Cyrillian Christology

On the Power of the Holy Spirit

«It is sufficient therefore for the faithful to know this, that the Son indeed is begotten, but the Spirit is proceeding from the Father: and let them use those very words which He willed the divine Scriptures to use. Because he loves life who knows the Author, and has received the three names with allied honor in the sacrament of baptism, and no longer seeks a boundary there, where it was certain there had been no beginning, in which he believed. We believe therefore that the Holy Spirit the Paraclete proceeds from the Father: but that He is not the Son, nor the Son of the Son, which they are accustomed foolishly to search out; but the Spirit of truth, whose procession, either of what kind or how great it may be, is granted to no one to know. For concerning the incomprehensibility of the Spirit Himself, the Lord also said in the Gospel: Because the Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but you do not know whence He comes or whither He goes (John III, 8). This Spirit we know to be in His own and true person; the fountain of sanctification, the light of souls, the divider of graces. This Spirit sanctifies, is not sanctified; illuminates, is not illuminated: nor will any creature, without this Spirit, be able either to attain to eternity or to be truly called holy. I dare to say; the very temple of the Lord, that is, the body which He received from the Virgin, was certainly instructed by the Spirit Himself. And Gabriel the angel said to Mary: The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; and therefore that which shall be born of you, is of the Holy Spirit (Luke I, 35). Behold the very temple, in which the word of the Lord dwelt, we find sanctified by the Spirit. And although the Lord Himself says of Himself, Whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world (John X, 36); and again, For the Son of God can sanctify both His own body and all things (John XVII, 19): yet, that He might manifest to the world the power and proper nature of the Holy Spirit, at the time of His baptism He Himself received the Holy Spirit into His own body in the appearance of a dove, so that truly, according to the saying of the Apostle, all the fullness of the Godhead might dwell in Him bodily: from which fullness the apostles afterwards receive grace for grace, the Lord Himself breathing upon the face of the apostles and saying: Receive the Holy Spirit; if whose sins you forgive, they shall be forgiven; if whose you retain, they shall be retained (John XX, 22).»

[Saint Nicetas of Remesiana 335 – 414 A.D. De Spiritus sancti potentia. PL 52, 856]

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Cyrillian Christology

From Slavery (Islam) to Freedom (Christianity).

☦️

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Cyrillian Christology

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Cyrillian Christology

Saint Cyril the Great Pope of Alexandria the Dyophysite.

«Herein, again, clearly contemplate the whole mystery of our Savior and the cleansing through holy baptism. For He commands that two living and clean birds be taken; so that you may perceive through the winged creatures the Heavenly Man and God at once, divided in two natures—insofar as it pertains to the definition proper to each. For He was the Word who shone forth from God the Father in the flesh from a woman, yet without being partitioned. For Christ is One out of both. And for this reason, the birds are taken as two, and He is perceived again as being in both, yet living and clean.»

[St. Cyril of Alexandria. Glaphyra in Leviticus PG 69, 576]

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Cyrillian Christology

Profession of the Orthodox Confession

«Before all things and above all, we must be sober and watchful, guarding against the incursions of thieves, lest we be plundered by them without our knowledge; and we shall rather guard the great and primary remedy of our salvation: I mean the fair inheritance of the faith; confessing with soul and mouth with boldness, as the Fathers have taught us. Those who, having followed from the beginning as eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, declared that the One of the holy and consubstantial, immaculate and blessed Trinity—the Son of God, God the Word, the radiance of the glory and the impress of the paternal hypostasis, the Creator of all creation, both visible and invisible, the Infinite, the Unbounded, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible, the Unthinkable, Who by the sole inclination of His will both brought all things into being and sustains them; He Who is measureless in goodness—became man for our sake, and was incarnate of the holy, all-glorious, ever-virgin Mary, who is properly and in truth the Mother of God (Theotokos); uniting to Himself from her a flesh subsisting according to hypostasis (hypostatic), consubstantial with us, animated by a rational and intellectual soul; not as having pre-existed in the twinkling of an eye, but having received both its being and its subsistence in God the Word Himself; and being perfect God, He became perfect man. Neither did He cast off being God because He became man, which He was not; nor was He hindered from becoming man, which He was not, because He remained what He was and is, God. But being this, He also became that, verifying each, and confirming both the divine and the human through divine wonders and human sufferings.
And according to His own nature and essence toward the Father, He is uncreated, invisible, uncircumscribable, unalterable, immutable, impassible, incorruptible, immortal, the Creator of all things; but according to the nature of His flesh and our nature, the same One is created, passible, circumscribable, containable, and mortal. The same One, indeed, but not according to the same respect, because of the elements from which and in which He has His being. The same One is consubstantial with God and the Father according to the divinity, and the same One is consubstantial with us according to the humanity; being twofold in nature, that is, in essence; for, being the Mediator between God and men, He must properly preserve a natural kinship with those between whom He mediates, by the fact of His being both. Thus, in the very truth, in Himself and through Himself, having joined earthly things to the heavenly, and having brought the material nature of men—which had been besieged by sin—unto God and the Father, He rendered it saved, reconciled, and deified; not by identity of essence, but by the ineffable power of the Incarnation; that He might make us partakers of the divine nature through His holy flesh taken from us, as a first-fruit.
Wherefore, the same One is known as being both God and man together, in reality and not in name alone; yet not twofold in hypostasis, that is, in person; for He is one and the same, both being before the flesh and having remained after the flesh. Nor did any addition or subtraction occur in the Holy Trinity from the incarnation of the Word. The same One suffered in the flesh for our sake; while in His divinity, He remained and continues always impassible. So that our salvation is in the death of the only-begotten Son of God—O the paradoxical and ineffable mystery!—while the divine glory and identity of His essence with the Father remains perpetually undiminished.»

[St. Maximus the Confessor. Epistle XII to John the Cubicularius, On the Orthodox, Dogmas of the Church of God, and Against Severus the Heretic. PG 91, 465 - 468]

The Tomb of Saint Maximus the Confessor in Tsageri, Georgia.

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Cyrillian Christology

To the Heretic Severian Dyophobites.

If we use the word "Nature" as synonymous with "Hypostasis," we abolish the possibility of saying that the Son is consubstantial with the Father. If the Father and the Son have the same nature, but nature means hypostasis, then we end up in Sabellianism (one hypostasis in the Trinity). Therefore, "nature" must denote the set of properties (essence) and not the person. As Saint Basil the Great also says in Letter 214 to Count Terentius.
The word "Nature" is not "inappropriate" if it is correctly defined as Essence. If Christ did not have His human nature full and distinct after the Union, then His human will would have been absorbed by the Divine. Our salvation depends on the fact that the human nature remains "nature" (with its properties) within the one Hypostasis.
Also, another reason for your difficulty in understanding that Saint Cyril of Alexandria is Chalcedonian is because you have identified the Alexandrian School exclusively with correct Theology and the Antiochian School with the Incorrect. Something which has led you to extremes. The Orthodox Church, however, is not limited to schools. It can interpret the Revelation of God from both. Something which, due to their Pride, neither the Alexandrians accepted—falling into the Heresy of Severianism (And earlier in the Heresy of Arianism)—nor the Antiochians-Edessenes, who fell into the Heresy of Nestorianism.
Severianism (extreme Alexandria) rejected Chalcedon because it regarded the word "two" as division. Nestorianism (extreme Antioch) rejected the Chalcedon because it regarded "hypostasis" as synonymous with nature.
The Orthodox Church indeed synthesized the two schools:
From Alexandria, it kept the unity: Christ is One Subject (the Word).
From Antioch, it kept the distinction: Christ has Two Real Natures (Divine and Human).

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Cyrillian Christology

If ἐξ ἀμφοῖν (from both) is conceptually equivalent to ἐκ δύο (from two), then ἐν ἀμφοῖν (in both) necessarily equates to ἐν δύο (in two). If one rejects ἐν δύο (in two), one must also reject ἐν ἀμφοῖν (in both).

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Cyrillian Christology

«Let us, therefore, glorify Him even as we have received from the fathers; let us glorify Him both through faith and through works. For there is no benefit unto salvation from sound doctrines if our life has been corrupted. Therefore, let us regulate our life according to that which is pleasing to God, distancing ourselves far from all obscenity, injustice, and covetousness, as strangers and sojourners, and as being alien to the things of this world. And if one possesses much wealth and many estates, let him use them as a temporary resident, as one who, a little later, shall be separated from them, whether willingly or unwillingly. And if one is being wronged by another, let him not harbor immortal wrath—nay, not even for a season. For the Apostle has granted us no more than a single day to make use of anger: 'Let not the sun,' he says, 'go down upon your wrath.' And with good reason; for it is a thing to be cherished that even in so brief a time, nothing unpleasant should occur.»


[Saint John Chrysostom, Homily 4, Part 3, on the Gospel of John. PG 59, 50]

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Cyrillian Christology

Orthodoxy always triumphs. ☦️

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Cyrillian Christology

Following, then, the holy fathers, we all unanimously teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ ["we confess one Christ, one Son, the same, one Lord" (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Epistola XLIV, PG 77, 225-228)], the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a rational soul and a body ["and Lord with His own flesh, not soulless rather, as I said, but rationally ensouled." (St. Cyril of Alexandria. EPISTOLA L to Bishop Valerian. PG 77, 257)], consubstantial with the Father as regards His Godhead, and the same consubstantial with us as regards His manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards His Godhead, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary the Virgin, the Theotokos, as regards His manhood ["so that the same is simultaneously God and man, perfect in Godhead, and the same perfect in manhood." (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Epistola L to Bishop Valerian, against those who harbor the views of Nestorius. PG 77, 277)], one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation ["Just as, therefore, the mystery of Christ was clearly depicted in the he-goats, so also in the two small birds." (St. Cyril of Alexandria. Epistola XLI. PG 77, 216)], the difference of the natures being by no means removed because of the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved ["for it was necessary that both be preserved in the one and truly Son: both the not suffering divinely, and the being said to suffer humanly;" (Epistle XLVI of St. Cyril of Alexandria "To Succensus II" PG 77, 244)] and concurring into one Person and one Hypostasis ["In the case, then, of our Lord Jesus Christ, since we recognize the natures as two, yet the hypostasis from both as one, composite:" (St. Cyril of Alexandria. On the Holy Trinity. Chapter XXVII, PG 77, 1172)], not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, Only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ ["He will not be divided, on account of this, into two persons and sons, but has remained one, however, not without flesh" (Epistle XLVI of St. Cyril of Alexandria "To Succensus II" PG 77, 241)], just as the prophets taught from the beginning about Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself instructed us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers has handed down to us.

[Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum. Concilium Universale Chalcedonensis (complete)
by Edward Schwartz. Page 325.]

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