ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: FABULOUS DEFENSE OF "MOTHER OF GOD" AND SEARING CRITIQUE OF NESTORIAN / PROTESTANT DENIGRATIONS OF IT [I love it! Battling against the heretic Nestorius, who made all the ridiculous arguments that so many Protestants recycle today, he describes {in the final excerpt below} the silly counter-"arguments" that we hear all the time as "an argument befitting old wives and foolish" and "fables" and an extraordinary "extent of unlearning" and says that the orthodox Catholics "laugh at the vastness of the unlearning that is therein." Cyril replies with the manifest truth: "WE, my friend, who call her mother of God, have never at all deified any one of those that are numbered among creatures."] For they accuse, as something bastard and uncomely, yea rather as going beyond all fit language, the word Mother of God, which the holy fathers before us have constructed for the holy Virgin; . . . (Tomes Against Nestorius: I, Introduction; LFC47) For flesh confessedly is born of flesh, and the Artificer of all performs the ensouling in the mode and way that He knows. Yet is the woman who bears, albeit she is the source of the flesh only, believed to bear the whole man, made up (I mean) of soul and body, although she contribute nothing of her own to the being of the soul. Yet when one says man, one signifies surely the soul united to the body. As therefore the woman, albeit she bear the body alone, is said to bear him that is made up of soul and body, and this no wise damages the account of the soul, as though it found in flesh the origin of its being; so will you conceive as to the blessed Virgin too: for even though she be mother of the holy Flesh, she hath nevertheless borne God the Word out of God truly united thereto, and though any call her Mother of God, he will not be defining a more recent beginning of God the Word nor that the flesh hath been made the commencement of His Being: but will understand rather the mode of the economy . . . (Tomes Against Nestorius: I, 4; LFC47) . . . of the holy Virgin it is written, Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and He who is born is called the fruit and moreover Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us; but of Elizabeth, she shall bear a son who shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, and shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways. By no means therefore is Elizabeth mother of the Spirit, for she bare a prophet of the Highest: but the holy Virgin is truly mother of God, for she hath borne carnally, i. e., according to the flesh, God united to flesh. For since she is human who bare, therefore and rightly do we say that the mode of generation has been wrought in human wise; for thus and no otherwise was it possible that He Who is over all nature could become as we, not slighting the being what He is (how could He?) but rather abiding what He was and is and will be: for superior to change is the Divine and Most High Nature. (Tomes Against Nestorius: I, 5; LFC47) . . . overthrowing as he thinks and that with vigour the birth according to the flesh of the Son, he compounds an argument befitting old wives and foolish and having no foundation of truth. For he writes again after this manner; his discourse was made touching the Arians: “Yet though they prate that God the Word is junior to the greater Godhead, these make Him second to the blessed Mary, and over the Godhead, Creator of times, they set a mother born in time, . . .” How deep the matter of his cogitations! dread and hard to escape is clearly the compulsion resulting from the reasonings of him who hath compiled such things! Whence comes he having gathered into the midst unto us such fables? or who ever sank down to this extent of unlearning in his conceptions, as to think or say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten has not its existence before the ages from the Father but rather makes flesh and blood the beginning of its passing into being? who is so distraught and slight of understanding and wholly without ear for the holy Scriptures? who remembereth hot Isaiah who hath cried aloud of Him, Who shall declare His generation? John too who hath written clearly, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God; all things were made through Him and without Him was not any thing made? And if all things through Him, how will He Who is before every age and time be later in birth than the things that were made through Him? why then do you bring in what is repudiated by all, as though it had been said? cease accusing those who rightly blame what you say, and who laugh at the vastness of the unlearning that is therein. Since therefore there is no one who says that the Virgin hath borne from forth her own flesh the nature of the Godhead, do not contend to no purpose, twining for us reasonings not made out of premises that are true and acknowledged by all. But what was it that persuaded you to let loose a tongue so sheer and unguarded against those who are zealous to think aright, and to pour down accusal dire and all-cruel upon every worshipper of God? For you said again in Church, “But I have already full often said that if any simpler one either among us or any other, rejoice in the word Mother of God, I have no grudge against the word; only let him not make the Virgin a goddess.” Again dost thou rail upon us, and put on a mouth so bitter? and reproachest the congregation of the Lord, as it is written? But we, my friend, who call her mother of God, have never at all deified any one of those that are numbered among creatures, but are accustomed to know as God the One and by Nature and truly so: and we know that the blessed Virgin was woman as we. (Tomes Against Nestorius: I, 8-10; LFC47)
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:27:13 +0000
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