On the Unity of Christ
“There was no other way for the flesh to become life-giving, even though by its own nature it was subject to the necessity of corruption except that it became the very flesh of the Word who gives life to all things” (132)
The primary concern for Cyril is that the life of God, the glory of God can be ontologically communicated to man. He has a repeated concern throughout this work that if the Son of God is made such by “grace” and not by “nature” it can be rejected. For example, an adopted child cannot inherent their adopted parents’ blue eyes. In order for the divine nature to economically act, Jesus must inherently possess divinity and humanity.
Cyril will allude to the Mount of Transfiguration as a display that the Jesus is the Only-begotten Son who inherently possess the glory of God. Here He radiates that glory that is His own. Christ is the Back of God revealing himself to man and the rock in which Moses clings. The heart of the controversy, however, is not whether the Logos and humanity have a union in Christ, but of what sort of union this is.
Cyril insists on the formulation that at the incarnation, God becomes man. The use of “become” is significant. One question we look to resolve is what does Cyril mean by God become Man and how does that differ from what Nestorius allegedly confesses? Cyril will insist that the Word became man without altering the divine nature, rather instead becoming an unmixed composite of the God-man. Nestorius seems to argue that the Holy Ghost conceived a human, and the Logos came down and united to that man. Nestorius would say there can be no nature that is not personified, there are no unparticularized natures. This leads to the accusation that Nestorius confesses Two Son, a Human Son that is Indwelt by the Unbegotten Son.
The more extreme position does not seem to be what Nestorius explicitly articulated, but is a highly probable conclusion. We have a conciliar confession written by Theodoret (sympathizer of Nestorius), sent by John of Antioch to which Cyril approved, and it seems Nestorius had confessed a similar doctrine however Nestorius would frequently press his point of distinction that the Logos was in union with a human person.
“We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and body subsisting; as to his Godhead begotten of the Father before all time, but as to his manhood, born of the virgin Mary in the end of the days for us and for our salvation; of the same essence with the Father as to his Godhead, and of the same substance with us as to his manhood; for two natures are united with one another. Therefore, we confess one Christ, one Lord, one Son. By reason of this union, which yet is without confusion, we also confess that the holy Virgin is mother of God, because God the Logos was made flesh and man, and united with himself the temple even from conception; which temple he took from the Virgin…we know that theologians apply some which refer to the one person to the two natures in common, but separate others as referring to the two natures, and assign the expressions which become God to the Godhead of Christ, but the expressions of humiliation to his manhood.”
The ultimate distinction that Cyril, with the Catholic faith, insisted upon, and Nestorius resisted, was that Jesus Christ is a singular subject. The union of divine and human is possessed by the Logos. This is what Cyril intends by God become man. There was never a purely human subject in Christ. The subject has always been The Word who is God. Thus, we must confess Mary as the Mother of God, God died on the cross, and the blood of Jesus is the blood of God. We can only be saved if God himself has condescended and personally retrieved human nature from entropy by uniting it to His own nature via the person of the Son.
