An Orthodox Christological Examination of Cyril's Letters: Letter 40

St. Cyril of Alexandria

An Examination of Letter 40

To Acacius, Cyril writes.

In the following letter we see that in Par. 14 Cyril writes the following:

“Wherefore, we say that the two natures were united, from which there is the one and

only Son and Lord, Jesus Christ, as we accept in our thoughts; but after the union, since the

distinction into two is now done away with, we believe that there is one physis of the Son, as

one, however, one who became man and was made flesh.”

The beliefs of Cyril is made clear, and in fact in the very next paragraph he

doubles down on this, writing:

“Accordingly, whenever the manner of the Incarnation is closely considered, the

human mind doubtless sees the two ineffably and unconfusedly joined to each other in a

union; but the mind in no wise divides them after they have been united, but believes and

admits strongly that the ONE FROM BOTH is God and Son and Christ and Lord.”

How can we not recognize that Cyril believes there is one nature of the Word?

It is simply impossible to argue that this is not miaphysitism and a theoretical

distinction.