The Christology of Cyril of Alexandria

Abstract

Cyril of Alexandria is best known for his teaching on Christ (Christology). Beginning with the wider soteriological framework for Cyril’s teaching on Christ, this study will first establish the core principles and then move to consider contested and controversial aspects of Cyril’s Christology. By drawing attention to Cyril’s frequent statements that the Incarnate Christ acts both “as man” (as a human being) and “as God”, I will offer support for there being two active natures in Cyril’s view of Christ and will propose that Cyril’s Christ acting “as man” opens the way for recognizing the specific human activity of Christ that is intended as a model for human imitation. The study will conclude with considerations on the wider ecumenical impact of Cyril’s Christological doctrine.

1. Introduction

St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 378–444) is best known for his teaching on Christ (Christology). Because of his defining role in the fifth century Christological controversies, Cyril is uniquely revered as the touchstone of Christological orthodoxy by Christian churches that are not in communion with each other: the Oriental Orthodox communion, the Eastern Orthodox communion, the Roman Catholic communion, and a majority of the churches of the Reformation. Simply put, Cyril’s account of Christ, and specifically of the Incarnation of the Word, continues to serve as the standard for many Christian churches today. Detractors of Cyril, however, have not been lacking, both in his day and throughout history up to our own time. Cyril has served as a lighting-rod for critics who criticize his manner of engaging in theological controversy with Nestorius and who question the consistency and accuracy of his Christological teaching.

In this study, my aim is to locate Cyril’s teaching on Christ within the wider context of soteriology (his teaching on salvation and specifically deification) and then to present the main outlines of his core teaching on Christology by recourse especially to his second and third letters to Nestorius. I will then discuss and evaluate the primary contested aspects of Cyril’s Christology and will argue that his frequent description of Christ acting “as man” (as a human being) and “as God” not only provides support for seeing two active natures in Cyril’s Christ (human and divine) but also opens the way for recognizing the specific human activity of Christ that is intended as a model for human imitation.

2. Background to Cyril

We know little about Cyril’s early years. He was born in Egypt around the year 378, and from the quality of his writings, it appears that he received both the standard rhetorical education of his day and an intensive education in the Scripture and a broad knowledge of early Christian writers who preceded him (Hardy 1982, pp. 116–22; McGuckin 2004, p. 4; Russell 2000, pp. 4–5). The one historical reference to Cyril before his episcopal ordination is noted by Cyril himself (Ep. 33.7), who testifies that he was a bystander at the deposition of John Chrysostom at the Synod of the Oak in 403, presided over by his uncle Theophilus, the powerful archbishop of Alexandria.

Cyril succeeded his uncle Theophilus as bishop of Alexandria in 412. The first years of his episcopal service were marked by controversies that included disputes with Christian sects, conflicts with the Jewish community, and the mob-slaying of the Neoplatonist philosopher, Hypatia. To what extent Cyril was the instigator of these events, or at least a passive supporter, is disputed. Some scholars lay the blame for these conflicts directly at Cyril’s feet (Chadwick 1967, p. 194; Russell 2000, pp. 6–9), while others distance Cyril from a direct role, especially in the slaying of Hypatia (Wessel 2004, pp. 54–57), or minimize Cyril’s role and responsibility for these events and view them as evidence that the young Cyril had not yet exerted clear leadership over the Christian population in Alexandria (Wickham 1983, p. xiii; McGuckin 2004, p. 7).

Through a close analysis of Cyril’s own texts on religious coercion and violence, Matthew Crawford has identified two texts from early in Cyril’s career that could supply a warrant—in a general way—for violence used on behalf of Christ. But he has also identified three further texts, later in Cyril’s career, in which Cyril explicitly rules out violence by Christians in the cases of apostasy, self-defense, or for the sake of conversion. Crawford concludes that “these passages, therefore, complicate Cyril’s endorsement of violence presented by our other ancient sources, since, whatever his perspective on religious violence may have been at the time of Hypatia’s death, by the time he composed his later works he was issuing injunctions against such actions” (Crawford 2023, pp. 18–19).

Whatever judgment one reaches on Cyril’s responsibility for these early crises, no one doubts that Cyril was politically capable and able to exert his influence effectively in times of dispute. The portrait of Cyril as the consummate schemer, however, whose only aim was to advance his own power and that of the church in Alexandria is unpersuasive. He appears to have been genuinely concerned for the truth of the gospel and the promotion of the church (as was Nestorius). And the enormous effort Cyril expended over his entire career to provide a commentary on nearly the whole of the Bible for his leaders and people calls into question the portrait of Cyril as merely a church politician.

We hear little of Cyril from the time of the early controversies (412–15) until the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy. This conflict began in 428–429 as a local dispute in Constantinople between the newly elected bishop, Nestorius, and a set of clerics, monks, and members of the royal family. Upon hearing of the conflict, Cyril intervened by letter from Alexandria. The sharp exchange of letters between Cyril and Nestorius quickly escalated into an empire-wide controversy involving the great centers of the ancient Christian world: Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch, Rome, and Jerusalem. The clash between Cyril and Nestorius culminated in the Council of Ephesus in the summer of 431. The final outcome of this complex event, involving two rival councils and extensive negotiation, was the deposition of Nestorius and the approval of the council presided over by Cyril that upheld Mary as Theotokos (“God-bearer”). A fragile reconciliation of the two parties (Cyril and the Antiochenes) only occurred two years later with Cyril’s signing of the Formula of Reunion (Ep. 39, to John of Antioch), a carefully worded statement of Antiochene origin that acknowledged Mary as Theotokos, but also spoke of two natures in Christ after the union (Russell 2000, pp. 31–56; McGuckin 2004, pp. 20–107).

Cyril’s activity from the Nestorian controversy to the end of his life was largely concerned with clarifying to his own theological allies his signing of the accord with the Antiochenes and with further explaining and defending his doctrine of Christ. Cyril died on 27 June, 444, beloved by many but reviled by others. The date of Cyril’s death (June 27) serves as his feast day in the Roman calendar; the Eastern Christian Tradition celebrates the feast of Cyril along with his predecessor Athanasius on 18 January.

3. Influences and Texts

3.1. Influences

The primary influence for Cyril of Alexandria’s Christology is the sacred Scripture, Old and New Testaments, read through the lens of Cyril’s understanding of the Creed of Nicaea (from the Council of Nicaea, 325). Cyril’s biblical exegesis is distinctly Christocentric from beginning to end; he reads the entire narrative of Scripture as pointing to Christ (De Margerie 1993; Wilken 1995). According to Matthew Crawford, “it is the Trinitarian structure and Christological focus of his overall theological vision that gives decisive shape to his understanding of exegesis” (Crawford 2014, p. 183). Two primary texts—Jn 1:14 and Phil 2:5-11—played an especially central role in Cyril’s understanding of the Incarnation, while a single verse from Paul (2 Cor 8:9) captured the deificatory exchange that the Incarnation brought about, and a verse from 1 Pet 2:4 illumined the goal of the Incarnation, namely participation in the very life of God.

Cyril also returns again and again to the words of the Creed of 325 when describing his teaching. Mark Smith has shown how central the interpretation of the Creed was for both Nestorius and Cyril. Nestorius argued precisely from the grammar of the Creed that it was “the Lord Jesus Christ” and not specifically “the eternal Son and Word” who was the subject of the Creeds statements. In response, Cyril developed an interpretation of the Creed based more on the overall “aim” (skopos) of the Creed and gathered a set of witnesses from Christian teachers to support his reading against that of Nestorius (Smith 2018, pp. 35–87). In Cyril’s view, a proper and accurate reading of both the Scripture and the Creed were sufficient for recognizing and expressing the single-subject Christology that he espoused, but Nestorius too claimed the same authorities for his reading of Christ.

Cyril also makes regular reference to Christian teachers who came before him to support his claims. For Cyril, these “Fathers” were preeminently those who promulgated the Creed in 325 but also included other prominent teachers up to his own time. The figure of Athanasius stands out as the primary authority among them; Cyril appeals to Athanasius time and again as evidence for the truth of his teaching. From Athanasius, Cyril received his characteristic approach to the interpretation of Scripture, to the doctrine of the Trinity, to the person of Christ, and to the goal of salvation, that is, the full sanctification and deification of the believer (see Boulnois 1994, 2003). But recent scholarship has demonstrated that Cyril also drew upon the teaching of the Cappadocian Fathers, especially Gregory of Nazianzus, for his understanding of the Incarnate Word as both human and divine (see Beeley 2009, pp. 381–419). Building upon those who came before him, Cyril expressed—in the heat of fierce controversy—his understanding of the person of Christ, earning for himself the title “The Seal of the Fathers” for his contribution to the doctrine of Christ. The title “Seal of the Fathers” is traced back to St. Anastasius of Sinai (seventh century) and became a standard moniker for Cyril thereafter in much of the Christian tradition.

3.2. Texts

Cyril’s primary Christological texts need to be viewed within the context of his wider corpus, one of the largest among the church Fathers. Cyril’s extant written works occupy ten volumes of the Patrologia Graeca (vols. 68–77), seven of which contain biblical commentary alone (Keating 2016, pp. 49–52). Cyril’s pre-Nestorian writings, which include two lengthy treatises and the monumental commentary on the Gospel of John, focus on the doctrine of the Trinity. It is here that Cyril worked out his understanding of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and the trinitarian missions in the world. This biblically informed understanding of the Trinity and of the divine economy of the Son and Spirit provided the foundation for the torrent of Christological writings that Cyril composed between 429 and c. 440.

In the first phase of the Nestorian controversy, Cyril produced several key texts that laid out his overall approach to the questions surrounding Christ as both divine and human. These include his Letter to the Monks of Egypt (Ep. 1), written in early 429, and a longer work, the Five Tomes Against Nestorius, composed in the following year. But the most significant Christological statements Cyril made are his Second Letter to Nestorius (Feb. 430) and his Third Letter to Nestorius (Nov. 430). These two letters contain Cyril’s argument in condensed form and were approved as “canonical letters” by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. We will look at the contents of the two canonical letters more closely below.

Both before and after the Council of Ephesus, Cyril continued to pour forth more than twenty letters and treatises on the person of Christ, rehearsing his arguments and responding to the counter-arguments of his opponents. Among the most significant of these are his letters to John of Antioch (Ep. 39), to Eulogius (Ep. 44), and two letters to Succensus (Ep. 45, 46), all written after the Council of Ephesus, and what is perhaps his last Christological treatise, On the Unity of Christ (late 430s) (Van Loon 2009, p. 262).

4. The Christological Teaching of Cyril of Alexandria

Treatments of Christology often focus on terminology (nature, person, substance, etc.) and engage the question of Christ’s divine-human constitution through analyses of technical definitions and distinctions (see for example Van Loon 2009, pp. 200–2). For Cyril, terms and concepts were important and he made use of key terms to express the doctrine of Christ. But if our aim is to grasp Cyril’s fundamental teaching on Christ, it is a mistake to focus first on terms and concepts. In an important sense, terms are secondary for Cyril, and he showed himself somewhat flexible in what terms can be used to adequately account for the Incarnation of the Word. For Cyril, “the words were less important than the essential theological truth they were attempting to enshrine. Like Athanasius, Cyril was ready enough to be flexible on terms if and when he felt that his basic point had been secured” (McGuckin 2004, p. 175).

What is primary for Cyril is a true understanding of God (the Trinity) and a clear grasp of God’s saving plan for the world, captured only through a narrative that begins with Adam, takes up the place of Abraham, Moses and others, and reaches its culmination in the coming of the Word into the world through the Incarnation. And so we will begin with this biblical narrative of the Word and the Spirit in order to grasp Cyril’s fundamental intuition and conviction about the person of Christ.

5. The Incarnation in the Context of the Narrative of Salvation

When treating the topic of Christology in Cyril, attention must be paid to the soteriological context. According to Bernard Meunier, “the question of salvation is omnipresent” across Cyril’s various works. It is more than a favorite theme: it is “a general orientation” and “a framework of thought” for Cyril (Meunier 1997, p. 2). John McGuckin says that “Cyril, from start to finish, envisaged the incarnation as a dynamic soteriological event”, and argues that “Cyril’s overriding vision of the purpose of the entire Incarnation” is “the redemptive deification of mankind” (McGuckin 2004, pp. 195, 222; see also Münch-Labacher 1996, pp. 184–88). Cyril not only has the general question of salvation typically in view but he frequently makes use of short biblically based narratives of salvation to convey this narrative arc, within which the Incarnation and the redemptive death and resurrection of Christ find their place.

As one example, Cyril himself supplies this Christologically centered narrative of salvation in his extended commentary on a single verse from John’s Gospel, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (Jn 14:20). Knowing that he is inadequate to the task, Cyril nonetheless calls himself and his readers to consider the Word’s Incarnation: “Let us now examine the goal of the incarnation [ἐνανθρώπησις] of the Only Begotten” (Cyril of Alexandria 2015, p. 185). Making use of Phil 2:5–10, Eph 1:10, Rom 8:3–4, and Heb 2:14, Cyril sums up the scriptural teaching on why the Word became flesh, with echoes from the Creed of Nicaea:

The Only begotten, though he was God from God by nature, became a human being [ἄνθρωπος] for these reasons: to condemn sin in the flesh, to kill death by his own death, and to make us children of God, giving new birth in the Spirit to those on earth, thus elevating them to a dignity beyond their nature.

(Cyril of Alexandria 2015, p. 186)

At this point, Cyril makes his characteristic move: he goes back to the story of Adam in order to explain why the Word became flesh. Drawing on Paul’s reference to the “image of the man of dust” contrasted with the “image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:49), Cyril recounts how God made Adam in his own image and likeness, and how he breathed into him the Holy Spirit (Gen 2:7), thus making Adam a partaker of the divine nature. But Adam, possessing free will, turned away from God and fell. It was for this reason that the Word became flesh, to restore to Adam and all his descendants (the entire human race) to this participation in God lost in the fall. In a theologically dense text grounded in the trinitarian missions, Cyril describes the event of the Incarnation and its goal:

There was no other way for humanity, being of a perishable nature, to escape death except to be returned to that original grace and to participate once again in God, who holds all things in existence and who gives life through the Son in the Spirit. So he came to share in flesh and blood [Heb 2:14], that is, he became a human being [ἄνθρωπος], even though the only begotten Word of the Father is life by nature and is begotten of him who is life by nature, that is, God the Father. He did this so that by ineffably and indescribably uniting himself to the flesh that was perishing … he might raise it to his own life and make it a partaker of God the Father through himself. He is the “mediator between God and humanity”, as it is written [1 Tim 2:5].

(Cyril of Alexandria 2015, p. 188)

For Cyril, the Word is God by nature and so is “by nature” joined to the Father, but crucially, the Word “likewise has us in himself in that he bore our nature, and our body is called the body of the Word”. Quoting Jn 1:14, “The Word became flesh”, Cyril concludes his explanation of the Incarnation with this summary:

He bore our nature and thus fashioned it in conformity with his life. And he himself is in us, since we have all become partakers in him, and we have him in ourselves through the Spirit. Therefore, we have become partakers in the divine nature [2 Pet 1:4] and we are called children, since we have the Father himself in us through the Son.

(Cyril of Alexandria 2015, p. 188)

Cyril’s treatment of the purposes of the Incarnation reveals a great deal about his understanding of the doctrine of Christ. First, the entire divine economy is pointed directly to Christ and the Incarnation is the supreme act in this narrative. Second, Cyril sees the twofold quality of Christ as central to his mediatorial role: he is fully and completely God, life from life, God from God, but he is equally one with us in his humanity because he “bore our nature” in order to return it to participation in the life of God. Both aspects of Christ—his divinity and his humanity—are crucial for the accomplishment of salvation. Third, the Holy Spirit is central to Cyril’s understanding of the purpose of the Incarnation. For Cyril, the gift of the indwelling Spirit was part of God’s original gift to Adam; a central goal of Christ’s work is to return the Spirit to the human race. This is signaled by Christ’s baptism when he receives the Spirit for us all, providing a secure place for its dwelling in the human race. Fourth, the mystery of the Incarnation for Cyril is that the Word has become flesh—that is become a full human being—so that “as man” he may redeem and renew our nature in himself. That is to say, deification is the ultimate aim of the Incarnation, a truth captured for Cyril especially by the promise that in Christ we have become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4).

6. Cyril’s Core Christological Teaching

With the wider biblical narrative in view, we now turn to Cyril’s core Christological convictions, found in condensed form in his second and third letters to Nestorius. Cyril’s longer treatises on the doctrine of Christ fill out this core teaching and offer extended responses to objections, but his principal convictions are most clearly expressed in these two letters.

In his Second Letter to Nestorius, Cyril begins his treatment by establishing from the Creed of Nicaea that it was the Only Begotten Son himself, “true God from true God”, who “came down, was made flesh, was made man, suffered, rose again on the third day, and ascended into the heavens” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004a, p. 263). But, Cyril asks, what does this mean? First, it means that the divine nature of the Word was not changed into flesh, nor was the Word transformed into a man made of soul and body. Rather, “the Word, in an ineffable and incomprehensible manner, ineffably united to himself flesh animated with a rational soul, and thus became man and was called the Son of Man”. Counter to the teaching of Nestorius (and of Theodore of Mopsuestia before him), Cyril maintains that this “union” was not accomplished “only as a matter of will, or favour, or by the assumption of a single prosopon” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004a, p. 263). Instead, the natures that were united remain distinct, but there is just one Christ and Son from both

Cyril then goes on to describe the double “birth” of the Word. The very same one who was begotten from the Father eternally was also begotten in time in the Virgin’s womb. In a phrase that we will examine more closely below, Cyril says that in the Incarnation, the Word “hypostatically [καθ’ ὑπόστασιν] united human reality to himself ” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004a, p. 264). Cyril insists that the Word did not descend upon a previously existing human being but joined flesh to himself in the Virgin’s womb and was born as a human being.

Cyril then goes on to state the paradox at the heart of the Incarnation. Christ, who is the Word made flesh, suffered and rose again, but he did so not in his divine nature but in the body that he genuinely assumed: “The Impassible One was in the suffering body” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004a, p. 264). Cyril fully accepts the view that the eternal Word is immortal and incorruptible in his divine nature, but the Word became a mortal human being so that he could suffer for our sake in his assumed humanity.

Finally, Cyril concludes: the faith of the Church is that “we confess One Christ and Lord” in the Incarnation. There is no division in Christ, no “man” alongside the “Word” or “two sons” that share a common glory. Cyril once again insists that Christians must uphold “the hypostatic union” [καθ’ ὑπόστασιν ἕνωσιν] in order to hold the right understanding of the Word incarnate, and so “must not divide the One Lord Jesus Christ into two sons”. The teaching of the Scripture is that the divine Word himself became flesh (Jn 1:14), that he “came forth as man from a woman”, while remaining what he always was. This is why, Cyril insists, the Christian tradition rightly calls Mary Theotokos (“God-bearer” or “Mother of God”) because she gave human birth to the divine Son (Cyril of Alexandria 2004a, pp. 264–65). As Norman Russell observes, “that is why the Theotokos was so important. In a single word it encapsulates the entire plan of salvation” (Russell 2000, p. 44).

What, then, are the core elements of Cyril’s understanding of the Incarnation as expressed in his Second Letter to Nestorius? First and most importantly, Cyril insists on a single agent—the divine Word—who is the one and only subject of the Incarnation. Cyril’s model is commonly termed a “single-subject Christology”. For Cyril, the eternal Word is the very same one who became flesh—became a human being—and so there is a strict identity between “Christ” and “the Word”. Christ is none other than the “Word made flesh”. Any hint of there being two sons or two agents in Christ must be rejected. A. Grillmeier recognizes in Cyril’s emphasis on the single subject in Christ the “deepest expression of Christ that Greek theology was able to offer” (Grillmeier 1975, p. 476).

Second, Cyril maintains that in becoming flesh, the Word assumed our full humanity, inclusive of a rational soul. By this language, Cyril is rejecting the teaching of Apollinarius who maintained that the divine Word took the place of the rational soul in Christ. Cyril rejects this compositional view of Christ, though his opponents will continue to charge him with holding an Apollinarian view of Christ (Welch 1994, p. 41).

Third, Cyril insists that, in the Incarnation, the Word does not cast off his divine nature (if such a thing were possible) or change into a human being. In the event of the Incarnation, the Word remains what he always was (fully God with all the divine attributes), but has now taken on human weakness and limitation by becoming man. The natures, though united, are not changed or mixed together, Cyril maintains, but the one Christ possesses both a full divinity and a full humanity. Grillmeier acknowledges that Cyril expressed “not only the unity of person but also the distinction of the natures”, and so “it is clear that Cyril in fact transfers the unity in Christ into the ‘personal’ realm while ascribing a duality to the natures” (Grillmeier 1975, p. 482). The consequence of this is that the unchangeable Word of God, by virtue of becoming a human being, can now suffer in the humanity he assumed for human salvation. Cyril insists that it is really and truly God the Word who suffered and died for us, but he did so not in his divine nature but in the humanity he obtained from the Virgin. This, for Cyril, is the mystery and wonder of the Incarnation: that God the Son lowered himself to take our weak nature, in order to suffer and die for us, and to transform our nature so that once again it might partake of the divine life.

What does Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius, written approximately nine months after the second letter, add to this picture of Christ? In content, this third epistle is mostly a rehearsal of the second, but it comes with fuller scriptural citation and with greater explanation surrounding the basic truths. Once again, Cyril makes use of his patent phrase καθ’ ὑπόστασιν five times to describe the union between the eternal Word and his flesh (humanity). Emboldened by Pope Celestine’s condemnation of Nestorius in a Roman synod (August of 430), Cyril takes an authoritative tone, demanding in twelve anathemas that were appended to the letter that Nestorius renounce his errors or else face the consequence of losing his episcopal position.

The first noteworthy addition found in the Third Letter to Nestorius is Cyril’s explicit rejection of a union based on an indwelling model. Nestorius (and Theodore before him) typically made use of “indwelling” language to depict the Incarnation. Cyril rejects this, arguing that the model of indwelling by which the Spirit of God comes to dwell in us is inadequate for describing the union of the Word and his own flesh. Connected to this, Cyril rejects the idea that Christ was a “God-bearing man”. This is precisely what Christians are. Christ, however, is not a man who possessed a special indwelling of God; rather, Christ is the very divine Word of God who assumed our full humanity. This rejection of the indwelling model will appear time and again in Cyril’s subsequent writings. For Cyril, this model demonstrates the inherent flaw in Nestorius’s Christology because it presents the Incarnation as a special instance of indwelling which, in Cyril’s eyes, is entirely inadequate to the mystery of the Word becoming flesh.

Second, Cyril rejects the key term “conjunction” (συνάφεια) used by both Nestorius and Theodore to describe the union between the Word of God and his humanity. For Cyril, the notion of conjunction implies that there are two distinct actors or agents in Christ; it does not bring about the full union that the Scriptures describe. “Whoever says such things again makes a division into two Christs, and posits a man distinctly separate, and a God likewise” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004b, p. 270).

Third, Cyril makes explicit reference to the Eucharist in letter three, showing how the Church’s belief in the life-giving body and blood of Christ requires that we recognize the elements as truly the body of blood of the Word made flesh, not those of a mere man in whom the Word specially dwells. “We receive it as truly the lifegiving and very-flesh of the Word himself. As God he is by nature life and since he became one with his own flesh he revealed it as life-giving” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004b, p, 270). This appeal to the Eucharist will become a core element in Cyril’s rejection of Nestorius’s teaching about Christ (for Cyril on the Eucharist, see Welch 1994; Boulnois 2000; Keating 2001).

Finally, Cyril argues that all the sayings of Christ in the Gospels are spoken by one person (one prosopon and one hypostasis). It is not the case that “the Word” speaks the divine sayings while “the man” speaks the human ones, but it is the Word made flesh who is the speaker of all the sayings, both human and divine. “This is why all the sayings in the Gospels are to be attributed to one prosopon, and to the one enfleshed hypostasis of the Word” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004b, p. 271). For Cyril, the one Christ—who is the Word made flesh—can speak both “as God” and “as man”, because he is truly both God and man at once. As Cyril says in the second anathema: “If anyone does not confess that the Word of God the Father was hypostatically [καθ’ ὑπόστασιν] united to the flesh so as to be One Christ with his own flesh, that is the same one at once God and man, let him be anathema” (Cyril of Alexandria 2004b, p. 273).

7. Two Models or One? The Narrative and Compositional Models in Cyril

The Christological model that I have been describing, grounded in a narrative reading of Jn 1:14 and Phil 2:5-10, was identified by Richard Norris as Cyril’s primary conceptual model of the Incarnation. Norris describes this as a “quasi-narrative” model that makes use of a “subject-attribute” logic whereby the eternal Word who is God empties himself and takes on our full humanity with all its conditions (excepting sin). But Norris also identifies what he calls a “compositional model” whereby Christ is depicted as the union or coming together of two natures, divine and human, to produce the one Christ. In Norris’ view, this second model is subordinate to the first model, even if not always fully integrated with it (Norris 1975, pp. 258–65). More recent commentators are in agreement that the “narrative-linguistic” model is primary for Cyril, but conclude that Cyril’s so-called “compositional” model is in service to the main narrative model and is not a distinct model on its own. Thomas Weinandy argues that Cyril has two different manners of speaking about the Incarnation to undergird two distinct truths (who the one Christ is and what the one Christ is), but that these should not be viewed as separate models (Weinandy 2002, p. 40).

Cyril most commonly employs the soul-body analogy to illustrate how two distinct elements that remain distinct in the individual human being nonetheless come together to produce what he calls, in his later writings, the “one nature of the Word Incarnate”. In this model, body and soul are fully united in one person yet remain distinct in their “natures”. So it is with the Incarnate Christ: he is both God and a human being at once, and in this sense, Cyril’s compositional model, built on the narrative model, shows how the union of divinity and humanity occur without change or loss of either one. Cyril also employs a wide array of other images and metaphors to communicate this same truth: how two elements that are and remain distinct yield one “thing” or “entity”. Among these images are: (1) the burning coal (Is 6); (2) the flower and its scent (Song 2:1); (3) the ark of the covenant covered in gold; (4) the two birds of Lev 14 (one that lives, the other that is sacrificed); (5) the rod of Moses (wood and snake); and (6) the brazen serpent (Num 21) (Wickham 1982, pp. 41–53; McKinion 2000). At the heart of all these images is the notion of a true union of disparate elements that remain distinct even in the midst of their union. Thomas Weinandy argues that the soul-body image—and all the others employed by Cyril—should not be understood as “models” for the Incarnation but simply as “analogies” that illustrate one simple point, namely how two elements in the natural world can come together into a true union while remaining distinct (Weinandy 2002, p. 36).

Why is the question of models significant? Because the “compositional” model tends to be interpreted in terms of the two natures coming together to produce the person of Christ. For Cyril, the person of the Word, now incarnate, always remains the single subject. But the compositional model represents his attempt to show how the two disparate and unequal elements (divinity and humanity) come together in a true union, such that the Word is now both God and man at once. Cyril’s primary narrative model, drawn from the logic of New Testament texts, shows that the person of Christ is already and always in existence—this is the eternal Son and Word of God—and he actively takes to himself a human nature, thus joining human qualities and attributes to his “person”, not to the divine nature as such. Cyril was convinced that the Scriptures made eminently clear that the “Christ” is the very same person (prosopon or hypostasis) as the Word, but now enfleshed: he has become anthropos. The compositional model, then, describes how the humanity and the divinity can be united in the one Christ without change or separation. Cyril is insistent that in the union achieved in the Incarnation, the two distinct natures are not erased or blended. Rather, they are united into a true union while each one remains what it is. The consequence of this is that the one Christ—the Word incarnate—is the subject of both divine and human properties and activities.

This is why the “communication of attributes” (communicatio idiomatum) is so important for Cyril. Weinandy concludes that “the communication of idioms is precisely the hermeneutical key for unlocking Cyril’s Christology” (Weinandy 2002, p. 31). It is because the eternal divine Word has genuinely become a human being that we must ascribe to the “person” of Christ both sets of attributes, divine and human.

8. The Meaning of “Union According to Hypostasis”

Cyril of Alexandria is perhaps best known for coining the phrase “hypostatic union” (ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν). For Cyril, the union accomplished in the Incarnation was (literally) “according to hypostasis” (καθ’ ὑπόστασιν). The term καθ’ ὑπόστασιν appears four times in Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, five times in his Third Letter to Nestorius, and a further eight times in his Five Tomes Against Nestorius. Cyril ceased using the term in the later part of the controversy because of Theodoret’s criticism that the term was an innovation (Van Loon 2009, p. 522). But what did Cyril mean by this phrase?

There is a spectrum of positions concerning Cyril’s intended meaning of kath’ hypostasin. On one side, Lionel Wickham admits that Cyril invented the phrase but judges that “it was not for him a technical term and he dropped it quickly”. Wickham consistently translates ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν as “substantial union”, avoiding any sense of a technical meaning connected to the “hypostasis” of the divine Word. For Wickham, Cyril is not using the term “hypostasis” to describe the person of the Word but simply asserting a strong form of union that has “reality”, in contrast to the weak idea of “conjunction” proposed by Nestorius (Wickham 1983, p. xxxiv).

On the other side, a majority of scholars conclude that by the phrase ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν, Cyril is intentionally identifying the divine “hypostasis” of the Word as the single subject of the union in the Incarnation (Norris 1980, p. 28; Young 2010, p. 317; Russell 2000, pp. 42–43). According to Thomas Weinandy, “Because the incarnational ‘becoming’ is καθ’ ὑπόστασιν, according to the person, it can actually be said then that the person of the Son of God is truly born, grieves, suffers and dies” (Weinandy 2002, p. 47). For John McGuckin, the term “hypostatic union” means that “the Logos is the sole personal subject of all the conditions of his existence, divine or human” (McGuckin 1998, p. 47), and that “the whole point of the Incarnation was that Christ’s humanity was individual, and concrete, and real in the fullest possible sense, precisely because it was hypostasized by the Logos himself” (McGuckin 2004, p. 216). Cyril himself gives support to this understanding of the term, ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν. Writing against Theodoret in defense of his twelve anathemas, Cyril says that this term ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν simply conveys that “the Word’s nature [physis], that is, his concrete existence [hypostasis], which is the Word himself, was genuinely united to a human nature” (Cyril of Alexandria 2014, p. 93).

Hans Van Loon concludes that in Cyril’s usage, the phrase ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν identifies a really existing union that results in one separate reality, but contrary to Wickham, he believes that this phrase became Cyril’s own most prized manner of describing the union with Christ (Van Loon 2009, pp. 329, 373). Van Loon reckons that the term ἕνωσις καθ’ ὑπόστασιν signifies a real, substantial union, but he maintains that Cyril has not yet achieved the idea of a “metaphysical person”, that is, one who is the bearer and wielder of the two natures at a distinct and different ontological level (Van Loon 2009, pp. 219–20). He thinks that Cyril simply has in view the idea that there is one reality in Christ, but without the notion of the hypostasis of the Word being the bearer and wielder of his two distinct natures (divinity and humanity).

But it seems that Cyril does conceive of the hypostasis of the eternal divine Son as the bearer and wielder of both his divinity and his humanity. As Van Loon himself observes, Cyril commonly says that the Word does not suffer in his own (divine) nature but in the humanity that he assumed (Van Loon 2009, pp. 547, 566). But if the divine Word can suffer in his assumed humanity, then he would seem to be the bearer and agent of that humanity, even though remaining divine by nature as well. Because Christ is the very Word of God enfleshed, he is both fully God and man at once and he possesses and wields both the human and divine attributes that are properly his own.

9. The Meaning of “One Incarnate Nature of the Word Made Flesh”

The most controversial aspect of Cyril’s Christological teaching is the meaning of the phrase, “one incarnate nature of the Word”. Cyril uses two slightly different formulations. The more common is “one incarnate nature of the Word”, but he also employs “one nature of the Incarnate Word” (Weinandy 2002, p. 39; Edwards 2015, p. 289). Cyril believed that this phrase originated with Athanasius, but in fact it came from the writings of Apollinarius. It only appeared in Cyril’s writings after the beginning of the conflict with Nestorius. The reference to the “one nature” of the Word incarnate appears three times in the period leading up to the Council of Ephesus (429–431), but two of these are simply the quotation that Cyril supposed was from Athanasius. It was following the reunion with the Antiochenes in 433 that Cyril began to use this phrase more commonly, but even then it appears in just four letters to his theological allies, where he defends the phrase against false interpretations (Ep. 40.14; 44.2, 5; 45.6; 46.2, 3, 4), and once in his final Christological treatise, On the Unity of Christ (Cyril of Alexandria 1995, p. 77; see Van Loon 2009, pp. 518–30 for a commentary on each text where this phrase occurs in Cyril’s corpus). From Cyril’s day until ours, people have puzzled over the meaning of this phrase. The questions remain: What does Cyril mean by this phrase? Was this expression a key part of Cyril’s own teaching, or did he make use of it because others were citing it and he needed to make sense of it?

In his own day, Cyril’s confession of “one incarnate nature of the Word” was judged as unorthodox by his opponents. Nestorius charged Cyril with teaching a fusion of the two natures (humanity and divinity) to produce a third “nature” that was neither divine nor human. But few scholars today believe that Cyril understood this phrase in an Apollinarian sense. In the view of Grillmeier, Cyril’s use of the “one nature” formula “can be acquitted of all suspicion of an Apollinarian, Monophysite tendency” (Grillmeier 1975, p. 475). Cyril’s repeated confession that Christ possessed a full humanity, consubstantial with us, and full divinity, consubstantial with the Father, demonstrates that after the union of the Word and the flesh, Christ was and remained fully God and fully a human being. Cyril repeatedly insists that Christ possessed a full humanity and full divinity and rejected the Christological theories of Apollinarius explicitly (for Cyril’s confession of Christ’s double consubstantiality, divine and human, see Against Nestorius, 3.3; On Orthodoxy to Theodosius, 24; Letter 39 to John of Antioch, 5).

There are two predominant interpretations of what Cyril meant by “one incarnate nature of the Word made flesh”. The first and more common reading interprets the term “nature” to mean “entity” or “reality”. On this reading, Cyril’s primary point is that the Incarnate Word, though fully divine and human, is one person or entity, not two. The fact that Cyril almost always advances the soul-body analogy to explain this phrase seems to confirm that Cyril understands “one nature” here as “entity”: Christ is one entity (not two) who possesses two united but distinguishable elements. In the case of human nature, those two elements are body and soul; in the case of the Incarnate Word, the two elements are divinity and humanity. According to Weinandy, for Cyril “the divinity and humanity are united in the one person so as to form the one nature of Jesus in the sense of one entity (not quiddity), similar to the way the soul and body form the one entity of a human being”. (Weinandy 2002, p. 35; see Young 2010, p. 40).

Hans Van Loon supports Weinandy’s reading of “one nature” to mean something like “one entity” or “separate reality. He concludes that no single term can capture what Cyril means by “nature” in the one-nature formula, and instead sums up the meaning in a phrase: “a separate reality which is the composition of two individual natures” (Van Loon 2009, p. 390). He treats this phrase in Cyril’s writings as an anomaly because it was not Cyril’s own expression but was borrowed from another source. In contrast to this, Weinandy thinks that the “one-nature” phrase, though easily misunderstood, embodies the primary truths of the Incarnation for Cyril (Weinandy 2002, p. 40).

Mark Edwards offers an alternate interpretation of “one incarnate nature of the Word” in Cyril’s thought. Edwards maintains that for Cyril, Christ’s true nature is the divine one, and in this phrase, “nature” refers specifically to the divinity of the Word. In Edwards’ reading, Cyril regularly speaks of Christ assuming a full humanity—and even assuming our human nature—but he never describes human nature as the Word’s own. The one nature of the Word, then, is his divine nature, now truly enfleshed through the event of the Incarnation. John Henry Newman, in his day, offered a similar interpretation of this Cyrilline phrase (Newman 1902, pp. 329–82).

Both interpretations of Cyril’s famous phrase are plausible but neither is fully satisfactory. I am inclined towards the first interpretation mainly because Cyril himself attaches the soul-body analogy to the phrase, indicating that the term “one” (in “one nature”) refers to the one entity that has two conjoined parts, not to one of those parts (the divinity).

Here, it may be helpful to note that Cyril did on occasion use the term “nature” to refer to Christ’s humanity, as he did in his Third Letter to Nestorius (Ep. 17.6): “Nevertheless we bear in mind the fact that along with he being God he was made man subject to God in accordance with law belonging to man’s nature [τῇ τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος φύσει]” (Wickham 1983, p. 21; see Van Loon 2009, p. 556, for further examples). Still, Cyril did not typically speak in this way to describe the humanity of the Incarnate Word. He allowed that—understood rightly—this was fully appropriate language, but the specter of Nestorianism led him (and his followers) to be cautious in using “two nature” language (Meunier 1997, p. 280). It carried for them overtones of “two subjects” or “two sons”. Cyril himself explains his position:

The God-inspired Scripture tells us that [Christ] suffered in the flesh (1 Pet 4:1) and it would be better for us to speak this way rather than [say he suffered] in the nature of the manhood, even though such a statement … does not damage the sense of the mystery. For what else is the nature of manhood except the flesh with a rational soul?

(Cyril of Alexandria 2004c, p. 363)

10. Christ Speaking and Acting Distinctively “as God” and “as Man

Here, I would like to draw attention to—and suggest the importance of—a pattern identified above, namely that Cyril consistently describes Christ speaking and acting either “as man” (ὡς ἄνθρωπος or καθὸ ἄνθρωπος) or “as God” (ὡς θεός or καθὸ θεός), using, on occasion, other paired terms to describe the same reality: “divinely” (θεϊκῶς) and “humanly” (ἀνθρωπίνως); “fitting to God” (θεοπρεπεῖς) and “fitting to humanity” (ἀνθρωποπρεπεῖς). These neatly balanced adverbial expressions perfectly express Cyril’s conception of Christ (see Keating 2010, pp. 53–58). There is one agent, the Incarnate Word of God, who is both God and man at once. But this single subject speaks and acts in two distinct ways. He does so “as God” or “as man”, as “divinely” or “humanly”. Cyril also acknowledges an intermediate position in which Christ speaks in a way that reflects both aspects, the divine and human, at once (Ep. 40.16; Cyril of Alexandria 1983, p. 53). In other words, because for Cyril Christ is both God and man, then fittingly he speaks and acts in both identities. And the fact that he speaks and acts both “divinely” at some points and “humanly” at others actively manifests his dual identity: he is consubstantial with the Father as God and consubstantial with human beings in his assumed humanity.

This manner of describing Christ’s actions as divine and human was not a reaction to the Nestorian controversy or a concession to criticism. Cyril employs this way of speaking in his earliest writings, with a special concentration in the pre-Nestorian trinitarian works, but also actively after the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy. What Cyril ardently denies is that the sayings in the Gospels be distributed to two distinct “persons”—and he believes this is just what Nestorius is doing. Rather, he maintains the single “person” in Christ but positively makes use of the distinction of sayings adverbially. A few selections from across his works will show this pattern.

In the Thesaurus, usually dated to between 423–428, Cyril offers a simple statement of this distinction unique to the Word made flesh: “Therefore he receives by grace as man (ὡς ἄνθρωπος) that which he has by nature as God (ὡς θεός)”. In the same passage, Cyril elaborates this distinction more fully:

The Word of God is ever highest, insofar as he is God (καθὸ θεός), but he is exalted as man (ὡς ἄνθρωπος); he is in need of nothing as God (ὡς θεός), he is said to receive as man; he was worshiped by all as God, now he receives worship as man…. Though being immortal as God, he is said to die as man. Being highest as God, he is said to be raised up as man.

(Thesaurus, PG 75, 332cd)

In his Commentary on John, often dated to 425–428, Cyril frequently employs this distinction, showing in the following selection from John 3:35 how the Son receives from the Father “as man” what he always possesses “as God”. The reference to Phil. 2:7 will prove to be important for how Cyril conceives of these two activities of the incarnate Word.

You see how the Son is said to receive rule from the Father…. After all, he humbled himself, as it is written, being found in appearance as a man [ὡς ἄνθρωπος] for our sakes [Phil 2:7–8], so that when he was first restored to his rule, he might be made a beginning for us and a glorious way into his kingdom…. Therefore, when the son clearly receives as man [ὡς ἄνθρωπος] what he already had as God [ὡς θεός], let us not at all be offended, but let us bring to mind the way of the oikonomia that is for us and in our place”.

(Cyril of Alexandria 2013, p. 115)

Cyril maintained this manner of distinguishing the activities of Christ during and after the Nestorian controversy, as this selection from his late work, On the Unity of Christ, displays: “He says that he was sanctified insofar as he was man (ὡς ἄνθρωπος), but sanctifies insofar as he is understood as God (ὡς θεός)” (Cyril of Alexandria 1995, p. 100).

Cyril’s frequent use of these paired adverbial expressions demonstrates that he considered both Christ’s divinity and humanity as active in the Incarnate Christ. Jesus’ divinity and humanity are not just notions but manifest themselves in action. It should be recognized that these paired adverbial expressions strongly undergird the claim that Cyril upholds two full and active natures in Christ, and this is recognized by scholarship on his Christology (see McGuckin 2004, pp. 219–20; and Van Loon 2009, pp. 549–54). But they represent more than just evidence for two natures in Cyril’s Christ. Cyril appears to draw these characteristic expressions (“as God” and “as man”) from the text of Phil. 2:5–7. The latter, ὡς ἄνθρωπος, is taken directly from the text of Phil 2:7; the former, ὡς θεός, is Cyril’s modification of the phrase “form of God” (Phil 2:6). Cyril frequently cites Phil 2:6–7 when making references to these two paired activities. In a striking way, this shows a profound similarity between Cyril and Leo the Great. Leo is known for advancing the twofold activity of the one Christ according to the two “forma” of Phil 2:5–7 (Ep. 28.4). For Leo, Christ acts both in his forma Dei and his forma servi. Cyril likewise makes use of these two “forms” of the Word but puts them in adverbial form in order to preserve and underline the single subject who operates as both divine and human.

Even more significant is Cyril’s attention here to the proper human activity of Christ as crucial to the accomplishment of the divine purpose (see Keating 2004, pp. 105–43). Cyril is often evaluated as positing a real humanity in Christ in principle, but in fact he is often interpreted as allowing only real activity on the part of the divine Word. Bernard Meunier expresses this reading of Cyril when he concludes that “the action of Christ seems to be fundamentally a divine action, the humanity having only a mediating role” (Meunier 1997, p. 131). But Cyril insists that Christ’s properly human activity, ὡς ἄνθρωπος, is required for the accomplishment of human salvation:

Christ has “conquered” as a human being (ὡς ἄνθρωπος) on our behalf, becoming the beginning and gate and way for human nature in this matter as well. We who long ago fell and were conquered have now overcome and conquered because of him who is one of us and has conquered for us. If he conquered as God (ὡς θεός), that would be of no use to us, but if he conquered as a human being (ὡς ἄνθρωπος), we too have conquered in him.

(On John 16:33, Cyril of Alexandria 2015, pp. 268–69)

For Cyril, Christ’s active humanity not only confirms that he has truly assumed human nature for our sake but also incorporates our humanity into his saving work. For Cyril, we cannot imitate what Jesus does specifically “as God” by his own divine power, but we can receive from and imitate what he does “as man”.

Come, then, let us consider a double path, as it were, of interpreting these statements and discuss how this statement was made both in a human and a God-befitting way. If he said this as a man (ὡς ἄνθρωπος), you should understand it as follows: Christ is our type and source and image of the divine way of life, and he shows us clearly how and in what way we should live.

(On John 17:4–5, Cyril of Alexandria 2015, p. 275)

As Cyril says in a short comment on John 17:14–15, “[Christ] ranks himself with his disciples on account of his human nature (τὸ ἀνθρώπινον). By imitating that nature (since he is understood to be human [ὡς ἄνθρωπος]) we attain every kind of virtue” (Cyril of Alexandria 2015, p. 292).

For Cyril, then, as illustrated by the frequently used paired adverbial expressions, Christ is shown to possess a genuine humanity, enabling Christ to act genuinely in a human manner (and not just divinely through his humanity) and offering to his followers a way through his humanity to be joined to, and raised up with, Christ. This highlights an active role for the human nature assumed in Cyril’s understanding of Christ.

11. The Ongoing Significance of the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria

We began this study of Cyril’s Christology by showing that the narrative of salvation and the goal of deification provide the necessary context for understanding Cyril’s account of Christ. It is appropriate in the conclusion, then, to allow Cyril to speak through one of his latest works, On the Unity of Christ, about the “mystery of Christ” in this wider narrative context.

Indeed the mystery of Christ runs the risk of being disbelieved precisely because it is so incredibly wonderful. For God was in humanity. He who was above all creation was in our human condition; the invisible one was made visible in the flesh; he who was from the heavens and from on high was in the likeness of earthly things; the immaterial one could be touched; he who is free in his own nature came in the form of a slave; he who blesses all creation became accursed; he who is all righteousness was numbered among transgressors; life itself came in the appearance of death. All this followed because the body which tasted death belonged to no other but to him who is the Son by nature.

(Cyril of Alexandria 1995, p. 61)

Cyril’s narrative Christology of the divine kenosis also serves as a reminder that the core Christian conviction is that the trinitarian God has taken the initiative and come down to the human race, not just through a variety of emissaries and messengers, but through the Son who is God himself.

As noted in the Introduction, Cyril’s Christology continues to serve as the standard for the majority of Christian churches today. In a unique way, then, Cyril links together certain churches that are not in communion with each other. By serving as the standard for Christological orthodoxy, Cyril possesses an ecumenical significance as someone who unites disparate groups around a central Christian doctrine. There is an ironic side to this: though in his own day Cyril was often considered a figure of disunity and division, he now serves primarily as a common bond between disparate churches, East and West.