On the Unity of Christ

B. And indeed they do say that both Very God and Son is the One Christ, i. e., the Word out of God taking by connection him who is of David's seed.

A. But if the Word out of God the Father is not He Who is also according to the flesh from a woman, but is Other with other [32], how will ho be called Christ who has not been anointed as we already said?

B. Therefore if he who is of the seed of David is none other than the Word from forth God the Father, let him be called also before time: then how does the all-wise Paul, repelling the opinion, demand as it were with a question, and say, Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day, is he the same for ever too? Or in another way too: for Jesus, he says, who is yesterday and to-day, will be the same for ever too, i. e., recent and yesterday and to-day, albeit God the Word co-existeth with His own Father.

A. They do wrong exceedingly, turning aside the truth unto that which in their unwisdom seems good to them and corrupting the accuracy of the sacred Scriptures. If now one say that Christ Jesus is also before time, he will not miss of the truth, if the Word which is before time is One Son and Lord, Who in the last times underwent birth after the flesh of a woman. And that the Word made man as we has not been changed, the Spirit-clad has shewn saying, Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day, the Same too for ever. And yesterday indicates past time, to-day present time, for ever that which is future and to come.

But if they think that they have thought out something clever, in taking yesterday and to-day to mean recent, asserting and saying, He that is yesterday and to-day how will he be also for ever, WE too will transfer the force of the question unto the direct opposite: The Word which is for ever how will He take to Himself Yesterday and to-day, if Christ is One and has not been divided, as says the Divine Paul? For that thus He would be known by us, you will know hence also. For although seen in the flesh and having entered on the measures of the human nature, He has testified to Himself His Eternal Being saying, Verily I say to you, Before Abraham was I am, and again, If I told you the things of earth and ye believe not, how will ye believe if I tell you those of Heaven? and no one hath gone up into Heaven except He which descended from heaven, the Son of man. For as Word Which ever is and before the ages, come down from heaven, and then the Same appearing man as we; as One Christ and Lord even when He was made flesh, does He say these things.

B. Another argument too has been discovered by them, it is this: they say that he which is of the seed, of David, ought so to be called son of God as the Word Which is forth of God the Father is said to be son of David: for neither is so by nature [33].

A. Now let the mode of the true Union come in, that so the Word be believed to have been made flesh, i. e. man, and therefore son of David not falsely but as from forth him according to the flesh, having remained too what He was, i. e. God out of God. And verily the priests of the gospel preachings, knowing that the Same is God alike and man, have told us of Him. It is written of the blessed Baptist that, On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming to him and saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world: this it is of whom I said, After me cometh a Man which has been made before me because He is prior to me, and I knew Him not, but in order that He should be manifested to Israel, therefore came I baptizing in water. Understand therefore how he saying, a Man, and calling Him a Lamb, says that none other is He who taketh away the sin of the world, and hath allotted to Him this great and truly vast and God-befitting Dignity. And he says that He is before and prior to him, albeit made after him, I mean according to the time of the generation after the flesh. For if Emmanuel is late-born as man, yet was He before every time as God. His therefore is both the recent humanly and the Eternal Divinely: hence the all-excellent Peter too, looking on the Word not bare nor without flesh, but appearing in flesh and blood, clearly and unerringly [34] [35]made his tribute of faith in Him, saying, THOU art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and heard in reply, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood revealed it not to thee, but My Father which is in Heaven. But were not the Mystery deep, and God in the flesh, but [only] a man having according to them the sonship by grace, how should he have needed an Initiator [35] so great, that no one of them on the earth revealed it to the disciple, but that he had the Father Himself as his Instructor in this?

And the Divine Disciples too, seeing Him once traversing [36] [37]the expanse of the sea, were astonished at the miracle and confessed the Faith, saying, Truly Thou art the Son of God. Yet if he is bastard and falsely-called and has from adoption that he is son, let them accuse the disciples of falsehood, and that when they sware it. For they have added Truly, affirming that He is the Son of God the Father.

B. You speak most excellently.

A. How too has the Son of man His own angels [37][38], and shines forth in the glory of His Father? for He says, The Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father [38] with His angels, and again. And the Son of Man will send His Angels. And if they disbelieve yet, even seeing Him crowned in God-befitting glory and dignities so splendid and supreme, they shall hear Him say, If ye believe Me not believe My works, and again, If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not ^[39]. For the beholding in a man the excellency of the unspeakable glory, supplied not as Another's nor in the light of a favour, but His very own: how will it not persuade us that He was God in likeness as we and truly Son of God Who is over all?

B. He affirmed (he says) that His were the angels, and He was made the worker of these signs, the Word indwelling Him and having imparted to Him His own glory and operation: for it is written, Jesus of Nazareth how God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and power, Who went about doing good and healing all that are oppressed by the devil. Anointed therefore both with power and with the Spirit, was He a wonder-worker [40].

A. Then, since the Word being God, both Holy and having Essentially and by Nature All-Might, will never need either power from another or an imparted holiness: who now is He Who has been anointed with power and the Holy Ghost?

B. They will perhaps say, The man who is assumed by connection.

A. He therefore is Jesus Christ by himself and separately, of Whom too the all-wise Paul says, Yet to us One God the Father from Whom all things and we from Him and One Lord Jesus Christ through Whom all things and we through Him. How then (tell me) are all things through a man? why is he ranked as Son with the Father and that immediately, no one intervening? and wherever shall we put the Only-Begotten when we have brought into His place the man; and that (as he says) inwrought by Him and honoured because of Him?

Has not their argument outstepped what is reasonable, is it not borne beyond bound, and as having utterly missed of the truth, will it not reasonably incur laughter?

[32] ^s ἕτερος μεθ' ἑτέρου is untrue because God and Man is One Christ; the things we are taught regarding the One Christ (see Scholia§36, above p. 228), His being born and calling into being, His growth in wisdom and being the Giver of Wisdom, His hallowing and being hallowed, baptizing and being baptized, quickening and being quickened belong not ἑτέρῳ καὶ ἑτέρῳ, not to one person and another, but to Christ, κατ' ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, in one way and another, the one to Him as God, the other to Him as man, yet all to One.

[33] ^t Compare the fragments cited before the fifth council from S. Cyril's first book against Theodore of Mopsuestia.

[34] ^v ἀπλανῶς. Euthymius Zigabenus in his extract from this treatise has ἁπλῶς, simply, which is a far more usual expression with S. Cyril: ἀπλανῆ however occurs in de recta fide to the Emperor, p. 26 c.

[35] ^x S. Cyril uses the same argument in his Treatise de recta fide to the Princesses Arcadia and Marina, p. 82 b. comp. too Schol. § 20, above p. 209.

[36] ^y See Schol. § 36, and the Treatise de Recta fide to the Emperor Theodosius, p.28e.

[37] ^z "Lo again He says that the spirits above are His angels, albeit He is called son of man." de recta fide to the Princesses, p. 82 c. "We believe that He is both Very God and hath been made son of man economically for our sakes while remaining God, and is One Lord Jesus Christ." de Recta fide to the Empresses, fin. p. 180 b.

[38] ^a The words, For He says----of His Father, are added from the Syriac translation of this treatise. They may have been omitted by the one Greek MS. which has preserved as this treatise and by Euthymius, from the eye of the copyist wandering from one, in the glory of His Father, to the other.

[39] ^b I have followed in this the Syriac translation, it being very much S. Cyril's habit to cite first one verse, and then a verse or two a little preceding it; the Greek MS. here adds, but if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe My works. But it looks like only an attempt to make the citation seem neater.

[40] ^c See Theodoret's objection to chapter 9, where he quotes the same text, in S. Cyril's Def. xii. capp. p. 227 d.