An Orthodox Christological Examination Of Cyril's Letters: Letter 1

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Examination of Letter 1

Within the first letter to the Monks, he greets them and writes on how it was of

great surprise that anyone could think that Mary was not the Mother of God.

In Par. 26 we read what follows in the following:

“If, therefore, they say it is true that the one anointed is the Word who is God, and

properly, his only begotten Son, they do not see how they do violence to the nature of the only

begotten and misinterpret the mystery of the Incarnation.”

He thoroughly explains how Christ is both God and Man, being consubstantial

with the rest of the Trinity. Though we see later in paragraph 30 he writes:

“Accordingly, the Emmanuel is admittedly of two entities, of divinity and humanity.

There is, however, one Lord Jesus Christ and one Son truly, God and man at the same time;

not a man made divine who is equal to those who are made divine according to grace, but

rather true God who has appeared in human form for our sake.”

We are made aware that the Logos is of Two Entities, but they united and after

the union we know there is one Entity, that being, the Word of God. However this can

be interpreted by those Nestorian Nuts, that Christ is still of Two Entities; although

Cyril quickly abolishes this claim in the same letter, we see this explanation in Par. 39:

“How could anyone hesitate to call the Holy Virgin the Mother of God? Adore him as

one, without dividing him into two after the union. Then, the senseless Jew shall laugh in

vain; then, in truth, he shall be the one who slew the Lord, and he shall be convicted as the

one who has sinned, not against one of those who are like us, but against God himself, the

Savior of all.”

Therefore none should suspect Two Christs as Theodoret or Nestorius do.

The letter ceases to go on about two entities after these few mentions, but we

do get the mentioning of One Christ and one Reality, which is obviously only possible

if we have One Nature. “Why is this?” one may wonder. We know that Two particular

natures would lead to Two persons. For according to Boethius, in his Treatise Against

Eutyches and Nestorius, we learn that an individual substance is a person, and every

substance is a nature. By these definitions, those certain Dyophysites go against even

Cyril’s first letter by affirming Two Particulars.