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“One Nature of the Word Enfleshed”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2015

Mark Edwards
Mark Edwards*
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University of Oxford
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Extract

According to the least charitable view of Cyril's part in the “Nestorian controversy,” it was for him nothing more than that—a political scheme to eject a man whose scrutiny he had come to fear from a see whose power he had always envied. This account suggests that his apparent tergiversations tell us nothing of his theology: as a Christian he believed what the rest of Christendom believed, but as a prince of the church he turned his coat whenever this would serve to disguise his malice or change the wind. The more generous account reproaches Cyril not with bad faith but with bad logic: throughout his work, he oscillates between conflicting paradigms, in one of which the true subject of Christology is the Word who assumes the flesh, while in the other Christ has only the “compositional” unity that results from the coming together of two natures. The first prefigures the Chalcedonian shibboleth “one person in two natures”; the second Cyril himself encapsulated in the formula “from two natures,” which can be taken to entail that after the union there were no longer two natures but one. That Cyril himself drew this conclusion, contradicting the Chalcedonian Definition before he had heard it, is put beyond doubt for many by his defiant reiteration of a formula that he derived without knowing it from Apollinarius: “one nature [phusis] of the Word enfleshed.”

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 108 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 289 - 306
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2015 

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References

1 See Schwartz, Eduard, Cyrill und der Mönch Viktor (Vienna: Akademie der Wissenchaft, 1928)Google Scholar with the criticisms of Chadwick, Henry, “Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy,” JTS 2 (1951) 145–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Cyril employs two variants, in one of which the participle that means “enfleshed” is sesarkômenê, qualifying phusis (nature), while in the other it is sesarkômenou, qualifying Logos (Word). The former is the more widely quoted in antiquity (as by John of Damascus and Leontius of Jerusalem, cited in n. 16 below), but my argument will suggest that they are convergent, if not identical, in meaning.

3 Norris, R. A., “Christological Models in Cyril of Alexandria,” in Papers Presented to the Sixth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford, 1971 (ed. Livingstone, Elizabeth A.; 3 vols.; StPatr 12–14; TUGAL 115–17; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975) 2:255–68Google Scholar.

4 Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:258, citing letters 4.3 and 45.4.

5 Philippians 2:5–12. For the “form of God” see 2:6 and for the “form of a slave” 2:7.

6 Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:259. In the following notes Cyril's works On the Unity of Christ and On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten will be cited from two sources: Cyrille d'Alexandrie. Deux dialogues christologiques (ed. and trans. Georges-Matthieu de Durand; SC 97; Paris: Cerf, 1964) 188–301 (henceforth: SC 97) and S. P. N. Cyrilli Alexandriæ archiepiscopi opera quæ reperiri potuerunt omnia (ed. J.-P. Migne; PG 68–77; Paris: Imprimerie catholique, 1863–1864) 1190–1254 (henceforth: PG). The Scholia on the Incarnation will be cited from the same volume of Migne, 1363–1412 and from Sancti Patris nostri Cyrilli archiepiscopi Alexandrini. Epistolae tres oecumenicae . . . (ed. Philip Edward Pusey; Oxford: Clarendon, 1875) 498–579.

7 Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:262 on “coming together” in Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, at PG 75, 1208c–d (SC 97, 220–21) and Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1377b–c (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 512–15). See Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:263 on the aftermath of union.

8 Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:264 and 267.

9 See below, esp. nn. 16 and 48.

10 Weinandy, Thomas G., “Cyril and the Mystery of the Incarnation,” in The Theology of St Cyril of Alexandria (ed. Weinandy, Thomas G. and Keating, Daniel A.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003) 23–54Google Scholar.

11 Weinandy, “Cyril and the Mystery,” 38.

12 McGuckin, John, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy (2nd ed.; Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary, 2004) 208Google Scholar. Petavius held a similar position: see de Juaye, Hubert du Manoir, Dogme et spiritualité chez Saint Cyrille d'Alexandrie (Études de théologie et d'histoire de la spiritualité 2; Paris: Vrin, 1944) 126Google Scholar.

13 Wessel, Susan, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic (Oxford Early Christian Studies; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) 298CrossRefGoogle Scholar, citing Doctrina patrum de incarnatione verbi (ed. Franz Diekamp; Münster: Aschendorff, 1907) 141–44, 151–53.

14 Weinandy, “Cyril and the Mystery,” 38.

15 McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, 140 expressly states that Cyril's usage is equivocal: “In the hands of Cyril the word is used in two senses, one in what might be called the standard ‘physical’ usage where it connotes the constituent elements of a thing, and the other in which it serves to delineate the notion of individual existent—or in other words, individual subject.” See Weinandy, “Cyril and the Mystery,” 38: “it is equally clear that he used the term phusis in two different senses.”

16 The term “monophysite” has been applied pejoratively to any opponents of the Chalcedonian formula “two natures in one person.” According to the more discriminating nomenclature of Sebastian Brock, the formula “one nature enfleshed” was understood in a “henophysitic” sense by Severus of Antioch and in a truly “monophysitic” sense by the Acephali, who rejected both the Council of Chalcedon and the later Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno (Sebastian Brock, “The Christology of the Church of the East,” in idem, Fire from Heaven: Studies in Syriac Theology and Liturgy [Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2006] 159–79, at 179). In response, the Chalcedonian John of Damascus proposes a reading not unlike the one for which I argue (Against the Acephali 3, in Liber de haeresibus. Opera polemica [ed. Bonifatius Kotter; vol. 4 of Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos; PTS 22; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1981] 411–12). Writing against Severus, Leontius of Jerusalem (Testimonies of the Saints 1808A) holds that the formula is aimed only against Nestorians who understand the two natures as two entities: see Testimonies of the Saints in Leontius of Jerusalem: Against the Monophysites; “Testimonies of the Saints” and “Aporiae” (ed. and trans. Patrick T. R. Gray; OECT; Oxford: Clarendon, 2006) 40–161, at 48–49.

17 van Loon, Hans, The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria (VCSup 96; Leiden: Brill, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is a monumental exception, but I cannot endorse his conclusion on p. 568 that Cyril employs the mia phusis formula, while perceiving its inadequacy, merely because he believes in its Athanasian provenance.

18 Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, at PG 75, 1208c12–d12, cited by Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:262.

19 Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, at PG 75, 1220b6–10 (SC 97, 240).

20 See Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, at PG 75, 1213b7 (SC 97, 230) on the soul's transcendence of its own nature in Christ; PG 75, 1213d10 (SC 97, 232) on the flesh that he made his own; PG 75, 1212c5 (SC 97, 228) on the invisibility of his own nature; and PG 75, 1220a15 (SC 97, 238) on the Word as life according to his own hypostasis.

21 Cyril's treatise On the Unity of Christ is found in PG 75, 1253–1362 and SC 97, 302–514. For this reference see PG 75, 1261a9 (SC 97, 314); PG 75, 1265a10 (SC 97, 322); PG 75, 1328d5 (SC 97, 448); PG 75, 1337b7 (SC 97, 464); PG 75, 1337c7 (SC 97, 464); PG 75, 1341c6 (SC 97, 474); PG 75, 1356b10 (SC 97, 500); PG 75, 1357c1 (SC 97, 504); PG 75, 1357c12 (SC 97, 506); PG 75, 1360a2ff (SC 97, 506); PG 75, 1360d7 (SC 97, 510); and PG 75, 1361a5–6 (SC 97, 510).

22 Cyril, On the Unity of Christ, at PG 75, 1273a8 (SC 97, 336); PG 75, 1352b13 (SC 97, 494); PG 75, 1361a10 (SC 97, 510); and PG 75, 1353a12 (SC 97, 496). He sheds his own blood at PG 75, 1333b2 (SC 97, 458); PG 75, 1336b3 (SC 97, 462); PG 75, 1336c4 (SC 97, 462); PG 75, 1336c14 (SC 97, 464); PG 75, 1356a5 (SC 97, 500); and PG 75, 1356b4 and b10 (SC 97, 500).

23 Cyril, On the Unity of Christ, at PG 75, 1261a3 (SC 97, 314).

24 See Cyril, On the Unity of Christ, at PG 75, 1277c1 (SC 97, 346) on goodness; PG 75, 1313a12 (SC 97, 418) on excellence; PG 75, 1313b2 (SC 97, 418) and PG 75, 1341c1 (SC 97, 474) on glory; and PG 75, 1349b10 (SC 97, 490) on divinity. At PG 75, 1332a13–14 (SC 97, 454), his own nature and his own flesh are juxtaposed. See also PG 75, 1277c6 (SC 97, 448); PG 75, 1333c5 (SC 97, 460); PG 75, 1345d1 (SC 97, 482) for other allusions to his own nature; and PG 75, 1267a1 (SC 97, 324) on his natural invisibility.

25 On the mortality of our nature see Cyril, On the Unity of Christ, at PG 75, 1353a12 (SC 97, 496).

26 Cyril, On the Unity of Christ, at PG 75, 1280c9 (SC 97, 352); see PG 75, 1281a (SC 97, 354); PG 75, 1288b3–5 (SC 97, 366); and PG 75, 1360d3 (SC 97, 510).

27 Cyril, On the Unity of Christ, at PG 75, 1305a5–13 (SC 97, 400), deriding those who characterize the union as a sunapheia (conjunction) of two individuals.

28 Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, at PG 75, 1202b 3–9 (SC 97, 208), citing 2 Cor 4:16.

29 See especially Scholium 35, in PG 75, 1408c–1409b (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 563–64).

30 Cyril, Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1381b1 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 520). See du Manoir de Juaye, Dogme et spiritualité, 129 on the “concurrence of hypostases” in Cyril's Apology for the Twelve Anathemas against Theodoret, at PG 76, 396c, which can also be found at Cyrilli epistolae tres (ed. Pusey), 366. Cyril also divides the attributes of Christ between two prosôpa in On the Trinity, at PG 75, 880c12–d5, as well as at Cyrille d'Alexandrie. Dialogues sur la Trinité (ed. and trans. Georges-Matthieu Durand; 3 vols.; SC 237; Paris: Cerf, 1976–1978) 1:170 (henceforth: SC 237). The Nestorian controversy produced a change, but not a chronic inconsistency, in his usage of these terms.

31 Cyril, Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1386c4–5 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 528); PG 75, 1386d10 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 530).

32 Cyril, Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1377a1 and a14 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 512).

33 Cyril, Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1377b5 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 512) on flesh; PG 75, 1377b12 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 514) on the human; PG 75, 1376c9 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 510) on our nature; and PG 75, 380b2 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 516) on humanity.

34 Cyril, Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1377a3 and b1 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 512).

35 Cyril, Scholia on the Incarnation, at PG 75, 1372b2 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 502).

36 Cyril, To Pulcheria and Eudocia on the True Faith, in PG 76, 1380–1420 at 1400b; also Sancti patris nostri Cyrilli archieposcopi Alexandrini de recta fide ad imperatorem . . . (ed. Philip Edward Pusey; Oxford: Clarendon, 1877) 263–333, at 316. See further du Manoir de Juaye, Dogme et spiritualité, 127.

37 For this term in Theodore see, for example, Theodor von Mopsuestia, “De Incarnatione.” Überlieferung und Christologie der griechischen und lateinischen Fragmente einschliesslich Textausgabe (ed. Till Jansen; PTS 65; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009) 238, line 49.

38 Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Lionel R. Wickham; Oxford: Clarendon, 1983) 3–11, at 4 and 6 of the Greek text (chapter 3).

39 Thus in Cyril, Commentary on John, at PG 73, 237b; see also Sancti patris nostri Cyrilli archiepiscopi Alexandrini in D. Joannis Evangelium . . . (ed. Philip Edward Pusey; 3 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1872) 1:212, where he argues that if the Word dwells in the body as his temple (John 2:21), he is not present in the man Jesus in the same sense as he is present in the saints.

40 Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, frg. 21 in Theodor von Mopsuestia (ed. Jansen), 253.

41 Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 12–33, at 22 (chapter 8).

42 Norris, “Christological Models,” 2:264, but cf. 2:267.

43 See Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 16. See also [Plato], Greater Alcibiades 129e. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1178b, and Augustine, On the Way of Life of the Manichaeans 2.52 (both cited by Mark Julian Edwards, Origen against Plato [Ashgate Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity; Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2002] 116), attempt to reconcile Origen's statement that all rational beings are properly incorporeal (First Principles 1.7.1) with his demonstration in the previous chapter that no creature can subsist without a body (1.6.4).

44 Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 9.1, 11.4, 14.4, 29.4, and 43.7. For text with translation see Athanasius: “Contra gentes” and “De incarnatione” (ed. Robert W. Thomson; OECT; Oxford: Clarendon, 1971). Cf. Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only Begotten, at PG 75, 1213d6–7 (SC 97, 232).

45 Apollinarius, On the Union in Christ of the Body with the Godhead, in Lietzmann, Hans, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule (Tübingen: Mohr, 1904) 185–93Google Scholar, at 187.

46 Cyril, First Letter to Succensus, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 70–83, at 74 and 76 of the Greek text (chapter 7).

47 Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius 8, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 22.

48 Cyril, To Arcadia and Mariana, at PG 76, 1212a5–6 (Cyrilli de recta fide [ed. Pusey], 161).

49 See Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 63.

50 See Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ (in Tertullian's Treatise on the Incarnation [ed. Ernest Evans; London: SPCK, 1956]); Gregory of Nazianzus, letters 101 and 102; and Athanasius, Letter to Epictetus (in Sancti Athanasii archiepiscopi Alexandrini. Opera dogmatica selecta [ed. Johann Karl Thilo; Leipzig: Weiger, 1853] 820–43).

51 Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch, in The Oecumenical Documents of the Faith (ed. T. Herbert Bindley; London: Methuen, 1899) 166–72, at 169–70; Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum (ed. Eduard Schwartz; 14 vols.; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1914) 1:17.

52 Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch, at Oecumenical Documents (ed. Bindley), 170; ACO (ed. Schwartz), 1:17.

53 Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch, at Oecumenical Documents (ed. Bindley), 170; ACO (ed. Schwartz), 1:17.

54 Cyril, First Letter to Succensus 7, at Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 76.

55 Cyril, Second Letter to Succensus, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 84–93, at 86 of the Greek text (chapter 2).

56 Cyril, Second Letter to Succensus 5, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 92.

57 See Russell, Norman, “‘Partakers of the Divine Nature’ (2 Peter 1:4) in the Byzantine Tradition,” in ΚΑΘΝΓΝΤΡΙΑ: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey for her 80th Birthday (ed. Chrysostomides, Julian; Camberley, U.K.: Porphyrogenitus, 1988) 51–67Google Scholar.

58 Cyril, Letter to Eulogius, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham) 62–69, at 62 and 64.

59 See n. 43 above.

60 Pseudo-Zacharias, Chronicle 9.15g, in The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor: Church and War in Late Antiquity (ed. Geoffrey Greatrex; trans. Robert R. Phenix and Cornelia B. Horn; Translated Texts for Historians 55; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011) 351 [italics added].

61 Aristotle, Metaphysics 1043b2. For a bilingual text see Hugh Tredennick, Aristotle: Metaphysics (2 vols.; LCL 271, 287; New York: Heinemann, 1933–1935) 1:410–11.

62 On Cyril's acquaintance with Aristotelian logic see Dialogues on the Trinity, book 2, and Ruth Siddals, “Logic and Christology in Cyril of Alexandria,” JTS 38 (1987) 341–67.

63 Cyril, Apology for the Twelve Chapters, in PG 76, 315–86, at 340c2 (Cyrilli epistolae tres [ed. Pusey], 300). Weinandy detects some difference in semantic import (“Cyril and the Mystery,” 39). See n. 2 above.

64 Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius 8, in Cyril: Select Letters (ed. Wickham), 24.

65 See Tertullian, Against Praxeas 9.2 (in Gegen Praxeas [ed. Hermann-Josef Sieben; Fontes christiani 34; Basel: Herder, 2001] 130) (“tota substantia pater est”), with George Christopher Stead, “Divine Substance in Tertullian,” JTS 14 (1963) 46–66.

66 Marius Victorinus, Against the Arians 1.29 (in Marii Victorini Afri. Opera theologica [ed. Albrecht Locher; Leipzig: Teubner, 1976] 36): “Non quod ista quasi in aliud quod in ipso sint, aut ut accidentia, sed istum ipsum deum esse”; Augustine, On the Trinity 5.11.12 (in De Trinitate [ed. W. J. Mountain; CCSL: 50; Turnhout: Brepols, 1968] 218–20): “ipsa sua potest dici deitas.”

67 See, e.g., Paasch, J. T., Divine Production in Late Medieval Trinitarian Theology: Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 2012) 29–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Cyril, Dialogues on the Trinity, at PG 75, 893d8 (SC 237, 2:200).

69 Cyril, Dialogues on the Trinity, at PG 75, 872d6–7 (SC 237, 2:160). See likewise ibid., 901c4–5 (SC 237, 2:212), where the nations have turned “to God, or indeed the nature of divinity”; and 928d13–14 (SC 237, 2:258).

70 Chadwick, Henry, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford History of the Christian Church; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 540CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 Theodore, On the Incarnation, frg. 2, in Theodor von Mopsuestia (ed. Jansen), 234; Cassian, Against Nestorius on the Incarnation 6.13, in De incarnatione contra Nestorium (ed. Michael Petschenig; CSEL 17; Vienna: Akademie Verlag, 2004) 360–61.

72 Theodoret, Eranistes 1, florilegium, in Theodoret of Cyrus, “Eranistes”: Critical Text and Prolegomena (ed. Gérard H. Ettlinger; Oxford: Clarendon, 1975) 102–3, citing Athanasius, Letter to Epictetus 2.

73 A more accurate translation of the Greek would be “ex duabus naturis.”

74 Leo I of Rome, letter 128 (Tome to Flavian) 6.282–89, in Bindley, Oecumenical Documents, 195–204, at 204.

75 See Green, Bernard, The Soteriology of Leo the Great (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon, 2008) 35–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 Basil of Seleucia, speaking in 449 at the Latrocinium, as reported in The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (ed. and trans. Michael Gaddis and Richard Price; 3 vols.; Translated Texts for Historians 45; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005) 1:224 (session 1, 546) and 1:261 (session 1, 791). See 1:221 (session 1, 519) for Basil's endorsement of double consubstantiality, and Grillmeier, Alois, From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451) (vol. 1 of Christ in Christian Tradition; London: Mowbray, 1975) 525–26Google Scholar on his alleged tergiversation.

77 Council of Chalcedon (ed. and trans. Gaddis and Prince), 2:25–26 (session 2, 25).