Hello and welcome to Word Magazine. This is Jeff Riddle, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia. Today is Monday, July the 16th of 2018. I'm trying to get back in the groove of doing these Word Magazines weekly, and it seems like Mondays have been a good day the last few weeks. to either record or to post to sermonaudio.com, my word magazines. In this episode, we are going to be doing a topic from church history, from patristics, and we're going to be looking at a man named Cyril of Alexandria, and I'm going to be reading some excerpts from one of his best-known writings, which is called On the Unity of Christ. And this person, Cyril of Alexandria, is probably lesser known by those of us who are Protestants, but this person had a deep impact. He was highly influential in shaping the early Orthodox views on Christology, the doctrine of Christ. And as I've been preaching through my series on Sunday afternoons in our church through the Confession, When I got to chapter 8 on Christ the Mediator, I spent some time trying to read and study the backgrounds for the Orthodox Protestant views that are expressed there on Christology. And I noted several times when I was preaching through that series that the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith is baptistic. It is also reformed. But it is also Catholic with a small c, Orthodox with a small o, in that it reflects the universal and the Orthodox views that emerged and were identified in the patristic period. And this sent me back to look at this man, Cyril of Alexandria. with whom I was less familiar, but I got a copy of his book on the unity of Christ that is published by St. Vladimir's Press in their popular patristic series. And I also read Philip Jenkins' book called Jesus Wars, subtitled How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors decided what Christians would believe for the next 1,500 years. I don't really like that subtitle of that book, but Jenkins does do a nice job in surveying the early Christological controversies and spends some time talking about Cyril of Alexandria. So let's first of all just look at the life of Cyril. Cyril lived from 378 to 444. He was the nephew of Theophilus, who had been the bishop of Alexandria from 385 to 412, was a very influential man in Alexandria, Egypt. And then on the death of Theophilus in 412, Cyril, when he was only 34 years of age, became his uncle's successor as the bishop of the church in Alexandria. While he was the bishop, he clashed in particular with Nestorius, who was the bishop of Constantinople, over the unity of the person of Christ. And he also apparently clashed with Nestorius and others on the orthodoxy of the title that was given to Christ of Theotokos. Theotokos, I guess we could pronounce it. I'm not sure. And this means the God-bearer. It's got theos, God, in there, takos, to bear, so theotokos, the God-bearer. And this was a title that Cyril and others liked to use for Mary. And it's a little squishy because we've got that piety that's centering around Mary. that'll go into full-blown Mariolatry. I'm not sure if we would define it as that at this point. But Cyril supported this title that while Christ had been in the womb of Mary, Christ as God and man, that it would be proper to call Mary the Theotokos, the God-bearer. Nestorius opposed this. And he said that it would be proper to call Mary the Christakos, the Christ-bearer. But he wanted to defend the distinction, apparently, between Christ as God and man. And he was accused of preaching two persons of Christ rather than one person. And the controversy between Cyril and Nestorius eventually resulted in the calling of what is referred to as the Second Ecumenical Council, or the First Council of Ephesus in the year 431. And during this council, Cyril's views were affirmed, and Nestorius was denounced, and he was eventually sent into exile. And it was a contentious meeting. It's kind of interesting to read the account of it in Philip Jenkins' The Jesus Wars. Jenkins says that Cyril was both a brilliant thinker and, at the same time, an obnoxious bully. And he apparently used some kind of political tactics in that council to sort of get his way. He had sort of had a reputation for this. One of the darkest marks against him in Alexandria was that he had had a role in the death of a noted pagan woman philosopher named Hypatia in 415. And so he was known for the use of force, violence, politics. And he was accused of using his political power and muscle to depose Nestorius and sent him into his exile. Nevertheless, his views on the one person of Christ and on the propriety of calling Mary the God-bearer prevailed. So in later years, his stress on the one person of Christ, though, came to be distorted in Alexandria. And in later years, one of his successors, Dioscyrus, who became Bishop of Alexandria, stressed not only the one person of Christ, but also, as he saw it, the one nature of Christ. Conflicts over this led to another council that was held in Ephesus in 449, and this one was sort of notorious, for even greater violence that was exacted and greater political force. So much so that this synod is called the Gangster Synod, or the Robber's Council. And in this council, Dioscorus sort of intimidated the Orthodox opponents. And this council declared the one nature of Christ. And this one nature view is sometimes called the Monophysite view. from the Greek word physis meaning nature, saying that Christ only had one nature. This view had been championed by a man named Eutyches who lived from around 375 to 454 and I might recommend another little book that I found helpful as I've tried to study some of the early councils and the early history of Christianity. And it's David Bentley Hart's little book called The Story of Christianity, subtitled A History of 2,000 Years of the Christian Faith. And this goes from, you know, the ministry of Jesus and the apostles all the way up to modern times. It's a very helpful book. David Bentley Hart's a very good writer and has a lot of very colorful anecdotes in this. Hart is an Eastern Orthodox philosopher, theologian, and I'd recommend the book. But anyways, he summarizes the view of Eutyches in the story of Christianity as In the incarnation, Christ's humanity was wholly assumed into his divinity. So his humanity was swallowed up by his divinity. We might say the corruption of Cyril of Alexandria's view on the one person of Christ went to seed in saying that Christ only had one nature in the teachings of Eutyches and in this gangster synod at Ephesus in 449. However, this council was later rejected, roundly rejected, by other Orthodox bishops and theologians. And so it's dubbed the Second Council of Ephesus. But because of its errant Christology, it is not accepted in wider Orthodox Christianity to be among the so-called great early ecumenical councils. And in later church councils, Most notably, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, a more balanced and well-defined Orthodox Christology was adopted, which articulated and declared that Christ was one person, as Cyril had contended, but also that Christ had two natures or has two natures, that he is true man and true God. So as opposed to the Monophysite view, mono, one nature. There was, at Chalcedon, the triumph of the diophysite view, that Christ had two natures. He's true man, true God. The monophysite view, the one nature view, however, continued. And it continues to this day to be held in several of the so-called Oriental Orthodox churches. That is the Coptic Church of Egypt, the Ethiopian Church, the Syrian Jacobite Church, and the Armenian Church. And so this is an interesting thing. Sometimes we think. sort of as the Eastern Orthodox churches monolithically, but there's a division here where we could say Constantinople and Rome or the Western Christianity and the greater part of Eastern Orthodoxy accepted the definition of Chalcedon, that Christ is one person with two natures. true man, true God, but you've got within Eastern Orthodoxy this break off of these monophysite churches, again, that exist to this day. We hear a lot today about Coptic Christians, for example, being persecuted in Egypt, but they hold to what would be considered a view of Christ that does not conform to the Chalcedonian view of Christ. I have a student this semester in a course I'm teaching who's from Ethiopia and I met with him the other day and was talking with him and he was telling me some about his experiences in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and we were talking a little bit about this view of the monophysite view versus the diophysite view. So these differences, these views remain and are significant. It's also interesting to note that this Orthodox Christology, the view of the one person of Christ, and the two natures of Christ come to be reflected, again, in the Protestant Orthodox confessions that emerge in the Reformation, the post-Reformation era. It's there in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and then it's, of course, picked up in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, which is a daughter confession of the Westminster Confession, and that's the confession that guides our church. And again, I was working through this, and let me just read, this is chapter 8 on Christ the Mediator, this is paragraph 2, and we can hear the Orthodox Christological language here. It says, the Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one substance and equal with Him who made the world, who upholds and governs all things He has made, did, when the fullness of time was complete, take upon Him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities of it, yet without sin, being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowing her, and so was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham and David, according to the Scriptures. so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion, which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man?" So, you know, they're the one person who is with two distinct natures, two whole perfect and distinct natures. Those natures are without conversion, composition, or confusion. And he is very man, very God. So there's the orthodox Christological language that's hammered out in the council that was held in Ephesus, the first council at Ephesus that Cyril so much influenced. Next, I want to, having surveyed the life of Cyril and a little bit on the Christological controversies in those early councils, I want to turn to the book, Cyril's book, which is on the unity of Christ. The Greek title of it was Hachais Hachristas. which I guess could be rendered the one, the Christ, and the English title, On the Unity of Christ. Now, this book was composed toward the end of Cyril's life, and long after the conflict with Nestorius had been concluded. And it reflects Cyril's mature views on Christology. And the book uses a sort of a hypothetical dialogue format. I think it's pretty common for books of that era, where he sort of has a person posing questions, and then he is providing the orthodox answers. And it was interesting as I read through this, I saw several places where he's appealing to scripture, I saw some of the him appealing to many of the same scriptures that we see listed as proof texts in the Second London Confession on chapter 8. And I did a post, I'll put a link to this when I do a blog post at JeffRiddle.net, to an earlier post I did on how Cyril's exegesis is reflected in the Westminster Confession, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, particularly in paragraph three of the section of the Confession. So again, the edition that I read was the one that is put out by St. Vladimir's Press. They've got this whole series called the Popular Patristic Series. And it kind of struck me as I was reading this, I have several of these other ones that I've read, that it kind of reminds me of the Puritan paperback series from Banner of Truth. So Banner of Truth, there's a focus on the Puritan tradition, with St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, which is an Orthodox seminary and an Eastern Orthodox press. Their counterpart to sort of the Puritan paperbacks is this Patristics paperbacks, we might call, or this popular Patristics series. They do have many very important of these early We might say Catholic, again, with a little c in Orthodox writings. So anyways, I want to share a few citations on several topics so we can hear directly from Cyril. And so here are a couple of statements that he made on the incarnation, on the word made flesh. This is from page 59. He said, it follows, therefore, that he who is The one who exists is necessarily born of flesh, taking all that is ours into himself, so that all is born of the flesh, that is, us corruptible and perishable beings. might rest in him. In short, he took what was ours to be his very own, so that we might have all that was his." And that last statement, I was struck by. He took what was ours to be his very own, so that we might have all that was his. And then on page 61, Another statement on the incarnation, he writes, 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 is 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. So another striking quotation. And I'd said that Cyril is called by Jenkins an obnoxious bully. But we can see from this book that his greatest force, I think, against what he saw as unorthodox views of Christ wasn't just physical force, but it was the It was his rhetoric, it was his exegesis, it was his appeal to scripture. Another interesting segment here, another interesting quote from page 64. He was arguing on the rationality of Christ's soul, that Christ had a rational soul. And was opposing apparently various unorthodox views that said, that views that the Logos was his soul, that he didn't have a human soul, a rational soul. And he says, we must admit, of course, that the body which he united to himself was endowed with the rational soul, for the Word, who is God, would hardly neglect our final part, the soul, and have regard only for the earthly body. Quite clearly, in all wisdom, he provided for both the soul and the body." So Christ had a human body, and he had a human soul, as well as the point he's making. He also addresses the Theotokos, the God-bearer idea. It's also on page 64. He says, if our opponents insist that the Holy Virgin must never be called the Mother of God, but Mother of Christ, the Christotokos, instead, then their blasphemy is patent, for they are denying that Christ is really God and Son. So Cyril would say that by calling Mary Theotokos, the point isn't to give veneration to Mary, but it is to say that Christ is divine, that Christ is God, that he is the God-man who is in the womb of Mary. And so it's right to say that Mary was the God-bearer or the mother of God. His appeal is, you know, consistently to scripture. And just one quotation relating to that on page 72, he says, come, let us investigate the divine and sacred scripture and let us seek the solution there. Cyril's also well known for his defining, I guess, the term, the hypostatic union, quotes that he has on the union of God and man in Christ. He says on pages 73 and 74, how wicked they are then when they divide in two the one true and natural Son, incarnated and made man, and when they reject the union and call it conjunction. So his point is to say that in the one person of Christ, there is this hypostatic union of God and man. On page 77, he says, well, Godhead is one thing and manhood is another thing considered in the perspective of their respective and intrinsic beings. But in the case of Christ, they came together in a mysterious union without confusion or change. The manner of this union is entirely beyond conception. Page 79, he says, my friend, if anyone says then when we speak of the single nature of God, the word incarnate and made man, we imply that a confusion or mixture has occurred, then they are talking utter rubbish. And this is a statement on page 79 where we can see how in his zeal to defend the one person of Christ, that he also talks about a single nature. And again, this view would sort of go to seed in Eutyches and in the Monophysite. So I guess a Monophysite might claim this quotation to buttress his view that maybe Cyril held to a Monophysite type of view on Christology. This is why I think Cyril's views can't be definitive. defining what an Orthodox Christology is that has to come later with the definition of Chalcedon in 451. Also on page 79 he says, it was not impossible to God in his loving-kindness to make himself capable of bearing the limitations of the manhood. And on page 89 he says of Christ, he lived as a man with earthly beings and came in our likeness. But he was not subject to sin like us, but was far beyond the knowledge of any transgression. The same was at once God and man." And then on the unity of Christ, on page 91, he says, if someone has another added to him, he cannot be considered one. How could he be? He could be one plus one, or rather one plus something different. And without question, this makes two. Arguing it's Nestorius, he's wanted to differentiate between the deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ. And he says, one plus one is two. One plus something different is two. And he's hammering on the oneness of Christ, the hypostatic union, the unity of Christ. And then there were also some interesting statements in this that struck me, especially after reading Dolezal's book, All That Is In God, stressing not only the simplicity of God, but also that God is impassable, that God is without body parts and passions. And on page 117 he says, so even if he is said to suffer in the flesh, even so he retains his impassibility insofar as he is understood as God. And so Cyril several times makes the point that although he's stressing the unity of God and man in Christ. He's not saying that this means that when Christ suffers, say on the cross, that God is suffering. Cyril would see that as not being true to an orthodox view of God, that God is impassible, that God does not suffer. So he wants to make a distinction. I think this will be borne out in the Chalcedonian definition that with regard to his human nature, Christ suffers, but with regard to his divine nature, he does not suffer. Likewise, on page 121, he says, in his own nature, he certainly suffers nothing, for as God, he is bodiless and lies entirely outside suffering. Page 129, he says, the word remained he was even when he became flesh, so that he who is over all and yet came among all through his humanity should keep in himself his transcendence of all and remain above all the limitations of the creation." And page 130 he says, referring to Christ, he suffers in his own flesh, not the nature of the Godhead. And finally on page 130, he says, No, as I have said, he ought to be conceived of as suffering in his own flesh, although not suffering in any way like this in the Godhead. And so I think these quotations here illustrate the way in which Cyril and other Orthodox thinkers of this period were able to say, affirm the oneness of Christ and the oneness of Christ in the hypostatic union, but also to say that he suffered in his humanity But he did not suffer in his deity. So he's affirming, he's not compromising the idea of the impassibility, the immutability of God, while also affirming that Jesus is God. Again, it's a little different word magazine for today. We're not dealing with a text issue, but it's related to text issues in that we also see that Christology was a huge battleground in those early centuries of Christianity. That's another reason why I'm interested in Cyril and this whole question, because it is related to Christology, because we see, I think, reflected in the textual conflicts, battles, over proper Christology. Some of the major changes that are made in the New Testament relate to how the person and the natures of Christ are presented. And so this is a battleground. I think often a lot of these battles are lost in the shadows. We don't understand all of them, but this provides, I think, some of the background and reasons why there were battles over the text, why there was tampering with the text. So anyways, obviously Cyril of Alexandria was not a perfect person. He was a flawed person, no doubt. And yet, one of the things I thought about as I read this, reflected on it, is just how God in his providence was working even in men like this, even in flawed situations, in flawed ecclesiological circumstances, in these flawed councils. Still, God was at work providentially. And he was, I think, working through various men to articulate an Orthodox view of who Christ is. Because obviously, this is going to be at the center of Christianity. Who is the Lord Jesus Christ? What does it mean when we say he is truly God and truly man? And obviously, these councils are subordinate standards, like the confessions, like the Second Lenten Confession. These are subordinate standards to Scripture, and yet they're important. And obviously, if we say we're a confessional Reformed Baptist, we hold the 1689 Confession, it's important for us to see how there is reflected in that confession these earlier articulations of Orthodox views of who Christ is. So in that regard, I think it's valuable to read and study some of these church fathers. And as many of our Catholic and Orthodox friends will say, Protestants often are quite ignorant of what was said by the church fathers. I don't think we have to fear them, I think it actually can strengthen us to understand them, read them, and so that's something I'm interested in doing right now. As usual, I'm going to put up on my blog, JeffRiddle.net, a post in which I'll put my notes, and I'm going to put these quotes, and a couple of them, as I was reading them, I'm going to go back and look. I think I might have not always written them down exactly right, but I'll double-check it. So, some of the quotations, if you were struck by them, I'll put up the quotes and page numbers where you can find them in the St. Vladimir's Press edition that was translated by John A. McGuckin. and you can look it up for yourself. Anyways, hope that this was helpful and useful for you, and I'll look forward to speaking to you when we put out the next Word magazine. Till then, take care and God bless.