Cyrillian Christology

'Apostolic Man' and 'Luminary of the Church':

The Enduring Influence of Cyril of Alexandria

Norman Russell

The difficulty of ascertaining precisely where Cyril stood on the Christological issue of one nature or two was felt even in his own lifetime. To many, amongst his followers as well as his opponents, his subscription to the Formulary of Reunion of 433 seemed to signal a complete volte-face, a disavowal of his Twelve Chapters with their insistence that Jesus Christ and the Word made flesh are a single entity. Cyril himself was perfectly aware of this, as he explained to his agent in Constantinople, the priest Eulogius:   

The doctrinal statement which the Easterns have produced is under attack in certain quarters and it is being asked why the bishop of Alexandria tolerated, even applauded it, seeing that they use the words 'two natures'. The Nestorians are sain that he shares their view and are winning those who do not know the precise facts over to their side (Ad Eul. (Wickham, p. 63).    

The 'precise facts', although Cyril does not say so, are that the Formulary of Reunion was the best compromise that he could have secured in the circumstances. The repudiation of Ephesus by the Eastern bishops under the leadership of John of Antioch meant that the council would have failed unless the Easterners could have been persuaded to accede to it retrospectively. And the power diplomacy exercised by the imperial commissioner Aristolaus, backed up by the menacing presence of the magistrianos Maximus, made it clear to Cyril what the alternatives were: doctrinal agreement between Alexandria and Antioch or the setting aside of the Council with the possible restoration of Nestorius and the certin banishment of Cyril. It is no wonder that Cyril suffered bouts of nervous depression before an accord was finally signed.3 (The document which gives us an insight into the behind-the-scenes activities is the Letter of Epiphanius, archdeacon of Alexandria, to Maximian of Constantinople, ACO I, 4, pp. 222-5)    

The gloss that he put on the phraseology of the Formulary in his letter to Eulogius was that the 'two natures' refers to the Word and the flesh, for neither becomes the other as a result of the Incarnation. But the 'two natures' in itself says nothing about the union. For this we need to refer to 'one incarnate nature of the Son'. The 'one nature' from 'two natures' is analogous to the formation of a single human being from the two constituent natures of body and soul. The words 'one' and 'two' in Cyril's usage refer to two different levels of reality.    

Cyril returned to this argument in greater detail in his First Letter to Succensus. Succensus, one of Cyril's allies, although bishop of Diocaesarea in the territory of John of Antioch, had asked Cyril 'whether one should ever speak of two natures in respect of Christ'. In reply Cyril rehearses the teaching of Nestorius, which he claims was derived from Diodore of Tarsus. The 'twoness' for Nestorius, as Cyril understood it, consisted in a man being joined to the Word in a nominal sense, to that the man and the Word enjoyed a deemed equality by honour or rank. The assigning of different sayings in the Gospels either to the humanity or to the divinity is symptomatic of such an approach. The correct doctrine, by contrast, is that Christ is the pre-eternal Word born of the Virgin. Cyril knows that he is accused of Apollinarianism for teaching this. A strict union is in danger of being seen as a merger, mixture, or mingling. (Ad Succ I, 5). Cyril rebuts the slander. What we affirm, he says, is that the Word from God the Father united to himself a body endowed with a soul without merger, alteration or change (Ad Succ. I, 6). It is necessary to maintain the two natures (i.e., the composite elements, the divine and the human, that makes up Christ) as well as the one nature (i.e., the single subject who is the Son - 'the one incarnate nature of the Word'). If either is missing our Christology cannot be orthodox.  

It would perhaps have prevented a great deal of subsequent misunderstanding if Cyril could have gone one step further and amend his second meaning of physis explicitly equivalent to hypostasis. Cyril accepted the Cappadocian identity of ousia in three separate hypostases on the Trinitarian level. But it was not until Chalcedon that an analogous distinction was applied to Christology: two natures but one hypostasis or prosopon. The reason why Cyril could not take that step was his conviction that the mia physis formula had been sanctioned by Athanasius, the Church Father so far as Cyril was concerned. In fact the phrase 'one incarnate nature of God the Word' had been devised by Apollinarius, who had put it forward in the statement of faith he sent to the Emperor Jovian in 363. (Ad Jov. I) This statement had been reassigned to Athanasius by Apollinarius' disciples after his condemnation. Cyril was completely taken in by the forgery. He first used the misa physis formula in his five-volume polemic against Nestorius, and again in his important dogmatic letters to Eulogius and Succensus. To him it was a useful phrase of irreproachable provenance which emphatically ruled out Nestorius' loose 'prosopic union' once and for all.

Cyril's carefully balanced interpretation of the mia physis formula did not long survive his death. Within a year or two the Constantinopolitan archimandrite Eutyches, claiming Cyril as his authority, was preaching a Christ whose humanity had been deified and absorbed into his divinity as a result of the Incarnation. Eutyches was condemned by a Home Synod in 448 but he had powerful connections and made full use of them in attempting to vindicate his teaching. At the General Council called by Theodosius II to hear Eutyches' appeal, which met at Ephesus in 449, the new Alexandrian archbishop, Dioscorus, carried the day in Eutyche's favour by a combination of strong-arm tactics and a simple appeal to the assembled bishops: 'Two natures before the union, one afterwards, Is this not what we all believe?' (ACO II, I, I, p. 140, para. 491) But Dioscorus alienated the traditional support which Rome had always shown for Alexandria, an error which was to cost him dearly two years later.   

When the bishops reassembled at Chalcedon in 451 under a new Latin-speaking emperor, Marcian, officially to counter the twin threats of Eutychianism and Nestorianism, it was Pope Leo's Tome to Flavian that occupied the centre of the stage. Cyril's first two letters to Nestorius and his letter to John of Antioch containing the Formulary of Reunion were also put forward as authoritative, but the controversial Third Letter to Nestorius with its twelve anathemas (the Twelve Chapters) was excluded. The papal statement was examined rigorously against the standard set by Cyril and most of the Fathers of the Council were satisfied at the time that in acclaiming it they were not undermining the faith of Cyril. But the Egyptian bishops had no illusions about how the conciliar decisions, especially the Definition, with it 'acknowledged in two natures' based on Leo's Tome, would be viewed in their homeland: 'We shall be killed if we subscribe to Leo's epistle. Every district in Egypt will rise up against us. We would rather die at the hands of the emperor and at your [the council's] hand than at home.' 16 (ACO II, I, 2).

Norman Russell, 'Apostolic Man' and 'Luminary of the Church': The Enduring Influence of Cyril of Alexandria, “The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation” edited by Thomas Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 238-241.

….

But the government could not ignore the fact that there was widespread resentment on the popular level against Chalcedon. The imperial initiatives in search of a broadly-based unity continued over the next fifty years with the Encyclical of Basiliscus (475), Zeno's Henoticon (482), and the Typus of Anastasius (c. 510). These were all attempts to arrive at a negotiated settlement either by brining Chalcedon more into line with the side of Cyril represented by the Twelve Chapters and the mia physis formula, or else by setting aside Chalcedon altogether.

The Encyclical (whose author was Timothy Aelurus) returns to the Ephesine position without insisting on the mia physis formula but anathematizing Leo's Tome and the 'innovations' (i.e., the Definition) of Chalcedon.24 (Text in Evagrius, HE 3, 4). The Henoticon (whose author was Acacius of Constantinople) also anathematized the 'innovations' of Chalcedon, along with Nestorius and Eutyches, but although making favourable mention of the Twelve Chapters refrains from criticizing Leo's Tome. The Typus (whose author was Severus of Antioch) accepts the Symbol of Nicaea, the Definition of Constantinople, the Council of Ephesus and the Henoticon. It is the first document to insist on mia physis but goes beyond Cyril's teaching in declaring: 'We do not say two natures. We confess the Word of God as one nature become flesh.' The Henoticon received the assent of most of the Eastern bishops, but failed to satisfy the supporters of Chalcedon. The Encyclical and the Typus had no chance of being accepted as a basis for peace, largely because Constantinople needed Canon 2, which put its patriarchate on a formal basis, and therefore could not entertain the anathematization of Chalcedon. 

Parallel to these official initiatives were attempts by individual scholars to demonstrate the compatibility of the conciliar definition with the broader teaching of Cyril. These were pursued with the support of extensive florilegia. The first and most important was the Florilegium Cyrillianum complied in Alexandria in about 480. It demonstrates a wide reading of Cyril -- 244 extracts from thirty different works. Cyril's mia physis formula is not included. But there are ample extracts from the First Letter to Succensus to demosntrate Cyril's compatibility with 'one hypostasis in two natures'. The First Letter to Succensus was also used by Nephalius of Alexandria, a rare instance of an anti-Chalcedonian who was converted to the opposing view. Nephalius' Apologia (c. 500) gives a large selection of texts from earlier Fathers, including Cyril, in suppor of the dyophysite position. Other pro-Chalcedonian florilegia which make prominent use of Cyril are those of Ephrem of Amida (patriarch of Antioch 526-44), Leontius of Byzantium (mid-sixth century), and Eulogius (Melkite patriarch of Antioch 580-608). There were also anti-Chalcedonian florilegia, notably those of Philoxenus of Mabbug (c. 440-523) and Severus of Antioch (c. 465-538), which were based on Cyril. Severus of Antioch' Philalethes, which is a detailed response to the Florilegium Cyrillianum, is particularly important. It sets out to prove, by commenting on each text in turn, that Cyril (the 'Lover of Truth' of the title) when read in context supports the monophysite rather than the dyophysite position. Severus, who after an excellent education in Alexandria and Berytus, became a monk in Palestine and, then an ecclesiastical advise to the Emperor Anastasisus in Constantinople, before being raised to the throne of Antioch in 512, had one of the finest minds of the sixth century. Grillmeier laments that in his polemical exposition of Cyril's teaching 'a great "ecumenial" chance was wasted'.

In his enthronement address Severus welcomed the first three Ecumenical Councils and the Henoticon but repudiated Chalcedon and the Tome of Leo. His tenure of Antioch was short-lived. Anastasisus' death in 518 and the succession of Justin I led to a change of offical ecclesiastical policy. Deposed as a monophysite, Severus found refuge with Timothy IV of Alexandria, under whose roof he wrote most of his works.    Severus used Cyril, 'the king of dogmas', as his model. But Cyril's expressions were not precise enough for him. Severus sough to 'purify' Cyril's language. Like Cyril, he taught a Christology 'from above', without the qualifications and the nuances of Cyril, but nevertheless not as one-sidedly as Apollinarius or Eutyches. Cyril's language needed to be 'purified' in order to deal with a situation not foreseen by him. Chalcedon and Leo had to be excluded and only the mia physis formula, without the 'dyophysite' qualifications that Cyril had introduced, could do this.   

Accordingly, in Severus' view only the divinity is a physis, not the humanity. The mia physis referred simply to the eternal Word (not a mixture of divinity and humanity as in Apollinarius), otherwise the unity of Christ could not be preserved. At Chalcedon by contrast, the physis expressed the distinction; the unity was expressed by the hypostasis. Severus repudiated the monophysite extremes both of Julian of Haliarnassus, who taught that the body of Christ was deified from the moment of conception and therefore not subject to corruption, and of Sergius the Grammarian, who analyzed the philosophical problem of the nature of the union in static Apollinarianizing terms without taking into account the dynamic soteriology centered on the activity of the Word. But in the battle with his Chalcedonian opponents to show who as more faithful to Cyril, he was not able to endow the humanity of Christ with the same degree of reality as they could. For him, as for Dioscorus, the distinction between the humanity and the divinity after union existed only on the conceptual level - in theoria.

Severus has remained a definitive theologian for the Syrian and Coptic Orthodox churches, the 'new Cyril' who brought the great 'luminary of the Church of Alexandria' up to date in order to counter the 'neo-Nestorianism' of Chalcedon. But a fellow-Syrian contemporary, the author of Dionysian Corpus, who assumed the name of St. Paul's first Athenian convert, has had a much broader influence thanks to the success of his pseudonomity. Ps.- Dionysis' Cyrillian-Severan Christology is summed up in his Letter 4. The 'letter' is a response to the question: 'How can Jesus, who transcends all things, be placed on the same level of reality as all other human beings?' The reply is that he cannot be considered essentially the same as other men. The proof of his transcendent status is his miraculous birth and his ability to walk on water. In summary, 'he was neither a man nor not a man, but although "from men" was beyond men and transcended men, although he had truly become a man, and moreover, did not perform divine acts in virtue of being God and human acts in virtue of being a man, but being God made man he lived amongst us by a new theandric activity. This statement, which clealry rejects the assigning of distinguishable divine and human acts to Christ, could have been taken to present an aphthartodocetic Christ in the manner of Eutyches of Julian of Halicarnassus if it had not been interpreted by Maximus the Confessor in line with a Chalcedonian Christology.

Maximus is an outstanding representative of neo-Chalcedonianism, the name given to the attempt in the sixth and seventh centuries to interpret Chalcedon from the orthodox side in a more Cyrillian manner in order to make tit acceptable to the Syrians and the Egyptians. An important phase of the work was accomplished during the reign of Justinian I (527-65) under the emperor's personal supervision. The work was advanced on three fronts: (i) the production of writings incorporating Cyrillian florilegia in order to demonstrate that Chalcedon did not contradict Cyril; (ii) the development of a 'theopaschite' doctrine in order to emphasize that it was the Word of God -- the second Person of the Trinity -- who died on the cross according to the flesh, not a human being distinct from the Word; and (iii) the condemnation of the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret of Cyrrhus at the Second Council of Constantinople (the Fifth Ecumenical) of 553 in order to drive as strong a wedge as possible between Chalcedon and the old Antiochene tradition, now branded as 'Nestorian'. 

In the following century a further refinement was proposed, the Monothelite formula, which marked the last supreme effort to reconcile the Monophysites (as they now were) to the Imperial Church. The situation created by the Persian occupation of Syria and Egypt and the counter-offensive of the Emperor Heraclius made the problem of ecclesiastical unity a matter of great urgency. Heaclius, like other emperors before him, took an active personal interest in finding a solution. A suggestion which came up in discussion with representatives of the Monophysites was that all could agree that a single divine-human activity (or theandric energy) was characteristic of the life of Christ. This 'monenergist' solution was referred to Sergius, the patriarch of Constantinople, who consulted his Roman colleague, Pope Honorius. Honorius was in favor of the phrase because it indicated that Christ operated through a single will. The latter expression appealed to Sergius, who incorporated it into the Ecthesis which was published by Heraclius in 638.

The Ecthesis, with its prohibition of any reference in theological discussions to two energies and its promotion of 'one will' went further than any previous official document to accommodate the Monophysite position. Sergius was in favor of it because it seemed to him to express Cyril's mia physis Christology in language that was acceptable to both sides. Moreover, a quotation from Cyril was found which seemed to give it unequivocal support: in his exegesis of the healing of the daughter of Jairus through the uttered word combined with a manual gesture, Cyril says that Christ 'manifests through both a single cognate activity (or energy).'

Ibid., 244-248.