An Orthodox Christological Examination of Cyril's Letters: Letter 17

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Examination of Letter 17

The Third Tome to Nestorius, Cyril writes in Par. 9 the following:

“But united kata phusin [According to Nature], and not changed into

flesh, the Word produced an indwelling such as the soul of man might be said to have in its

own body.”

Cyril writes that then union was done according to Nature or Hypostasis, but

since many Dyophysites hate this confession, they will loudly exclaim these words

“He means Individual concrete, or what we call Person! He does not say one nature!”

Although they will try to convince many to say these same things, we learn from

Boethius that Individual Concrete Substance, is a nature; therefore, even if Cyril had

said Hypostasis or Person the meaning would remain, for Boethius writes in his

treatise, Against Eutyches and Nestorius, the following:

“Wherefore if Person belongs to substances alone, and these rational, and if every

nature is a substance, existing not in universals but in individuals, we have found the

definition of Person, viz.: 'The individual substance of a rational nature.' Now by this

definition we Latins have described what the Greeks call [Greek: hypostasis].”

I believe that Cyril obviously had intended that the reader would recognize the

union was according to nature, especially after knowing these definitions.

Cyril later writes in Par. 13 the following:

“Moreover, we do not allocate the statements of our Savior in the Gospels either to

two hypostasis or indeed to two persons, for the one and only Christ is not twofold, even if he

be considered as from two entities and they different, which had been made into an

inseparable unity, just as, of course, man also is considered to be of soul and body yet is not

twofold, but rather one from both. But, because we think rightly, we shall maintain that the

statements as man and also the statements as God have been made by one person.”

Therefore from this we shouldn’t assume that Christ has two natures, for we

know the distinction between Body and Soul in Man but we do not say he has two

natures, the same goes for Christ. Cyril writes this later in Letter 44, which will be

shown later.