Cappadocian usage, the former, Nicene and Athanasian ones often break through. He uses the totality of concepts and definitions in order to substantiate and reveal the perfect consubstantiality of the Son and the Word. 4. The Son is the Creator and Provider of the world, inseparable from the Father and the Spirit, the Beginning and Organizer of all that arises and is created. In the creative activity of the Son there is no service or subordination; on the contrary, it shows His dominion over all things. "Being Life Himself by nature, He bestows being, life, and motion upon beings in many ways. It is not that by means of any division or change He enters into each of the beings of different natures, but the creation itself is diversified by the ineffable wisdom and power of the Creator... And there is one Life of all, which enters into every being, as much as it befits and as much as it can receive." That is why the Evangelist says: "What was made. In Him was life" (John 1:3-4) — such, apparently, was the most ancient reading of these Gospel verses, changed already in the post-Arian era. Everything that exists has life in the Word... Creation arises and comes to life through touch and communion with Life, and in the Word has its own life and being. The Son not only calls the creature into being, but also contains what has happened through Himself, "as if mixing Himself with that which has no eternal existence in its nature, and becoming Life for that which exists, so that what has happened may remain and remain within the limits of its nature." Being present in creation by communion (διά μετоχής) and giving it life, the Word, as it were, overcomes the weakness of created beings, which have arisen and are therefore subject to destruction, and "artificially, as it were, arranges eternity for them." The Word is Life by nature or Self-Life, and therefore It is life for creation. Through the light of the Word, out of the darkness of non-existence, creation arises and arises, "and Light shines in darkness"... The presence of the Word in creation does not blur the line between it and creation. On the contrary, this boundary becomes all the more clear to us when it is revealed that the creature exists and lives only through communion with something other than itself, only through the communion of self-existent Life. Creation is an incomprehensible act of God's will, and the creative power is inherent only in God Himself. Creation is alien to God and, as having a beginning, must have an end. Only the goodness of God protects her from this natural instability... These reflections of St. Cyril are very reminiscent of the teaching of St. Athanasius in his early sermon "On the Incarnation." And together with Athanasius, St. Cyril rejects Phidon's idea of the Word as a "mediator" between God and the world in creation and in the providence of creation. There is nothing in between God and the creature, no "middle nature" or being. Only God is above creation, and everything else is "subject to the yoke of slavery"... 5. The teaching about the Holy Spirit is developed by St. Cyril in some detail. For polemical reasons, he dwells on the proofs of the Divinity of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit from God is God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and in no way inferior or less than them in Divine dignity. He has "an essence that transcends all things," "the purest and most perfect nature," He is God from God, "self-wisdom and self-power," άυτόχρημα σоφία καί δύναμις. And therefore he unites us with the Divine nature and, dwelling in us, by communion makes us temples of God and gods by grace. Through him, God dwells in people. He is the fullness of all good things and the source of all beauty, the Spirit of truth, life, wisdom and power. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the image of this Divine procession is not revealed to you and is not known to you. Proceeding from the Father, the Holy Spirit dwells essentially in the Father, for He proceeds "inseparably and indissolubly" and is the "own" Spirit of the Father. By virtue of the perfect and indivisible consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit is "own" to the Son, "essentially united to Him," by nature "born" and belongs to Him, naturally abides in Him — there is "the Father and the Son's own Spirit." And at the same time, he exists hypostatically and about himself... By virtue of the identity of nature, the Spirit is not separable from the Son, and through Him proceeds by nature... St. Cyril seeks to emphasize the perfect consubstantiality and indivisibility of the Son and the Spirit: "The Son, being in essence a partaker of the natural goods of the Father, has the Spirit in the same way as it should be understood of the Father, that is, not as alien and external to Him." Therefore, He sends or pours out the Spirit into the world. Speaking of the procession of the Spirit through the Son, St. Cyril does not intend to investigate or define the image of the "ineffable procession," but strives, on the one hand, to affirm the truth of consubstantiality, and on the other, to determine the relationship between the actions in the world of the Spirit and the incarnate Son. In other words, he seeks to explain the meaning of the sending down and descent of the Holy Spirit into the world in connection with the redemptive work of the Son of God. The Saviour speaks of the Spirit as "another Comforter" in order to distinguish Him from Himself and to show His special and Own hypostasis. And yet He calls Him the "Spirit of Truth," and apparently "blows in" Him to testify that the Spirit belongs to the divine essence or nature. "In order that the disciples may see that He promises to grant them not the inspiration of an alien and foreign power, but Himself, (only) in another way, for this purpose He calls the Paraclete the Spirit of Truth, i.e. the Spirit of Himself, for the Holy Spirit is not thought to be alien to the essence of the Only-begotten, but proceeds naturally from it, and in relation to the identity of nature is nothing else in comparison with it, although it is thought to be self-existent. Thus, the expression "Spirit of Truth" should lead us to a full knowledge of the truth. As he who knows the Truth, of which He is the Spirit, will not reveal it in part to those who worship Him, but will fully communicate the mystery of it... And He will not say anything that contradicts Me, and He will not preach to you a doctrine that is alien, for He will not introduce any laws of His own. Since He is Spirit and as it were My mind, He will also speak that which is in Me. And this is what the Saviour says not in order that we should consider the Holy Spirit to be ministering, according to the ignorance of some, but on the contrary, out of a desire to assure the disciples that, being no other than different from Him, in relation to consubstantiality, His Spirit will certainly speak in this way, and act and will. For He would not have foretold the future in the same way as I have, if He had not existed in Me and had not come into being through Me, and were not of the same essence with Me"... St. Cyril has in mind the "natural unity" of the Son and the Spirit and the resulting unity of their work. By virtue of the Trinitarian consubstantiality, the Spirit, being the "pure image" of the Father, is also the natural likeness of the Son. Therefore, in the Spirit given by the Father, the Son guides His disciples, teaches them, and through the Spirit dwells in them. To see in St. Cyril an approximation to the Augustinian concept of the procession of the Spirit and to bring it closer to the filioque would be a violation of the connection of thought. And this is directly supported by his own testimony. In the ninth anathema against Nestorius, St. Cyril condemned those "who say that the one Lord Jesus Christ is glorified by the Spirit, using His own power, as alien (άλλτρία) to Himself, and having received from Him the power to conquer unclean spirits and to perform Divine signs in people, and does not say, on the contrary, that the Spirit, through Whom he performed the signs of God, is His own (ϊδιоς) Spirit." Blessed Theodoret remarked against this: "If Cyril calls the Spirit his own Son in the sense that he is co-natural with the Son and proceeds from the Father, then we agree with him and recognize his expressions as Orthodox. But if (he calls) in the sense that the Spirit is from the Son or through the Son has existence, then we reject this expression as blasphemous and impious." St. Cyril in his reply confirmed that he did not at all mean the "impious" opinion assumed by Theodoret, but wanted to emphasize that the Spirit "is not alien to the Son, because the Son has everything together with the Father." The IX anathema has, of course, a Christological content, and in it St. Cyril rejects the false idea of Christ's relation to the Spirit according to his human nature, as "alien" to this nature, and in opposition puts forward the assertion of the "property" or affinity of the Spirit and the incarnate Word. He means that there is no relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit than there is between the saints and the Spirit... Christ not only receives the Holy Spirit according to His humanity, but also gives Him to Himself, as God, for our sake, for the sanctification of His flesh, as the firstfruits of our nature. He receives the Holy Ghost from Himself, "receives His own Spirit, and gives It to Himself as God." The views of St. Cyril on this question did not change, and he never set himself the task of investigating the image of the procession "through the Son"... 6. In his Trinitarian confession, St. Cyril sums up the theological struggle and work that has already ended. He has little new and original. The whole interest and all the significance of his Trinitarian theology lies precisely in this lack of independence. It bears witness to the average theological worldview of the early fifth century. His teaching about the Word in creation deserves special attention — this is the last chapter in the history of the ancient Christian teaching about the Word, about the Logos.

IV. House-building

3. The Trinity of the Godhead, already revealed in the Old Testament, was revealed by Christ in the New. The revelation of God as the Father is a revelation of the Trinity, for the Fatherland presupposes sonship, and the Father is the Father of the Son. The name of the Father is the name of the hypostasis, and indicates the relation of the First Person to the Second and to the Third. The Father is also called the Beginning and the Source, for he is the root and source of the Godhead, and the name of the source here means only "being from what." The concepts of time and change are not at all applicable to the Divine life, and therefore all hypostatic properties and relations must be thought of as eternal and immutable. There is no gap between the Divinity and the Patronymic of the First Hypostasis, and the eternity of the Fatherland means the eternity of the ineffable Divine birth, i.e. the eternity of Sonship. From the eternal Father is born the eternal Son. He does not "come into being," nor "arises," but eternally "was" and abides in the Father as in the source, always exists in Him as His Word, Wisdom, Power, Mark, Reflection and Image... With these last definitions, the apostolic and beloved definitions of St. Athanasius, St. Cyril attaches special importance, — they especially clearly express the perfect consubstantiality and equality of honor of the Father and the Son. As an image, a reflection and a "mark", the Hypostasis of the Father, the Son is inseparable from Him whose reflection He is, but Himself is in Him and has the Father in Himself, according to the perfect identity of nature and attributes – "He Himself is in the Father naturally"... Without a perfect identity of properties, there would be no accuracy in representation and drawing. The Son is in the Father and from the Father, not from outside or in the course of time receiving His being, but being in essence and shining from it, as from the sun proceeds its brilliance. Birth is an act of nature (τής φύσεως), and not an act of the will, and this is the difference between birth and creation. The Son dwells "in the bosom of the Father," as "rooted in him by the immutable identity of essence," as "existing and always coexisting" in the Father and with the Father, ώς ένυάρχων. Therefore, the Father is contemplated and "manifested" in the Son as in a kind of mirror, as in His "essential and natural image", as in the image of His essence. The Son is called the Mark precisely because the Mark is co-natural and inseparable from the essence to which it is the Mark. "Consubstantial" thus signifies, for St. Cyril, not only generic similarity and community of properties, but also the perfect and indivisible unity of life. The concepts of "birth" and "inscription" complement and explain each other. The mark indicates a perfect similarity of properties, and birth indicates the origin "from essence" and "natural co-existence" with the Father. In the "consubstantial" or "natural unity" the self-hypostasis of the Persons is not erased: in the unity of essence, the Father and the Son each exist "in his own person" (έν ίδίω πρоσώπω) and in a special existence (ίδιαστάτως), but without separation and dissection, — at once and separately and united. In St. Cyril there is no complete uniformity in Trinitarian terminology, and through the later Cappadocian usage, the former, Nicene and Athanasian ones often break through. He uses the totality of concepts and definitions in order to substantiate and reveal the perfect consubstantiality of the Son and the Word. 4. The Son is the Creator and Provider of the world, inseparable from the Father and the Spirit, the Beginning and Organizer of all that arises and is created. In the creative activity of the Son there is no service or subordination; on the contrary, it shows His dominion over all things. "Being Life Himself by nature, He bestows being, life, and motion upon beings in many ways. It is not that by means of any division or change He enters into each of the beings of different natures, but the creation itself is diversified by the ineffable wisdom and power of the Creator... And there is one Life of all, which enters into every being, as much as it befits and as much as it can receive." That is why the Evangelist says: "What was made. In Him was life" (John 1:3-4) — such, apparently, was the most ancient reading of these Gospel verses, changed already in the post-Arian era. Everything that exists has life in the Word... Creation arises and comes to life through touch and communion with Life, and in the Word has its own life and being. The Son not only calls the creature into being, but also contains what has happened through Himself, "as if mixing Himself with that which has no eternal existence in its nature, and becoming Life for that which exists, so that what has happened may remain and remain within the limits of its nature." Being present in creation by communion (διά μετоχής) and giving it life, the Word, as it were, overcomes the weakness of created beings, which have arisen and are therefore subject to destruction, and "artificially, as it were, arranges eternity for them." The Word is Life by nature or Self-Life, and therefore It is life for creation. Through the light of the Word, out of the darkness of non-existence, creation arises and arises, "and Light shines in darkness"... The presence of the Word in creation does not blur the line between it and creation. On the contrary, this boundary becomes all the more clear to us when it is revealed that the creature exists and lives only through communion with something other than itself, only through the communion of self-existent Life. Creation is an incomprehensible act of God's will, and the creative power is inherent only in God Himself. Creation is alien to God and, as having a beginning, must have an end. Only the goodness of God protects her from this natural instability... These reflections of St. Cyril are very reminiscent of the teaching of St. Athanasius in his early sermon "On the Incarnation." And together with Athanasius, St. Cyril rejects Phidon's idea of the Word as a "mediator" between God and the world in creation and in the providence of creation. There is nothing in between God and the creature, no "middle nature" or being. Only God is above creation, and everything else is "subject to the yoke of slavery"... 5. The teaching about the Holy Spirit is developed by St. Cyril in some detail. For polemical reasons, he dwells on the proofs of the Divinity of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit from God is God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and in no way inferior or less than them in Divine dignity. He has "an essence that transcends all things," "the purest and most perfect nature," He is God from God, "self-wisdom and self-power," άυτόχρημα σоφία καί δύναμις. And therefore he unites us with the Divine nature and, dwelling in us, by communion makes us temples of God and gods by grace. Through him, God dwells in people. He is the fullness of all good things and the source of all beauty, the Spirit of truth, life, wisdom and power. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the image of this Divine procession is not revealed to you and is not known to you. Proceeding from the Father, the Holy Spirit dwells essentially in the Father, for He proceeds "inseparably and indissolubly" and is the "own" Spirit of the Father. By virtue of the perfect and indivisible consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit is "own" to the Son, "essentially united to Him," by nature "born" and belongs to Him, naturally abides in Him — there is "the Father and the Son's own Spirit." And at the same time, he exists hypostatically and about himself... By virtue of the identity of nature, the Spirit is not separable from the Son, and through Him proceeds by nature... St. Cyril seeks to emphasize the perfect consubstantiality and indivisibility of the Son and the Spirit: "The Son, being in essence a partaker of the natural goods of the Father, has the Spirit in the same way as it should be understood of the Father, that is, not as alien and external to Him." Therefore, He sends or pours out the Spirit into the world. Speaking of the procession of the Spirit through the Son, St. Cyril does not intend to investigate or define the image of the "ineffable procession," but strives, on the one hand, to affirm the truth of consubstantiality, and on the other, to determine the relationship between the actions in the world of the Spirit and the incarnate Son. In other words, he seeks to explain the meaning of the sending down and descent of the Holy Spirit into the world in connection with the redemptive work of the Son of God. The Saviour speaks of the Spirit as "another Comforter" in order to distinguish Him from Himself and to show His special and Own hypostasis. And yet He calls Him the "Spirit of Truth," and apparently "blows in" Him to testify that the Spirit belongs to the divine essence or nature. "In order that the disciples may see that He promises to grant them not the inspiration of an alien and foreign power, but Himself, (only) in another way, for this purpose He calls the Paraclete the Spirit of Truth, i.e. the Spirit of Himself, for the Holy Spirit is not thought to be alien to the essence of the Only-begotten, but proceeds naturally from it, and in relation to the identity of nature is nothing else in comparison with it, although it is thought to be self-existent. Thus, the expression "Spirit of Truth" should lead us to a full knowledge of the truth. As he who knows the Truth, of which He is the Spirit, will not reveal it in part to those who worship Him, but will fully communicate the mystery of it... And He will not say anything that contradicts Me, and He will not preach to you a doctrine that is alien, for He will not introduce any laws of His own. Since He is Spirit and as it were My mind, He will also speak that which is in Me. And this is what the Saviour says not in order that we should consider the Holy Spirit to be ministering, according to the ignorance of some, but on the contrary, out of a desire to assure the disciples that, being no other than different from Him, in relation to consubstantiality, His Spirit will certainly speak in this way, and act and will. For He would not have foretold the future in the same way as I have, if He had not existed in Me and had not come into being through Me, and were not of the same essence with Me"... St. Cyril has in mind the "natural unity" of the Son and the Spirit and the resulting unity of their work. By virtue of the Trinitarian consubstantiality, the Spirit, being the "pure image" of the Father, is also the natural likeness of the Son. Therefore, in the Spirit given by the Father, the Son guides His disciples, teaches them, and through the Spirit dwells in them. To see in St. Cyril an approximation to the Augustinian concept of the procession of the Spirit and to bring it closer to the filioque would be a violation of the connection of thought. And this is directly supported by his own testimony. In the ninth anathema against Nestorius, St. Cyril condemned those "who say that the one Lord Jesus Christ is glorified by the Spirit, using His own power, as alien (άλλτρία) to Himself, and having received from Him the power to conquer unclean spirits and to perform Divine signs in people, and does not say, on the contrary, that the Spirit, through Whom he performed the signs of God, is His own (ϊδιоς) Spirit." Blessed Theodoret remarked against this: "If Cyril calls the Spirit his own Son in the sense that he is co-natural with the Son and proceeds from the Father, then we agree with him and recognize his expressions as Orthodox. But if (he calls) in the sense that the Spirit is from the Son or through the Son has existence, then we reject this expression as blasphemous and impious." St. Cyril in his reply confirmed that he did not at all mean the "impious" opinion assumed by Theodoret, but wanted to emphasize that the Spirit "is not alien to the Son, because the Son has everything together with the Father." The IX anathema has, of course, a Christological content, and in it St. Cyril rejects the false idea of Christ's relation to the Spirit according to his human nature, as "alien" to this nature, and in opposition puts forward the assertion of the "property" or affinity of the Spirit and the incarnate Word. He means that there is no relation between Christ and the Holy Spirit than there is between the saints and the Spirit... Christ not only receives the Holy Spirit according to His humanity, but also gives Him to Himself, as God, for our sake, for the sanctification of His flesh, as the firstfruits of our nature. He receives the Holy Ghost from Himself, "receives His own Spirit, and gives It to Himself as God." The views of St. Cyril on this question did not change, and he never set himself the task of investigating the image of the procession "through the Son"... 6. In his Trinitarian confession, St. Cyril sums up the theological struggle and work that has already ended. He has little new and original. The whole interest and all the significance of his Trinitarian theology lies precisely in this lack of independence. It bears witness to the average theological worldview of the early fifth century. His teaching about the Word in creation deserves special attention — this is the last chapter in the history of the ancient Christian teaching about the Word, about the Logos.

Part 1

1. In his Christological confession, St. Cyril proceeds from the living and concrete image of Christ, as he is sealed in the Gospel and preserved in the Church. This is the image of the God-man, the Incarnate Word, who came down from heaven and became man. St. Cyril clearly defines and describes the meaning of the Incarnation already in his early works (in particular, in his commentary on the Gospel of John). "The Word was flesh"... This means that the Only-begotten became a man and was called... Flesh, explains St. Cyril, "lest anyone think that He appeared in the same way as in the prophets or other saints, but that He was truly made flesh, i.e. man." At the same time, the Word did not come out of its own and unchanging divine nature and was not turned into flesh. The divinity of the Word was in no way diminished by the incarnation. In the Incarnation, the Son of God did not lose His divine dignity, did not leave heaven, did not separate from the Father—to allow the diminution of the Divinity of the Word in the Incarnation would mean to destroy the entire meaning of the Incarnation, for this would mean that in the Incarnation the real and complete union of the Divinity and human nature was not accomplished. The Word is God by nature, both in the flesh and with the flesh, has it as His own and at the same time distinct from Himself. And when the Son of God in the form of a man, "the form of a servant," dwelt and circulated among people on earth, the glory of His Divinity unfailingly filled the heavens, and He dwelt with the Father, "and we saw His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father"... The Divine dignity of the Incarnate remains inviolable. "Therefore," remarks St. Cyril, "although the Evangelist says that the Word became flesh, he does not assert that He was overcome by the weakness of the flesh, or that He was deprived of His original power and glory, as soon as He was clothed with our weak and inglorious body," when He descended to brotherhood with slaves and creatures. On the contrary, in Christ the slave nature is liberated, ascending into a mysterious unity with the One who received and bore the "form of a servant"; and by kinship with Him, His Divine dignity extends to all of us, and passes on to all mankind. For "we were all in Christ, and the common face of mankind ascends to His face," and He enriches all to well-being and glory by the communion of His nature with men." This was not some "other son," but one and the same Son of the Father, who took upon Himself human flesh for our sake, "perfect according to the nature of the Godhead, and then, as it were, diminished in the measures of mankind"... "The whole mystery of the economy consists in the exhaustion and humiliation of the Son of God," said St. Cyril... And through this "kenosis," through this ineffable and voluntary condescension and humiliation, the Incarnate Word occupies "a kind of middle place" between God and people, between the highest Divinity and humanity... Through Him, as through the Mediator, we "come into contact with the Father"... For He also has us in Himself, since He took on our nature, "transfiguring it into His own life," through a certain ineffable union and union... With this earthly body, which became the body of the Word, He was and appeared at once God and man, united in Himself that which was divided and separated by nature. By nature, the flesh, i.e. humanity, is something "different" in Christ, different from God the Word, who is from the Father and in the Father. But at the same time, "we understand the Word as something one with His own flesh." In this ineffable "coition" (συνδρоμή) and "unity" (ένωσις) is contained "the whole mystery of Christ," "one of the two" (έν τι τό έξ αμφоιν)... The Son of God, Christ, has one person and one hypostasis, and everything that is said in the Gospel belongs to this one hypostasis of the Incarnate Word. St. Cyril explains this unity by the example of the inseparable union in a living person of soul and body, different from each other, but not allowing of isolation. Soul and body are formed into a single person. Inspired Scripture preaches one Son and one Christ. "Inasmuch as He is God the Word, He is thought to be different from the flesh; but since He is flesh, He is thought of as something different from the Word. Since the Word that is from God the Father became man, this "other and other" must be completely abolished, in view of the ineffable unity and coition. The Son is one and one, both before the union with the flesh, and when He was united with the flesh." Christ is not divided into "two Sons," and the "own humanity" of the Word cannot be cut off from "true Sonship." Christ was a true and complete man (τέλειоς άνθρωπоς), – "the whole man", from a rational soul and body... He was not a man in appearance and not in his mental imagination, although he was not only a "simple man" (ψιλός άνθρωπоς)... He was truly and naturally man, And possessed all that is human except sin. He took on "the whole nature of man," and this is the whole meaning of His salvific work, for, as St. Cyril repeats after St. Gregory the Theologian, "What is not received is not saved." In Christ, the flesh he received was transformed into "its own quality" of the life-giving Word, i.e. into life, and itself became life-giving. And therefore He gives life to us also. "Inexpressibly and beyond the understanding of man, the Word, having united with His flesh and as it were transferred into Himself according to the power that is able to give life to those in need of life, has expelled corruption from our nature and removed death, which originally received power (over us) by reason of sin. Just as one who takes a spark and pours much chaff on it in order to preserve the seed of fire, so our Lord Jesus Christ, through His flesh, hides life in us and imposes immortality, as if it were a kind of seed that completely destroys corruption in us." The inseparable unification and, as it were, "intertwining" in one person and hypostasis of Christ the Divinity and the whole of humanity, having transformed human nature into holiness and incorruption, brings about a similar transfiguration in all people, to the extent of their union with Christ. For in Christ human nature is essentially sanctified and transformed. St. Cyril in his description of the Divine-human Face of Christ, double and at the same time inseparably one, like St. Athanasius, is guided by soteriological motifs, and in his Christology he is generally very close to Athanasius. Only the "one Christ," the Incarnate Word, the God-man, and not the "God-bearing man," can be the true Savior and Redeemer. For salvation consists first of all in the quickening of creation, and therefore the self-existent Life had to be inseparably revealed in the perishable by nature. St. Cyril calls Christ the new Adam, emphasizes the communion and brotherhood of all people with Him in humanity. But the main emphasis he places not on this innate unity, but on the unity that is realized in believers through the mysterious union with Christ in communion with His life-giving Body. In the sacrament of the Holy Blessing (Eulogia or Eucharist) we are united with Christ, as molten pieces of wax merge with each other. It is not only by mood and not by love that we are united with Him, but essentially, "physically," and even bodily, like the branches of a life-giving vine. And as a little leaven leavens all the dough, so the mysterious Eulogia leavens our whole body, as if kneading it into herself and filling it with her power, "so that Christ also abides in us and we in Him, for with all justice it can be said that the leaven is in all the dough, and the dough is in the same way in all the leaven." Through the holy Flesh of Christ, "the attribute of the Only-begotten, i.e. Life, penetrates into us," and the entire living human being is transformed into eternal life, and humanity, created for eternal existence, is above death, freed from the deadness that entered with sin. The One Person or hypostasis of Christ, as the Incarnate Word, is for St. Cyril not an abstract or speculative truth, to which he arrives through reasoning, but a direct and immediate confession of faith, a description of experience and contemplation. St. Cyril contemplates the One Christ first of all in the Gospel. "Inasmuch as the Only-begotten, the Word of God, was flesh, He was, as it were, subjected to division, and the speech about Him proceeds from a twofold contemplation... But although the speech about Him has become, as it were, twofold, nevertheless, He Himself is one and the same in everything, not divided into two after union with the flesh"... In the Gospel image, the glory of the Only-begotten is mysteriously combined with the insignificance of human nature, which conceals the Divinity of the Word until the time of time. But for believers, through the humiliated vision of the slave, the Divine Glory shines through the beginning of the slave. In direct contemplation, the "intercommunion of properties" is revealed to St. Cyril, and he does not go beyond the limits of experience when he transfers names from one nature to another. For to His own Word is the human nature received by Him.

Part 2

2. In the heresy of Nestorius, St. Cyril saw the denial of the most sincere and ontological union in Christ of the Divinity and humanity, the denial of the one Christ, the dissection of Him into "two Sons." And it is against this that he first of all turns, showing the destructive conclusions which are predetermined and imposed in soteriology by such a dissection. First of all, he emphasizes the "ineffable interweaving" and unity. And at the same time he explains that God the Word Himself is the beginning and center of this unity – "we say that the Word Himself, the Only-begotten Son, ineffably begotten from the essence of God and the Father, the Creator of the ages, through Whom all things and in Whom all things, at the end of these days, by the grace of the Father, received the seed of Abraham according to the scriptures, partook of flesh and blood, i.e. became man, took flesh and made it his own, was born flesh of the Most Holy Theotokos Mary." In other words, the Incarnation is the manifestation and action of God Himself, it is His assimilation and perception of mankind — God the Word is the only active subject in the act of incarnation, the Logos Himself was born of a woman... In the Nestorian interpretation, St. Cyril saw a kind of Docetism, Docetism in relation to the Divinity, as if the Incarnation is only imagined, as if only in our synthesizing perception is the duality in Christ united... "If," argues St. Cyril, "the Only-begotten Son of God, having received man from the wondrous David and Abraham, contributed to his formation (in the womb) of the holy Virgin, united him with Himself, brought him to death, and, having raised him from the dead, raised him up to heaven and seated him at the right hand of God, then in vain, as it seems, the Holy Fathers taught, and we teach all the God-inspired Scriptures, that He became man. Then, of course, the whole mystery of the economy is completely overthrown." For then it follows that it is not God who descended and exhausted himself to the servitude of a servant, but man who is exalted to divine glory and superiority. Then the movement from below, not from above... On the contrary, St. Cyril constantly insists that Christ is not a "God-bearing man" (άνθρωπоς θεоφόρоς), God borne or bearing God, but God incarnate... "It is not man who reigns in us, but God who has appeared in mankind"... The Only-begotten became man, and not only took on man... The Word became man, and therefore Christ is one... This is the unity of His life and His work. And only for this reason is it salvific. Christ lived, suffered, and died as "God in the flesh" (ώς Θεός έν σαρκί), and not as a man... "We confess," wrote Cyril with a council to Nestorius, "that the Son Himself, begotten of God the Father and the Only-begotten God, though impassible by His own nature, suffered in the flesh for us, according to the Scriptures, and in the crucified body impassibly appropriated to Himself the sufferings of His own flesh. By the grace of God, He accepted death for all, giving up His own body to it, although by nature He is life and resurrection, — so that in His own flesh, as in the beginning, trampling down death by ineffable power, He might be the firstborn from the dead and the firstfruits from the dead, and open to human nature the way to the attainment of incorruption"... This does not mean that suffering is transferred to the Divine. The impassibility and immutability of the Divine nature for St. Cyril are self-evident, and in the Incarnation the unchangeable Word remained and remained as it is, was, and will be, and did not cease to be God. But the "house-building" of the Word was flesh, and suffering belongs to the "own humanity" of the Word, which does not exist separately or by itself... It does not belong to itself, but to the Word. For St. Cyril, the concept of assimilation (ίδιоπόιησις), already outlined by St. Athanasius, is decisive. The body of Christ, which is of the same essence with us, received from the Virgin, is in the same sense as each of us speaks of his own body (ίδιоν σώμα)... The concept of "assimilation" precedes St. Cyril's later teaching about the "hypostasis" of humanity in Christ, which was later developed by Leontius of Byzantium. God the Word was born of a Virgin, He gave His Blood for us and "appropriated to Himself the death of His flesh"... With this understanding, the designation of the Holy Virgin as the Mother of God and the Mother of God, denied by Nestorius and his supporters, becomes not only permissible, but also necessary... For He who was born of the Virgin was God incarnate, and not a man joined to God from without. St. Cyril always sharply and decisively rejected Apollinarianism. He spoke out against Apollinaris even before he was suspected and accused of Apollinarianism. Already in his commentary on the Gospel of John, he emphasizes the "wholeness" of humanity in Christ and the presence in Him of a "rational soul" as the subject of human sorrow and infirmities. And here he rejects all confusion of the flesh and the Divinity, and all transformation of the flesh into the divine nature. The union of the Divinity and humanity is always represented by St. Cyril as "unmerged" and "unchanging" (άσυγχύτως καί άτρέπτως) — not through transmutation or application, not through the confusion or fusion of essences, oύ κατά μετάστασιν ή τρоπήν... In his famous "second letter" to Nestorius, St. Cyril confesses thus: "We do not say that the nature of the Word, having changed, became flesh, nor that He was changed into a whole man, consisting of soul and body. But we say that the Word, having united with Himself the body, animated by the rational soul, ineffable and incomprehensible to our mind, became man, became the son of man, not by will and grace, not by perception of the person (or "role") alone... We do not imagine this to mean that in this union the difference of natures was abolished, but that the Divinity and humanity in an ineffable and inexplicable union remained perfect (i.e., complete), revealing to us the one Lord Jesus Christ and the Son... Thus we say that He who is and was born of the Father before the ages according to the flesh was also born of a woman, not so that His divine nature took the beginning of existence in the Holy Virgin, nor that after being born of the Father He had the need to be born of Her. For it would be foolish and frivolous to say that He Who before all ages is always with the Father, still had the need to be born in order to begin His existence. Since for our sake and for our salvation He was born of a woman, uniting human nature in hypostasis (with Himself), it is therefore said that He was born in the flesh. It is not so that a simple man was born of a holy Virgin first, and then the Word descended upon Him. But He, having been united to the flesh in the womb itself, was born according to the flesh, having appropriated to Himself the flesh with which He was born. We confess Him to be the same both in suffering and in the resurrection: we do not say that the Word of God by His very nature was subjected to blows, nail wounds, and other wounds, because the Divine nature, as incorporeal, does not participate in suffering. But since all these sufferings were subjected to His body, which is His own, we say that the Word suffered for us. Because the Passionless One was in a suffering body"... This confession is justly considered almost the most remarkable of the works of St. Cyril, in terms of brightness and clarity of thought. Characteristic here is this sharp emphasis on "assimilation," on the fact that the flesh was its own Word, and everything that Christ endured and experienced in humanity refers to the Word's own human nature. The fullness of humanity in Christ is in no way limited or damaged. But this is the humanity of the Word, and not a special human "face". And in this sense, the incarnate Word is "one with its own flesh" — "one of two," "of two essences," "of two different," "of two perfects," ώς έξ άμφоτέρων τών oύσιών ένα όντα... With this affirmation of unity, St. Cyril clarifies and defends the ontological reality or "truth" of the Incarnation. And he is guided primarily by soteriological motives. St. Cyril explains and defends the truth of experience and faith, not a logical scheme, not a theological theory. And he argues not so much against individual theological formulas. In vain was he accused of finding fault with words and not wanting to understand that both Nestorius and other "Easterners" thought rightly, but expressed their faith in a different theological language. He asserted precisely that they were thinking wrongly and in any case inaccurately, that the "Eastern" way of representation hinders the accurate perception of the unity of the Divine-human person and life. The "Eastern" tendency to "discernment" seemed to him dangerous above all, and the obstinacy of the "Easterners" only justified his suspicions. He himself did not always find and choose clear and precise words, did not always express himself carefully and accurately. This shows that he is conducting not so much a theological dispute as a debate about faith. It proceeds from contemplation, not from concepts. This is its strength. It is soteriological motifs that determine the content of his famous "chapters" or anathemas. On soteriological grounds, he defends them against the "Easterners." In this he is a faithful successor of Saint Athanasius.

Part 3

3. In his soteriological reasoning, St. Cyril most often relies on the two main texts of the Apostle Paul: Heb. 2:14, "As children are partakers of flesh and blood, so he also took them up, that by death he might take away the power of him who has the power of death, that is, the devil," and Rom. 8:3, "As the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless, God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sacrifice for sin, and condemned sin in the flesh." In addition, St. Cyril often cites 2 Cor. 5:15: "But Christ died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again." In other words, for St. Cyril the Saviour is first of all the High Priest... Cyril's soteriology is most of all the soteriology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Here again the influence of St. Athanasius is felt. Like Athanasius, St. Cyril admits that the Incarnation and life among men would be sufficient if the Savior were to be only a Teacher to set an example. But death had to be destroyed — and therefore the sacrifice of the Cross and death were needed — death for us and for us, and death for all. The angels themselves are sanctified by the merits of the Incarnate Word. For Christ is the source of all holiness and life, the great Intercessor and Mediator, and the New Adam, the beginning and root of regenerated humanity, returning to its original state. Redemption is sealed by the resurrection, which testifies to the divinity of Christ and affirms the hope of our resurrection. The Incarnation begins the historical Economy, in fulfillment of the prophecies and destinies of God. But it is fulfilled in death. And St. Cyril emphasizes that the death of Christ is redemption precisely because it is the death of the God-man, or, as he puts it, "the death of God according to the flesh." Only the Incarnate Word could be a real "saint and messenger of our confession" (cf. Heb. 3:1). "The Son of God, having deigned to descend to exhaustion, receives from the Father a calling to the priesthood, which befits not properly the Divine nature, but the human nature, according to which He, having become like us, experiences all that is proper to it, not undergoing anything according to the Divinity, but assimilating all that has been perfected by mankind according to the economy." The Word performs the sacrament "according to the human nature received" — and it is not the Word itself that is "ordained to the sacrament and to the measures of man before the incarnation" — but it is the Word that performs the sacrament... "If anyone says that our saint and messenger was not God the Word Himself, when He became incarnate and became a man like us, but as a man different from him from a woman, or who says that He offered Himself as an offering for Himself, and not for us alone, for knowing no sin, He had no need of an offering, — anathema." This X of Cyril's anathemas forms one of the focuses of his anti-Nestorian polemics. The twelfth anathema is connected with it: "Whoever does not confess that God the Word suffered in the flesh, was crucified in the flesh, tasted death in the flesh, and became the firstborn from the dead, since He is Life and Life-giving, like God, is anathema." The spearhead of these denials is directed against the idea of human sacrament and sacrifice. The death of man cannot be sufficient, and human sacrifice has no redemptive power, this is what St. Cyril seeks to say. Salvation is not from men, not from the works of men, but only from God. This is the basis of kenosis, condescension and humiliation of the Word. And at the same time, the purification of human nature had to be accomplished through sacrifice... "Suffering was supposed to bring salvation to the world," says St. Cyril, "but the Word, begotten of the Father, could not suffer in His own nature — and so He performs the work of salvation with great skill, assimilates a body capable of suffering, which is why He is called the Sufferer of the flesh, subject to suffering, remaining in Divinity outside of suffering"... After all, the Scriptures call the Savior the same One Who created all things — through Him all things are reconciled to the Father and "pacified by the blood of His Cross"... "Into whose death were we baptized? In whose resurrection are we justified by faith?" asks St. Cyril. "Have we been baptized into the death of an ordinary man? And through faith in him do we receive justification?" ... And he answers: of course not, "but we proclaim the death of God incarnate"... This means that in the salvific passion, death, and sacrifice, God's condescension is revealed to us, and not the heroism or self-exaltation of man. This condescension or "kenosis" does not consist, of course, in the fact that the Divinity is diminished and falls under suffering – St. Cyril resolutely rejects such a kenotism, and the "Easterners" in vain suspected and reproached him for transferring suffering to the Divinity. On the contrary, he always emphasizes that suffering belongs to the flesh, only the flesh is suffering and pleasant; and, therefore, only suffering "according to the flesh" can be "real." But at the same time, St. Cyril affirms the inseparability (of course, not the indistinguishability) of the "flesh" from the Divinity. Sufferings were committed in humanity and in human nature, but they were not the sufferings of "man," an independent human personality. In all his anathemas, St. Cyril speaks of precisely this. With particular sharpness in the fourth anathema: "Whoever distributes the Gospel and Apostolic utterances, spoken about Christ by Himself or by the saints, between two persons or hypostases, and some of them refers to man, thought separately from the Word of God the Father, and others, as divine, to the one Word of God the Father, is anathema." First of all, such a division denies the reality of humiliation or exhaustion, "for where has the Word humbled himself, if he is ashamed of the measures of men?" Again, this does not mean the transfer of the predicate about humanity to the Divinity, it does not mean the confusion of natures, but "both words refer to Jesus Christ alone"... For, as St. Cyril observes, "we know that the Word of God the Father is not incorporeal after the ineffable union"... And the Incarnate Word should not be spoken of as of the Word before the Incarnation, although the Divinity of the Word is not changed by the Incarnation. At the Incarnation, says Carill, "everything belongs to Him, both divine and human"... And at the same time, the "greatness of glory" is not diminished by the "measure of exhaustion"... In other words, the difference of natures does not mean the separation of "persons" or "hypostases"—the inseparably twofold is said of the One, but precisely of the Same. "We do not eliminate the differences in sayings," says St. Cyril, "but we do not distribute them between two persons"... The One Christ is the Incarnate Word, and not "a God-bearing man" (anathema. V); "One with His flesh," i.e. both God and man (anathema. II); — and this is the "essential" or natural unity, ένωσις φυσική, and not only a bond of honor, authority, and strength (anathema. "We say," explained St. Cyril, "that we should not call Christ a God-bearing man, so as not to represent Him as one of the saints, but as the true God, the incarnate and incarnate Word of God... The word was flesh... And since He became flesh, i.e. man, He is not a God-bearing man, but God, Who willingly gives Himself over to depletion and takes possession of the flesh received from the woman"... That is why the Word Himself is called Christ, i.e. the Anointed One, in measure and by virtue of His union with anointed mankind, and no one else... In glorifying His humanity, the Word glorifies Himself, not another. St. Cyril sharply expresses this thought in two anathemas: "Whoever says that the Word of God the Father is God or the Lord of Christ, and does not confess the same God both as man, since the Word was flesh according to the Scriptures, is anathema"... (VI). "Whoever says that Jesus, as a man, was an instrument of God the Word, and is surrounded by the glory of the Only-begotten, as different from Him, is anathema" (VII). And this idea is further strengthened in the ninth anathema: "Whoever says that the one Lord Jesus Christ is glorified by the Spirit, as if using a power alien to Him, and from Him received the power to conquer unclean spirits and perform Divine signs in people, and does not consider the Spirit, by Whom He performed miracles, to be His own, is anathema"... The emphasis here is on the opposite: "alien" and "own". For people, the Spirit is a "stranger" who comes to us from God. This cannot be said of Christ, "for the Holy Spirit is His own (i.e., God the Word), as well as God the Father," because of the identity of the essence. And the Word works through the Spirit, as does the Father... He Himself performs Divine signs by the Spirit, as a possessor, and not in such a way that the power of the Holy Spirit acts in Him as His superior... This is the decisive difference between Christ and holy people... From this St. Cyril draws conclusions. First of all, it is necessary to confess the Most Holy Virgin as the Mother of God (anathema. I), because She gave birth to the incarnate Word in the flesh, gave birth "not to the beginning of existence, but that He, having become like us, might deliver us from death and corruption." And from the Virgin is born the Word, and not anyone else — "not through a change in essence, but through union with the visible flesh"... Secondly, it is not proper to speak of co-worship of mankind in Christ, but to speak of "one worship" of the Incarnate Word (anathemat. VIII). And thirdly, the flesh of Christ was life-giving flesh (anathema. XI). This also applies to the Holy Eucharist, where we glorify the flesh and blood not of an ordinary person like us, but our own body and blood of the Word, the Life-giver of all things... This does not weaken the consubstantiality of the flesh of Christ and ours, but, since the Word is Life by nature, He also makes His own flesh life-giving... Through union and assimilation with the Word, the body becomes the "body of life"... And in this sense, it is extraordinary... At the same time, of course, "flesh is animate and rational". This is the whole meaning of Eucharistic communion, in which we are united with God the Word, who became for us and acted as the Son of man. Through all the anathematisms of St. Cyril runs a single and living dogmatic thread: he confesses the one Christ, the unity of the Face, the unity of life.

Part 4

4. The terminology of St. Cyril was not distinguished by clarity and monotony. Often he was ready to speak a foreign language. For him, words are always only means. And from his listeners and readers he demands and expects that through words and through words they will ascend to contemplation. This does not mean that he confuses concepts, that his thought is double or wavering. On the contrary, in his confession of St. Cyril is always firm, straightforward, and even almost stubborn. This is connected with his well-known verbosity, excess in terminology. He accumulates synonyms, gives too many images and similitudes. Under no circumstances should his theological language be too systematized and stylized. In Christological usage, St. Cyril usually does not distinguish between the terms: φύσις, ύπόστασις, πρόσωπоν, and uses them one next to the other or one together with the other, as obvious synonyms. All these terms in St. Cyril denote one thing: concrete individuality, living and concrete unity, "personality". This does not prevent him from using them in a different sense in some cases, from speaking of the "nature of man" in Christ, from distinguishing "hypostasis" from "person," and from using the term "hypostasis" in a direct and broad non-terminological sense. In this broad sense, he uses it in the well-known and disputed expression of anathemas: ένωσις καθ' ύπόστασιν. And at the same time, to denote the same fact, which he defines as "natural unity", and to which he refers the pseudo-Athanasian Apollinarian formula: μία φύσις τоύ θεоϋ Λόγоυ σεσαρκωμένη. St. Cyril often does not notice that his words sound stronger, say more than he wants to say. And in this respect he did give rise to an inaccurate and incorrect interpretation, to a "Monophysite" interpretation. "Natural" or "hypostatic" unity for him means only "complete unity" and "true unity," as opposed only to the moral or conceivable "relative contact" (συνάφεια σχετική) of Nestorius and other "Eastern" ones. In this sense, Cyril himself, in response to Theodoret, explained the expression: καθ' ύπόστασιν, which means "none other than that the nature or hypostasis of the Word (which means the Word itself) in truth (indeed, κατ' άληθείαν) was united to human nature without any transformation or change, ... and is thought of and is one Christ, God and man" — "The Only-begotten Son Himself, through the perception of the flesh... has become a true man, so that he also remains true God"... "Natural union" is a "true" unity, i.e., one that does not confuse or merge natures in such a way that they need to "exist otherwise than outside of union." The main task for St. Cyril is always to exclude any isolation of humanity in Christ into some kind of independent existence. He strives to affirm the truth of unity, in his mouth μία φύσις means the unity of the Divine-human being or Divine-human life. In its fullness, this unity and the image of union are unknown and ineffable. It can only be partially defined. The first thing that needs to be emphasized here is that union begins with the very conception by the Most Holy Virgin. Man was not first conceived, and the Word descended upon Him. But the flesh of the descended Word was conceived, with which He is united, and which did not exist by itself for the slightest moment (ίδικώς). This union is not a combination of two pre-existent things, it was a "perception" of the ownership and union with the Word of a newly arising human "quality" (πоιότης φυσική) – only logically one can imagine the humanity of Christ before the union. And at the same time, the unity of Christ is not, in the understanding of St. Cyril, a consequence of the Incarnation or union. Embodiment is perception. And St. Cyril seeks to clarify that the perception of humanity does not violate the unity of the hypostasis of the Incarnate Word. The hypostasis or person of the Word in the incarnation (Λόγς ένσαρκоς), as well as outside the incarnation (Λόγоς άσαρκоς), remains unchanged and one. In this sense, union is "hypostatic," for humanity is received into the eternal hypostasis of the Word. The union is "natural," for humanity is ineffably connected with the very nature and face of the Word. Speaking of the one "nature" of the Incarnate Word, St. Cyril in no way diminishes the fullness of humanity. It denies only the "autonomy" or independence of humanity. Human nature in Christ is not something "about Himself" (καθ' έαυτήν). But the humanity received by the Word is full humanity, and in Christ there are two "natural qualities" or "two perfect qualities" (i.e., full of being), each "in its natural attribute" (ό τоϋ πώς είναι λόγоς). Christ possesses in His unity a twofold consubstantiality, He is of one essence with both the mother and the Father... It is true that St. Cyril generally avoids speaking of humanity in Christ as of nature, or of two natures, and prefers to speak of "properties of nature." But only because he understands φύσις in this case as ύπόστασις (i.e., as a self-sufficient individuality), and not because it in any way diminishes or limits human nature itself. Therefore, he could not hesitate to sign the formula of union, which spoke of "two natures", since the connection of the text excluded an inadmissible understanding of this expression. Therefore, in other cases he could speak of the union of "two natures"... The distinction between "natures" (ίδιότης ή κατά φύσιν) for St. Cyril always remained very sharp, and for this reason he emphasized that the union was miraculous and incomprehensible. And as the unknown mystery of the Divine descent to people, it is revealed in the historical person of Christ, sealed in the Gospel. St. Cyril clearly distinguishes between the concepts of "distinction" and "division." It is not necessary to distinguish between the twofold things in Christ, but only to distinguish, that is, to distinguish mentally or logically (εν θεωρία, εν ψίλαις καί μόναίς έννоιαις). For the unity of the "heterogeneous" in Christ is indissoluble and indissoluble, ένωσις άναγκαιοτάτη... "Therefore," explained Saint Cyril, "if after the ineffable union you call Immanuel God, we will understand the Word of God the Father, incarnate and incarnate. If you also call Him a man, nevertheless we understand Him, Who is contained in the measure of humanity. We say that the Inviolable One became tangible, the Invisible One became visible, for the body united with Him was not alien to Him, which we call tangible and visible"... St. Cyril in every possible way emphasizes the unity of Christ as an active person in the Gospel: to one person (i.e. subject) should be attributed both that which is said according to the Divinity, and that which is said according to humanity, to the one hypostasis of the Incarnate Word. Even the suffering of St. Cyril is attributed to the Word, of course, with the explanation that this attribution is determined by conjunction: it is not the Word itself that suffers, but the flesh; however, the Word's own flesh — there was no "theopaschitism" in Saint Cyril. The theological thought of St. Cyril is always perfectly clear. But he could not find a complete expression for it. This is the main reason for the long disputes and misunderstandings with the East. The formula of unity is composed in "Antiochian" expressions, it does not include the favorite expressions of St. Cyril. Instead of "one nature" it speaks of a "single person" of two and in two natures... And at the same time, the further development of Orthodox Christology took place in the spirit and style of St. Cyril, despite the fact that it was now necessary not so much to defend the truth of unity as to explain its non-confluence, revealing, as it were, its measures and limits. However, the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon already asserted with emphasis that they contained "the faith of Cyril." And the same thing happened later. This was not hindered, but rather facilitated by the fact that the genuine Monophysites persistently disputed the right of the Orthodox to Cyril's heritage and succession. Cyril's formulas were abandoned, but his strength lay not in formulas, but in his living contemplation, which was revealed in him into an integral Christological system. St. Cyril was a creative theologian of great style, the last of the great Alexandrians.

On the History of the Council of Ephesus

D'Ales relies on the new edition, and this is the first merit of his interesting, though too brief, book. This is a transcript of his special course delivered this spring at the Institut ctholique in Paris. The historian must also reveal and show the meaning of what happened or happened. And this is becoming more and more difficult in the history of the Council of Ephesus. The history of the council is the history of schism. The fathers who had gathered in Ephesus to discuss Nestorius were divided. Two councils met in Ephesus, mutually excommunicating each other. True, only one of them was true and "ecumenical", the council of Cyril of Alexandria and Mnemon of Ephesus, to which the Roman legates also joined; and the second council or conciliabulum, the council of the "Easterners," was and turned out to be an "apostate council." But at the same time, even at this "council" the overwhelming majority was indisputably Orthodox. The historian must, first of all, show and explain how and why this schism or division of the Orthodox episcopate was possible and, in a certain sense, even inevitable. The preliminary answer is quite simple and easy: it was a division and clash of two theological schools or trends, Alexandrian and Antiochian. And this is connected with the recently fashionable attempt at the historical and even dogmatic rehabilitation of Nestorius. The question arises whether he was justly condemned, and whether his enemies did not really impute to him such false teachings, which he did not actually preach and did not share... The acuteness of the question lies in the fact that Nestorius was historically supported by almost the entire Orthodox "East", i.e. the Church of Antioch or Asia Minor, and here Nestorius was renounced in essence more canonically than dogmatically... In the final analysis, the question of Nestorius is the question of Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsusetia), the question of Bliss. Theodorite. Thus this question was posed at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, when Theodore was condemned, and of the works of Bl. Others were anathematized. And here again the doubt arises whether these posthumous anathemas were not biased and hasty. If only a few stand up for Nestorius in modern theology, then it is unlikely that the majority does not defend the Antiochians... And so, it is a great and indisputable merit of Fr. d'Alès that he is quite free from these fashionable hobbies. This testifies not only to his sober theological conservatism, but also to his great theological observation. In the last chapter of his book, he poses a general question: Nestorius and Cyril of Alexandria; and makes an attempt to restore the teaching of Nestorius, first of all, on the basis of those indisputable passages from the sermons of Nestorius, sent by him himself to Rome, which served as a pretext for his condemnation both in Rome and in Alexandria, even before the Council of Ephesus... With all caution and frugality, with all the reservations and amendments, we have to recognize here in Nestorius a dangerous and deceptive theological tendency, a tendency towards the excessive isolation of human nature in Christ... And this tendency, indeed, was common to all Antiochian theology. It cannot be said that this was "Adoptian" theology, but the temptation of "Adoptianism" was not overcome and decontaminated here... On the contrary, St. Cyril, in all his slips of the tongue, was an unshakable confessor of the Incarnate Word... Fr. d'Ales will not deign to complete his analysis. But a more careful and detailed analysis can only confirm his characteristic... At the Council of Ephesus, indeed, a "misunderstanding" was revealed. But this misunderstanding did not lie in the fact that, roughly speaking, "they did not know their own," and the Orthodox in their temper anathematized each other as heretics, but in the fact that some of the Orthodox turned out to be theologically short-sighted... The Antiochians, the "Easterners," were guilty of this short-sightedness. For them, the ghost of Apollinaris obscured the real image of Nestorius, just as in their time, after the Council of Nicaea, the ghost of Sabellius overshadowed the image of Arius. At that time they argued with the imaginary Sabellianism of St. Athanasius and the Cappadiceans, now with the imaginary Aollinarism of St. Cyril. The truth of Athanasius is not detracted from by the later birth of the Monophysites from the spirit of "Egyptian" piety, no matter how much the Monophysites lay claim to the heritage of St. Cyril... And the shortsightedness of the Antiochians was not determined solely by their philosophical skills or intellectual presuppositions. It is organically connected with their religious ideal, it must be said, with their anthropological ideal, with their teaching about the vocation and destiny of man. Anthropology is the main weakness of Antiochian theology. The clash of Alexandrian and Antiochian theology already at the Council of Ephesus was a clash of two anthropological intuitions, two anthropological ideals. The history of the Christian disputes of the fifth and eighth centuries in general can be fully understood only from anthropological premises. After all, the whole dispute was about an anthropological fact: after the victory over Arianism, they no longer argued about the Divinity of Christ, the Incarnate Word; they argued only about His human nature. And they argued from a soteriological point of view. The theology of the Antiochians can be defined, first of all, as a kind of anthropological maximalism, as an exaggerated self-assessment of human dignity. This maximalism was theoretically sharpened, probably in the disputes with Apollinarius, in the confrontation against Apollinarian minimalism in anthropology, with its disgust and disdain for man, which led Apollinaris to circumcision, to the truncation of human nature in Christ. In Apollinarianism, premature and excessive self-distrust of man, premature self-denial and excessive hopelessness were manifested. The human seemed too weak and base to be worthy of "deification." But the Antiochian reaction against this unrighteous anthropological self-abasement was nourished by an untransformed humanistic optimism, probably of Stoic origin. It is not without reason that Nestorianism was already in antiquity compared with Pelagianism (cf. Maria Mercatora). There is an undeniable psychological affinity, if not a genetic link. It was easy to draw soteriological conclusions from such a feeling. On the one hand, "salvation" was reduced to the simple liberation of human nature, to its restoration in natural, immanent measures and powers, in puris naturalibus—the Antiochians seldom spoke of "deification"... On the other hand, salvation seemed to be realizable by the "natural" powers of man, hence the doctrine of human podvig and the growth of Christ develops so vividly in Antiochian theology. And Christ was revealed to the "Easterners" as an ascetic, and in this sense, as a "simple man." These anthropological prerequisites prevented the "Easterners" from accurately discerning and describing the unity of the Divine-human face. In any case, they were inclined, so to speak, to the symmetrical representation of the "two natures" in Christ, and with hasty suspicion they regarded any asymmetry as a heretical "fusion." Meanwhile, it is precisely asymmetrical diophysitism that is Orthodox truth. The temptation of the "East" is not in the "division" of nature, but precisely in their symmetrical equalization, which leads to the doubling of the Divine face, to the "dual Sons"... The paradoxical asymmetry of the Divine-human face lies in the fact that human nature in the Divine-human unity does not have its own "face," its own "hypostasis," that it is perceived in the hypostasis of God the Word—why it is necessary to say: the Incarnate Word, and it is impossible to say: God-bearing man. This the Antiochians could not understand... Orthodox asymmetrical diophysitism is closely connected with the soteriological idea of "deification" as the transfiguration or "revival" of man, which is quite clear in St. Cyril. This does not in the least truncate human fullness, but, without any belittling of human dignity, it means that man is presented with a superhuman goal and limit, that he must surpass the human measure or "the measure of nature" — in transfiguration, in union with God... The fullness of human nature, which does not transform into the other, but unlocks in "deification"—this could not be understood and recognized by the minimalists in anthropology, the Apollinarians and Monophysites. They did not know how to think of this "unlocking" of human self-sufficiency as anything other than a "transformation," as a fall out of the measures of nature, a kind (Greek). They exaggerated the incommensurability of the human in Christ with the human in us, in the "common people"... For other reasons, the anthropological maximalists could not understand and accept the "hypostatic" unity — like "deification," it meant too much for them, more than their religious-soteriological ideal demanded and allowed... In Ephesus, no injustice or mistake was committed. Nestorius was condemned and deposed with reason, and his condemnation was a tragic warning of the inherent dangers of "Eastern" theology. The history of "Eastern" theology actually ends with Bl. Theodorite. The historical thread breaks. The path turned out to be a dead end... And if, after the Council of Ephesus, the divided bishops were reunited on the basis of a dogmatic formula set forth in terms of "Eastern" theology (as the Chalcedonian Oros later did), this meant neither victory nor "rehabilitation" of the Antiochian school. For the meaning of a formula is determined by its interpretation. And this interpretation given by the Church completely excludes "Eastern" maximalism. "Fr. d'Alès's book only introduces the history of these painful and disturbing disputes. But in modern literature it is perhaps one of the best books on the history of Christological movements in the ancient Church.

Blessed Theodoret