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CYRILLUS

CYRILLUS

Nestorians would not have erred by dwellingsimply on the difference between the natures of“ God ” and “ flesh ”: that difference was un-deniable ; but they went on to assert an indi-vidual and separate being for the man Jesus asapart from the Divine Word, and this was thevery point of their heresy. In chapter 27 herises to an almost Chrysostomic range of re-ligious eloquence when he sets forth the super-angelic greatness involved in the idea of “ theLord of Glory.” Another treatise, in two books,was addressed to the princesses, Pulcheria, thegifted sister of the feeble emperor, Arcadia, andMarina (Cyr. tom. v. par. 2; Mansi, iv. 679, sq.).In the first book he argued at length fromScripture for the oneness and Divinity of Christ,for His position as the true object of faith,and for His office as life-giver and atoner: andamong the texts which he urged were Heb. i.3, 6, xiii. 8; Titus ii. 13; 1 Cor. ii. 8; 2 Cor.viii. 9; Eph. iii. 17; Gal. i. 1; Phil. ii. 6;Matt. xi. 28, xvi. 16, 20 ; John i. 14, xvii. 3;1 John v. 5 (without the words about the“heavenly witnesses”). He laid great stresson the vastness of the claim advanced by andfor Christ in Scripture, and on the unreason-ableness of demanding so absolute an obediencetowards one who was not personally Divine.He asked how the death of a mere mancould be of such importance for the race ?Many a saint had lived and died, but not one bydying had become the saviour of his fellows.He quoted nine passages from earlier writers insupport of the term Theotocos, or of the doctrinewhich it guarded. In the second book he pro-fessed specially to explain texts relied on byNestorians, including parts of Heb. ii. and Matt,xxvii. 46, Luke ii. 40, 52, John iv. 22, Mark xii.32; as to which last text he seems to recognise,as he does elsewhere (though sometimes favour-ing a different view), a limitation of knowledgein Christ’s manhood, analogous to His submission,in His human sphere, to pain and want, andconsistent with a perpetual omniscience in HisDivine consciousness (Ad Regin. ii. 17). Inaccordance with the emphatic assertion (ii. 7)of the value imparted to Christ’s death by HisDivinity, the work concludes with “ for all ourhope is in Christ, by whom and with whom,” &c.

In these treatises, if some texts are strainedbeyond their natural meaning, there is yet aremarkable exhibition of acuteness and fertilityof thought, pervaded and quickened by whatDorner calls Cyril’s “warm interest” in Chi*istz-an/.ty as a religion. It was probably aboutApril 430 that Cyril answered the letter of theRoman bishop, which he had received as far backas a year before (Ep. p. 26); he informed himthat the main body of the faithful of Constan-tinople (acting on the principle fully recognisedin the ancient church, that loyalty to the faithwas a higher duty than ecclesiastical subordina-tion) were holding off from the communion ofNestorius, but that they greatly needed supportand countenance; and in very deferential termshe as>n.ea Celestine to sav whether any fellow-ship could be maintained by orthodox bishopswith one who in fact was disseminating heresy(Mansi, iv. 1011). With this letter he sent aseries of passages illustrative of what Nestoriusheld and of what church-writers had taught,translated into Latin “ as well as Alexandrians

could ” perform such a task, and to be shewn byhis messenger Posidonius to Celestine, if the latterhad received anything from Nestorius. Oneother letter of Cyril’s belongs to the summer of430; he addressed himself to the aged Acaciusbishop of Berrhoea, who communicated theletter to John the patriarch of Antioch, butin his answer informed Cyril that many whohad come to Syria, fresh from the preaching ofNestorius, were disposed to think him not com-mitted to heresy. It is observable that Cyriltells Acacius that some had been led on byNestorianism into an express denial that Christwas God (see Mansi, iv. 1053).

And now we reach a landmark in the story.On August 11, Celestine, having held a synodwhich pronounced Nestorius to be heretical,gave Cyril a commission of a stringent character(see this letter in Mansi, iv. 1017). He was to‘‘join the authority of the Roman see to hisown,” and, on the part of Celestine as well asfor himself, to warn Nestorius that unless awritten retractation were executed within tendays, giving assurance of his accepting the faithas to “ Christ our God,” which was held by thechurches of Rome and Alexandria, he would beexcluded from the communion of those churches,and “ provision ” would be made by them for thechurch of Constantinople, i.e. by the appoint-ment of an orthodox bishop. Had Cyril been asviolent and imperious as he is often said to havebeen, he would not have deferred by a single daythe carrying out of these instructions. But hetook time to assemble, at Alexandria, a “ Coun-cil of all Egypt,” and then, probably on MondayNov. 3, wrote his Third Letter to Nestorius(Ep. p. 57 ; Mansi, iv. 1067; Routh, Scr. Op.ii. 17), in which the bishop of Constantinoplewas required to anathematise the errors whichhe had maintained, and a long dogmatic ex-position of the true sense of the Nicene Creedwas given, with a careful disclaimer of all confu-sion between Godhead and manhood. To the endof the letter were appended twelve “ articles,”or “ chapters,” couched in the form of anathe-matisms against the various points of the Nes-torian theory: e. g. that Emmanuel is not reallyGod, and Mary not Theotocos; that the Wordwas not personally joined to flesh; that therewas a “ connexion ” of two persons; that Christis a “ God bearing man;” that He was a sepa-rate individual acted on by the Word, and called“ God ” along with Him; that His Flesh wasnot the Word’s own; that the Word did notsuffer death in the flesh. These propositionswere not well calculated to reclaim Nestorius;nor were they, indeed, so worded throughout asto approve themselves to all who essentiallyagreed with Cyril as to the Personal Deity ofChrist. On the contrary, the abruptness oftheir tone, and a certain one-sidedness whichmade some of them open, primd facie , toserious criticism from persons who, withoutbeing Nestorians, felt that in the attack on Nes-torianism the truth of Christ’s real and per-manent manhood might be in danger of losingits due prominence, were obstacles to theiracceptance; and as we shall see, he was after-wards obliged to put forth explanations of theirmeaning. Cyril wrote two other letters to theclergy and laity, and to the monks of Constan-tinople, urging them to contend, or pra’sing